Last Week's Question: Have you seen
any questionable trades in your league this year?
In my column for
Week 9, I asked readers to send in details concerning controversial
trades and/or vetoed trade proposals in their leagues. I got some
pretty outrageous responses, such as this one from Shaun:
Mark Brunell (yes, the retired QB) was traded
for Ryan Tannehill.
One owner picked up Brunell as a joke and sort of mocking ESPN for
having retired players still in the FA pool. He then offered the
trade and it was accepted by the other owner. The two owners involved
in the trade are playing each other this week. One owner claims
he had a strategy and he would let me know what it was after this
week.
This one is a head scratcher for multiple reasons. We all know that
retirement isn't necessarily permanent in the NFL (just ask linebacker
James Harrison), so the idea of picking up a retiree isn't necessarily
flawed.
But using a roster spot in 2014 on Mark Brunell (who was never a
consistent fantasy starter even when he was active) isn't quite
the same thing as burning your last draft pick on Barry Sanders
in 1999 (something I saw people do "Just in case he decides
to come back").
If I had to guess at the "strategy" behind the trade,
I would say that it has something to do with demonstrating the near
worthlessness/interchangeability of any QB rated 15th or lower (since
most leagues only have room for 10 to 14 starting QBs). Why trade
for Tannehill when you can probably pick up Ryan Fitzpatrick or
Alex Smith or Brian Hoyer on waivers?
But my guess is probably wrong. I don't really have a clue why such
a trade was proposed, accepted, and approved . . . primarily because
I don't participate in the league in which it happened.
Trades that happen in leagues with which we aren't familiar don't
just seem strange because of minor variations in scoring. There's
also a historical, inter-personal dynamic that outsiders generally
can't get a handle on.
Take Gary's league as an example. They clearly have a "laissez-faire"
attitude about trades, which I totally get. But they also apparently
have a Bears fan who thought the way to demonstrate his team loyalty
was to trade Matt Forte AWAY (albeit for other Bears players):
Traditionally, our commish does not approve
or disapprove trades. Our line of thinking is, we are all big boys
and if two of us want to swap, we can swap, for whatever reason.
We only had two trades this season (we are touchdown only).
1) Marshall and Cutler for Luck and Forte . Honestly, not sure why
this was made. I guess the Bears fan who got Cutler and Marshall
felt the Bears would be airing it out and perhaps thinks Luck’s
luck will run out. And Forte? Eeesch.
2) I made a trade before deadline of Romo and Torrey Smith for RG
III and E. Sanders. This was before hearing Romo would be out. I
have Brees and since his bye week passed, I traded my asset, Romo
for Sanders. He gave me RG and I gave him Smith so we both had backups
(his QB was Tannehill). I feel I made out.
Neither of these trades competes with the Brunell swap above for
sheer outrageousness, but the first one demonstrates something important
about the perception of player value. Before the season started,
most of us rated Cutler and Marshall quite high. These are guys
with big names and a long history of production. It turns out that
as of Week 10 in 2014, Cutler is roughly the 10th most productive
QB in the NFL, and Marshall is roughly the 30th most productive
WR.
They're not exactly duds this year, but they have been disappointing--and
they were traded for the #1 QB and the #1 RB in the NFL.
I'm not sure how many people would have expected the first trade
to be vetoed in their league; I certainly wouldn't have expected
any problem with such a trade going through, especially in the early
part of the season. But what if we had substituted two players who
don't have the fantasy clout of Cutler and Marshall in the trade?
Note that Joe Flacco is just about on par with Cutler so far this
year. And Julian Edelman is doing a hair better than Marshall.
So what if that first trade had been Edelman and Flacco (a 30th-ish
WR and a 10th-ish QB) for Luck and Forte? Would that have set off
alarms in your league?
Big names make lopsided trades seem more balanced than they are.
When commissioners have to veto or approve a trade, they may find
themselves struggling less with issues of balance than premonitions
of "perceived imbalance" from owners who wouldn't object
to the trade of Forte for Marshall--but would pitch a fit if someone
traded Forte for Edelman.
I understand why so many commissioners prefer to leave the vetoing/approving
of trades to a league vote (even though that often leads to fair
trades being blocked by owners who simply don't want to see the
competition improve). So for all you commissioners who rise to the
challenge of vetoing suspicious trades, I salute you (even if I
don't always agree with you). Consider the case of Jared, who sent
me the most detailed and complicated response of the week:
Below is the trade I vetoed [in] a 12-team,
.5 PPR keeper league. [Each owner] can keep two [players from one
season to the next, but] since it is an auction league, the cap
hit on each player rises each year you keep him. $200 cap.
Randall Cobb and Chris Ivory for Shane Vereen (after Ridley injury),
LeSean McCoy, Jimmy Graham, & Cordarrelle Patterson.
I hate vetoing any trade, but felt this was way too lopsided even
with McCoy having underperformed. Things I took into consideration:
current performance, rest of the way rankings (off your site), and
next year’s cap hit/predicted performance.
Cobb’s cap hit is only 4 dollars next year (fantastic bargain),
whereas McCoy and Graham are going to be way too expensive to keep
. . . both above $55. I thought Vereen and Patterson were a good
return, but that player wanted more.
Wound up approving the trade after player 1 added the Cleveland
defense and Doug Martin to the mix……so hard when you
have underperforming players like Patterson and McCoy clouding what
would typically be a VERY lopsided trade. The whole league was shouting
collusion, but I felt that with all things said, I really had no
choice but to approve it after they changed it. What do you think?
What do I think? I think I could write a whole series of articles
about that trade. And I would start by looking at the way player
2 has sandwiched his two studs between also-rans. If I'm giving
up both McCoy and Graham, you better believe those two names are
up top, not lost somewhere in the haze between Vereen and Patterson.
Even though Jared goes out of his way to point out that the $4 cap
hit on Cobb in 2015 is an important incentive to player 2, I think
it will be hard for most readers to process that little tidbit of
information . . . because they will be too busy crying "Collusion!"
in response to the idea of swapping two first-round picks (McCoy
& Graham) for one receiver who probably stayed on the board
for several rounds in a 10-team draft.
That's another problem with trades. Although Cobb has exceeded expectations
and McCoy has disappointed, some owners cling to the value suggested
by preseason rankings even though the season is halfway over. And
they aren't necessarily wrong to do that. Most preseason rankings
had Graham ahead of Martellus Bennett even though Bennett has been
more valuable to this point. But it's reasonable to wonder whether
Bennett will still be ahead at the end of the season. Plenty of
FFers allow preseason rankings to affect their assessment of players
well into the season--as if the "true" value of a player
for the remainder of the year can be calculated by averaging what
he has actually done with what he was projected to do.
So poor Jared the commissioner has to weigh all these factors before
ruling on trades. And if he is in the same position as most commissioners
(i.e. if he is only authorized to block collusion and not stupidity),
then a veto means that he is essentially calling the trading partners
"cheaters," which is not a fun situation to be in--for
him or them.
Is it any surprise that after his veto, the trading partners came
back with a second proposal? More to the point, does the second
proposal (the one that he approved) seem less suspicious than the
first? Again, since I don't participate in the league and don't
know the history/personality traits of the owners involved, it's
really hard for me to say. But as I wrote to Jared in my correspondence
with him, "If a trade deserves to be vetoed, does throwing
in the Cleveland defense and yet another underperforming RB [Doug
Martin] really even things out?"
Of course, commissioners aren't just dealing with player valuations;
they are also juggling owner egos and complicated group dynamics.
Jared wrote back to let me know that "this trade crushed the
league [because he had some] people shouting collusion [and] others
saying it was unfair to veto the trade at all."
Unfortunately, understanding what makes trades "suspicious"
requires an awful lot of context about the leagues in which they
are proposed. I'm grateful to everyone who wrote in with stories
of questionable trades this year, and especially to those of you
who provided me with background information that I requested privately.
However, in the interest of keeping this column (which is already
too long) manageable, I'm going to condense the most important material
I haven't covered in the next section.
This Week's Question: #1: Is this ethical?
/ #2: Are competing spouses a case of collusion waiting to happen?
As I was preparing this week's column, a question from Gary L. (not
the Gary quoted above) reached my inbox. I really look forward to
seeing what some of my long-time readers have to say about this
one:
Question #1: Is this ethical?
Say my defense is on a bye, but I don't want
to drop any of my players and risk losing them. Another owner, who
I am not playing this week, needs a QB and also doesn't want to
drop any of his players. I have a spare QB on my bench, and he has
a spare defense on his. Is it ethical for us to trade my QB for
his defense? What about if our intention is to trade them back after
this week...is that ethical? Does it matter if all four teams involved
(me, him, and both of our opponents) have already qualified for
the playoffs?
Question #2: Should spouses be allowed to compete in the same league?
I'm not talking about spouses who co-own/co-manage a team. No one
seems to have a problem with that. I'm talking about spouses who
(like the married couple in The League, for those who know
the show) own separate teams and might want to trade with each other
in the course of the season.
I pose this question because multiple readers who wrote in this
week about trades that they suspect to be collusive pointed to the
fact that the trading partners were married as a damning piece of
evidence.
Have any commissioners out there actually given this matter any
thought that they're willing to share? Are there leagues that forbid
married couples from joining as separate owners? Are there leagues
that allow married couples to participate, but forbid them to trade
with each other? Are any commissioners out there willing to admit
that they view trades between spouses with a "presumption of
collusion"? Do you scrutinize trades between spouses more harshly
than trades between roommates? Between siblings? This seems like
a very delicate line to draw, and I'm
eager to know whether you've drawn it at all--and why.
Survivor Picks - Week 10 (Courtesy of
Matthew Schiff)
Trap Game: Green Bay over Chicago
I only highlight this game because the Bears are desperate for a
win against their division foes to stay in the race in a division
that many expected them to win. With a Packers win, the Bears would
be 3-6 and looking up at everyone else in the NFC North. Can Coach
Marc Trestman recover from falling three games behind the second-place
Packers and possibly four behind the division-leading Lions? We'll
find out if the Bears lose, and it's hard to see how they can win
at Lambeau against a Packer offense that is firing on all three
cylinders (Rodgers, Cobb, and Lacy). The Chicago defense isn’t
bad, but it also isn't what it used to be. For that reason alone,
Green Bay should pull this off.
#3: Denver over Oakland (8-1: Pit, NO, CIN,
SF, CLE, SD, NE, KC, SEA)
Tom Brady and company may have manhandled the Denver Broncos last
Sunday, but fear not Bronco faithful, for you have the Oakland Raiders
up next on the road. Ronnie Hillman has taken over the starting
running back spot, and even though Monte Ball is practicing, look
for Hillman to remain the #1back. To sweeten this matchup even more,
the Oakland Raiders have allowed a little more than 26 fantasy points
per week to the opposing starting running back. So, while Peyton
Manning may want to open it up and dust off some of the rust from
last week’s loss, the rushing game will be enough to deliver
this win.
#2: Baltimore over Tennessee (4-5: CHI, Sea,
NO, TB, DET, Den, CLE, MIA, KC)
The Titans are coming off their bye and looking to get back on a
winning streak after losing their last two games. Coach Whisenhunt
needs to find someone who can lead this team. They have had three
different quarterbacks in the last eight weeks, and their running
game can't maintain a steady pulse. On the other side of the ball,
Joe Flacco is doing better than most of us expected after he lost
two of his best weapons (Ray Rice and Dennis Pitta) early in the
season. Surprisingly, with the addition of Steve Smith, this offense
may have actually improved since last season. Unless the Ravens
get lulled to sleep by the Titans, look for the home team to run
away with this one.
Image by Tilt Creative (Ty
Schiff)
#1: Arizona over St. Louis (7-2: PHI, DEN,
NE, SD, GB, SEA, BAL, DAL, CIN):
What are the characteristics of a trap game? Hmmm . . . let's
see. Is the favorite coming off a “huge” win in the
conference? Check. Is the favorite likely to overlook the current
matchup because they have a big game against a tough opponent
(such as, for argument's sake, Detroit) the following week? Check.
Does the favorite have good reason to feel in control of the division?
Check. Are they playing against a team that is inferior on paper?
Check. Are they playing against a divisional opponent? Check.
But not mate. In spite of all of these makings of a trap game--not
to mention the fact that the Rams beat a very good Seahawks team
and almost beat the 49ers--these Cardinals are playing as well
as (if not better than) the 2009 Super Bowl team that lost 27-23
to the Steelers. Larry Fitzgerald looks to be rejuvenated with
12-year veteran Carson Palmer under center. Considering the Cardinals'
dedication to the goal of participating in the Super Bowl scheduled
to occur in their home stadium, it would take a herculean effort
by Austin Davis and his Rams to pull off this major upset.
Mike Davis has been writing about fantasy football since 1999.
As a landlocked Oklahoman who longs for the sound of ocean waves,
he also writes about ocean colonization under the pen name Studio
Dongo. The latest installment in his science fiction series can
be found here.
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