We have a weird rule in my big-money league: A trade between two managers isn't completely binding until approved by the commissioner. What this means is that if Manager A agrees to trade Roy Halladay to Manager B for David Wright on a Tuesday night, but then Wright breaks both of his ankles in a tragic collision with his left fielder on Wednesday before the commish has approved the trade, Manager A has the right to request that the trade be rejected. And it will be.

I'm pretty sure this is backwards from how most leagues do it. Honestly, I can't even remember why we wrote the rule this way in our league constitution. (Yes, we have a league constitution. I run a freakin' fantasy baseball blog, for crying out loud. Are you surprised?) But for whatever reason, we decided that a trade would be binding between two managers not when they agree to trade and hit that "accept" button, but rather when the commissioner hits the "approve" button.

This doesn't mean that anyone can just back out of a agreed upon trade for any reason. "I changed my mind" doesn't count. For the rule to come into play, one of the players involved in the deal must have taken a serious hit in value. And a recurrence of a pre-existing condition doesn't count. (If you trade for Zach Greinke on a Wednesday and he has a bad panic attack on Thursday -- sorry, no dice. You're still getting Greinke.) Essentially, a player who's part a pending trade needs to suffer an unforeseen injury in the 36 hours between when the trade is made and when the commish approves it.

It hardly ever happens. Actually, it never happened ... until a few weeks ago. Vlad Guerrero owners probably remember the incident earlier this month when he took a batted ball off the face causing him to a miss a few games. In my league, Guerrero was a piece of a trade that was sitting on the commish's desk when he got hit. It didn't appear to be a major injury; nothing was broken. But the swelling was bad and a concussion was possible. The league brain trust immediately began debating the rule. Was the injury considered serious? Serious enough to allow the manager getting Guerrero to back out of the deal? Vlad was listed as day-to-day. Should we give it a day to see if Guerrero can resume playing? Two days? Three days?

Tough questions that required careful consideration of a rule that had never before come into effect. We waited two extra days to further gauge the severity of Guerrero's injury, and the trade was approved when Guerrero was back in the lineup on that second day. (This league uses weekly lineups, so there was a bit of time before players would join their new teams.)

But the whole thing left me wondering: Is our rule fair? Does it make sense to protect managers from receiving unexpected damaged goods in a fantasy trade? Or is it better to just say a trade is a trade and, once you hit that "accept" button, you get what you get?

Hmm. Tough call.

Comments (6)

Name

Website

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

Add Comment