Quick housekeeping item before I get into it because I know how sophisticated and socially conscious you fucking savages are… what I mean by Fair Trade Fantasy Football is not in the literal sense but in making trades in your fantasy league that make your team more competitive while offering something of equal value to the pretend football team owner you are trading with. Fair… responsible trades that don’t ruin the integrity of your league.
On the other hand… when completely unfair trades happen there are only two outcomes… one team makes out like a bandit, all other teams in the league get fucked… maybe not like the loser in that trade scenario that gets railed, balls deep, no lube, but every other team does indeed get fucked because they are no longer on an even playing field with the serial trade-rapist.
Why are lopsided trades important to you if you aren’t involved? Or in other words… why should you give a fuck?
Just in case it isn’t obvious, I’ll tell you why. Because the winner in that bad trade improves their roster at zero cost, something you can’t, or at least shouldn’t be able to do. That gives them an unfair advantage over you and makes them more of a threat to steal the league championship, which rightfully should be yours.
Luckily, it’s usually in casual, anonymous-type leagues where no one knows each other and there’s no stakes involved that you see these type of ass raping-style trades happen… for example…
In a casual league I’m in, a trade of Brian Quick for Keenan Allen, Montee Ball, and Lamar Miller just got accepted. Worst trade ever?
— numberFire (@numberFire) October 8, 2014
While I like Brian Quick… there is no universe where this trade makes any sense whatsoever. There’s either collusion here, or some form of blackmail going on, or one of the owners has no business owning electronic devices.
But if you’re in a long-term league with people you’ve actually known and played with for years there are consequences to being the type of team that makes ridiculous trade offer after ridiculous offer, or that won’t even consider a trade unless you are completely getting fucked in all orifices… metaphorically speaking of course. And luckily, there are usually safeguards like a challenge that can be made to overturn or reverse trades if clearly unfair. But that still doesn’t mean you should let the offending party off the hook. There have to be consequences.
In my league, when that happens the offending party is usually publicly flogged or insulted mercilessly. One such incident happened just yesterday where one owner, Brian, was making offers to ALL OTHER OWNERS, one by one, hoping one of them would be stupid enough to bite.
In my case… he offered me Steve Smith Sr. and Roddy White for Demaryius Thomas. So… a 35-year-old receiver who’s had exactly one great game, a revenge game against his former team, and the other a chronically injured, chronically under-performing, overrated receiver who would never crack my starting line-up under any circumstance ever again.
Now I didn’t immediately tell him to GTFO, but instead tried to make some counter offers for something that might make sense, say Thomas for Giovani Bernard…. because I could use an upgrade at running back while he could use a top wide-out and in our keeper league both players are young, and both have similar upsides, at least in my opinion. Nope. In fact I offered three other examples of fair, equal value trades… and nope. Not interested.
Later I found out Brian had gone to every other owner, one by one, offering the same shit deal. Smith and White for Julio Jones, Smith and White for Calvin Johnson, Smith and White for A.J. Green…
One of those other owners in our league (A.J. Green’s owner) took issue and posted the following on our league site. Please enjoy it fully as it is quite clearly a classic fucking example of good shit-talking, which for me makes for a great fantasy league…
In the post, Brian and Nick are co-owners of Downtown Brown. Brian is actually a great guy but a total shit bag as a fantasy owner. Nick, who is waiting for our league to expand or an owner to retire, since this is a 25+ year old fantasy league and it’ s not exactly easy to break in.
Enjoy…
What’s the point of all this besides being fucking hilarious reading?
Trades can be a good strategy for improving your team, but besides considering just your needs and evaluating players you also have to evaluate potential trade partners, especially if you’re fairly new to fantasy football or unsure about the value of players in question. Some rules I like to go by as it relates to trades:
- In keeper leagues, you only trade keepers for other keeper level players.
- Is the player you are getting an upgrade for your team?
- Is what you are giving up worth it for what you are getting?
- Is what you are giving up fair value for what you are getting?
Really simple, right?
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