Last Week's Question: Have you witnessed
any 1-for-1 trades of players at the same position in your league
this year?
My column for
Week 8 was an attempt to help a reader named Marty show his
commissioner that there isn't necessarily anything suspicious about
attempting to trade one running back (Ahmad Bradshaw) for another
(Andre Ellington).
I received a lot of great feedback that I want to plunge into. But
before we get into the range of opinions on trading and how to spot
collusion, I want to rattle off the trades from the first five responses
I received.
Nick's league: Frank Gore for Ray Rice
Jeff's league: Carlos Hyde for Tre Mason; Jordan Cameron for Zach
Ertz
Jeffrey's league: Giovanni Bernard for LeSean McCoy
Dan's league: Matt Asiata for Knile Davis
Scott's league: Doug Martin for Jerick McKinnon
Do you notice a pattern? More trades were mentioned (as you'll see
below), but what struck me about the first five responses was that
except for the Cameron/Ertz trade (which occurred in the same league
as the Hyde/Mason trade), all of the 1-for-1 trades at the same
position involved running backs. That trend held up as more responses
drifted in throughout the week. I have now surveyed enough reader
responses to say that there is not only nothing unusual about 1-for-1
trades at the same position, but that RB is the one position for
which such trades seem to make the most sense to the greatest number
of FFers.
I appreciated the pains that readers such as Nick took to contextualize
the trades they reported:
On July 27, I traded Frank Gore for Ray Rice
[in my dynasty league]. It was right after Rice got the two-game
suspension and I was a bit down on Gore because of his age and C.
Hyde's presence and thought Rice might have a couple of good years
left, and two games wasn't much to miss. The other owner is a San
Fran fan and was maybe more wary of Rice and higher on Gore.
All it takes for two owners to trade players of the same position
is to have different valuations of what they will do the rest of
the season, or over the next few seasons in dynasty - nothing suspicious
there. Maybe if it was Murray for Gerhart we could call it suspicious,
but that is independent of position as D. Thomas for Gerhart would
be equally suspicious. The Bradshaw owner is probably worried about
injury, and maybe the Ellington owner sees a more consistent offense
in Indy. More than likely, the commissioner thinks either Bradshaw
or Ellington is much better than the other one - so it looks suspicious
based on his subjective valuation. As a commissioner evaluating
questionable trades, it should not be about whether you would make
that trade or not, but rather if you can see any reason why each
owner made the trade. In our league I don't veto trades; I just
determine whether a very questionable trade should go to a league
vote (otherwise I just allow the trade). We have only had one or
two votes on a trade in 10 years.
In his second paragraph, Nick speculates on what kind of perfectly
legitimate motives might lead to a 1-for-1 trade at the same position.
Craig does so in even greater detail:
Reasons for the trade, whether valid or not, might be:
1. Sometimes the grass is always greener on
the other side of the fence. Team owner 1 may think team owner 2
has the better player and vice-versa, as it sounds is the case in
this instance.
2. Team owner 1 may think his player is overused and will break
down before the playoffs while team owner 2 doesn’t care,
he wants to will now. In fact, just before the week 5 games I was
prepared to trade Rashad Jennings straight up for another, younger
running back because I was afraid Jennings was about ready to break
down. My co-owner didn’t want to let Jennings go: providential
wasn’t I? So, here I sit in weeks 5, 6, 7, 8 and maybe 9 without
a starting running back. My co-owner could have been right and we
would still be sailing along, but he wasn’t. It was a gamble
I was willing to take but my co-owner wasn’t.
3. Some years ago team owner 1 traded Corey Dillon for what I thought
was a lesser back. I later asked the team owner “Why?”
He said he had read that Dillon was going to be charged with domestic
assault and didn’t want to carry him during an NFL suspension:
the other owner was willing to take the gamble.
4. Team owner 2 may be a Indy fan and if he can get Bradshaw, even
if he considers the trade dead even, he’ll take him over Ellington
because then he can better root for his team. (we have several owners
like that in our league). The other owner may just plain believe
that Ellington is the better player.
5. In a keeper league, the consideration can turn to "win now"
vs. a better back for the future.
In fairness to Marty's commissioner, however, I should mention that
there have been no 1-for-1 trades at the same position (of any kind)
for "several years" in Kim's league:
I don’t think there should be any reason
for a commissioner to overrule that kind of trade unless it is patently
unfair like a Jamaal Charles for Branden Oliver kind of deal. I
assume most leagues have rules in place to deal with what are perceived
to be unfair trades. The example of Ahmad Bradshaw for Ellington
certainly is fair; I can’t come up with any REAL reason to
veto it. I’ll admit that those kinds of trades are indeed
pretty rare as our league doesn’t have any examples of that
kind of trade either going back several years. . . . [But] there
are countless reasons someone may want to make such a trade.
Kim understood why Marty's commissioner might find the Bradshaw/Ellington
trade "odd" and was sensitive to the fact that "you
don’t want to see things happen in your league that others
will perceive as wrong or unfair," but went on to point out
that commissioners can't spend all their time "babysitting"
the owners in a league. This sentiment was echoed by Jeffrey, a
commissioner who has never vetoed a trade:
I had a trade two weeks ago of Giovani Bernard
for LeSean Mccoy. What made it more interesting was that the team
owner that had Bernard was in first place and agreed to the trade
for McCoy to a team owner in last place. I allowed the trade and
have never denied a trade in all my years of fantasy football.
I personally thought trading away Bernard was not a good decision,
but now after a couple of weeks it looks like McCoy might be the
better player moving forward. I have seen this plenty of times
over the years. Trades that appear to be lopsided end up completely
flipping a few weeks later.
Remember when Cleveland dealt Trent Richardson to Indy last year?
I think a poll of NFL fans would have shown that most of us thought
Cleveland was making a mistake at the time. If we had another
poll today, I think the trade would be evaluated as lopsided in
the other direction, which just underscores Dan's point that "one
man's garbage is another man's treasure."
The most detailed response I received (with the greatest number
of trades) came from Phil, who writes:
I'm in a league of good friends, who like
to talk a lot of smack and aren't afraid to call each other out
for "terrible" trades. It started escalating into the
sort of "I protest!" type arguments several years back.
The commissioner was tired of it, and established some general
guidelines, somewhat opposite of the commissioner of Marty's league.
Essentially, our commish said, "None of us see the future,
not even the fantasy gurus. If an owner thinks a big-name player
is going to bust, or thinks a low-name guy is going to break out,
who are we to deny him the opportunity to act on his hunch?"
This league trades more than any other of league I've been involved
with, and it's absolutely a blast. Though most of them still involve
multiple players of different positions, here are some straight-up,
same-position, 1-for-1 trades we've seen this year:
Sept 9th, Zac Stacy for Frank Gore: Owner who had Zac Stacy saw
the handwriting on the wall very early, and decided to dump him;
he has Carlos Hyde so nabbing Gore was advantageous. At the time,
most fantasy gurus probably would've found this "suspicious",
but in the end the owner was absolutely dead-on.
Sept 10th, Riley Cooper for John Brown: Boring trade that's not
going to raise any eyebrows, but one owner was having Bye Week
issues in Week 4 and wanted Cooper instead of Brown as a fill-in
player (because Brown was also on bye). Byes are often a great
reason a team might be wanting to deal one-for-one.
Oct 26th (yesterday), Brandon Marshall for DeAndre Hopkins: This
is one where common wisdom screams "WHAT!?" because
Marshall's such a "stud." But is he? Maybe this owner's
a genius for getting out while there's still some value? Or, yes,
maybe he's an idiot. We'll see in a couple months.
Fantasy football is far from an exact science, and each owner
should be able to form his own team how he sees fit. You can't
go around protecting someone from themselves (has any commissioner
ever stood up at a draft and said, "No way, you're reaching
for that guy, you gotta take someone else!"?). If a commish
truly feels there's collusion going on, he better have more evidence
then "boy that sure looks suspicious."
This Week's Question: What's the most
questionable trade that was approved in your league this year? (Alternatively:
What was the most reasonable trade that was blocked?)
In one response after another to last week's question, I encountered
extreme examples of trades that commissioners shouldn't allow. For
Nick, the example of a truly suspicious trade is DeMarco Murry for
Toby Gerhart. Kim's example is of Jamaal Charles for Branden Oliver.
And then along comes Phil, who uses the Brandon Marshall-for-DeAndre
Hopkins trade as an example of a legitimate trade--which it certainly
seems to be (based on the performance of both players to this point
in the season). But before the season started, how many people had
Hopkins ranked anywhere near Marshall in terms of value? And how
many weeks into the season did we have to get before the Marshall/Hopkins
trade looked appreciably less lopsided than Murray for Gerhart?
I think it might help commissioners who are perhaps overly cautious
about allowing trades to see some examples of trades that might
have seem lopsided in one direction when they were initially executed,
but have worked out to be closer to even (or lopsided in the other
direction) with the passage of time.
To that end, I would like to compile a short list of some of the
most surprising trades that have been approved in 2014. It might
also be helpful to look at trades that were vetoed because they
seemed collusive but that have proven (over time) to be reasonable
exchanges of value.
If there was an especially controversial trade in your league this
season and you can put that trade in its proper context in a paragraph
or two, I would love to know whether it was approved or vetoed at
the time and whether it still looks like it should have been approved
or denied now that we have reached the halfway point of the season.
Survivor Picks - Week 9 (Courtesy of
Matthew Schiff)
As evidenced by the Week 7 victory of St. Louis over Seattle and
the Week 8 shocker of Washington over Dallas, divisional rivalries
should be AVOIDED whenever possible. But as you get further and
further into the season, sweet matchups like this one are very hard
to avoid, especially if you don’t feel comfortable with the
teams left in your selection list. The NFC West is still up for
grabs in spite of Arizona seemingly being in control of a division
that was expected to be a two-horse race between the 49ers and the
Super Bowl champion Seahawks. The Rams may be in last place in the
West, but they showed that they know how to play spoiler (at least
on their own turf) when they defeated Seattle. However, this matchup
is in California and Coach Harbaugh knows that this is a must-win
divisional game. So don’t worry about the post bye week letdown
and take the 49ers if you don’t mind some belated Halloween
tricks and treats between divisional foes.
#3: Seattle over Oakland (7-1: Pit, NO, CIN,
SF, CLE, SD, NE, KC)
If you have used the Bengals, don’t like the “battle
of the bulge” between Andy Reid and Rex Ryan, and want to
avoid being knocked out of your survivor pool by a divisional matchup,
then hopefully you haven’t used the Seahawks. Seattle desperately
needs a win to stay in the NFC West race, so the Hawks are probably
extra eager to face a Raiders team that is still looking for its
first win of 2014. Russell Wilson will do his best to unite a locker
room that seems to be fracturing before our eyes. It's not clear
whether the Seahawks are being torn apart by the media, by internal
dissension, or by a rabid fanbase with sky-high expectations. But
they probably won't be torn apart by the anemic offense led by rookie
quarterback Derek Carr and an Oakland defense that is solid statistically
but runs out of steam because they are left on the field far too
long to be effective. Look for Seattle to wear down their West Coast
foes this week on both sides of the ball.
#2: Kansas City over NY Jets (3-5: CHI, Sea,
NO, TB, DET, Den, CLE, MIA)
The New York Jets are in total disarray. Yes, Percy Harvin can help
them stretch the field, and Michael Vick is better throwing the
ball when he is being flushed from the pocket, but Rex Ryan has
lost this locker room. Every player on this team is wondering why
management didn’t try to find some quality veteran help before
the season started instead of relying on reclamation projects such
as Chris Ivory, Chris Johnson, Eric Decker, Vick and Harvin. The
Chiefs, on the other hand, find themselves nicely in the thick of
a playoff chase where they just might sneak in on the strength of
the NFL's 3rd best rushing attack (featuring Knile Davis and Jamaal
Charles). Although Dwayne Bowe isn't what he used to be, the two-headed
rushing attack has taken the pressure off of Alex Smith and his
limited wide receiver corps. If the Chiefs are to remain in the
AFC Playoff picture, then they must win three of their next four
games against the Jets, Bills and Raiders because they have Seattle,
Denver, and Arizona also on tap. Take Kansas City at home in a game
that Andy Reid knows is very winnable.
Image by Tilt Creative (Ty
Schiff)
#1: Cincinnati over Jacksonville (6-2:
PHI, DEN, NE, SD, GB, SEA, BAL, DAL):
The Jaguars leave the friendly confines of the sunshine state
on the weekend of the “big game” between Georgia and
Florida to travel to Cincinnati and the Ohio River, where A.J.
Green is expected back after a month-long absence due to a toe
injury incurred during practice. Andy Dalton should be very excited
to have his number one receiver back and take pressure off a rushing
attack that only a few weeks ago was top five. Because of Cincy's
inability to stretch the field, defenses have been able to shut
down the Bengals by loading the box. Unfortunately for Jacksonville,
that won’t be the case this week. The only saving grace
for the Jags is that the Bengals defense yields the 2nd most yards
in the NFL (and have been on the field the 2nd most amount of
time due to the lack of a sustained offensive attack). In spite
of this, the Bengals are the 10th best in points allowed. On top
of that, this is a game the Bengals really need to stay in control
of a very tight AFC North in which the frontrunners and cellar
dwellers are separated by only one game.
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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