Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Q&A - How to manage trades

How should I manage trades as commissioner?

Ideally, commissioners should not review every trade in their league. Reviewing trades is time consuming and creates a lot of unwanted drama.

As commissioner of 12 years, I only vetoed one trade. And although I still feel that my veto was justified, it caused me a lot of grief and has lead me to set my league to 'Trade Review - League Votes.'

By setting your league to: Trade Review - League Votes, the commissioner is taken out of the picture. This democratic approach allows the commissioner to react to trade arguments objectively. If there comes to be too many trade vetoes, or not enough, then that is the fault of the team owner majority, and it's up to them to communicate and react to trades fairly. If major trade problems occur in the league, the commissioner should speak up, and request that owners be more reasonable or they won't be invited back to the league next year. Commissioners who opt out of reviewing trades, and leaving the responsibility to the team owners, strengthen the integrity of their league. The Trade Review - League Votes setting eliminates the chance for you, as the commissioner, to make a mistake managing trades. You won't be accused of vetoing a trade that would otherwise affect your team's chance at winning. And you won't be accused of helping out, or not helping out, another team for some insinuated personal reason.

Set the time to vote on trades to 1 day.

To stimulate trading in your league, try reducing the standard 2 days for voting on trades to 1 day. 24 hours is enough time for team owners to get the notice of a trade and make their call whether to allow it or not. Trades should have some advantage over waiver pickups, which are typically set to 2 days.

Fantasy football websites should allow teams to include acquisition budget dollars into trades.

Wouldn't that be cool?





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