a first trade offer
January 8th, 2008 by Ianthis is always delicate. fantasy owners get bent out of shape like few others that i’ve seen over a trade offer that they don’t like. i remember playing fantasy basketball (and not knowing who the players were) and i got a trade request email response that was laced with profanity, accusations of anal rape and a request for KY jelly the next time i try to suggest something like that again. wow, a little over the top don’t you think?
a first offer is just a first offer. it doesn’t have to be fair, it doesn’t have to be well rounded, it doesn’t have to be well thought out. it’s designed to express interest. if you receive a trade offer you don’t like, what’s the point of flipping off on someone? you still want something off the guy don’t you? you want to better your team don’t you? he PROBABLY doesn’t want any version of anal rape by making the offer of trading his bench winger for your starting goaltender so why piss him off with a reaction that just shows how small a man you are (yes that is a penis joke) and closes the door on any future dealings you may be able to have with him.
a first offer is just a first offer. look for something you DO like instead of trying to rag on a guy who’s just trying to make his team better. if you find something you do like then move in that direction; try to include those options he asked you about. if he wants Kiprusoff and you can’t afford to trade your best goaltender then look at trading him your G2 instead … at a fair price. that may be all he was looking for in the first place.
he doesn’t have to be up-front with you, he doesn’t owe you anything, he probably doesn’t even know you. where does it say that he needs to be fair? if you are willing to accept a stupid offer then you’re the idiot, not him.
fantasy trading is a slow process, take your time. i had one friend call trade discussions with me “the most gruelling trade discussions of his life” last year as i tried to maneuver myself out of the basement of an expert’s league i was in. at the end of the day i got Jason Spezza and Sergei Gonchar for Martin Brodeur and Mike Modano and managed to climb 3 spots to 9th place (the guy i traded with jumped from 3rd to 1st after that trade and i actually had discussions with all 3 of the top teams over this deal and only one guy was willing to pay my price). my point is, take your time. be “gruelling”. it’s your team so decide what you want and then go after it. ask for the moon and see if the other guy prefers the daylight.
i’ve had some fantasy owners say “well, if you’re not offering something fair then don’t offer at all”, but what’s the point of that? do you play just so that you can watch your team for 6 months and not do anything to try to win? i don’t have to be fair to you, and you don’t have to be fair to me. if i don’t want to take a deal i’ll just say no thanks. if i don’t think i can get something done that i like then i just won’t take the deal. why do people have such a hard time saying no? it’s not like i’m trying to sell you Amway or something.
i typically send out a first offer with no email attached to it. sometimes it’s an invitation for you to be stupid and sometimes it’s just following up on a previous discussion. you don’t usually want to take my first offer.
maybe that’s why i don’t trade a ton of times … i can’t find as many cautious traders like me.
1) evaluate your team needs.
2) evaluate the other team’s assets.
3) ask
4) take your time.
a first offer is just a first offer.
Posted in fantasy stat
2 Responses to “a first trade offer”
By Go Puck Yourself on Jan 9, 2008
Hey Ian,
I just wanted to say that I totally agree with you on the fact that a “first offer is just a first offer”. I compete with you in two leagues and I think that a first offer is normally made to see if a owner is interested. And I am sure you are aware of the point I’m about to make but I thought it should be said just to play counter-point.
With that said I can understand why people get upset over a crazy offer when it is in a competitive pool. When the owner becomes invested mentally and emotionlly in the team (usually takes 2-3 weeks after the season) it becomes “HIS/HER team” and the players become “THEIR players”.
(At this point the bragging and taunting usually starts and that when we noramlly start paying attention to player’s individual performances on a daily basis scouring through the boxscores.)
It is not easy to keep objective, as you have written, when owners get upset over the fact that their “so and so got -3 yesterday” or “Goalie X let in 7 goals”.
Anyways, I digress, a ludicrous offer can be, and is usually, interpreted as an insult to the owner’s hockey intelligence. Though it may not intentional it may be thought of a passive way to insinuate that the owner has a low Hockey IQ and is gullible. Whether you agree or not I’m telling you that is a fact.
Just think the equvalent of a trade in real life:
“How about you give me your new car for my office chair?”
You know what the response would be..”Are you Fu**ing kidding me? Think I’m an idiot?”
So the same reaction can be expected when someone offers… lets say Steve Ott for Kovalchuk or Mark Streit for Pascal Leclaire (nudge nudge).
The point is: You see it as “just a first offer” but most owners can not or will not rationally see it the same way because they have put so much invested mentally into their teams and players.
If all of us could focus that Fantasy Pool energy (negative and positive) into saving the environment I wouldn’t have to buy an air conditioner next summer!
By Ian on Jan 9, 2008
let me just point out that Steve Ott is probably going to get 20 pts minimum on the season to go along with 150 PIMs this season. no you’re not going to want to trade Kovalchuk’s 35 goals to land him but you might want to trade Marco Sturm’s 12 goals for him.
as for Streit vs Leclaire we’ve had this discussion before although i don’t recall offering Streit for Leclaire. Streit has 6 goals and we’re not even at the break yet. only 15 D in the league have more G than him so far and i still see him scoring G in the low teens. for a guy that was drafted late or not at all in standard leagues i’ll take top 20 output from a guy at the bottom of my roster. Leclaire is a guy that i don’t think many would’ve pegged to be where he is this season, many said to shop him hard after he got 5 shutties in the first month or so. nobody figured him for top 5 production this season and i personally figured top 20 would’ve been generous projections for him.
as for investing in your players, don’t get so attached. and a fantasy hockey trade is not akin to offering you my office chair for your car, it’s more like offering my pen for your empty stapler.
but yeah, i get it, people take stuff like this personally for some dumb reason. how does it help your situation to go off on somebody that you’re going to need later though? if i have something you want then why would i be willing to offer it up to a guy who’s shown that he won’t be open-minded to big or small things in any way.
yeah, i hear you, but you yourself talk about how people value their own players higher than they ought to so whenever ANY trade offer comes in it’s going to look low in their eyes. people don’t bother to think about different categories in hockey, they only see pts and don’t see what they’re being offered in other cats. for instance you need to consider trading away a goalscorer for a goon if that’s what your team needs, or a goaltender for goals from a defenseman. people don’t think broadly and that’s going to mean they feel insulted by any offer that comes across the board. their players are “better than that” in their eyes and i just want to say, look deeper, think broader and don’t get attached. a first offer is just a first offer; there are all sorts of directions that trade discussions can go (if you don’t get pissed off or piss the other guy off with a reaction that belongs on the schoolyard).
thanks for the imput Kouki.