Stopping Lopsided Trades

[Cardinals]

This is the toughest one here. We want people to be active, but we don't want people to be erratic or stupid, either.

I think getting higher quality general managers is the key. I don't want to boot anybody. I think we have a good group of guys. But clearly Tampa Bay was out of his element at first. His original Votto deal was a nightmare (funny to see Nate run down Votto on the board while promoting him as NL MVP on social media...), and the Andrew Miller one wasn't great either.

Matt is a nice guy and I think he's learning, but I had to baby him. Nate should've been the one helping him since it is his buddy, but I had to tell him to PM me for advice on transactions.

Going forward, we need to be a bit smarter with who we bring in. Gabe's team has been basically vacant for years. No GM is better than a bad GM.

[Rangers]

I definitely agree that having the strongest 30 GMs is the key to this and I wholeheartedly agree with this comment:

No GM is better than a bad GM.

Beyond that, one suggestion with a few different components that could shift:

- Retire the TRC as we have discussed. Replace that with what is a rubber stamp button that, say, anyone on exco can check and click, however certain categories of players and GMs require a quick ok (which could turn into a debate and/or league vote) from the exco. Things like:

• New GM
  GM who has shown very questionable judgment with top players
  Top 10 or likely top 10 pick, or even first round picks
  Top 20/30/50 prospects or a top prospect with major helium during the season
  1st division starter or better MLBer by some definition

[Guardians]

Agree on retiring the trc. It has become ineffective. But can you further explain your concept here? You're saying some gms get a rubber stamp, but others or trades involving things on that list don't? I'm not sure I follow

[Rangers]

Agree on retiring the trc. It has become ineffective. But can you further explain your concept here? You're saying some gms get a rubber stamp, but others or trades involving things on that list don't? I'm not sure I follow

I'm thinking that everything gets a rubber stamp unless one of those things calls for review. If someone deals the third pick there needs to be a quick exco thread or something. I've done no research on how often those types of trades happen, don't really have anything specific in mind as far as thresholds, and if we pursue anything like this I know I'd want to do a review to nail down specifics. Of course there can still be the trade challenge for the league.

On GMs, I'm mostly thinking about new guys but if we had someone turn into Dave Taylor but we really don't want to boot them, I'd like a better way to protect them and the league from their poor judgment than asking a TRC to manage them - and I say that largely from my time being on TRC. A TRC that has to vote on every deal made in the league is not a good means to inhibit a terrible trader unless you have three guys with incredible judgment, perspective, and attention span.

[Guardians]

Ok, that makes sense. I do agree with, generally, a rubber stamp. But I do agree there are better traders than others. This isn't really helpful, but we do really need a small number of better GMs to replace some of the lower-performing ones. Outside of that, maybe some babysitting is in order. I'll keep thinking about how to regulate that and how we, as exco, would act as a backup TRC. For one, we need better/more response times to these posts.

[Dodgers]

That list of circumstances that would require more review kind of feels similar to injuries to me, where we’re making arbitrary decisions (in this case, on what the line is that has to be crossed to trigger).

I think we need to come up with a system that avoids frequent league-wide votes, that always takes multiple days to get a resolution and puts people in a bind. (Ex: August 29th trade gets protested and we don’t have a clear decision for several days right at the deadline).

[Astros]

Gabe's team has been basically vacant for years. No GM is better than a bad GM.

So are we booting Gabe, was that ever resolved? Also should we do a quick inventory of GMs and see if there is anyone we should consider replacing? Good GMs are what we need, I agree. Disband the TRC and have us decide, I'm down with that, because almost every trade will be rubber stamped

[Rangers]

That list of circumstances that would require more review kind of feels similar to injuries to me, where we’re making arbitrary decisions (in this case, on what the line is that has to be crossed to trigger).

I don't like the idea of introducing another area where the exco has to make a series of judgment calls that are virtually certain to eventually contradict each other on something that is emotional for the GM involved.

I will say that at some point any kind of trade review has to be subjective (unlike an injury guideline which can be objective but less precise), so unless we let everyone make whatever trades they want there has to be some sort of judgment call made by someone.

In the interest of enabling us to move forward with eliminating the TRC, I for one am good with starting as simple as possible but I would think that we would want something that:

- stops Arizona from dealing Kershaw (or the next new guy from doing it with one of his couple really good players) for not much just because he's anxious to start a wholesale rebuild and without perspective on how hard it could be in this league compared with BCMBL to rebuild the value he's throwing away;

- does scrutinize the deal when a struggling team sends an elite, still in-prime player to another team: number of these but a good example to me is when Brandon sent Bryce Harper to JB for average regular players without much upside;

- doesn't waste anyone's time evaluating the many trades that don't have the potential to affect the league's balance.

For what it's worth, I don't think that having someone sort of sponsor a new guy for a period of time would be a bad approach. They just need to have the ability to say 'no, no, you need to not trade the 20-something year old MVP candidate for two prospects whose ceilings are 2.5 win guys and two others who are probably spare parts. And they should ideally be one of the few guys who tend to win most of their deals rather than someone like me who is fine with breaking even on their deals as long as they move the roster in the right direction.

I think we need to come up with a system that avoids frequent league-wide votes, that always takes multiple days to get a resolution and puts people in a bind. (Ex: August 29th trade gets protested and we don’t have a clear decision for several days right at the deadline).

I don't think that replacing a TRC with something more limited that scrutinizes only high impact deals and new GMs means frequent league-wide votes, but I agree, that would not be an improvement from current state.