Limits to trading Cash

[lp815]

I agree, but have a few questions:

Can I send PlayerA and pay all of his salary, and receive PlayerB with no cash received for his salary (with the other team net shedding salary)?  Or is the max I can send with PlayerA the difference between the salaries of A and B?

Can I send cash to pay for the bonus of a draft pick?  Pick 1-1 is nice, but it's a lot nicer if someone sends me the 7M to cover the bonus.

How can cash be paid for future years?  Do I need to pickup the same amount of a players salary in each season, or can I vary the amount paid as I chose?

I'm not super opinionated on any of these, but think they are some of the immediate questions that will be asked.

Can you give me an example of your first question Ben? I'm a bit confused by it, sorry.

On question two, I didn't think we were basing bonus's on the overall pick, but the player taken?  Could you be referring to that?

On question three, I don't see a problem with paying, for instance, $5 million to a team one year, and $2.5 the next for a player.  We do it when releasing contracted players anyway.

[Colby]

Attaching cash to picks gets ugly.  I think we have all agreed on this.

[daddypadre]

I don't think it is a bad idea, and I don't necessarily think we need a rule.  This is where the TC's roll becomes critical in making sure that trades have balance and good intent.  Why not trust the TC?   They have been doing a good job so far making sure trades are legit.  I would say the general rule of thumb is you have to give more than just cash to obtain a player.

In my trade with the Rockies, I am giving my top prospect pitcher, my two top prospect outfielders, and a starting third baseman. For a star first baseman and some draft picks. AND we agreed on it. We surely don't have malicious intent. Now the league is just deciding that I can't trade some money in the future to obtain A) Miguel Cabrera and B) have an abundance of low and middle round picks in 2010's Rookie Draft.

 Is it the fairness? Isn't fairness the basis upon which trades should be judged?

[Colby]

The trade isn't the problem, but the precedent that it sets.  We are restricting the trading of cash to be less than or equal to a player's contract.

RC?

[mjmezzetti]

Why is this a bad precedent?  Personally, I think the Cabrera deal was a great move for the Rockies.  They got huge cap relief, one great young pitcher and arguably the Red Sox best prospect.  I think it's a disservice to trade negotiations and small/mid-cap teams to disallow cash considerations.  If this isn't legal maybe we should re-think having big market and small market caps, why not institute a fixed cap for all teams?  I don't support fixing caps for all teams but rather pose the question because the rationality for disallowing this appears to be big market team's ability to gain talent by buying players.

[Colby]

Why is this a bad precedent?  Personally, I think the Cabrera deal was a great move for the Rockies.  They got huge cap relief, one great young pitcher and arguably the Red Sox best prospect.  I think it's a disservice to trade negotiations and small/mid-cap teams to disallow cash considerations.  If this isn't legal maybe we should re-think having big market and small market caps, why not institute a fixed cap for all teams?  I don't support fixing caps for all teams but rather pose the question because the rationality for disallowing this appears to be big market team's ability to gain talent by buying players.

I surely see your point M.J.  I think this is one of those issues that separates fantasy baseball from MLB.  Simplifying the cash considerations to just the player's contract keeps some train wrecks contained.

[Colby]

 

[lp815]

I surely see your point M.J.  I think this is one of those issues that separates fantasy baseball from MLB.  Simplifying the cash considerations to just the player's contract keeps some train wrecks contained.

I agree.  MJ, when we were simply trading cash tied to players during the 2009 season and up until January, trades went along quite smoothly, and, as far as I can remember, no trades were ever really complained about (except for one, but that was my fault).  Once we implemented trading cash without it being tied to a player, trades went haywire.  Not so much in the fairness of the trades, but that many of them had a lot of members scratching their heads.

In the end, it really brought about a lot of confusion, and I think we in the RC were to blame for rushing the idea to the league.

I'm going off of the 'don't fix what isn't broken' theory.  We had a lot of success with how things were being transacted prior to implementing cash considerations not tied to players, or simply put, buying players and picks.

As Kris(Kdoc) said, it opens up a Pandora's box of issues, and they really need to all be worked out before we decide to implement it.

[Canada8999]

I'll agree with Jake on this one...

[clidwin]

I second Jake