It amazes me how people do not know how to put proper value on players. Nor are they logical in figuring out how a trade can improve their position. I had a trade situation where I was providing somebody with a couple of players that he did not initially ask for in the trade. This particular person was interested in one of my starting pitchers because he believed he could gain points in wins, K’s, and ERA. When I worked it through with him I looked like he could possibly get a point in W a stretch for a point in K’s and a possible gain in ERA. That amounts to a possible 2 points, big stretch for 3. So I walked him through a scenario where getting a closer from me (which is more ideal for me) would actually be more beneficial. Initially he was downright adament against it but I walked him through the points he could gain: 1 1/2 pts GUARANTEED in saves. This closer would provide about 2/3s the K’s of the starter, and has a lower ERA. So 1 1/2 pts for sure, possibly 2 1/2. I would throw in a lesser yet quality starter to help him with the W pt. This amounts to 3 1/2 pts that are more realistic than the 3 with the starter.
Instead of going with that, the greedy bugger then re-offers a deal that included the original starter plus the closer for the same player. That is pure buffoonery and is common practice amongst the clowns that play in this baseball pool. Typically, owners are blatantly trying for deals that are way lopsided and not well thought out.Â
While I’m ranting, a very strange occurrence happened with the waiver process. I had three free agents I wanted to pick up in this order:
player a @ $20 and drop existing player d
player b @ $13 and drop existing player d
player c @ $5 and drop existing player d
Therefore, I wanted player a more than b more than c. I.e. if I had a winning bet on more than one player, I would only get the player I had higher in the list. This is ‘enforced’ by the fact that I had indicated the same player to be dropped in all cases.
As it turned out, I did not bid the highest on player a, but had bid the highest on player b and player c. To my surprise, I did not receive player b, but received player c instead? I was shocked. And, insult to injury, the player that I’m trying to catch is just ahead of me in the standings received player b.
How did this happen? Well, it happened based on a procedure used by the website that was not indicated to us by the commissioner nor was known by any other member in the pool. The procedure is based on the waiver order. It is common knowledge that the waiver pool was only used as a means to break ties when there are multiple bids on the same player. The higher player in the waiver list gets the baseball player. In this case, I had the higher bid but I still lost the player. Here’s the unknown ‘other’ usage of the waiver list that is documented on the site, but WAYYYYY down in the out of the way “Help Centre” area:
The waiver list is also used for ‘calling up’ the players that are in the list of free agents being acquired for the period. So, the 1st player in the waiver list, if he is bidding on a free agent then the first name in his list is ‘auctioned’ and determined who wins. This is where I got screwed. Somebody above me in the list had my 3rd pick as his 1st pick and hence it was auctioned. I won the bid so that entailed dropping of player d. When it came time for ‘my turn’ in the process, player a was already auctioned and lost so player b was auctioned. I was unable to win this bid because I no longer had a player d to drop and thus the bid was ineligible. The 2nd highest bid took the prize.Â
So, the widely known process of being able to ‘rank’ your bids by dropping the same player for each bid is flawed for reasons not outlined up front. If I had known this rule I would not have made my flyer bid on player c. But I didn’t know and all other players would have made the same assumptions.
The fallout of this is that there is a poll being taken to determine if I do deserve player b based on the common knowledge, etc. I doubt this poll will go in my favour. But at least this obscure rule will be brought into the open so that it doesn’t bite other people – which I could care less.