This is so ridiculous, I can’t even come up with a title that does it justice!

The below is the exact (and entire) text of an email sent to my Yahoo! Fantasy Football league:

Ok, so I’m officially annoying now, I realize, but emailing through Yahoo Sports apparently didn’t work so well.

Warning: this is a pretty lengthy email, so if you don’t care at all about the trading stuff, you might just want to skim.

First:
The control over trades has been changed such that I control it, yes. However, that is a result of a consultation with Yahoo! Sports. They said it wasn’t possible to view who voted to veto the trade, which I would like to do, in order to discuss why it had been vetoed. So, the only other option is to put it under my review and then have the airing of complaints be public. Rest assured that I didn’t do it in order to jam my trade through, I did it in order to make public the vetoes. I apologize that this note didn’t come before it happened, but they actually made the change as a result of me asking them how to do it, as opposed to “would you make the change?”

Second:
Mark’s counter offer that he thinks is clearly superior is debatable. I would argue that Cadillac Williams was performing much better prior to his injury than Barlow has to date. Furthermore, Barlow’s clearly losing carries to Gore. Obviously, the decision maker about this debate is Peter, the owner we’re approaching.

Also, the time for offers and counter offers is BEFORE an owner accepts a trade. If an owner accepts a trade offer that you might have bettered, had you been negotiating, the correct response is NOT to veto it so that you can offer a new trade. I know that Mark was just trying to prove a point, but I want to make it clear that this is NOT how trades work. If you weren’t in the mix trying to negotiate a deal, tough luck. You don’t get to veto it in order to propose another deal. Furthermore, even if you were in the mix and you lost, you have to accept the fact that the owner went with another deal. I know that some of you are new to fantasy, but this stuff is not rocket science. There’s a market for players, you have to convince someone that what you’re offering is the best and if you don’t, well, that’s too bad. That’s how trades work.

Third:
I view the complaints about this trade as pretty frustrating and not very objective. I think that the reason to veto a trade is plain and simple: if you think that the owners are colluding.

However, it appears that there are some differences of opinion on this. The arguments seem to follow one of two lines:
1) Such and such owner is an idiot, clearly. He doesn’t care about the league or he’s just stupid and must be protected from himself.
2) I’m competing with the owner in this trade who I think is benefiting greatly and as a result, it hurts me. So, I’d rather reject the trade so that he can’t become stronger.

Let’s start with the first argument:
-If we’re not going to let owners make judgments about how to manage their teams, why the hell are we even playing in the first place? Look, we all drafted (or autodrafted) for ourselves and nobody said anything about picking up Culpepper or Kevin Jones or Jamal Lewis in the first round. We’re not sitting around babysitting our opponents when they don’t set their lineups. If you want everyone to have the same opinion as to how to manage a team, this game gets boring very quickly. You might agree or disagree with Peter about this deal, that’s fine, but I think it’s pretty insulting to basically call him an idiot and say that he’s not allowed to accept or reject trades as he sees fit.
-Also, if one is going to object to a trade, it’s probably a good idea to take a look at the data and also ask the owner who you judge to be an idiot why they accepted the trade. Peter’s put his reasoning out there and while you can disagree with it, I think it’s hard for any one of us to argue that we objectively know what constitutes a good decision better than any other player. Despite his record, he has scored the 4th most points in the league, so I think he’s clearly capable of at making some decent decisions here.
-If I was to nitpick about decision-making, I would go back to an earlier trade in this league: Ahman Green for Warrick Dunn. The trade, which happened on October 15th, occurred AFTER Green had already missed a game due to injury and while he was heading into a bye week. At that point in the season (5 games in), Dunn was worth 58 fantasy points to Green’s 29. DOUBLE the points! The point is not to bring this trade back into review and point fingers, but rather to illustrate that we, as a league, let that trade occur, without objection. Maybe it was because no one else was paying attention (wow..) but I assumed instead that the rest of the league, like me, took a look and said, “Ok, that looks lopsided, but they both agreed to it so, congrats to Mark”.

On the second argument:
-Shit happens. Seriously, that’s the only necessary rebuttal. Players get injured, other teams pick up guys from the waiver wire, trades happen that make other players better. This is how the game works. It’s frustrating for all of us. But if anyone is rejecting the trade because they don’t want an owner to get stronger, that’s just being a baby. Sack up and go figure out who you can trade with to be more competitive. We have 9 days until the deadline and if you all think that we should, we can push back the trading deadline.

Finally:
Like I said, I’m frustrated that a few of us have gotten upset about this. I don’t like being accused of colluding, implicitly or otherwise. I’ve been involved in a lot of fantasy leagues and seen a lot of trades go down that I didn’t think were very balanced, but I’ve gotten used to it. I also love trying to swing deals that help me out and try to spot out worthwhile waiver pickups. However, I’m not about to CHEAT in order to win. I respect that some of you might think this trade isn’t balanced, but would hope that you wouldn’t assume that Peter or I lacked the integrity to play a freaking game!

In any case, since it appears that this trade has upset a few of you, I’m not going to re-propose it. I am going to propose a smaller deal that a few of you had mentioned as being more palatable. If you have objections, please speak up and put your comments on the message board. Hopefully, at the very least, this has illustrated that there is, in fact, a thought process behind this and maybe I’ve even convinced a few of you to get out there and try to negotiate your own deals. Hopefully we can tone down the rhetoric a bit.