The Major League trading non-waiver trading deadline is July 31, which means many fantasy leagues, may also have their deadlines around the same time.  This is the time of year where teams will need to decide if they’re contenders or pretenders.  Which side of the fence are they on?  With that in mind it’s important to judge your team correctly.  Be realistic in deciding if you’re team is good enough to contend, or if you need to go out and acquire some talent.  Should you go for broke this season and give up young possible superstars and draft picks in order to acquire top players now who maybe can’t be kept past this season.  That being said let me tell you about a trade I made last week and the subsequent fall out that ensued.

This is a league with 12 teams that has been playing since the late 1980s.  I have been playing since day one, and my trading partner has been in the league for at least 15 years. First place will be approximately $1000.  In this league you can keep three players drafted after the third round.  I was contacted regarding a trade on a Friday; he was in 10^th place and wanted to deal out for draft picks and one of my good young keepers.  Asked if I would be interested.  Told him I was.  He said he would get back to me.  In past dealing with this team I know he can be difficult at times.  He has a tendency to overvalue players and also can decide at the last second to not pull the trigger stating he needs to think about it, but we have completed a couple of smaller deals recently so I was willing to listen.  I really wasn’t expecting much to come out of this, but wanted to put in my due diligence.  On Saturday and Sunday he contacted me again, we started to discuss specific players and compensation, but he stated that he needed to talk to another team first as they also wanted two of the players I did.  This would be a smaller deal than the one we were working on, but I figured either he was closer to a deal with this team or they were making him a good offer.

On Monday things started to get serious between us.  We had agreed that I would send him a conditional third round pick (upgrade to a second if I finish first) and Pablo Sandoval, but that I would have to be able to cherry pick the players I wanted.  He could than trade what was left to the other team if there was enough left.  I even offer to let him keep one of BJ Upton or Carlos Pena as he was short a keeper on his team, but he states “I’ll find another keeper”.  Once again he told me he would get back to me as he wanted to complete this deal by the time lineups had to be set for the week (before the All-Star game on Tuesday).  He calls Tuesday at 7:50pm, about 45 minutes before the deadline and wants to do the deal.  We agree.  The deal is done.  Here is where the fun starts.  He didn’t realize that one of the players he traded me, Mark Reynolds, was a very good keeper seeing as though he was drafted in the 16^th round.  He has never provided a satisfactory answer as to why he didn’t know.  The draft slot for every player is listed on the site we use, and I personally sent him a draft board of where everyone was taken about six weeks prior to this.  On Wednesday he sends me a text asking if Reynolds was eligible to be kept.  I text back “yes”.  I than get several emails back to back stating that I dealt in bad faith by not telling him he was a keeper, how could I do this, I took advantage of our friendship and so on.  In other words he was blaming everyone but himself.  To put it nicely, the emails were making me angry.

I informed him in one of my replies that I did nothing wrong, not my job to tell you who is valuable and who is not.  Do your homework.  This trade was five days in the making and he had initiated the contact with me the whole time.  Not to mention we were under a time constraint since he wanted it finished before the weekly deadline.  That seemed to have worked a little bit since his next email was more constructive and took some responsibility.  I told him if he would’ve apologized immediately and stated he made a mistake and didn’t know about Reynolds we would’ve worked something out, but I’m not a big fan of someone who makes a terrible move and then wants to blame the other person.  You have to know your own team.  When this trade was made I had about half a dozen print outs of my teams roster on my desk trying to figure out who would go where.  I knew where everyone was drafted so I could figure out who should be kept.  This league like most others is very competitive and we all want to win.  Never assume the other team is going to tell you you’re making a mistake.  Not a good way to go about things.

I did decide to redo the deal.  I have a feeling there is a good chance it will cost me first place as losing Mark Reynolds will probably cost me around 100 points.  I have Aramis Ramirez to replace him, but with his shoulder not at 100% and even Ramirez admitting his power may not be up to par, that could be too large a deficit for me to overcome, but I wanted to take the high road.

The new deal eliminated the second round upgrade, gave me back a 13^th round pick, the guarantee that Reynolds can’t be traded until after draft next season, and another player from his team.  That player will probably be either Carlos Lee or Miguel Tejada.  I have until the deadline to decide.  If a starter on my team were to get injured than that would make my decision easier.  I know you’re probably thinking that I made out here, but neither Lee or Tejada would be a starter on my team, Reynolds would’ve been.  No one I’ve talked to has said I should redo the deal, matter of fact most have been strong against me doing it, that being said he is a long time friend who screwed up.  I guarantee he won’t make the same mistake again.  If you’re wondering if I will ever deal with him again?  I would never say never, but I’ll certainly hesitate the next time it comes up.