Hey, Jonathan. Come over here for a sec. We really like you a lot and want to thank you for doing that press conference a few days ago. I know that you were excited about coming to Surprise and having a shot at a championship. Unfortunately, you're no longer part of our team. I hope that you like Houston...
Surprise sends the recently acquired Jonathan Sanchez, FTW#1, and the $100K that we haven't even unpacked from our last deal to Houston in exchange for prodigal son Ricky Nolasco. Damn. Gil Meche is now our 5th starter behind Peavy, Sheets, Nolasco, and Shields. That does not suck.
Also, I'm up to 15 trades now! Is that all? Only time will tell...
Not to rain on anyones 2009 World Series parade but I didn't think that owners with two teams could trade any player or pick between those teams in a single year directly or indirectly. I am of course speaking of the FTW #1 being traded to HOU.
Thanks for your concern, but the rule does not specifically restrict trading picks. I asked the YOC in advance about whether he would have any issue with that pick moving to Houston in this trade. He said no as it clearly wasn't part of any bizarre conspiracy for Stearns to get another 1st round pick for his other team. Nolasco's name never came up before Friday night. The pick is just an asset that was helpful in making these deals work. On the other hand, trying to send Sanchez to the other Dennis team would have been wrong.
I believe this still could be classified as an "indirect" trade between two teams under the same ownership. The rule does not state what can or can not be traded, only that trades can't be made directly or indirectly between teams owned by the same person.
I honestly don't have an issue with the trade I just want to know what the ruling is because I have two teams and there have been several times I have had to alter deals because I thought I couldn't receive my other teams draft picks or players in return.
Eric did indeed ask me beforehand for a ruling on the propriety of HOU acquiring the FTW pick. As mentioned, there is an extremely vague rule about a team "directly or indirectly" acquiring something from a team owned by the same owner via trade.
Honestly, I've never really understood what the "indirectly" was meant to refer to, and thus I construe it very narrowly. In my opinion, the overriding rule is that each trade has to stand completely on its own and not have the appearance of being a series of transactions designed to move a player or pick or cash or whatnot from one pocket to the other. In this instance, I didn't see any possibility of that being involved, so I cleared the idea of trading the FTW #1 to HOU.
I think this is a case-by-case thing, but as I think you all know, I am generally loathe to overrule or restrict trades that are made in good faith.
I do believe the interpretation of directly/indirectly was meant to say this:
directly: two teams owned by the same person can not trade between themselves
indirectly: players/picks can not move from one team to another team that is owned by one player in the same year, thus moving from team A to any other number of teams and then being received by team B in the same year would not be allowed whether there was ever intent to get that player from team A to team B or not
As a former commissioner, I would not have allowed this, and I don't believe I would have been criticized for making that decision. This causes me some concern when we have rules that can be "interpreted" differently. I don't believe we have ever allowed this in the past. I may be wrong and I am sure I will be corrected if we have. I do believe we would be setting a precedent for future trades and I don't think it is in our best interest that this could become an argumentative ruling by a Commissioner.
I will give my definitions as I understand them using my teams.
"directly" Hdt trades Mags Ordonez to SB for Johnny Damon. ILLEGAL
"indirectly" Hdt trades Mags to Sfe. Then Sfe at some later time trades Mags to SB. ILLEGAL
So in the current situation, if the FTW#1 was a player then the trade would be against the rules. The question is does the trade prohibition extend to draft picks? I don't know the answer. I think it is against the spirit of the rule but I don't think it is technically a violation of our rules. That is why I defered to infinite wisdom of the YOC.
LOL......I figured this was gonna be a problem. I asked Eric to clear it with Tom before we made the trade to make sure it was ok. For the record it doesn't really matter to me. If it causes that much concern I'm willing to rework it. I believe the SPIRIT of the rule was to prevent two team owners from having an advantage over one team owners by being able to manipulate their extra resources to make trades for both teams. I believe Tom YOC has upheld the SPIRIT of the rule because the two trades were done obviously with no connection to each other. When the YOC informs me he has reversed his decision I will rework the trade, otherwise I'm assuming it stands as it had prior approval.
If I expected this reaction, I certainly would have worked out a trade using the top pick in the 2nd round instead! I acquired the pick in a deal involving 6 players and didn't get Sanchez until a later trade. Another offer that came on the same night as Tom asked about Nolasco set the price in my mind and we were able to work out a deal. As Tom says, the trades were completely independent of each other and Tom didn't expect that he would be able to get that #1 in the deal when we did start talking about Nolasco. I certainly don't see how you could call it an "indirect trade". After checking the constitution, it still seeemed like a gray area, so I checked with YOC first and then went ahead with it.
I don't agree that this move violates the letter or spirit of the rule. The rule was created to prevent any shifty moves of a player between one person's teams. Of course, that has happened anyway through the C auction. I don't think there's any dispute about the rule restricting the movement of players, although it could certainly be written more clearly. It was simply the best pick that I had available at the time. Why is trading him the 17th pick any different than the 16th or the 18th?
It seems like there's a lot more potential for abuse involving cash when making trades with an individual's 2 teams. It would also be possible to work out some sort of deal to overpay in a deal with one team while underpaying in a deal with the other. Perhaps it's too scary to bring up this stuff, but the rule can't totally protect us against bad trades, no matter how it's interpreted.
If people feel strongly that the league should not allow draft picks to be traded like this, then propose a rule change to specifically make that restriction and we'll see how it does.
The trade was illegal and should be rescinded. The rule has been in effect since 1982 and this is the first time it has been allowed. The rule states "Trades may not be made, directly or indirectly, between teams owned by the same manager." It doesn't specifically say "player" or "pick". It says "trades". Two previous Commissioners have stated the move was illegal. There is no need to make a rule proposal to keep this from happening because we have a current rule that disallows this trade.
If you want to propose a rule to change it where the moves can be allowed then do so. Since we now have 18 managers and 10 of the 18 ( a majority ) are two team owners, you shouldn't have any trouble getting it passed, but at this time it is not a legal trade.
