Proposal: prohibiting an owner with more than one team from bidding on a player in the C Auction on behalf of one team owned by that players other team.
Rationale: owners with more than one team seem to have an unfair advantage if they use one team to artificially inflate the price of players owned by their other team in the C Auction. I am not accusing anyone of prior shenanigans, but I have observed things that raise questions, like late bids and other actions taken in the C auction in this two-team scenario. This has led to some bad feelings at worste and distorts the market at best.
Definitely open to suggestions and tweaks to the rule there are other possibilities like reducing amounts paid to team losing player in c auction, etc that might be more difficult to implement but others might see as preferred to an outright ban on bids. Also interested if anyone else has seen this problem, or if you think I am imagining things.
I certainly see Josh's point, but as a relatively new 2-team owner, I would submit that simply trying to drive up the price on a player from one's other team comes at a very significant risk of getting stuck with a player that one doesn't actually want. I would think that the number of players who are bid on because they actually make sense for the other team to try to acquire (regardless of the source) would far outweigh attempts to inflate the market, but maybe I'm wrong...
As a long-time 2-team owner, I admit that I am totally biased here. But I often have players that I want to keep but that don't make sense for one team anymore. Andrew McCutchen being a prime example - SFE tried to trade him but had no takers, so they put him in the C and TER needed a guy exactly like that so they picked him up.
The one thing that has had me raise a slight eyebrow occasionally has been when a very marginal guy gets put on a C and the only bid is the $150 from the co-owned team. Not suggesting that there is anything inherently wrong, but it does seem like maybe that guy wouldn't have been put on a C without knowing that there was a cushion from the other team available. So maybe requiring either a higher minimum bid from a co-owned team or only allowing the co-owned team to bid after someone else did? Just some thoughts.
As another two-team guy, I'd support this rule change. Of course there are situations where your other could use the player and outbid another team for him, but I think that scenario it secondary to the inherent advantage of either driving up a price for the financial benefit of your other team, or "transferring" cash from one team to another by submitting opening bids on bad players. I think erring on the safe side, and thereby removing any suspicion of "gaming the system" is the best route.
I agree with Tom, don't think the issue is bidding up your other team's players (too much of a downside possibly getting stuck with a player your other team doesn't need), its the putting crappy players on c knowing you have a "cushion" with your other team bidding on them if they get no bid. I like the idea of you can't be the first to bid on your other team's player.
Consensus so far seems to be that a total ban is too much.
Mike's suggestion about prohibiting a co-owner from making the first bid is good and seems to adequately address the "cushion problem" without being unduly burdensome.
I do think folks underestimate the "driving the price up" problem. I can recall more than once (can't recall specific players, though) where a Second Team owner jumps into the auction at "going twice" in an effort to drive up the price. I would like to believe in markets, and, yes, there is risk in getting "stuck" with a player, but given the dynamics of an auction the reward of driving up the price seems to outweigh that risk. Not saying it happens a lot, but when it does, it feels manipulative and shady.
There are some complicated solutions, like "if you bid once, you have to bid twice", but maybe just tweaking the numbers a bit will get the incentives lined up to help the market work right.
(Added benefit: should speed up the C Auction by having fewer players and fewer last-second bids)
What about changing the rule to the following:
If the Owner of the C Player declines to match, he receives a refund of the 125K C contract salary + 50% of the high bid. If no one bids on the player, the Owner of the C Player must retain the player for 125K. The Owner of the "C" player is prohibited from making the first bid on a "C" player on behalf of a another team controlled by the same Owner. In the event that the high bid on a "C" player is from another team controlled by the same Owner, the refund will be reduced to the 125K C contract salary + 25% of the high bid.
From a pure "I'm the poor sucker who has to run the thing" perspective, I would personally beg that it not be too complicated.
A rule that a co-owned team can't make the first bid? Easy to remember and enforce.
Different percentages of refunds depending on ownership? Much more complicated. I 100% guarantee I won't be able to track that during the auction.
FWIW I also think that while Josh may be right that there is some fuzziness in motivations there, there is also the obvious downside. I know we've all been in the situation where we regretted having made that "just one more bid" in the heat of a moment on a guy we ended up being stuck with.
This may be the one time I have total sympathy for Tom... no desire to make things too complicated. OK, maybe a little desire...
I would have thought different percentages would be relatively easy to track... but I also know things move fast so don't want to mess everything up and defer to his experience.
I would support a flat ban on bids on players controlled by the same owner -- just like such trades are prohibited. But if that is too much..
What about a proposal that just targets "sniping" or last minute shill bids:
If the Owner of the C Player declines to match, he receives a refund of the 125K C contract salary + 50% of the high bid. If no one bids on the player, the Owner of the C Player must retain the player for 125K. The Owner of the "C" player is prohibited from the following bids on behalf of another team controlled by the same owner: (a) making the first bid or (b) making any bids after the auctioneer announces "going once" or similar statement indicating the end of active bidding.
This issue last came up (at least publicly) quite a few years ago. At that time I made a proposal that was practically identical to one of the suggestions that has been made in this thread: that a two-team owner can't make the opening bid on a player owned by his other team, but once somebody else has opened the bidding, the two-team owner can bid like anybody else.
That proposal failed at the time. However, we've had enough turnover since then that voting on it again could make sense.
