h2h Corner ~ I’m a Believer: April Edition

May 4, 2009

Apparently, I like to write serial columns (Keep, Trade or Drop, Closer Carousel and Katy Perry All-stars), and this will be no exception. Welcome to April’s “I’m a Believer” column. Read more

Written by Albert Lang · Filed Under H2H | 1 Comment 

Trivia Question

May 4, 2009

Who are the 6 active major league players with 2000 career hits and a .300 lifetime batting average? And which two are on the cusp?

Obviously its easy to find online but see if you can do it from memory. Check back tomorrow for the answer, as well as fantasy analysis on each of the 8.

I must give credit to Jayson Stark of ESPN for this question; I got 3 of the 6 very quickly, the 4th more slowly, the 5th after a while, and the 6th like 9 hours later (Not really, but it felt like it).

Written by Jesse Mendelson · Filed Under Blog | 4 Comments 

Trading Etiquette

May 4, 2009

Twice this year, I’ve had an experience where I thought I had a deal with another owner, only to have the deal not go through. Let me give you the 2 instances, and I’m very interested to hear your comments and thoughts on the issue. I’ve changed the other owner’s names, and it has come to my attention that the post was confusing with fake names, but since I don’t want to publicly sell the other owners up the river, I’ve tried to make it less confusing.

1) After about 3 weeks of negotiating, Paul proposes an offer of A and B for C.  I respond with something along the lines of that sounds good, and ask about the 2nd player from his team, mentioning D.  I don’t hear anything for 3 days, then he tells me that he changed his whole strategy based on my mentioning of D, and his offer is now off the table, and rescinded. It is my opinion that at the very least, his offer was a firm offer to which I agreed, and he backed out. Thoughts?

2) For the past 6 weeks, Peter and I have been discussing various trades and deals around Cobb, who is mine  We must have gone through about 40 iterations of various offers, deals, etc. Back and forth, back and forth, nothing set in stone, both sides not wanting to do anything yet. Finally, Friday afternoon, Peter makes me an offer – Cobb for DiMaggio, and he’ll even throw in Clemente if we can complete it that day.  I say I’d like someone else too, so what if I add in Mazeroski, who could I have back, and he says Musial, but I’ll have to look more closely. Later that day, I make him an official offer (i.e. through the Yahoo website) of Cobb and Mazeroski (mine) for DiMaggio, Clemente and Musial (his).  He does not respond, but I find out that after the offer was sent, he went to another owner to ask if he could deal Cobb for someone on his team, and what he thought of the deal. The other owner tells Peter than he doesn’t love the deal and he’s crazy to try to trade him. Lo and behold, I hear back Sunday night that Peter has decided not to do the deal because Cobb isn’t what he thought he was, and he doesn’t want him. I know this is not true, but I wonder if that is besides the point.  I told Peter I will not negotiate with him again, but rather only entertain official offers through the website, because clearly what he says is not reliable. Peter then re-offered the same crappy offer that I’d rejected a half-dozen times before. Again, your thoughts?

I would honestly like to see if people think I am being too much of a stickler, or if I am correct in thinking that Paul and Peter have broken the first rule of trading etiquette.

Written by Jesse Mendelson · Filed Under Blog | 3 Comments