Are mail and trade offers just a bother to you?

[the splinter]

[quote:df42924b79]For example, if I have Abreu, and I get offered Vlad for him, well it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why I have Abreu and he has Vlad.[/quote:df42924b79]

While I certainly agree with this statement most of the time....after the draft when you can assess the divison the deal might make sense....funny,it does seem to be Abreu and Vald most often in this scenario.

[kimkrichbaum2]

Some Ideas on Trading

First of all, 80 Mil leagues are hard for trading, if you really love trading, 200 mil leagues and certain theme leagues offer the easiest opportunities.
I have found that often if I am flexible, and really listen to what someone else wants, we can find a trade.

Making offers:
*Look not only for who you want, but for who you have to offer and what teams might need them
* send an e-mail to the league listing who you have to offer and what you want
* when you send a trade, send along other options ideas
* Don't offer obvious screw overs, hoping the person may be new or dumb!
* Listen to other's request - Don't offer someone who says they need a left fielder 2 catchers! (I've had this kind of thing happen to me so many times)

When Responding:
* Let the person know if they are in the ballpark, and if there are any other options, rather than just saying no - for example, "I like my team and I'm not into trading right now" or "Manny is not available, are you are interested in one of my other outfielders" or "This deal was close, could I have a have a different reliever instead of Hancock"
* Assume the person has good intent and just thinks differently than you, rather than assume they are trying to screw you.
* let someone you trade know what you are looking for. "What I need is a catcher who can hit righties if you are willing to trade Posada, or can trade for a catcher to give me, let's talk."
* Say yes, no, or I'm thinking about it, rather than just letting a trade offer hang.

[LMBombers]

Great advice litangel. I agree with you 100%. 8-)

[worrierking]

I rarely make trades. Sometimes it works out, most often in preseason. Some people love to make trades because that's one of the appealing things about the game to them, the idea of being a wheeling and dealing GM. But that's not me. In general terms, the trade offers I get usually are more of a bother than an opportunity.

Here's another suggestion; try to trade when your team is underperforming and try to trade with other sub .500 teams. Successful teams are extremely unlikely to want to make changes.

[Play By The Rules]

I love trading, but it's VERY hard to do in this game... I usually send out at least a dozen offers before waivers, hardly ever do those result in a deal.

As far as mail goes, I like it to an extent. If it becomes one guy e-mailing everyone in the league with his weekly updates about his team, with tons of responses also send my league mail, to me that's NOT cool. I always start a thread in the individual league chat section, and suggest that the banter be held in that location.

With tons of teams, it's a distraction to have to read non-essential league spam. Of course whenever I mention that I usually get flamed. It's just as easy to click off the other ten owners in the league when you send that kind of mail than to click "send all", but most of the time that request is considered an insult.

I wish that the people who play these games would be more willing to make more trades. It would make the game a lot more fun.

[durantjerry]

Bottom line is that SOMO IS a salary cap game which will greatly limit the number of trades that can be made that will truly help both teams. I guess the lesson to be learned is if you are going to be involved in a lot of trading, make sure your one of the people throwing out a lot of one-sided favorable **** up against the wall to see what sticks rather than one of the saps thats getting involved in a lot of trades by cleaning the **** off the wall.

[JdEarly]

First, I am a 7-time champ who has received a lot of help from DJ over the last couple of years, whether he knows it or not.

As for the way trades go, I do enjoy making trades but I don't find it very easy to do so after the season is started. Sometimes you enter the season still with a hole to fill, such as a slick fielding offensive albatross who brings down your run production (Adam Everett, Chris Duffy) without adequate support around them. Sometimes you have a group of relievers who, after your closer, you really aren't incredibly comfortable with. Whatever. Making the numbers match up in terms of salary is often far too difficult because everyone is so close to the maximum salary (generally $80 million) that it takes pinpoint, dead on identical salary exchanges.

Personally, I am much more willing to make a deal when I have a team that just incredibly sucks. Like monumental amounts of suckage. It happens early every year, when everyone is still trying to figure out what parks and cards they like. When my teams suck, I don't care about losing cap space from dropping players, so I am more than willing to make a deal that can help someone else while also allowing me to check out some new cards. Does that make sense? I will drop a player to create the cap space necessary to make a deal, if need be.

This is a huge help for later in the year, when I figure what parks I am good at putting teams in, and it allows me to experiment on a lower level than DJ (I "only" field an average of about a dozen teams a year), but still allows me to have some information to pass on to people who ask questions. I have to admit, it also helps me to field fairly competitve teams almost every time out later in the year, because I know what works for me. Kind of figure out my element, if you will. I can construct a pretty decent team with pitching, speed, and defense even if I don't have the time to make the post-waiver frenzy... but I doubt I could compete with an All-Masher unit even if I had $20 million more to spend than everyone else. That's just this year.

I'm rambling, sorry. Anyhow, I enjoy making trades, but really find it difficult unless I am willing to sacrifice cap space with drops to accomodate.

[DHowser]

I think a good thing to do, which isn't ever done, is to send a message to the league during the season when you're thinking of dropping a player. This way maybe you can work out a trade with someone and not lose the waiver penalty. I don't know how many times I've seen someone who I wanted pre season be dropped mid way through. For example, if someone has Ichiro in a HR hitters park and he's just not performing, instead of dropping him put a message out there that he is available, and maybe someone in a singles park can offer you a HR hitter for him. I just find it frustrating to lose out on a player and then see them on the waiver wire 25 games into the season.

[Coffeeholic]

A timely topic [b:ff5b29e0b4]rmilter[/b:ff5b29e0b4], as of late I've been getting quite frustrated with the lack of courtesy and comraderie in some of the leagues I'm in.

Unfortunately, there's no rule in SOMO that says you have to be friendly or courteous, so... what'cha gonna do?

Probably the best thing is to look to join leagues with managers who you know and who have similar philosophies/values as you. There are a ton of really decent people involved with this game.

[b:ff5b29e0b4]Durantjerry[/b:ff5b29e0b4] (aka. "Fatty") is one of those "good guys". He's also a very good player, and I'm pretty sure that most experienced players will agree with him on his bad trade offer examples.

[HizzyForShizzy]

One of my biggest frustrations is when you make an offer, it gets declined, then the person drops the player you wanted the next night.

The only time I accept or offer a really lopsided trade is down the stretch when one team is in playoff hunt and other team is 15-20 games out of plaoff contention.