Edward Murphy wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 3:29 pm
From all the comments looks like another bonehead trade again. In the past GMs felt I kept Moreland and Arreola to long and should have traded then earlier. Now I’m looking for more prospects to feed the ML and feel FA bats are easy to find, but FA pitching is costly. Maybe it is my fault not reaching out for advice more offend. Dam if I do Dam if I don’t
Ed, there are a lot of GMs that aren't honest brokers in trade dealings in this league. Honestly, some days it feels like there are less that are on the up and up than those whom aren't. Those whom are vocal on the subject bring it up often in the hopes that it will sink into the MBBA Id to enact positive change. That has not worked, obviously. Further, these GMs have some habitual victims that they continually go back to the well to and, to be perfectly blunt, you are one of them. I hate that these public displays of outrage might make you feel bad. It's a difficult subject to broach from a 'feelings' standpoint, but just know that no one is trying to shame you - we are trying to shame them. Their behavior has OBVIOUS benefits (being able to get great talent for not great talent - habitually) so there NEEDS to be negative consequences if we ever want them to stop. Lacking any significant power to stem the tide of their actions, the only means to enact those negative consequences is to call them out loudly and frequently for what they do.
I can't imagine that you like for this to continually happen to you, so here are my two pieces of advice.
1) Be skeptical of trade offers as a default. You long ago were marked as a soft target for these types of individuals to take advantage of. As such, you probably haven't gotten a fair trade offer in real life years. After all, once everyone knows that you'll take deals like the one Omaha offered you, why would they ever do anything else? It sucks, but it's human nature to be terrible to one another. As such, you might not even know what a fair trade offer is. One tactic I've seen often amongst the sharks is to offer you a pile of shit up front as a means to convince you that the piss stained underwear is a meaningful "give and take" from their side. It's a form of gaslighting, and the fact that it's probably been happening to you for real life years now must have you in a pretty off kilter head space in this regard. The only one that can stop the abuse is you, though. A wholesale trade moratorium for awhile might not be the worst idea, to be honest - take the time to observe other trades (and the reactions to them) as a means to 'reset your baseline'.
2) I *strongly* recommend that you start reaching out to other GMs for second opinions on trades. You probably don't like me very much because of posts exactly like this one, but I'd be glad to offer you a second opinion. I can confidently say that Ted is one of the few truly honest brokers in trade negotiations and is very knowledgeable, so I would consider him a tremendous resource. You have good rapports with other GMs as well that you can reach out to. Regardless of whom you choose, though, please be EVEN MORE aware of #1 in these settings. If someone knows they've taken a foot hold in your confidence it's even easier for them to take advantage of you. And I'd *highly* recommend you err on the side of caution by getting multiple opinions, too. I imagine you could learn quite a bit about the overall intentions of the people giving you advice if you benchmark it against a larger data set.