FAAB Trading, Like It or Not

By Brian Walton, Tout NL champ 2009

[Editors Note: Brian wrote and submitted this story before the recent FAABonanza played out in Tout NL on July 31st. You can view the results of the trading deadline frenzy here.]

The concept of trading FAAB (free agent allocation budget) dollars is a most interesting and topical subject currently. As the major leagues are approaching their non-waiver trade deadline on Sunday, fantasy owners in many FAAB leagues were maneuvering as well.

Though not the case in all formats, in many leagues including Tout Wars, FAAB can be traded right along with players. However, any money acquired in any given week cannot be used until the next – meaning to increase the contents in one’s war chest in time to use this weekend, owners had to complete their deals prior to this past Monday.

The goal of some is to accrue the highest available FAAB balance. That would allow the cash leader to hopefully snag the best player coming into the league at the deadline, when AL-NL and NL-AL trade activity is traditionally at its highest.

Having the third-highest FAAB total in NL Tout Wars this season at $82 is not somewhere I planned to be. I generally subscribe to the theory of acquiring needed parts whenever possible, even if that is in week one.

As I wrote in this column back in May, the league-wide push to grab and stash all the top prospects before they were ever called up meant the 2011 in-season free agent pool has been very sparse. I don’t feel like I had missed out in the bidding for any difference-makers, yet I have only spent $18 to date. Earlier this week, my NL Tout competitor Peter Kreutzer wrote about this phenomenon as well.

The hard-charging second-place owner, Steve Gardner of USA Today, pulled off the only FAAB-related trade in NL Tout last week. Gardner added $7 FAAB as part of a four-player trade announced at Monday’s weekly deadline. This broke his $96 tie for the most FAAB with ESPN’s Tristan H. Cockcroft.

Gardner made the deal despite – or perhaps because of – an acute awareness that most of the talent rumored to be changing leagues might be heading from the NL to the AL, not vice-versa.

Steve wrote about that earlier this week, including his hopes that at least one marquee name – Tampa’s B.J. Upton – will be on the move to the Senior Circuit. Fortunately, two days of wheeling and dealing remains, because as I write this, Edwin Jackson is the much-less desirable consolation prize as the best AL-to-NL mover so far. That is not likely where Steve wants to spend his $97.

It gets worse. Sitting third in the pecking order currently means I could be fighting it out for the likes of Octavio Dotel and Corey Patterson. Ugh!

While matters may improve over the next 48 hours, I was not holding out hope last weekend. I received an unsolicited trade inquiry from another owner that did not match up exactly with what I wanted to do, but offered some potential.

I wanted to move a surplus of middle infielders and closers and hoped to add a quality starting pitcher. I threw out .300-hitting Darwin Barney in response for a request for batting average help and suggested my closers from three winning teams – Philadelphia, St. Louis and Atlanta. I also own potential handcuffs for the first two situations, each with some uncertainty.

My prospective trade partner had three good starters and not surprisingly offered me the least appealing of the three. Perhaps the combination of knowing the trade was not all he wanted and the fact it was still at least 12 hours before the weekly deadline, the other owner made an offer – sort of.

“Would you do Madson, Barney and $50 for (my pitcher)? I guess it puts me in position to gain if I get lucky at the deadline, but I would have a hard time pulling the trigger,” he wrote.

It was an unusual offer that he later admitted that he did not expect I would accept, but if executed, would vault this owner far ahead of both Gardner and Cockcroft in FAAB. My take was that having the third-most money might buy me very little and even with $32 left, I would be smack in the middle – seventh of 13 owners in FAAB.

With FAAB not a major consideration, then for me, the deal was a closer and a second baseman for a starter.

After some discussion and about five hours of elapsed time for the other owner to analyze the deal, he came back with this.

“The deal: Madson, Barney, Lidge plus $50”

On one hand, it was understandable for him to want to handcuff the two Philly relievers as I did when buying them on draft day. Yet, I was peeved that he made an offer and later came back asking for more. He would not budge on improving the quality of the starter that would be coming my way.

In this three-for-one, I feared the second opening on my pitching staff would lead to an erosion of WHIP and ERA. For that same reason on his side, my prospective partner would not include a quality middle reliever to sweeten my end of the deal.

After more give and take discussion but no agreement, four hours later, at 9 P.M., I called off discussions. Then, the real fun began.

With time running out after having invested most of my day in negotiations with this owner, I asked him how much FAAB he would spend on Barney if the second baseman was a free agent. Unaware of the Gardner trade at this time, we both thought that $15 was all I needed to leap to the top and that Barney would likely fetch in the low $20’s at least.

The other owner bid just $8, a lowball offer he knew I would not accept. More so than his feeling that Barney would not be a difference-maker for his team, my now-ex-prospective trade partner was stuck on a major philosophical and ethical concern.

He does not believe in FAAB trading and did not want to disrupt the competitive balance of the league by vaulting me to the top of the FAAB list. We both accepted that he would not close the delta between us in the standings. In other words, this stance was not about our relative position, now or later.

I initially had a very hard time understanding his position since we had just spent most of the day negotiating a trade that would have given him the same FAAB hammer that I was now seeking. I guess when he made the first offer, he assumed I would never agree to trade so much FAAB.

After further discussion, I learned he was looking at the trade in a much broader perspective. He felt my gain – the ability to make the high bid on the top free agent the next week – was too imbalanced with his benefit – a non-distinguished middle infielder. My logical argument of Barney’s true market value was irrelevant to him in this context.

We had essentially reached the midnight deadline with no agreement, but the next day, the other owner said he would have bid more FAAB for Madson had he thought of it in time. I was confused as I had taken his conscientious objection of FAAB trading to heart and did not make a counterproposal after the $8 Barney bid and its explanation.

In hindsight, I clearly spent too much time trying to make his deal work instead of pushing other options, at least in parallel. On the other hand, had I settled for $15 for Barney, I would still be just second in the NL Tout FAAB pecking order.

As it is, I am hoping and praying for three quality players to join the NL from the AL before Sunday night turns into Monday morning.

On the big picture item here, what do you think about the position of the other owner? Are you “for” or “against” trading of FAAB? If “for,” would you put any restrictions on it? If so, what would they be?