Rant

This is a rant on fantasy baseball so feel free to skip it if that's not your cup of tea. There is a fantastically sarcastic bit which could be worth sticking around for. I'll try to keep it short. In most fantasy baseball leagues closers are vastly overvalued relative to their actual worth in Major League Baseball. The league I'm in attempts to not do this, and has succeeded quite well. As such, most of the 12 teams on our league carry only 2 closers, leaving some starting closer on the free agent wire. So when I acquired a closer as a throw-in in a trade, giving me three, I realized I had something I didn't want, but perhaps someone else would. The asset in question, Huston Street, was the 4th best closer in our league on points, but save opportunities are extremely fickle in nature. In the trade that I acquired Street in, I traded two of my starting pitchers, depleting my staff some. So I tried to find a contending team with less than two quality closers who could offer a mid-level starting pitcher. Voila! Assuming Jordan Zimmermann, Yovani Gallardo, James Shields, and Ricky Romero were out of reach, I offered Street for either Chad Gaudin or Glen Perkins. I got Gaudin. But wait, there is a waiting period for trades so that the other managers in the league can protest. This is to prevent collusion. Lo and behold, the trade gets protested and vetoed. Now, I'd be a lot hotter under the collar if this was a major trade (like the one I hope gets accepted), but this was very minor. The real impetus for this post came from a message on the league board from my older brother, defending the trade as legitimate. The fantastically sarcastic bit I promised earlier:

it's one of two things:

1. Scott Peterson at 1 game back of a playoff position is clearly throwing in the towel with 6 weeks to go, not to mention the fact that he obviously has a vested personal interest in stacking Jeff Eschen's team to make a strong playoff run, therefore we must put an end to this blatant collusion and veto the trade.

or

2. Scott has enough at the closer position, feels that closers are a dime a dozen, and would rather trade a guy who doesn't start for him every week for a 26 year old starter who is SP/RP eligible, and has struck out more than 10% more batters than hits given up this year, and even if the rest of us don't see the immediate rationale, we should decide not to veto every trade we personally wouldn't do ourselves

(and/or 3, I like run-on sentences.)

If that doesn't send the protesting party into hiding, then nothing well. I couldn't have summed it up better myself. And while I shake my head at the inability of owners in our league to grasp the concept of relative value, their ignorance is surely to my benefit. Goodnight.