Well said Dave. I completely agree with every point you made. I would like to add that I believe the entire unmanaged trade issue has worked extremely well in helping the unmanaged teams and providing an opportunity to help our own teams.
For the record:
I believe Mike does an excellent job of evaluating and providing reasons on unmanaged trades. He is even willing to reverse trades that get through him that are harmful to PB. I personally don't believe anyone could do a better job at objectively evaluating trades in the best interest of PB than Mike Bravard. Committees, Assistant commisioners, etc. will create different problems and won't have the vested interest of Mike Bravard. Limiting or putting certain values on who can be traded and who can't add additional problems that are not necessary.
The problem with all the unmanaged teams in PB is not because of bad unmanaged trades so restricting who can be traded to or from a unmanaged team changes the problem but does not address the real problem of unmanaged teams. The number of unmanaged teams is a lack of publiclty and customer service. So Mike's question is how do we feel about unmanaged trades not how do we solve the number of unmanaged teams.
PB is Mike Bravards product. I've seen him begin to trade between unmanaged teams to improve them for possible new managers or even to entice exisiting managers to take them over and to make them more competitive in the Leagues their competing. My point is... Mike has a great product and it is him who can best evaluate what is best for his product and that includes being the final say in trades. I've found that in EVERY trade I've had that Mike has been very objective and informative! The trades I've disagreed with, I've found that when I approached the disagreement discussion with Mike from an inquisitive approach rather than being hostile or degrading or putting him on the defense, Mike provides logical and objective reasons for his decisions. Mike is a very good baseball man who keeps up with the players and the game. I've found that he is not going to intentionally make calls that are off the wall. He will admit mistakes if not cornered and make changes if given the opportunity. I may still disagree at times but it has always been my opinion that is in disagreement, not the logic or what's best for the PB environment.