Jon, I am , as I hope you know, I great admirer of yours. I think you've done a terriffic job in 99T2(boy, do we need a better name for that league) winning the first two championships and making a ton of trades. But I'm talking about two issues here. First is the trading issue which you're addressing. While you are right in a basic way, this is a real issue for people . Read the "Give us a clue" string below; there are a lot of owners trying to increase trading activity in PB. Your ideas on this are right on the money: contact everyone you want to trade with and propose deals yourself. BUT, read the posts Jon, it doesn't always work . Managers are frustrated by this and are looking for answers outside of the obvious.
Second point: the PB calendar. Is it being optimized right now? The idea of moving things up and keeping the playoffs away from the holidays looks like a worthwhile idea. So does the All-Star break idea. And the people who post in this forum undoubtedly have plenty more good ideas.
Maybe you're right about these things not effecting the offseason trade flow, but that makes it an even better idea to minimize this down time.