I've made the same argument about the situation being important, and in particular I lobbied to Mike on a couple of trades that were blocked where I was willing to give up more in terms of talent to get what I needed than may have been fair value. So I don't diagree with that in general, and in fact I'd say its the part of the trade evaluation process that bothers me the most because no one can know a team's needs or long term plans better than an owner.

But at the same time that only goes so far in justifying a trade. My comment about Arod, Jeter, et al was trying to illustrate that a trade still should be close to even for both sides no matter how unneeded a player is to a specific team. I wasn't equating Guillen to those players. However, he is above replacement level, and as I said before, its unlikely any team would cut him going into next season, while neither pitcher has much future value. With less than 50 games left, future value is very important.

In any case, you brought the topic up on this general board. Don't get all snippy about people not in your league commenting about it or not getting it - you made it a public discussion.

Fred C