I didn't know my unmanaged trade would spark so much debate. It takes a DIFFERENCE of value judgements in order to execute a trade. For example in my league there was a trade of Ichiro for Manny. Clearly these managers (both very successful) valued the players differently. They play the same position and are about the same age.

The Baldelli/Webb trade was a perfect example of this. I think the real debate is how you value Baldelli, not the trade itself.

I personally don't think Baldelli's going to develop into much, but many people disagree with me. At the time of the trade he hadn't drawn a walk in 12 straight games I believe. There are hundreds of guys in the minors that run really fast, make good contact, and show lots of "tools". The D-rays are the only team that would bring him up so early and rave about how he does such a good job hitting singles. There's a good chance I could be proven wrong however ... in that case I'll regret giving up a young CF with no replacement.

As you can see in 99RT5 I made 4 huge trades in the matter of about a week ... more on that later. I'm a new owner and wanted Baldelli OFF the team I inherited. I got some info that the commish liked Baldelli so I tried him. I found it very difficult to pry Webb from him, even though I knew he liked Baldelli very much and thought Webb would be less than Jackson/Tsao (funny that I now own all 3 of those pitchers). I think Ohka, Harang, picks upgrade and catcher swap were more than enough to grease the wheels of this trade. I was actually surprised that it took so much since I knew he liked Baldelli.

The commish should be congratulated for taking such good care of the many unmanaged teams.

It's exactly this type of discussion that makes PB fun. I've been here for less than a year, but I haven't found a game that simulates being a GM so well.

Kurt