fantasy trade review

i am the commissioner of an espn auction fantasy baseball league. there are 11 teams and 1 team purchased about 7 closers and figured they would use them as assets in trades. that's a fine strategy depending on how much you paid for them and depending on whether or not you're going to get equal value especially when other teams know you want to get rid of a few of them.

so a couple of days ago i received the specifics of an accepted trade detailed here:
Team A (w/7 closers): gives 1) buster posey; 2) nick markakis; 3) brandon lyon
Team B (w/2 closers): gives 1) kurt suzuki; 2) curtis granderson

my first reaction was shock. as i do whenever i question the motives of the trading partners, i immediately contacted the manager of Team A. he proceeded to tell me that he thought granderson would produce and that his plan was to pick up jorge posada as his catcher to replace posey. if you look at espn's projections for 2011, his logic actually made sense.

one manager in particular was screaming bloody foul at this trade and demanded i veto the trade. but, it is not my duty to veto trades i disagree with but rather to protect against complete idiocy (like trading for an injured player) or collusion... this was neither (it was just plain old idiocy).

the bottom line is that managers are going to fall in love with particular players and there is no logic behind it. year after year people will overpay for the hot prospect or big name player who is 2 years removed from their career year. it's the nature of the fantasy beast.

in this case, Team A was willing to rid themselves of arguably the 2nd best catcher in baseball, a solid outfielder and a closer with a job for a yankee who can't hit lefties and bats in the 7/8 hole most nites. to make matters worse, jorge posada was picked up by another team ruining his plan anyway.

is this the worst trade i've ever seen? probably not, but if i'm going to trade away a valuable asset like a closer and a premiere young stud at a weak position i better be getting back a helluva lot more than a future platoon player.