Should I stop the trade

[Sarg2000]

we have a 15 year old keeper league, points only.
We are allowed to keep 12 players which does not leave much for the draft.

we have 2 new owners this year

they wnat the following trade

QB Palmer
WR HOUSHMANDZADEh
rb Cad. Williams

for
1st and 2nd rd draft picks
which are
The 1st pick of the draft and 13th pick of the draft

Obviously this is a bad trade but we all know each other and I have talked to the owner that is trading the players and he truely believes he will end up with the better end of the deal a few years down the road. I have the authority to not allow the trade and have never used this power in the past but this one seems really bad. Do I stop it even though the one owner is just stupid??? I really believe there is no foul play involved. This guys just stupid.

His 1st pick of our draft which is THE #1 pick will be a rookie RB (Peterson or Lynch)

[knapplc]

As a standard rule you should only veto trades that are without-a-doubt collusion. The problem with vetoing trades that are uneven is you end up acting as a "super manager" sitting over the top of the other league managers, back-seat-driving all of their decisions. That’s not the role of the commissioner. You are there to facilitate the league, make sure there’s no cheating, and to make it fun.

The best option is probably to have a voting system whereby a majority of your league has to vote against a trade before it’s denied. That way no one person (you especially) takes the heat for a deal getting vetoed.

[PHI]

As knapplc said, you don't veto a trade unless there is obvious collusion. And while this trade looks obviously uneven now, if Palmer goes down for the season in week 1 and Caddy has another bad year, I think the trade swings in the favor of the other guy and he'll be mad if you've blocked it "to keep him from making a mistake".

As for having a league voting system in place, I don't agree. Too many times, I've seen trades voted down for selfish reasons: "I wanted that player", "this trade might make his team better than mine", "if this trade goes through, I'll have to play against that player this week", or some similarly silly reason. It's hard enough to find one person who can be objective enough to let fair or close to fair trades go through. It's nearly impossible to find a whole league of owners like that.

[knapplc]

As for having a league voting system in place, I don't agree. Too many times, I've seen trades voted down for selfish reasons: "I wanted that player", "this trade might make his team better than mine", "if this trade goes through, I'll have to play against that player this week", or some similarly silly reason. It's hard enough to find one person who can be objective enough to let fair or close to fair trades go through. It's nearly impossible to find a whole league of owners like that.

This is a good point, and is the biggest flaw in any voting system. Essentially you have to have a group of owners with enough integrity to remove themselves from the situation and judge objectively.

There are two ways to run the vote – either the majority has to approve for it to go through, or the majority has to disapprove for it to get vetoed. I tend to go for the latter, since having a 2/3 or even 3/4 majority rule to veto makes it more likely that those selfish owners are mitigated by those with integrity.