A commish needs an arbitrator ruling!

[SHOTimer]

Background: 7 year running active keeper league. Our trade policy is that there is a review panel of 3 teams in which 2 of 3 must vote approve on trades. Abstained votes after 48 hours are "approves". While the espn setting is to process trades in 3 days, after the 2 days if it hasn't received 2 votes against, I as commish push them through.

Team A traded 4 players to Team B for 2 players. Therefore Team A was to have 2 open roster spots open post trade. Based on the time of when the trade was accepted, I should have pushed the trade through Friday morning at 12:11AM. Waivers went through on Friday morning at 3:30AM. Team A that was to have the open roster spots texts me on Friday that he is mad that I never pushed the trade through the night before and that he would have put a claim in for waiver wire player Brandon Lafell. Instead, another team, team C in the league added Lafell.

I kindly asked Team C if he would be willing to give Lafell to team A but he replied that he didn't feel that was necessary and made the claim that anybody could always then just say "oh but I would have made the claim". While it is true I did not follow our Constitution and push the trade through on time, there is no proof that team A was either awake or would have actually made that waiver claim for Lafell in the approximately 3.5 hour time window before waivers pushed through. And while Team A asked me on Thursday when I would or could process the trade, he never indicated or gave me any reason as to why he was inquiring such as that he was planning on adding a waiver player.

If that's not bad enough, it gets worse. Team A lost this week by EXACTLY 4 points which is what Lafell scored.

If that's not bad enough, it gets worse. When I went to post something about the issue on our league page tonight (Monday), I find a message that I missed Sunday morning by Team C that said he would be willing to give up Lafell BEFORE any of the games were even played this weekend.

I have no other choice but to take this to a non-partisan arbitrator to rule on this.

I see 2 options of resolution:
1) Leave everything as is. While it was my fault that I not process the trade on time, there is NO proof that team A would have actually made the waiver claim in the 3.5 hour time window. Team C made the claim and was awarded the player. Nothing else should be done.
2) Place Lafell on team A's roster. The first and most significant error was that the trade was not processed timely allowing him to make his waiver claim. His intention was clear that he wanted that player. Also, alter his scoring from this weeks matchup to add the 4 points that Lafell would have scored giving him and his opponent a tie.

Please help decide for our league. Please vote and explain your reply. It will be the best of the first 5 replies to decide. If only 3 people reply it will be best of 3 and if only 1 person replies by Thursday 5PM CST, I will go with that 1 reply.

[SHOTimer]

Oh. And while Lafell scored 4, the player he would have started him for (Jerome Simpson) scored 0. So yes the 4 points that Lafell scored were EXACTLY what he lost by.

[spodog]

You can't go back and revise the guys starting lineup. Even if you opted to award him LaFell retroactively, you can't alter his starting lineup under the assumption that he may have started LaFell instead of Jerome Simpson.

1. Let the games stand as they are.
2. Leave the rosters as they are. LaFell stays with Team C.


3. Why process waivers in the middle of the night? Do it when everyone is awake, alert and can communicate and respond to issues.

[SHOTimer]

Thank you for your input. Regarding issue number 3 I don't believe ESPN allows you to alter the time it processes waivers, just simply the day. They process at about 3:30 AM CST every week.

I would appreciate 4 more replies so that I can get a consensus opinion before I rule. Thank you in advance.

[shawngee03]

i agree to keep as is. it will piss off 1 team, while making the change will piss off multilple people and open yourself up to having to do this in the future, allowing people to take advantage of it

i woudl express to the league that you made a mistake, which is allowed as you are human. you express your apologies and have used this as a learning experience and will not make the same mistake again. put togther clear rules now based on this mishap and make sure you have a full proof plan in place to make sure it never happens again. call it the "[insert team name that got screwed] Rule"

i can basically rewrite that last paragraph for any type of mistake someone in a leadership role makes in life. sure one person feels jipped, but its for the greater good you dont compound the problem and proceed with making sure it never happens again. the hurt team will forget it all happened if he wins this week

[Hags888]

EDIT.

Not sure if anyone read the previous version of this post, but after giving it considerably more thought, I think you need to go with option 1. You're at fault here, and you'll have to apologize profusely. Maybe take the owner of Team A out to dinner or something? But, it would be a terrible precedent to undo the waiver process based on what someone "might have done", and an even worse scenario to change the scoring. There's no way to know if Team A would have even started LaFell in the first place over Simpson.

I am sympathetic to Team A's cause though. It sucks for them to have a commissioner who not only botched the trade proposal, but also botched the league messages about the player swap prior to the games being played. At this point, I'd allow LaFell to be given to Team A if Team C is still willing to do it, but it shouldn't change anything at this point. What's done is done. Team A should have anticipated the trade going through and placing a waiver claim much earlier. It's a tough lesson to learn, but you have to plan ahead in fantasy football. I agree with the poster above who suggested to add another rule to the constitution to clarify this kind of situation. Good luck.

[SHOTimer]

Thank you. This topic is now closed. I have posted these replies on our page. The results will stay as is. I have apologized to the parties involved and have decided to add 2 cocommishes starting next year that will have a 2 fold effect. 1) we will sit down before next season to craft a tighter league constitution that will hopefully prevent these types of issues. 2) will give up some of my league power and allow them to be able to help take care of such timely issues in which maybe I wasn't able to take care of.