This has been a popular topic for years, and since there is currently a lively debate going on in ULB about it, I wanted to bring it to the forums and see what the current temperature was on the subject.

We have a 25M hard cap on prospects. So, you are limited to spending no more than that for all your draft picks and your international prospects. We had a gentleman who spent 21.7m on an international prospect and it did not leave him enough to sign his first round draft pick, because he did not have any extra money to move into his prospects budget and get him to the 25m. He offered up a decent minor leaguer for 4m in order to raise the money to sign that draft pick.

I am opposed to selling players, but I would like to hear everyone else's opinion.

My opinion is:
1) You can do anything want in trade with your assets, unless 10 owners veto it.
2) I will veto any cash for prospects trade unless the prospect in question is (a) clearly a marginal major league prospect but also (b) clearly a major league prospect. If you sell a genuinely good prospect I'll veto it, because the good prospect is clearly worth more than the $5M cap; if you sell a non-prospect the trade is also unfair in the other direction.

If the "decent minor leaguer" either is or projects to be a usable bench player, better than rule 5 but not worth going to arb with, then I'd let it go. Otherwise I'd veto.

Depends on the World for me. In some of the Worlds in which I participate, cash trades are common and you can count on certain owners selling off their arb1/arb2 guys for cash. In one World in which I participate, "cash for player" trades are not allowed. In other Worlds, only a certain amount of cash is allowed in a trade.

For me, if the World rules have language regarding cash trades, then I want them to be followed and I will try to catch trades that are not following the rules.

However, in general, I am in favor of cash as long as they are reasonable. For instance, if your strategy is to only play a guy on your MLB team for the minimum and he is useful to another team despite being paid an arb1 or arb2 salary, and you trade him to that other team for a reasonable amount of cash (500k to 1.5MM), I don't mind it. Another situation is when you are sitting at the end of a season with 18+ million in prospect cash and an Intl prospect populates that you want to blow your wad on, but there is another owner that has 19 million in cash, if you can pull off a trade for cash to get you over the hump, I have no problem with that either as long as there are no rules against it in the Private World Rules section. What I don't like to see and will veto every time is when a veteran owner sells off his 30+ aged infielder for $5MM cash. I know we can't have a private world rule for each unique situation, but I would think that people can use some common sense.

Also, the situation that is mentioned above in the original post, I would not have a problem with. In fact, if there are people on the board whining and moaning about it, I would probably tell them to pipe down unless there are certain rules against it.

Damag put this the best I had put it: If the prospect offered for cash is someone you’d draft in the position that is going to be signed, I’d allow it. If not, VETO.

I don’t see any difference between trading cash and trading players. Many times someone wants to trade a ML player for prospects, but he has to agree to add some cash to get the deal done. Nothing wrong with that. If someone gets stuck with a ton of unused money after IFA signings, why can’t he use that money to buy a player from another team. Money is a commodity like any prospect. Equal value trades should never be vetoed.

Posted by hockey1984 on 12/26/2020 9:13:00 PM (view original):
Damag put this the best I had put it: If the prospect offered for cash is someone you’d draft in the position that is going to be signed, I’d allow it. If not, VETO.

Dang, I've been around long enough that I don't remember when I said that. Probably did.

My actual opinion is that it depends on the world. If your world has rules, follow them. If it doesn't, there's likely a gentlemen's agreement or unwritten rules... or maybe none. Regardless, the point of having your choice among worlds should be to play with other owners who agree on playing style. If you find yourself the guy who's constantly arguing what's right you're just making a headache for yourself.

Posted by damag on 12/27/2020 7:31:00 AM (view original):

Posted by hockey1984 on 12/26/2020 9:13:00 PM (view original):
Damag put this the best I had put it: If the prospect offered for cash is someone you’d draft in the position that is going to be signed, I’d allow it. If not, VETO.

Dang, I've been around long enough that I don't remember when I said that. Probably did.

My actual opinion is that it depends on the world. If your world has rules, follow them. If it doesn't, there's likely a gentlemen's agreement or unwritten rules... or maybe none. Regardless, the point of having your choice among worlds should be to play with other owners who agree on playing style. If you find yourself the guy who's constantly arguing what's right you're just making a headache for yourself.

++1

I think that the answer is that if the Private Worlds allow cash in trades, it should be allowed. There are a lot worse things done - not maintaining minors, tanking, loading a team with expensive contracts and then abandoning when the players get old. I think judgment should be focused on the intent of the owners.

It should be a world decision and should be made public before doing so. Some franchises have a ton of extra cash just sitting there. I ran into a situation near the end of one season where I had injuries and couldn't promote anyone as I had zero budget room. I posted in world chat and made it clear this was a one-time situation and, after the commish agreed, had another owner trade me cash for a minor leaguer. But I would leave that up to the specific world and it should be a transparent process.