Unfair trades

Remember when the Mets traded Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano? Seemed pretty silly at the time, and Kaz was just a left-handed prospect hardly anyone had seen at the time. Seems sillier now, as Zambrano keeps teetering on the edge of obscurity. I was still living in Jersey at the time, and you should have heard the Mets fans on WFAN, New York's sports talk station. Shouts of "You gotta be kiddin' me!" filled the airwaves, and the "I think we got the wrong Zambrano" joke was made about once every hour on the hour. It was pretty entertaining stuff, especially for a Yankees fan.

In a roundabout way, that brings us to the topic of unfair trades in fantasy baseball. Much like the Kazmir-Zambrano deal, there are usually a handful of trade proposals that make everyone in the league chuckle. Just like we all knew the Mets weren't going anywhere at the time and were sacrificing a potential ace for an injury-prone, unremarkable innings eater, there's always a fantasy swap or two that everyone views as one-sided. It happened not long ago in my league: Joe Nathan was dealt for Kazmir, Bobby Abreu and Brian McCann. My gut reaction: Woah!

Granted, Kazmir, Abreu and McCann haven't performed up to expectations this year. But all of them are above-average contributors. Kazmir obviously has lots of room to improve in the second half. Abreu is on the wrong side of 30 but has been a solid fantasy performer for years. McCann was arguably the best fantasy catcher in the game in 2006. Sure, Nathan's a fine closer, and the guy who proposed the trade obviously needed saves. But that's a pretty lopsided deal if you ask me.

My league is new this year, so this was the first time a trade was contested. Two of us logged a protest through ESPN.com. Our commissioner put it up for vote among the league. The results: 4-3 (with three owners failing to vote), the trade stands.

And I'm fine with that. The league has spoken, and that's the way it should be. The two guys involved in the deal aren't going anywhere in the standings anyway. But they both knew what they were doing, and I don't see any evidence of collusion or anything shady. Maybe others think it was a fair and square deal. That's why I flipped Alfonso Soriano today to a hardcore Cubs fan (the same guy who dealt for Nathan, in fact) for Josh Beckett, Todd Helton and B.J. Upton. In my eyes it's a borderline unfair trade, even though I hated to see Soriano go. But I'm happy with it, and if the rest of my league allows it, I'll be even happier. The important thing is we let the democratic process play out.

God bless America.