Are Trades Bullshit? A VICE Sports Debate

Eric Nusbaum:

This week marks the occasion of Major League Baseball's non-waiver trade deadline. That means contending teams will begin to stock up on talent for the pennant run, and losing teams will be trading that talent in exchange for "assets," in the form of prospects and prospects to be named later.

One word I did not use in that short paragraph was "human." Because the trade deadline, and trades in general, are inherently inhumane. Trades are, for a number of reasons, a terrible, terrible idea. There is no system in which the literal exchange of people by giant corporations can be a good thing. Fuck trades.

Mike Piellucci:

So, basically, fuck sports? Because this is infinitely regressive. It's not especially humane to deny an entire workforce the right to choose their employer upon entry to the professional ranks; or force that populace to annually engage in a legal trial by combat against their employers to prove that they deserve a fair wage; or, on the rare occasions when that workforce can actually choose their work environment, that they can do so only by signing way up to a decade of their own lives into service to that corporation, and very often without any opt-out clauses. As much as trades might suck in that regard, they are a spoke on the wheel of a system that also gives us drafts, arbitration, and what is very generously termed free agency, so it's hard to isolate the part from the whole.

In fact, trades are often a defense against that system. Without them, players would be tethered to the organizations that drafted them for up to a decade before finally hitting free agency, and that's before getting into how many athletes generally get their way when they go so far as to demand deals. Sports organizations don't like disgruntled employees any more than the rest of America does—they're "bad for team chemistry" and all—and trades empower that workforce with an escape route they might not otherwise have.

Eric Nusbaum:

Just to clarify: Are you arguing that the bartering of humans with no regard for their will is a defense against a system in which those humans have almost no agency?

Last I checked, players ask for no-trade clauses, not trade clauses in contract negotiations. I don't see any empowerment here. Free agency is empowering. Trades are a symptom of a bad system.

It's not just that. Trades shift the focus from the players onto the executives. The transaction becomes bigger than the players involved in it. This is how we end up worshiping Harvard MBAs who networked their way into front-office executive gigs, and neglecting the actual, spectacular talents of, you know, the athletes.

Mike Piellucci:

I'm not shilling for professional sports rulemakers any more than you are, if that's what you're getting at.

Eric Nusbaum:

That is definitely what I'm getting at.

Mike Piellucci:

Peachy. Let's imagine the sports world without trades, then. Players would be stuck with the team that drafted them—without their having any say in the matter—until they reach free agency, which might take up to ten years after they first sign with that organization.

Then, and only then, they are granted a limited window of negotiation to decide where they will sign their next contract, based on an even more limited window of insight into how these prospective employers operate. Choose wrong and, congratulations, you just ruined the rest of your career by irrevocably pledging yourself to a bad employer. That's indentured servitude.

There's a reason why every headline regarding Troy Tulowitzki has fixated on the term "demanding a trade": because, no matter what the language of his contract says, he has the agency to affect change, depending on how loudly he wants to talk about it. Is it perfect? Of course not. But it certainly beats having no hope of ever escaping the Rockies' Sarlacc Pit before his skills evaporate. Same goes for Jose Reyes and Mark Buehrle. Can you imagine what their lives would have been like in Miami had they been forced to play out their contracts after Jeff Loria sold them a bill of goods? Trading them to Toronto saved them from professional misery.

Eric Nusbaum:

See, your argument and mine are not so different. Jose Reyes and Mark Buehrle chose to sign contracts with Jeff Loria's Marlins. They knew what they were getting into because they were free agents, and adults, and they made an informed decision to sign a contract with a scummy liar.

What they did not decide was to get traded from beautiful Miami to cold Toronto, where Buehrle's adorable puppy got held in customs and had to be returned to the United States because it was illegal in Canada.

Also: What team does Troy Tulowitzki play for?

Mike Piellucci:

Here's what I gleaned from that: It is totally cool to enable a scummy liar to entice disadvantaged workers into making life-altering commitments, then allow said scummy liar to change the terms to further penalize them for his being a wrung-out sponge that drips sewer water. That, and Canada hates puppies.

Any way you slice it, the system sucks for the players. Trades make it suck less. The one thing no one can argue is that they enhance the experience for everyone paying attention. They kick cayenne pepper on to pennant races and they transform farm systems from apocalyptic wastelands into lush meadows. You, me, and everyone else will spend the rest of the week idly speculating on who gets moved where, then furiously researching whenever it happens. And that's why, deep down, you're with me on being pro-trade. Something tells me that when the Dodgers land David Price and the Rangers move for Cole Hamels, we'll both be happy that trades exist.