Well, you don't care at that moment, but you might care about the next year. The Denard Spann for Alex Meyer trade, for instance, is one I wouldn't make inside the division if I thought I had a chance to compete in 2014. (I maybe be thinking that Meyer's arrival in MLB will be later than I should.) The Red Sox probably shouldn't trade anyone to Tampa who would be better in 2014 than whoever the Sox got back, even though trading away 2013 production for later production wouldn't be an awful idea for them generally.

And I just don't get this. The Red Sox should make the trades that most help the team, in whatever time frame they're looking to improve. Any other kind of thinking is counterproductive to their aims.

You mention the Alexander-Smoltz trade. Would you advocate the Braves passing on that deal if the Tigers had been in their division?

The "don't trade within your division" rule only makes sense if you restrict your views to the potential downsides. And, if you're so afraid of a deal coming back to haunt you, then the solution is to avoid making that kind of deal, not to find a trading partner willing to give you less.

1. I wouldn't make a trade unless I believed I was getting something more valuable than I was giving up.

This assumes value is constant between teams. This is a false assumption. If you have a team with four solid starters and four fungible options for the 5th starter spot, but no LF, and a team with a moderately talented LF but only two or three dependable starters, then the LF is more valuable to team A than one of their 5th starter options, and the 5th starter is more valuable to team B than the LF.

Yeah, that's what I was getting at (apparently poorly) in the paragraph after the 1 and 2.

And I just don't get this. The Red Sox should make the trades that most help the team

But the destination of the players you are sending away helps determine what most helps the team.

If you have two identical offers, and one is from within the division and the other is out, I can see choosing the one from outside if they're likely to be win-win situations.

This implies that you recognize at least some value in the idea, otherwise you wouldn't even use it as a tiebreaker.

But the destination of the players you are sending away helps determine what most helps the team.

Not to me it doesn't. I want the deal that improves my team on the field the most. I don't care what it's effect is on my rival. I think that thinking is counterproductive to the team's aims.

This implies that you recognize at least some value in the idea, otherwise you wouldn't even use it as a tiebreaker.

The odds of two tied deals that would both be win-win are so slim as to render the distinction virtually meaningless. I would never take what I thought a slightly inferior deal from an out-of-division club over the superior one from the division rival.

Charles Thomas. Dan Meyer.

I've been a big Hanson fan, way back from when he was one of the last draft and follows. But the story of what's happened to him can be summed up in one chart. Hanson (as is the case for most RH SP) cannot survive for long as a sub-90 mph pitcher. I hope he gets it back, but I have a lot of trouble seeing that happening.

See also: Jair Jurrjens.

Not to me it doesn't. I want the deal that improves my team on the field the most. I don't care what it's effect is on my rival. I think that thinking is counterproductive to the team's aims.

Right, for simple reason that even if you did help your rival: if you got past them in the playoffs or whatever then the final game should be that much easier. so it should wash out in the end in a perfectly mathematical, deterministic universe.

Put it this way. Let's say we could measure trades in terms of wins/losses, suppose some trade is really a win win for two rivals. Say Pitt and Balt. in football. So both teams improve.

SO what? Nothing wrong with that. lets saw we improved by +3 and they improved +2. What it means is assuming both teams were equal, that we get to the playoffs ahead of Balt. And presumably the rivalry between the two teams is more intense than ever. but nothing wrong here from Pitt standpt. They got better and got to the playoffs or whatever.

Or say the other way. Bal. gets the better of the deal and they go to the plays. both teams improved Pitt almost caught them and the Pitt. fans b.tch.d about that "...if we hadnt good old WIllie go we would have beat them." Forgetting that they got good old Butch at Lb to fill in in return. So the trade helped both teams. The only net result is that the rivalry got tougher. Nothing wrong here either. Maybe if you could show that Pitt could have made a better deal with someone else. But that's always true whether trading intra division or inter division. THat's just basic logic. The scenario presumes a logical trade.

So about the only thing that you can say that is common is that both teams got better, the rivalry got hotter. So maybe you could say "well the rivalry got hotter, more players were injured on both teams, so therefore both teams weakened themselves before they got to the super bowl."

but then the argument would be that presumably, if the talent in the rest of the league presumably was the same as before, (or more accurately, that the average talent level of the NFC champion remains the same, which really it probably doesnt in the real world, but that doesnt change the overall pt) then whichever team: Balt or Pitt got to the super bowl then, presumably each team was 2 or 3 pts better than it's NFC opponent. which should compensate for the fact that the rivalry was tougher to get through, since if you do gain a benefit for this supposed disadvantage.

Pt is even if you benefit a rival, assuming a win win trade, then a win win trade is a win. YOu make the rivalry more intenser if it's a win win or less intesnser if its a loss/loss trade. But that doesnt really change things does it??

There are trades in which you think the trade will help the other team more than it will help your team, but because it still helps your team somewhat it makes sense to do the deal - unless it is to a rival.

I have an example, although this inter-division trade didn't happen to harm the team. The Patriots trading Bledsoe to the Bills probably helped the Bills more than the Patriots, in terms of wins and losses. This would have been the case probably no matter where he was traded, but because it still helped the Patriots to trade him, it made sense for them to do it even if the other team "won" the trade. Normally in a trade like this, you would want to avoid trading to a division rival because you play that rival twice and they are your competition for the division title. In this example, the Pats were so much better than the Bills that it didn't matter to the Patriots that the Bills might have out-improved them because of the trade. The Bills did improve from 3-13 to 8-8, but they still lost to the Patriots twice and didn't figure into the division title race. However, if the teams had been equal as in the Pit-Balt example from #58, it would have made sense for the Patriots to take a worse draft pick in return to send Bledsoe to a different team.