I've had a trade proposal sent my way. The old interface with the old trade balance shows the trade 100% in my favor. The new trade balance shows the trade nearly 100% in the other owners favor. I understand the trade calculator was completely rewritten, but this is an extreme swing.

My biggest issue with the new trade balance calculator is that it's impossible to even out a trade. The meter is far to one side or the other. It was mentioned in an earlier post on this thread; a 4th round pick may nudge the meter, but a 3rd round pick will swing it completely in the other persons favor.

Agreed.

It should be something like this

2020 3rd = 2021 2nd

2020 2nd + 2020 3rd + 2020 5th = 2020 1st

Just as an example.

How do you figure this? What if that 1st is a top 10 pick and all the others are 20-30 range?

+1 - it is VERY sensitive

Picks for picks can be pretty straightforward. There's a standard point chart that NFL teams allegdedly use. (http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/draft/draft-trade-chart/)

Based on that chart the example of a 2/3/5 = 1st would be true if you were trading mid-round picks for a low first. You could do something like discount future year picks by 1 round, and use the value of the 16th pick for years where the order isn't yet known.

Harder to my mind is what is a player worth relative to other players or in terms of picks. Is a 70/70 OL worth a 2nd? A 3rd? A 4th? What about a 40/70? And which is more valuable overall, an OL or DE? CB or TE?

And of course the going rate may vary by league.

Ultimately having an algorithm accurately value trades may just be too hard due to all the factors in play. Human judgment (e.g. "I'm 1 player short of making a playoff run this season so I'm willing to overpay") should always win. I'd be in favor of a trade system that disallows really obvious unfair trades (7th rounder for an 85 point QB, say) but otherwise let's the market determine what is fair and reasonable, with a mechanism for other owners to complain if someone is upsetting the apple cart.

I think the anomaly here is owners individual player weights. MAYBE when we do trades involving players, the 'trade engine' takes a default setting rather than our own. I don't pretend to know how how this works but think that this could possibly be the problem?

This.

+1

I think maybe the only thing that will work is for what is considered to be an acceptable trade to be opened up a bit, along with a veto system.

An accepted trade could be put on hold for 24 hours while the rest of the league has a chance to vote on whether to veto the trade or not.

If after 24 hours (or one spin) the trade has not received enough votes to be vetoed, then the trade goes through.

If it has, then it remains on hold for another 24 hours in the hope that more owners will vote (so 1 or 2 veto votes don't nix a good trade). If it still does not have enough votes to pass, it is canceled.

I don't think it would work if it required a certain percentage of the entire league in order to veto a trade, as there are some leagues where owners are not very active and would never vote. I think it needs to be a majority of the votes cast.

Owners will need to accept the fact that trades are not going to be immediate. There will be a minimum of one "spin" before they are processed. Sort of like "awaiting approval by league office".

I like this and I don't like it. It allows for more balanced trading, but I could definitely see teams that know how to use player weighting well taking advantage of teams that don't. This obviously happens now, but I could see this leading to trades where I swap you a 6th round pick for a CB that I have valued in the high 70s because I don't weight zone cover at all.

I don't understand what you're saying here.

If you value this CB in the 70s, and everyone else values him in the 50s (for example), why shouldn't you be able to get him for a 6th round pick?