With Memorial Day passed, now is the time to take a serious look at your team and determine whether or not you are better served focusing on 2008 rather than 2007. In other words, it is time to consider bailing.
This is an event that engenders the harshest feelings amongst league owners because the team that receives the bail offer will be obtaining players whose 2007 value exceeds that of the players they dealt to the bailing team. This is an unfair advantage.
No matter what the players involved, another team will believe they could have topped it. This is often true. But is that the fault of the recipient or of the bailing team? It is almost always the bailing team's "problem."
To alleviate the harshest feelings, the bailing team would hopefully take the responsibility of examining the other rosters in his league to determine a wish list of players he would like to add. This will not eliminate the every bruised feeling of the teams who do not get the benefit of the bail deal, but it will at least provide some rationalization on the bailing team's part.
Because of the divisive nature of the bail trade, many leagues recommend/require bailing teams to post their intentions in a place where the rest of the league would have a fair chance to see it and make a subsequent offer. This is usually done on the league message board, and I tend to agree.
The only disagreement I have is a behavioral one. Once other owners know you are bailing, they will immediately lessen any offer they would have made otherwise to a non-bailing owner. To combat this, the bailing team can approach their bail quietly by negotiating with other teams in hopes that any of those team tries to entice the bailing one to "pre-bail" by giving up more than they normally would in order to "force' the bail.
Does this stratagem make for a better bail than would have been available if the bailing team publicly stated its intentions? I think so, but I still haven't found a way to mitigate the competitive unfairness inherent in bailing.