Mega-Merge: 2010 Free Agency Rumors and Reports Thread

[tryfuhl]

3rd rounder for Boldin is good if a team has the money to throw him a new deal

bmore maybe

[Dirtbag59]

Originally Posted by tryfuhl

3rd rounder for Boldin is good if a team has the money to throw him a new deal

bmore maybe

It starts with a 3rd rounder but he'll most likely end up going for a second. It's kind of like the $20 auction game. At the beginning a person puts a $20 bill up for auction for people to bid. The catch is the highest and second highest bid have to pay. Everyone starts out bidding but eventually the bid gets above $20 and people start thinking about minimizing their losses. I learned about that in "How to negotiate Rationally."
The $20 auction and the dynamics of conflict « Confluence: Ben Byerly's Muddy Mix

By the time the auction reaches $19, most bidders drop out. The person who had bid $18 will invariably bid $20 to break even. Presumably, that would bring the auction to a close, right? Wrong! One professor who utilized the Dollar Auction as a teaching tool for more than 20 years said that the bidding will usually continue well past the $20 mark.

Consider this case in point, a day the professor will never forget. He used the dollar auction while teaching a course for executives in organizational behavior. At the end, the “winner” paid $54 for the twenty dollar bill. The loser paid $53. The rest of the class watched the futile bidding war with bewilderment and glee. (Proceeds would be donated to charity).

So whats the point? Well when you have an attractive barter chip and it starts out at a low price more people are willing to take a long hard look at it, eventually more bidders leads to an increased price. In short, asking for a third rounder in exchange for Boldin is very smart.