League Updates Rules

EFL Patriots Dump Expansion Pick Idea In the Harbor Answer Man Sat Right Down and Wrote Himself a Letter

Dear EFL:

How about expansion draft picks? I presume they can be traded.  The rules are silent, but my presumption is the more we make things marketable, the more opportunities it creates for competitive mobility.

However, I don’t remember if anyone has ever traded an expansion pick in this league. (They did in the old league.)  Does anyone have a strong view against trading expansion draft picks?
— Mr. EFL Answer Man
Dear EFLAM: 
By this do you mean that, if we saw someone on another team’s unprotected list that we wanted to pick, we could make a deal with Brooks (not the Dummies, though, I would assume) that he takes said person as one of his choices and we trade to him someone from our protected list?
Associate University Pastor Director, Friends Leadership Program, Adjunct Faculty, College of Christian Studies, George Fox University
Dear AUPDFLPAFCOCSGFU:
Brooks can trade people he’s taken in the draft as soon as he has them, and I suppose can promise to trade conditioned on getting someone.

I am talking about trading away the pick itself, so the trading partner (and EFL team) can decide what he wants to do with that pick. Such a deal redistributes risk a little differently.
Clearly the Dummies cannot make any trades.
EFLAM
Dear E-FLAM Man:
I think pre-draft arrangements make sense, contingent on Brooks getting a player. But I don’t think we non-expansion teams should get to make an actual pick. 
Because that’s not how MLB or any other league works. I know we stepped away from MLB rules by allowing trades of draft picks at all, but even leagues that do allow draft pick trades wouldn’t allow this.
Canberra Answer Man
Dear Can-AM:
Since we are discussing an area where the rules are silent, this is an open question.  Your point about it not being like MLB is good and probably shifts the burden of proof to my side. Any other views?
EFL-am
(Deafening uproar, including shouts of “Go Canberra!” “Down with the Answer Man!” “Imperialist Go Home!” “Flambé the E-FLam!”)
My Dearest Loyal Subjects:
My, my such a ruckus. I considered sending a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love, but instead have decided to conduct a thought experiment: why wouldn’t leagues, who are otherwise duly liberal in making markets out of things like draft picks. NOT extend that policy to expansion draft picks.
And I have come up with possible answers. First,  expansion teams are building from scratch. We can all put ourselves in their shoes and plan our unprotected lists accordingly. Existing team have a welter of different needs and motives.  They are wilder, with mud on their shoes, the kind you don’t want to invite into the heart of your roster.  You can’t predict what they’ll do.
Also, expansion franchises have no interest in sabotaging anyone. They are not in a position to benefit from vindictiveness toward an existing team. Their motives will be simpler: pure self-interest.  But an existing franchise, given complete discretion to use a draft pick as it sees fit, might use it to sabotage a competitor — take its last shortstop or catcher, for example, even though the drafting franchise already has three of them.
So, my dear friends, I hereby denounce the idea of letting the Outs trade their picks directly, as an affront to all that is decent, and especially as a dastardly betrayal of your sweet, sweet interests.  If anyone espies the miscreant who first suggested this odious idea, turn him over to me and I shall give him what’s coming to him.
                                                                                                                                                            As ever,
Your As Yet Un-Flambéd EFLAM