[Popes]

Interesting. My inclination is to agree with Brian and Mike. My thought is that a firesale implies that you are actually going to move the guys for the best offer. To me, a true firesale situation exists when you are 100% giving up on the season, in which case you will move the contract-about-to-end veterans for the best offer, because they no longer have any value for you at all.

In your case, you were still on the edge of competing, so you wouldn't take a 2nd round pick for them. In a true firesale, you'd be 100% out of it (let's say you're 0-8 when you did it) and you WOULD take a 2nd pick, because that's better than nothing, which is what their worth is to you.

However, the definition you provided is definitely different from how I've always defined it. I'll have to dig around the definitions and see what I find.