Proactive Trading
What is the most important asset in fantasy football? Elite quarterbacks? A treasure trove of picks? Or maybe it's powerful tools and analytics? That would make sense if we were robots or viewed fantasy as purely transactional, but there are aspects of fantasy football that are far more organic. In leagues that allow you to trade, your most important commodity is relational capital. In today’s leagues, trading requires more than specialized knowledge, salesmanship, or waiting for a fish to come to bite your hook. If you want more managers to dine at your table, you need to be a hospitable host.
Fostering the Right Deal
Don't get too cocky my boy. No matter how good you are, don't ever let them see you coming.
Milton - The Devil’s Advocate
It’s Not About What You Know. It’s About Who You Know.
What is the most important asset in fantasy football? Elite quarterbacks? A treasure trove of picks? Or maybe it's powerful tools and analytics? That would make sense if we were robots or viewed fantasy as purely transactional, but there are aspects of fantasy football that are far more organic. In leagues that allow you to trade, your most important commodity is relational capital. In today’s leagues, trading requires more than specialized knowledge, salesmanship, or waiting for a fish to come to bite your hook. If you want more managers to dine at your table, you need to be a hospitable host.
Trades are a fragile system with a multitude of ways they can fall apart, and a host of reasons managers will not give you the time of day to listen. The most important factors to be cognizant of in the realm of negotiating are timing, opportunity, and rapport.
Timing
Leaguemates will ultimately not be receptive to trading if they don’t want to or don't need to. This is tied up in their perceived likelihood of making a championship run, as well as how they value the individual pieces on their team. Looming at the forefront of every manager’s mind you trade with is the possibility that the asset they are sending away is going to ascend (otherwise, why would you want them?) or the piece they are receiving is going to plummet. Beginning with an understanding of your trade partner’s team needs and their willingness to part with certain assets is the best way to start negotiations. Ultimately, needs and circumstances change, so it's best to view any ‘no’ you may be told as a ‘not now’ and remain patient.
Opportunity
As a community that is constantly stimulated with analysis, we are very susceptible to overreacting to anything that fogs or threatens our current plans. It can be difficult to discern the best course of action during these events, but effectively navigating them presents us with some of the best trade opportunities in fantasy. These opportunities come in many forms and fashions, but rarely are they anything we haven’t seen before. It would be difficult to succinctly explain how to maneuver when these situations arise, but don’t worry we will explore many of these topics in future articles. For now, I will recommend doing a little bit of your own research that also includes the views of others so that you are well-rounded in your perspective, fading the Twitter noise, and watching the game. All these factors will play a role in discovering your own risk tolerance and will help you develop a process. There will be times your fellow leaguemates place their panicked assets on the trade block, but the opportunities I’m more intrigued by are the ones uncovered through research before they become talking points.
Rapport
How you treat your leaguemates and how you carry yourself during negotiations is just as critical to getting a deal done as the trade itself. It begins with seeing things from your leaguemate’s perspective and understanding their wants. As great as it is to be applauded for ‘winning’ one deal, I would much rather ‘win’ a leaguemate through amiable trade talks who will prefer me as a trade partner for multiple future deals. These managers become your “repeat customers.” The best way to develop this is by being:
Easy to work with - don’t be an ass or pushy.
Prepared - already have some deals in mind that you would accept if you were in the other manager’s shoes. This includes your initial offer & your final offer.
Succinct - Be straightforward & to the point.
Painless - get in & out as quickly as possible, do not drag things out.
Stay away from having to persuade, this can come across as manipulative.
Inquiring - The best way to get a deal done is to ask what they want & are willing to do.
Carefree - Be patient & willing to table negotiations for a later time.
Available as a Resource.
If I could only choose one characteristic, I find the last point the most compelling. Being willing to share your knowledge and help your competitors is the type of backward wisdom that fosters the best trade relationships and long-lasting leagues we all live for. There may only be a few managers who are open and interested in your offer to help, so do not waste your time on kabuki managers who do not see eye-to-eye with you or annoy others with your unsolicited advice.
There is a great deal of responsibility that comes from being a resource to others. Leaguemates who are less experienced or knowledgeable may place a great deal of confidence in you when it comes to their moves or trades. When competition and money come into play, perceptions can turn quickly and become personal. To be a trustworthy steward of these relationships, it is essential to leave the ball as much in their court as possible and have the other party in the driver’s seat of the negotiation. This may be as simple as saying, “Hey, I’m looking to trade away this asset, are you interested?” or “What would it take for me to acquire this player of yours?” and nothing more. Even with all the best intentions, trades can age badly and thus fairly or unfairly sour the rapport. Be above reproach in this area and give more than you receive.
The Seasons of Trading
Depending on your league, you can execute trades whenever you would like. However, there are well-established times during the fantasy football cycle that are favorable for certain assets:
The Startup Draft - Great for buying future picks when some managers want a head-start on fielding the most competitive teams.
The NFL Combine & Draft - Great time to buy solid vets while your leaguemates are drooling over the incoming rookie class.
Your Fantasy Rookie Draft - Generally the best time to sell picks for players or future picks.
Depth Players - The last couple weeks of the off-season is the best time to buy the bargain-bin vets to fill out your roster.
Selling Players - By weeks 5-8 you should have a pretty good idea if you’re a legitimate contender (top 4 in points scored). If you’re not a contender, you want to be one of the first managers to trade away players to playoff contenders for picks (or injured upside players) because if you wait until the trade deadline then you're going to have competition with other non-contenders.
Selling Players Part II: The Trade Deadline - You want to be the first to market in terms of trading away players for picks around the midpoint of the season, but it is recommended to sow the seeds of larger future deals in the minds of playoff teams and wait until a week or two before the trade deadline when they are most desperate. Be patient on parting with your more valuable assets that you're willing to trade away.
Selling Picks - Hold onto your picks until later on in the season as a contender - you will get your best deals from rebuilders as they get more desperate to accumulate draft capital.
Buying Future Picks - Outside of your startup draft, the entire off-season is a great period to acquire next year’s picks, with August typically being the absolute best time to buy.
Buying Players - Start with smaller trades (3rd & 4th round pick values) earlier in the season. As the season progresses, the picks you’re willing to trade for players can increase in value (2nds & 1sts). Have a list of players who can help carry you to a championship and reach out to their managers earlier on to lay the foundations of a possible trade. It is preferable to have those managers wait until close to the deadline to trade your wish-list players, which mitigates the risk of trading for a player who gets injured.
An additional perk of waiting on trading for players is the larger sample of data on player performance throughout a season (especially WoRP - Wins Over Replacement Player) that will better inform you on the best players to target in a trade.
Lastly, there tends to be a larger pool of players available on the trade block later in the season. So often there are teams that either through poor management or plain bad luck are much more willing to trade their valuable players at a better price when the reality sinks in they are going to miss the players and they have no draft picks going into next season.
Buying Players Schedule
Weeks 1-2 - Be willing to trade a 3rd
Weeks 3-4 - Be willing to trade 2x 3rds
Weeks 5-8 - Be willing to trade a 2nd
Weeks 9-12 - Be willing to trade 2x 2nds (or 1x early 2nd)
Weeks 13-16- Be willing to trade a 1st
Speakeasy vs VIP
For the most part, I apply a barrel-aged, sit-back, and slow-sip approach to my trading. But there are occasions where spontaneity and splurging are just as essential for the life of your fantasy roster as being relaxed with your trading. If draft picks are the kings of dynasty, then the king of kings are picks 1.01-1.03. It should go without saying that having one or multiple of these picks while rebuilding is the top priority. But how do you acquire these picks while contending yourself? The first step is identifying the most poorly constructed and managed rosters in your league. These are the teams that have no elite QBs, a lack of difference-makers on offense, are one injury away from catastrophe but are still willing to trade and want to make the playoffs. Targeting these managers very early on and acquiring their first-round picks for the next two to three seasons is perhaps the biggest difference-making move one can make. The beauty of this strategy is that even if you initially establish your team as rebuilding, you are betting on your team eventually ascending in a year or two while the other team who forfeited their picks will forever wallow in the upside-down.
Managers who believe they are contenders do not need to be offered anything more than fringe 1st round-valued players for their picks. If you are rebuilding, be willing to take risks and offer up to two assets that are each worth a 1st to acquire projected top 3 picks earlier on in the season. If you are contending, you will have to decide if you want to commit yourself to such a bold move or instead devote your assets to securing a championship.
The only other exceptions worth moving heaven and earth for are elite QBs. The top six to eight dynasty quarterbacks (consensus startup rankings) all offer special talent, security, and production. If any elite quarterbacks ever grace your league’s trade block, devote every resource you can within reason to acquiring them. Making this type of move requires a true iron bank of picks (6-8 1sts spread over the next two drafts) and may be worth the high cost, even if it sets you back one additional year before contending.
Cold & Calculated
One of the hardest disciplines to learn while building an eventual contender is not becoming too attached to the highest-valued skill position players. The previous Passive Trading article lays out the risks of trading a bounty of high-valued assets for one elite WR, RB, or TE. Using the same logic, it behooves a manager to actively shop these players for top dollar while rebuilding. Here’s why:
The top valued skilled players (Jefferson, Chase, Bijan, and the next Kyle Pitts) have already capped in value - they cannot ascend any higher overtaking elite QBs in SF.
Their production works against securing the best possible draft picks.
There isn’t enough of a production gap between them and their often much cheaper, older veteran counterparts - this is the key difference between skill players and QBs.
It is acceptable to hold these players once you have constructed a juggernaut and have the proper depth and collection of draft picks at your disposal. But the main objective to get to that level of play is accruing as many valuable assets as you can. There is a power of multiplication where each piece gained from trading this type of player away can be further flipped into multiple shots of impactful advantages. The next time you are blessed with the great fortune of having the next Ja’Marr Chase who skyrockets to #1 status their rookie year, wait until the right deal comes your way, and you could potentially turn that one player into the next trifecta of Garrett Wilson, Chris Olave, and Marvin Harrison Jr.
Other Ideal Trades:
Trade for production (older productive players you can acquire at a discount) OR trade for value (younger players whose trade value can increase) - both types of trades are valuable.
If you are rebuilding & have low draft capital: trade away the talented, aging players that do not line up with your competition window.
During the first few weeks of the season, if you have a plethora of 1sts while rebuilding, then consider moving a pick that projects to be late for a player whose profile is good but perhaps whose production value is depressed (previously, DeVonta & Aiyuk) over players that have a lot of hopium attached to them.
If you are looking to trade away a starting WR, seek out the manager who rosters the QB of that WR & offer them the potential stack.
Woe To Those Who:
Trade away stud players for depth - There is a diminishing return if the gap of your down-tier is too large between the stud you are sending away for the pieces you are receiving. Older, fringe players can cliff in value overnight.
Trade away 1sts & 2nds for depth - These types of highly liquid assets should be reserved for players who will regularly enter your lineup, not for insurance policies.
Trade away highly drafted players before week 4 - Players can stumble out the gate or may sustain short-term injuries. Fade the negative narratives and remember the season is 17 weeks long.
Operate on a “One Player Away” mentality - Ignore the “all I need” voice that is tempting you to deplete your most valuable picks for one player that will make your starting lineup sexier. Injuries and duds can pile up quickly, so your projected late 1st could prove to be earlier. It’s pivotal to have the proper depth when making a title run.
Additionally, do not overpay for these “final piece” players, especially if they are not young elite studs. Remember, the trades you walk away from can be just as good as the ones you make.
Lessons Learned from 2023:
Do Not Be Beholden to Perfect Roster Construction - As great as it feels to go into the season with all the boxes of your roster checked, achieving ideal roster construction comes at a high cost. With high variance and attrition, it is best to wait until the mid or late part of the season before you decide to start pushing your chips on acquiring the final difference-making pieces to your optimal roster puzzle.
FAAB & Keep-Away - Having the biggest FAAB budget in the playoffs remains the most underrated advantage a competitor can have.
For more great lessons from last season, be sure to check out the Week 16 Dossier: The Great Regret.
From Beginning Till No End
It can be easy to feel like Alice while trying to understand any one aspect of fantasy football - it is a story that needs to be read cover to cover several times before it starts to click. My overall goal with these articles is to teach individuals how to fish for themselves rather than spending so much time relying on being fed by others. I’ll end it with another Al Pacino quote that embodies the spirit of trading for me.
They say you don’t buy it, you rent it. You don’t keep anything really. You try to stave off insecurity, but you can’t do it. Stocks, bonds, objects of art, real estate. What are they? An opportunity. To what? To make money? Perhaps. To lose money? Perhaps. To 'indulge' and to 'learn' about ourselves? Perhaps. They're an opportunity. That's all they are. They're an event.
Roma - Glengarry Glen Ross
