Trade Strategy Manifesto

Trading is my favorite part of fantasy football. The league is a stock market of players whose values are always in flux. Wheeling and dealing is exhilarating. Tomorrow, we’ll discuss great targets to acquire and great sell-high candidates to unload if you can. But for today, let’s talk strategy.

Why People Are Gunshy About Trading
If it were a perfect market in which every manager ranked their top 200 each week, then there would be numerous “spot transactions.” So if owner A likes Matt Ryan a tiny bit more than Eli Manning, while Matt Ryan’s owner likes Eli Manning a tiny bit more than Matt Ryan, they should make the deal and see who is right. But they typically don’t. This is because we don’t know how every manager values every player every week. But more than that, owners have a psychological aversion to trading. As one of our staff members put it, “The bad trade you made is always worse than the good trade you didn’t make.” Thus, if the Eli owner doesn’t make the trade and Ryan finishes the year a little stronger, there won’t be much regret. But if the Eli owner makes the deal and Ryan finished the year a little weaker, he will be drowning in sorrow and regret. It’s ok to lose in a trade. Think of all the players like you did when you drafted. You chose Addai instead of Foster in the 4th round; you made the wrong choice, but that’s okay. Similarly, the loser in the Eli/Ryan trade shouldn’t beat themselves up about it. You win some, you lose some. And if you win more often than you lose in these trades, then a fantasy championship awaits you!


Why You Should Trade
It’s fun. If you’re already keeping up with this blog, and all the NFL news and analysis, you might as well put that knowledge to work! You can offer LeSean McCoy to someone and say, “Hey, Leonard Weaver is out for the year, meaning McCoy will get more carries, especially goalline carries.” At the same time, you also know that the starting Philly center is injured (not to mention Kevin Kolb) so the offense may be in trouble.

You may have weakspots on your team that the waiver wire cannot fix. If you drafted Kolb or Stafford in a deep league, there may be no starting QB available, but most owners have stashed away a backup or 2. Maybe you drafted Chris Cooley and Visanthe Shiancoe late, planning on rotating them, but now it looks like they both should be every-week starters. So you find the owner who needs a TE because of Kevin Boss’s injury, and who is sitting on a quality backup QB that he’s not starting, and give him the quality TE that you’re not starting. It’s not about ripping an owner off. You can both benefit from a trade. Let’s say every mutually beneficial trade increases the value of each owner’s starting roster by a +1. Sure you’re helping out your competition, but if you make one mutually beneficial trade with every owner in your 12 team league, then you will get a +11 boost, while each other owner only gets a +1 boost.

You can even do a one-week only mutually beneficial trade. In the hypothetical above, you lost your QB for a while and he lost his TE for a while. But maybe it’s not about injuries; it’s about bye weeks. You can give him your backup TE for one week because his is on bye, and he gives you his backup QB because yours is on bye. I’m not aware of mechanisms in leagues that enforce a trade-back, but if you’re not playing with trustworthy ladies and gentlemen, then you should find a league with more integrity.

Buy-Low / Sell-High
The best strategy is buying low and selling high, just like in the stock market. Maybe the Andre Johnson owner is panicking after a sub-par game, and you’re sitting on 3-TD Hakeem Nicks. You can remind the Johnson-owner that Nicks scored almost 10 times as many points as Johnson so far! If he’s foolish enough to make that trade, then you hit the jackpot. It’s a very tricky market though: Andre Johnson’s very slight dip in value after week 1 does not put him near Nicks, even though Nicks’ value shot up on Sunday. Let’s take a harder example: C.J. Spiller was drafted 3 rounds earlier than Darren McFadden in most leagues. Spiller is on his way down in value, while McFadden is on his way up. But have they crossed paths yet? Meaning, would you rather have McFadden now, even though you drafted Spiller 3 rounds earlier just a few days ago? I might.

Some people are too slow to adapt to this ever-evolving league. If Shonn Greene sucks, then Shonn Greene sucks; it doesn’t matter that you got him in the 2nd round. If some other owner is still tethered to the draft rankings and you own Greene, unload him for a rising star. (Also, if the Arian Foster owner in your league drafted him in the 5th round, but only thinks of him as a 4th rounder at this point, go after him.)

For the most part, however, that is not the case. Owners are typically too quick to respond to temporary flukes. That’s the whole point of buying low and selling high. Michael Turner had an off-day, while Jahvid Best had 2 TDs. If the Michael Turner-owner in your league thinks this is a sign of things to come, give him Best and get Turner. As both players regress to the mean of their typical performances, you’ll be the beneficiary in that trade.

Know Thy Enemy
Identify weakspots in your competitor’s line-up. Maybe you have Cutler and Brady. Cutler is a whole lot more valuable to the owner that just lost Kolb than he is to you. When other owners suddenly find themselves thin at a position, they get desperate. That’s when you pounce.

Also, keep in mind players who other owners have a soft spot for. An owner may pay too much for a player from the owner’s favorite NFL team or college alma mater. So offer DeSean Jackson to the Philly fan or Cal alum in your league.

In addition to positional scarcity on another team, you can consider the other owner’s desire to complete a tandem. Conservative owners want their handcuffs. Tell the Cedric Benson owner, “Did you see what happened to the Ryan Grant owner? If only he had the handcuff, Brandon Jackson.” Then offer him Bernard Scott, and he’ll pay up. Rather than playing a guessing game with the tandems in Buffalo, Dallas, and New York, an owner may overvalue the missing half to his tandem.

Know Your Own Needs
This may be obvious, but don’t consider the market values in the abstract. Getting a good deal on Carson Palmer only helps you if you would ever actually start Palmer, which you wouldn’t if you drafted a top 5 QB and maybe have Roethlisberger ready on your main guy’s bye. When you find yourself needy at a position, try not to get too desperate and make rash decisions. Instead, identify the owner who least values the position you need. Two years ago, I needed a QB. I found the owner who had Kurt Warner (off the waiver wire that year) and Peyton Manning. He was starting Warner every week anyway, so Peyton was relatively worthless to him. I got Peyton on the cheap and won the league.

2-For-1 Deals
Consolidate a strong starting roster. If you’re like me, you drafted for depth, and you actively scour the waiver wire for hot pickups. But you never have enough room on your roster! You want to pickup Peyton Hillis and Mark Clayton, but who are you going to drop? Jacoby Jones? Johnny Knox? No thanks. Thus, I always like giving up 2 guys for 1 guy who is more talented. This strategy a) improves my starting line-up (because you don’t get points for benched players) and b) makes room for more waiver prospects. So I’ll go for a slight RB upgrade and throw in a speculative WR to sweeten the deal – for example offer Ronnie Brown and Jacoby Jones for Pierre Thomas. If the owner thinks Brown and Thomas are pretty close in value, the addition of Jacoby Jones will tip the deal in his mind. It’s quality over quantity in fantasy football – you don’t want 6 good WRs; you want 3 great ones.

Now that you’ve got all this theory and strategy, get ready for some more actual names of guys to target and get rid of tomorrow!