Fantasy Football Trade Strategies - The Tricks of the Trade

The Tricks of the Fantasy Football Trade

by: Chris Rito

Editor's Note: Below you will find more than 1,700 of the more than 4,000 total words in this special article. If you'd like to read the entire piece, please click HERE to order our 2009 Pre-Season Draft Guide.

Folks, everyone knows that “draft day” is really the highlight of the fantasy football season. For many players, that event is the bulk of the joy in fantasy football, and they can mail in their lineups from that day forward, never giving it a second thought. Now obviously, you aren’t one of those kind of owners, proven beyond a doubt by the fact that you are reading this article! While the draft atmosphere is often electric, the real fun to be had (and the place where champions are made) is in hammering out the big deal as the season progresses. After many years of playing this game, I have slowly accumulated a series of tips – a “philosophy of trading,” if you will – that I think can help you initiate the trade, wade through the details and broker a productive deal -- possibly taking you from the realm of the “also-ran” to the level of “champion.” And if nothing else, I think that following this seemingly simple list of suggestions can make your fantasy football season a whole heckuva lot more fun….and isn’t that what it is supposed to be all about? As I said, many of these suggestions seem overly simple, but it is often the simplest, most fundamental attention to detail that can make the biggest difference. I’ll be honest folks – fantasy football isn’t really that complex (shudder); but I can guarantee you that keeping these very basic rules in mind will make trading more profitable and enjoyable for you as you engage in your favorite pastime.

Know your rules How basic is this? Doesn’t one have to know your rules just to get in the game? Its basic, but not THAT basic. By “knowing your rules,” what I mean is that one can best take advantage of your situation by shrewdly analyzing the relative merits of any particular player within the confines of your league’s specific scoring rules. For example, in leagues where you MUST start four WRs, the value of the top WRs is elevated somewhat. Likewise, the trade value (and your ability to get by without him) of that third All-Pro RB on your roster is very different if your league starts one RB weekly versus his value if you are allowed to start three RBs each week. Knowing which players have value in your scoring system which exceeds their perceived NFL value can help you get a player by giving up less than he is really worth. Does your league rewards pass catching RBs, either with 1 point per reception, or double points for receiving yards or scores? Then perceived backups like Leon Washington and Derrick Ward may be much more valuable in your FFL than in the NFL. Likewise, unheralded WRs like Greg Camarillo (5 receptions per game in 2008) could be late-round goldmines. Does your league penalize for interceptions? Then based on TD/INT ratios, you might want to downgrade Ben Roethlisberger in 2009, even though most people love his leadership on the field.

On the other end of the spectrum you need to know which players are overvalued based on their actual skill set, and realize that they are prime trade bait to send away in order to get a player you truly can use. A classic example from the past would be the fact that in scoring-only (or scoring-heavy) leagues, Barry Sanders was not worth a whole lot in many of his Pro-Bowl seasons….but somebody would often trade you a schmuck FB with 10 TDs straight up for the great #20.

Someone recently who fits both sides of this debate would be Wes Welker. In leagues that reward receptions, “the Slot Machine” is always near the top of the list and would have underrated value; likewise, in scoring heavy leagues (2007 was a career anomaly in TDs; 8 of his career 12 TDs were in that one season), his reputation would garner him more perceived value than actual statistical value. Thus, in the first case, you should look to acquire him cheaply, and in the second case you should try to deal him for more than he is really worth to your fantasy team.

Accurate assessment of strengths/weaknesses If you are not aware that your team has a weakness, a hole to fill…you probably would not be investigating a trade. So, it is often quite easy to see where your own team could stand a little improvement. However, the difficulty that many owners have is in assessing their own strengths. The reality of the situation is that every owner vastly overrates their own team’s assets. If these players weren’t awesome, why would I have drafted them…right? You have to learn to be brutally honest with yourself about what you really have on your roster – because any potential trading partner will be equally straightforward in assessing your roster! You must be very, very honest and accurate in rating the players you have because what you superficially see as a team strength may be seen as a real void by the trading public.

Often the fantasy owner will hearken back to last season, when Joe Blow carried his team victory down the stretch towards the title….but nobody truly cares about that in 2009. The fantasy owner recognize that Eli Manning carries the royal QB name, was the first pick in the draft and may fondly remember that he won a Super Bowl a few years ago.... but no savvy fantasy owner really gives a rip about those facts. The owner could also tell himself “But I drafted this guy in the early 3rd round – he was the first WR off the board!” and then assumes that any trading partner must give him back a player of equal draft day value, even if the 3rd-rounder in question has been sucking swamp water for the last 7 weeks. Understand this fact, folks – if no one in the league places any real value on a particular player on your roster, then no one will give you squat for him in a trade. It’s really that simple. Don’t get too enamored with a player for any reason except his actual fantasy performance.

And like the first trade tip above, this rule also has a flip side: if there is an owner in your league that is exhibiting this same sort of unnatural fondness for a particular player on your team and is overvaluing him from a fantasy perspective…. then you have a potential trading partner that may give you a little more for your man than another team would. We are all guilty now and again of hanging onto a favorite player for one year too long – I know I paid better-than-average money for Larry Johnson in a salary cap league this past season, for example – but to be a good trader, you must know when to walk away from those sorts of guys when they simply aren’t doing it anymore. This rule also reflects the old adage of “know thy enemy,” because knowing which owners in your league have a weird penchant for drafting Buffalo Bills, or former Notre Dame players, or guys named Johnson….well that sort of knowledge can only help you in looking to make a beneficial deal down the road

Win NOW! This tip is aimed mainly at owners in keeper or dynasty leagues. Often the fantasy player will refuse to make a trade because they will be giving up a younger player in return for a guy that may only have a year or two left in the NFL. I have seen fantasy teams that were only one player away from winning it all…and they fell just short because the owner was too afraid to sacrifice the potential for future performance for the assurance of current performance. I have always been a firm believer in making the deal (or the draft selection) for THIS year, and then worrying about next year… when next year gets here. I have no problem trading a younger stud for an aging superstud that I expect to have a bigger “this year”. Classic example – I am in a keeper league in which you can keep three players to the next season. In this league I have traded for Cris Carter, Jerry Rice (near the end of his SF tenure), Steve Young…each time giving up younger stars to get them; each time the old guys came through and I was able to move them again the following season. Another example would be that another keeper league, I traded Matt Ryan for Brett Favre late in last season. Yes, Ryan has a bright and longer future…but I thought Favre would do more at the end of 2008 and thus I made the deal. The future be damned – I want to win NOW! In every sport (especially major league baseball) the only teams that are trading for the future are teams that have no chance of winning it all; the fantasy owner can learn a lot from this historical example. The teams that win, they all play for THIS year. As I have often stated in the past, I don’t think that Jerry Jones feels bad about mortgaging the “future” of his Cowboys in return for his three Super Bowl titles.

In a twelve-team keeper league, the law of averages says that you should win the title once every twelve seasons. If you have been at it for twelve years or more and have never won yet….I would be willing to bet that you have focused on stockpiling young “potential” and have never yet been able to piece it all together. “Wait ‘til next year” becomes your new battle cry, and I believe that the trophy will never come. Don’t wait – go for the brass ring today! Take the title when you can get it, because once you have it they can’t take it away, even with a string of lesser follow-up seasons in the worst case scenario. If you are a good enough drafter or trader, even a seemingly hopeless roster full of old guys can be turned into a bright tomorrow with more deals down the road.

Best player in the trade?

As mentioned atop this release, if you like to read the entire article, please click HERE to order our 2009 Pre-Season Draft Guide.