The Two Types of Fantasy Sports Trades

There are two types of trades to make in fantasy sports. One type is done when your team is in a position of power, sitting somewhere in the top half of the league standings. You feel pretty comfortable about the production you’re getting from each player toward each stat category. You’re looking to make a deal solely to improve on an already good squad, and most importantly, time is on your side. The other type is done when your team is not in a position of power. You’re bleeding in one or more of the categories and you must make a trade in order to have any chance at really competing. The longer you wait, the more others build a lead on you in that category. Time is not on your side. In either case, time is the important factor to recognize.

The easiest way to tell if you are trading from a position of power is to simply answer the question ‘Do I need to make a trade now or can I sit back and wait for the right deal?’ Try to be objective in answering this; we all want to ink deals because it’s fun to ink deals, but we have to make sure we’re inking the right deals, the one’s that help us. Once you determine that you are in a position of power, resolve within yourself that you’re going to take your time in making a deal. In every offer that comes across your desk or alternatively every trade or counter trade you send, I want you to identify the slight edge, and be sure that slight edge is tilted in your favor.

More or less we all value players pretty closely. Some of us have foresight into the future value of players (buy low, sell high) but as of today’s value, we’re all in the same general vicinity. Each manager is going to have one or two guys (or unfortunately sometimes even their whole team) that they have fallen in love with, and thus their ‘value’ of those players is higher than the current reality. But by and large, for all the rest of his players, you both will have approximately the same current value. This is mainly because there are 18 million different easily accessible ranking systems that you both can check. When you are in a position of power, the goal is to send out offers where you will be receiving a slight edge on the trade based on the player’s current values.

Always look to tip the scales ever so slightly in your favor. Sure, most of the time these deals are going to be rejected. But not always, sooner or later you’re going to find that trigger happy owner, or an owner that just needs to make a deal. This is where you’ll really cash in. You’ve essentially locked yourself into a deal where based on current values, you have a slight edge, and based on *your* expected future value, you have an even bigger edge. An example might be to send out Brendan Haywood for Rudy Gay. Based on current values, they are pretty equal, but Gay has the definite edge to Haywood. Looking to the future, I think we’d all agree that Gay will have a much higher value by season’s end. Still, by being disciplined and patient, harnessing your time advantage, you just might catch that desperate manager in need of the stats Haywood offers and willing to make the deal. By ensuring you have the ‘slight edge’ with current values, and by targeting players you feel with have a higher future value, you are building in a margin of safety to your trades that will guarantee success.

Alternatively, if you ask yourself the question about time and the answer is ‘No, I simply can’t let this deficit go on any longer, I need to make a move now’, well then my friend you are not dealing from a position of power. In these cases, I’d advise you to offer trades where the other owner has a slight edge on current value, but the expected future value of the players will be roughly equal. By doing so, you’re giving the other manager great incentive to make a deal with you. You’re essentially offering to take the risk on your side and you’ll likely be rewarded with a deal. Spend too much time trying to swing the edge in your favor, and not only will you lose the deal, but you’ll also continue to slide in the standings. In the most extreme cases, you might have to just forgo trying to make any gains on the deal, and just do what you can to put out the fire. Again, only in the most extreme cases.

On the surface these might seem fairly obvious, but execution is another question. Often times we send and receive so many deals that we fail to remember exactly what our original intent was. More importantly, we begin to forget the importance of patience or urgency. You can see from the two examples above who to target in deals and who to avoid. If you are type A above (have the upper hand) you’re searching for deals with Type B players above. Likewise, if you’re Type B above, well then you also want to be searching for Type B players to trade with. In almost all cases, type A players are going to be a hassle to deal with (so long as they RECOGNIZE that they are Type A).