When you play Fantasy Sports, you should learn to master the art of making trades. Sometimes you win the deal, and sometimes you lose the deal. The best part of trading in Fantasy Sports is that you feel you are in control of your destiny. We think to ourselves that these moves are the building blocks to a championship.
While building ourselves up, that does not demand we tear others down.
The goal when approaching a trade is to find middle ground, so that both parties feel they came out of the trade with a better team than they had going in.
Fantasy trading is most practical when it comes to keeper leagues. If you play in leagues that drafts from scratch each season, trading tends to be top heavy, so for the sake of this article, we will be referring to keeper formats.
We have all heard the arguments against trading:
- Trading takes away from the preparation some do for the draft itself. Why prepare for a draft when everyone is going to be making trades anyways?
- Some people go way overboard and make trade offers on a daily basis that are so ridiculous it makes me wonder if they are really serious or just plain dumb?
- Trade rape is the greatest crime committed in the fantasy sports arena and it happens every day.
All these points are valid and true.
My counter to these arguments would be that your draft strategy should acknowledge that forthcoming trades are to be expected, and are within the rules.
When you are building your roster, have a set of players that you do not have man crushes on. If you realize perceived values within your league, players can be valuable trade commodities.
Values are subjective, so no matter how many draft guides you buy, everyone has a unique perspective and ranks players differently.
Ridiculous Trade Offers
What do you do when you receive ridiculous offers from other League Managers?
You must not take it personal because just as in everyday life, some people are just clueless, some are comical, and some are just off their rockers.
I believe the best way to deal with these people in Fantasy Sports is through passive aggressiveness.
Submit a Counter Offer
Yes, you will reject their offers, but the day will come when his offer includes one or more players you like, and that is when you submit a counter offer.When you submit a counteroffer, it helps establish a rapport between competitors. This also provides opportunities for communication lines to open and collaboration to begin. With every rejection and counter, I suggest a message be included expressing why you are not willing to trade the player they asked for and what you are willing and more importantly, unwilling to offer. My competitors know me for having “untouchables” on my team- Players that under no circumstances will I trade away, so please don’t waste either of our times by making pointless offers. By being upfront, you cut down on further spam in your email boxes and when you do receive offers from them in the future, hopefully they will comprehend your message.
Evaluate Trades
Evaluating trades is also going to be subjective, but bad trades certainly can and have ruined leagues.
Every trade made will receive scrutiny from various parties regardless of how fair the two parties involved in the deal believe it to be. There is absolutely no way around this fact.
I could tell you that if everyone was fully educated about players and their values, lopsided trades should not happen.We do not live in a perfect world though, and some people are just smarter than others, and some people are just dumber than a box of rocks.
We must rehabilitate those traders that feel the need to take advantage of others, and show them how to trade fairly for the betterment of the league and the sanity of the commissioner. How many commissioners have watched leagues crumble because one guy is plundering the ‘box of rocks’ and the other smart guys and gals are whining
“THAT’S NOT FAIR! I’M QUITTING!”
When you make fair trades, everyone wins. You may not run away with a championship every year, but every time you successfully execute a trade, you further establish your reputation as being approachable and fair, which in turn will net you more opportunity for making trades.
Methodology
I call what I use when making trades “The 40/60 Method”. Think of this as balancing a scale. When I propose an offer that may be tilted one way, I want to be receiving closer to the 40 side of the scale, with my trade partner getting closer to the 60 side of the scale.
If you present an offer that your competitor feels they, Players are most prone to accepting a trade when they believe they are getting more. This being said, you must make sure that what you are getting back is sufficient. If your team will not improve by making the trade, then why bother?
Keep Goal in Mind
Always ask yourself, “Am I trading from a position of strength to address a weakness, or am I so weak that I need to set ablaze to what I have and start anew? When you are making these self-evaluations, try to line up a list of players you feel are expendable and those who are critical to your success in both short and long term. If you are having a good run and feel you need to address a weakness, don’t just look to those whom are having bad years with their team as farm systems, but look to your main competition as well. Your strength may be their weakness and vice versa.
Short term, you may lose the individual deal, but if you get the player you want and he pans out as you expected, that 40/60 deal normally comes out at least 50/50 if not greater long term. Moreover, you build a trading relationship with that competitor so that down the road they feel you treated them fairly, that they wish to reciprocate and in those cases, you push for the 60 side of the offer because they are the ones coming to you.
With this strategy of fair trading practices, you build a reputation across your league that you are shrewd, but fair. This will make you a favorite amongst the league and will set examples for others in their negotiations that do not involve you and your league will be better for it.
The beauty of participating in Fantasy Sports is that there are various ways to play and win. Trading is a practice that can be messy at times, but it is also an art form that when practiced correctly, make a league more enjoyable, as well as increase long term profits for those that can perfect it.