Fantasy Football Trade Tips - Part 3 By
Brandon Anderson
8/26/07
A Sports Outlaw Exclusive [Part
1] [Part2]
[Part 3] Welcome back to the final installment that will turn you
into your league’s Trade Guy and put you up near or at the top of all your
leagues’ standings. In the first session, we worked on your attitude as you
begin to move to the trade table. These are covered in tips 1-8 below, and
they require you to use a careful balance of yin and yang as you move toward
beginning a deal. In the second group of tips (9-17) we focused on the ins
and outs of the workings of a deal, the rules of the road if you will. It is
imperative that you read the first 2/3 of this series to get the full
effect. Let’s review the 17 rules we’ve seen so far… 1. Be aggressive.
2. Be persistent.
3. Be creative.
4. Be businesslike but congenial.
5. Know your league mates.
6. Take the little steps to become the Trade Guy at the beginning of a
league.
7. Be patient.
8. Sometimes the best trade is the one you don’t make.
9. Always make sure you are in control of the trade talks.
10. Always make your trade partner feel like they are in control.
11. Try to let the other person offer first when possible.
12. Know what you want before you begin trade talks.
13. Always ask for more than you want on your first offer…
14. … But not too much more.
15. You knew what you want – make sure you get what you want.
16. Try to add some “icing” on to the top of your trade.
17. Always make sure your trade partner feels good about the deal. Today we move into the theory of the trade, the strategy
behind the offers you make. We are not talking about particular players to
trade for, but theories that should get your creative juices flowing. These
ideas will get trade talks started and set you on the path to victory. Let’s
get to it! 18. Buy low, sell high.
If you have traded at all – whether fantasy football or anything else in
life – this is a pretty obvious rule. Remember that stock market game you
had to play in your 11th grade economics class? You know, the one
where you tried to buy the cheap dot com stocks and wait until they
ballooned and you hit it big and pulled out that miracle A in your class.
Same thing here. Every player in the league has a value, a price tag. And
the tag varies from week to week, from play to play. It also varies from
owner to owner. Every player in every fantasy league in the world views
players’ value slightly different from the next. The key is for you to be
able to find out when another owner sours on a player and swoop in for the
buy low. Since so few players now days are great from week to week, almost
any player is bound to have a cold streak every season. Inexperience owners
will trade away their cold players only to see them light it up for your
team for the next few weeks. And now that they’re lighting it up, it’s your
turn to deal him away but for double the price. A few years ago, I picked up
on the fact that another owner had soured on Corey Dillon (with the Bengals)
and I was able to swap Keyshawn Johnson for him straight up. Keyshawn had
scored 3 TDs in the previous two weeks and looked great. A week later,
Dillon put up 150 yards and 2 TDs and I traded him for another WR I liked
more than Keyshawn – Torry Holt. Buy low. Sell high. 19. Trade quantity for quality when you can.
This is another obvious trading rule, but it’s not as obvious as you think.
Bottom line, you only get points from your starting lineup. You can have the
greatest bench in your league and it won’t mean a dang thing if your
starters aren’t outscoring teams. If you can find a deal where you package
two or three good players for one player that’s better, it is almost always
a good deal for you. The exception might be if your team is riddled with
injuries or bad draft picks and maybe you only really have one superstar –
in this case you can only really compete by getting those two or three good
players. But normally a good rule of thumb is to always attempt to get the
best player in the deal. Every league has a few people who can’t live with a
weak bench and they end up selling their best players to have a good “well
rounded” team. Well rounded teams don’t win a ton of championships. Pay up
and get the superstars. Depth is just code word for trade bait. Package some
guys together and get a better one. It’s that simple. 20. No one on your team should be off limits.
One of the biggest mistakes people make in trade strategy is that they get
far too attached to their own players. It happens to almost everyone. You
like Randy Moss, yeah. He’s solid, good WR2, could have some good upside,
and you convince yourself to pull the trigger. And a week later, Moss is
magically a top 5 WR on your board now. You’re convinced that he’s going to
boom under Brady and you make him completely untouchable on your roster.
When Marvin Harrison starts out slow again, the owner offers him to you for
Moss in week 3. It’s a slam dunk deal, but you turn it down because there’s
just no way you can move Randy Moss. See how it doesn’t make much sense?
Moss might be good for you, but Harrison is already – always – great. A few
years ago, Daunte Culpepper was by far my #1 QB and #1 overall player, and I
absolutely had to have him. But someone else apparently liked him even more
than me and offered me the world and a half. It was way way waaay too much,
and I couldn’t turn it down – just too much value. I ended up trading half
of what I got back for Peyton Manning and his 49 TDs and still had a
leftover starting WR named Chad Johnson. Culpepper really was great
that year, but by still being willing to trade even the best on my board for
great value, I came out with a great deal. 21. Look for ways you can “help out” a fellow owner in
a trade.
This is a classic case of psychology helping you out. Not major psych by any
means, but just using your people skills to your advantage. You can offer a
deal to someone and come off like a bad guy who is trying to rip them off if
you’re not careful. Instead, take a look at their roster and see if you can
find a deal that looks like it has appeal to their team as well. Sure, it
still helps you more, or you wouldn’t be offering it. But maybe the team you
are dealing with has an influx of RBs and a distinct lack of good WRs. You
just happen to have good WR depth and desperately want DeAngelo Williams
from there team. Well now instead of offering Terry Glenn for DeAngelo – a
terrible offer that should get you laughed off the streets – you can word it
differently. Write them an email asking if they are interested in another
good startable WR like Glenn who can help out their team and maybe put them
over the top. Now mention that you are interested in DeAngelo and have WRs
to move, so perhaps the two of your teams can help each other out. See how
friendly that sounds? Maybe you don’t get that one-for-one deal, but if they
are sold on the idea of adding that good WR from you, you’ve significantly
increased your chances at getting a trade. 22. Don’t make a trade that forces you to trade again.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that I don’t always
follow this one. For instance in the Culpepper deal I mentioned above, I
knew I was going to have to make another deal or two to clean up all the
valuable picks I was getting, but I knew I could make it work. But I’m the
Trade Guy. I don’t recommend putting yourself in the same position until you
have become an expert or at least intermediate trader. If you make a trade
that puts you in a position where you need to trade again too often, you’re
going to get yourself into a lot of trouble. You’ll end up falling behind
the eight ball and having to play from behind all season. One week you’ll be
short a starting WR, then the next week you fix it by trading your star TE,
and the week after you have to give up a QB to get a TE back. See the
problem? Don’t get too complicated with your trades and dig yourself into a
hole. 23. Make the little trades – they add up.
Too often, people are unwilling to make a deal unless it involves a
superstar on one or both sides of the deal. Every deal is important if it
means you are improving your team. Maybe you give up Ronald Curry and Isaac
Bruce to get Jerricho Cotchery. Doesn’t sound like much of a deal, right?
You traded in some usable WR3s for a better WR3 and that’s it. But now you
struck gold with your waiver pickup of James Jones and a week later you
decide to trade Jones with Cotchery for Deion Branch, and a week later you
upgrade Branch to Donald Driver. Now you just made three little deals and
you’re starting Driver in your lineup instead of Curry or Bruce. Okay maybe
that was a little dramatic, but you get the point. Every deal can help your
team if it’s making you even a little bit better, so don’t sit around and
wait for that blockbuster to fall into your lap. 24. Make sure you are improving your starters in the
trade.
This does not mean you can only trade if it involves your starters. As just
mentioned above in #23, every little deal adds up, and improving your bench
also means improving your trade bait for future deals. But you should never
make a deal that ends up helping you in one spot – maybe a starting
position, maybe overall depth – but ends up hurting your starting roster as
a whole. In the end, that starting roster is all that matters, and it’s the
only thing that can get you points and wins. Don’t make a deal if you are
hurting your starters. No matter how much else you think it is helping you,
the deal just isn’t a good one if you’re losing weekly starting points to do
it. 25. NEVER be satisfied with your roster.
This is the bottom line rule that I live by in every league I’m in. No
roster is perfect. I’ve had some dang good teams, but every team can always
improve. You could have LaDainian Tomlinson and Steven Jackson on your
roster this year, but I guarantee you there’s still something else on your
team can be better. Maybe you’re starting Greg Jennings as your WR2 or Jake
Delhomme as your top QB. Maybe you’re even starting someone really solid
like Javon Walker. But Walker is still no Steve Smith. Greedy? Fine, call it
what you want. Your team can always be better. And when your starting lineup
can get no better, your bench and depth can improve. And when you finish
with all of that, you can still trade for a stud kicker or defense. Your
team can always improve somewhere. The minute you settle on your team
is the minute you just lost your trading edge. Never lose that edge. Never
settle. Never give up until you’re hoisting that fantasy trophy over your
head! | |
