Welcome to the second installment of this series, where we discuss making comprehensive trading histories for your league mates. In Part One, we discussed tiering your own roster and making a plan for each player on your team. Now that we know who on our team should be available and who to hold on to, it’s time to get a sense of what kinds of trades our league mates like to make.
Open up a spreadsheet, and then go through your league’s transactions and write down each owner’s trades for the last year at least, but hopefully, you can go back farther.
Patterns to Watch For
Hopefully, you’re in an active league, with enough trades to get a sense of your league mates preferences. However, sometimes a specific profile won’t emerge, but you should still keep an eye out for whether each league mate is amenable to the following types of trades:
1. Can you re-roll your busts to them
Look for players that have a history of throwing third and fourth-rounders around for the Jonathan Mingos of the world. Generally, if a rookie player has a clear runway to playing time and completely fails to do anything with it, you can safely re-roll them to these owners. Last year that included Jonathan Mingo and Jalin Hyatt. While this could age poorly, this year, I’ve already re-rolled Ja’Lynn Polk and Javon Baker.
2. Can you sell them deadzone RBs?
Many dynasty players, myself included, are skeptical about acquiring players who will be in the redraft dead zone when the season rolls around. The “dead zone” refers to players who are projected to receive RB2 volume despite being critically flawed. Usually, this flaw refers either to mediocre players who have no viable competition in their backfield (Devin Singletary) or to run-dependent backs on bad teams who will face down negative game scripts (Zamir White).
As we saw with Singletary, you shouldn’t acquire this type of player before the draft. If you find yourself in a position where you have one or two of these guys on your roster, and you’d like to sell high on them, it’s helpful to know which owners have shown a lack of awareness of the dead zone in the past.
3. Can you package up to their players?
Some dynasty managers are too willing to tier down from elite players, while others require your entire roster in order to tier down from veterans they shouldn’t even be holding. Identity and send offers to the owners in the first group.
4. Who likes to stash injured players?
Some rebuilders in your league may be way too aggressive about stashing injured players because they fail to consider how we sometimes cannot count on a full recovery. You may look to trade a Tank Dell or Brandon Aiyuk type to these owners. You’re also free to hold them and hope for a full recovery regardless.
5. Who sells low on Studs?
As discussed in Part 1, you should generally be hesitant to sell players in your Studs tier because the hard part of dynasty fantasy football is finding elite football players while situations come and go. Look for guys who have, on one or two occasions, traded away an excellent football player after a bad couple of weeks.
6. Who likes to trade up in the draft?
When draft time comes around and you wanna move around the board, it behooves you to know which owners in your league are the most aggressive about trading up. Go through your league’s trading history, and you might find one owner is constantly packaging up from their picks.
7. Who likes to trade down?
While I am usually very skeptical about trading up since I think owners overestimate how confident they can be about their prospect evaluations, I do occasionally move up in the draft to grab an extra player before a tier cutoff. In these cases, it helps to know which owners are willing to play ball.
Almost every owner likes the idea of trading back for a haul, but in practice, you’ll find some owners are easier to deal with than others. Some owners give you the pick you want in exchange for two later picks, and everybody is happy. On the other hand, we all know owners who claim to want to trade back and then demand an unrealistic trove of assets.
8. What position groups do certain owners highly value?
Certain owners are always willing to add more wide receivers, while others try to load their tight end room in TE-premium formats. Some owners really want three quality quarterbacks, while others seem not to care too strongly about their QB3 spot. None of these proclivities are necessarily weaknesses, but noticing your league mate’s preference will help you craft a tantalizing trade offer.
9. Whose stack are you completing?
While it’s unclear to me exactly how much an owner should be willing to pay in order to make a stack, it’s at least helpful to know when a player on your roster completes a stack for the owner you’re trading with. Whenever you receive an offer for a wide receiver or quarterback, check your league mate’s roster and see if you’d be completing a stack for them. If you are, you can usually ask for a bit more than you could otherwise.
Profiles
Now that we’ve identified specific patterns to look out for, it’s time to talk about which profiles you might encounter as you go through this exercise. Keep in mind you might not have all of these in your leagues, but it helps to be aware of them so you can notice the pattern when it emerges.
Mr. Devy
These are owners who are extremely plugged into college football and tend to form strong opinions about specific players regardless of the draft process. While these players can be sharp drafters, more often than not, they have two weaknesses.
1. This type of owner ignores draft capital during your rookie drafts
If you have a Mr. Devy in your league, odds are they’re the ones who drafted Troy Franklin and Bucky Irving. As seen with Bucky, this can be a good thing. Sometimes, you just know when somebody can play. In general, however, ignoring draft capital can be a risky game. Time and again, draft capital is shown to be the most predictive measure of fantasy points, which can be due to a few reasons.
Firstly, draft capital directly measures the level of investment and belief in a player. Players with high draft capital are more likely to have an intentional runway to playing time and touches, and it’s more likely the team’s head coach lobbied to draft them. They’re also more likely to have a long leash if they don’t hit the ground running. In this sense, draft capital can be a self-fulfilling prophecy when it comes to fantasy success.
Secondly, NFL teams have access to information that we simply don’t. If a player is uncoachable or lazy, sometimes we don’t know until well after our fantasy drafts, if ever. So if you believe in a player’s talent, but he tumbles to day three, there is often a good reason. Thirdly, NFL front offices might, on average, be better at talent evaluation than individual dynasty owners. It kills me to admit this and I will obstinately continue scouting prospects myself.
If Mr. Devy is trying to trade up with you, go ahead and see if you can get a haul. They might be unwilling to lose whichever player they’re targeting. At worst, they’ll counter.
2. Mr. Devy will not give up on your re-rolls
While I do think Mr. Devy can be sharp when they pick “their guys” and ignore NFL draft capital, I also believe they are much too slow to incorporate new evidence at the NFL level over their pre-draft opinion. No matter what a player did in college, fantasy points are scored by performance in NFL games. There is, consequently, nothing more predictive than performance in real NFL football games when evaluating players.
If a player was put in a position to succeed and did absolutely nothing with that opportunity, or if they outright sucked, that is more informative than anything they did in college. When you have these kinds of players on your team, you should try to flip them to Mr. Devy.
You can likewise try to tier up with Mr. Devy. In cases where one rookie majorly outperforms another, there might be a buy window where you can acquire the better player plus an asset for your underperforming player. This is not advice to dump the Rome Odunze and rookie JSN types; it is more so advice to find buy windows for the Brian Thomas Jr. types.
The Homer
You’re not guaranteed to have this owner in your league, and even homers aren’t guaranteed to have every skill position player of a certain team in their league. However, there are a couple of subtle signs of a homer.
1. They’re rostering multiple cuttable depth players from a specific team
2. They overdraft rookies from this specific team
If you’re lucky, you’ll have an obvious homer who legitimately has every notable skill position player for this team, but don’t count on it. If you do have a homer in your league, naturally, you should be willing to offer them players from that team.
The Stasher
When a player takes a major hit to their value, certain rebuilders in your league might not care at all and still offer close to full price for them. Stashers are characterized by treating Weak Stashes as if they were Strong Stashes (see Part I). Contenders should always target stashers when flipping injured assets for contending pieces, while rebuilders might be able to sweeten the pot for a Stud or Untouchable player by offering injured players to stashers.
A rebuilder becomes a stasher when they mistake debilitating season-ending injuries for non-debilitating ones. Achilles injuries and multi-ligament knee injuries are categorically different from clean ACL tears, and young players bounce back better from any type of season-ending injury than older players. When you lose a player to the former kind of injury, even when they get back on an NFL field, they don’t look the same.
A contender becomes a stasher when they acquire injured and IR players in-season, hoping to stash them for a postseason run. Dynasty owners need to understand that there is a major difference between players coming back nominally vs coming back at full strength. Often, when a skill position player comes back from IR, they’ll spend the rest of the season playing through pain. Certain injuries, such as high ankle sprains, hamstring strains, and turf toe, do not knock a player out for the entire season but are debilitating nonetheless.
If you’re a contender considering buying low on one of these guys, be prepared to get back a watered-down version of that player. Unfortunately, we don’t typically have a good way of knowing when a player picks up a minor strain and will come back full strength vs when they’ll spend the rest of the season playing through pain. So, while you may miss an opportunity here and there, you generally should be unwilling to pay full price for these kinds of players expecting playoff production.
The Rebuilding True Believer
This type of rebuilder is the one who is completely tearing down their roster and taking it too far. This type of rebuilder is often role-playing because they’re unconsciously motivated by the dynasty aspect of feeling like a real GM. They’ll make drastic moves and try to acquire an absolute trove of picks. While I do think rebuilders should go whole hog rather than take half-measures when rebuilding, this type of owner takes it too far in a couple of ways.
1. This type of rebuilder might offload their Untouchable players for a high quantity of players below the Studs tier
When a rebuilder of this type is starting their long-term rebuild, they might be completely averse to acquiring established players. In terms of the player tiers from Part I, this means they might sell you a player in the Untouchables tier and not ask for a single player in your Untouchables or Studs tier. If you can acquire this type of player for a bunch of Strong Stashes and draft picks, you should jump on it.
2. This type of player likes the idea of future firsts and might not care that they’re late
If you’re an established contender who knows they’re going to the postseason, you might be able to acquire a major asset for late firsts, which in most draft classes don’t usually become great players.
3. This type of player might go too far getting fantasy points out of their lineup
Rebuilding true believers might be so focused on getting the first overall pick in their rookie drafts that they might dump Key Starters and Rentals just to get fantasy points out of their lineups and could let themselves get fleeced in terms of compensation. A contender might be able to package their late second and third-rounders for two Key Starters with this kind of owner, and these picks are likely to be so late they’re overwhelmingly probable to turn into low-value players.
4. This type of player might flip a franchise QB for a QB prospect plus an asset
This type of owner might be so obsessed with getting younger that they might underestimate quarterback longevity. If you are in a league with a rebuilder who owns a veteran quarterback with 4+ good years ahead of them, you might be able to get this player for a quarterback prospect plus a solid asset. If the quarterback prospect doesn’t smash, this quickly becomes a huge steal.
The Contending True Believer
This type of owner can’t stand having weaknesses in their starting lineup. They’re highly likely to trade their picks, prospects, and strong stashes for startable players. The number one way to trade with these owners is by acquiring their studs who are going through a rough patch. This type of owner is the one who will flip you their Garrett Wilson for your Courtland Sutton plus a quality rental. These types of owners are uniquely likely to feel obligated to trade away their injured players.
For the types of injuries where you can count on a full recovery, be sure to offer your older key starters and rentals for these players. Players who fit this description would include Rashee Rice and J.J. McCarthy. Even for non-contenders, do keep an eye out for owners who seem to always dump injured players, even ones with favorable injury outlooks.
Mr. Redraft
This nickname is pretty self-explanatory. This is the owner who always seems to be playing redraft in dynasty. This type of owner has a couple of major weaknesses:
1. Will be extremely willing to trade you their strong stashes and may even drop them outright if they’re inexperienced
2. Is willing to trade you players with long-term value who are underperforming
The Taco
I get it. Your league doesn’t have tacos. It’s too sharp and too high stakes. In any case, if you do have a taco in your league, figure out what their weakness is specifically. I do have one league with a taco in it, and their tendency is to give away their draft picks despite their roster not being nearly ready to compete. Figure out exactly what type of mistake your taco is likely to make. One major tip for trading with a taco is that when they put a player on the block, you need to move quickly to send an offer for them.
If they’re on the cusp of getting fleeced by your league mate, they will not shop around for a better offer or check in with you. So, if they are about to sell an untouchable player, do not assume they will be patient and shop for the best possible offer. Even if you think the player they are shopping for will be too expensive, offer something. Either you’ll get a steal, or you’ll at least set a floor for what they’ll eventually get from a league mate.
Mr. Trade Calculator
If you ever see an inexplicable many-for-one trade go through in your league, odds are a trade calculator was responsible. You can fairly easily go to KeepTradeCut to confirm that suspicion. If your league mate is using a trade calculator, go ahead and use that to your advantage. Offer packages for elite players who are relatively lower on the calculator, and package up from smaller pieces that you won’t miss.
Synopsis
There you have it. Those are just a few of the trading styles that you might encounter as you go through this exercise. Last but not least, check out your trading history and see if you have any tendencies other owners might exploit. While it might hurt to go back through some of your own worst trades, gaining this self-awareness will make you a more effective trader in the long run.
Also, don’t get discouraged if your league mates don’t fit neatly into a specific one of these categories. Rather, focus on the weaknesses native to each category, and see if any of your league-mates have made one or more of these mistakes in the past, then get ready to exploit that weakness. At this point, you’re almost ready to start sending out trade offers. Stay tuned for next week, where we’ll go through profiling your league mates’ rosters.
Until next time, stay hungry and stay sharp.