With Thanksgiving comes the beginning of trade deadline season in dynasty fantasy football leagues. If you are trading, make sure your trade tactics leave you in the best position to make a great deal for your team.
Shop for Profiles
There are different styles of trading in dynasty fantasy football. As a seller, you typically try to get a specific return price for a player. For example, if you are selling Keaton Mitchell, you may be looking for a second-round rookie pick in return for Mitchell. In doing so, you can make 11 offers around the league for a second-round pick or equivalent to each GM around the league.
As a buyer, your goal is different. If you are looking to buy in the trade market, enter with the flexibility of shopping for profiles instead of players. For example, if you are looking for help at the wide receiver, a good approach is to target veteran wide receivers outside the top 20 in dynasty cost who are in their late 20s or early 30s but the number one options on their team. Examples include Keenan Allen, Davante Adams, Mike Evans, Amari Cooper, DeAndre Hopkins, and Adam Theilen.
When shopping in this group, your goal should be to pay a specific price for an upgrade at wide receiver. For example, you might enter trade negotiations looking to trade a second-round rookie pick plus a non-difference-making player for an upgrade at wide receiver. Your goal as a buyer is not to acquire a specific player, but instead, acquire the profile of a difference-making wide receiver at a specific price point.
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Prompt an Offer
Not all trades require in-depth trade negotiations. If you are a seller, you hope to get an acceptance with minimal trade negotiations. Likewise, if you are shopping for cheaper profiles, you can spend your time more efficiently than detailed trade negotiations.
When the profile you seek out is elite, time spent in trade negotiations can be well spent.
There are a couple of rules of thumb when in these trade negotiations.
First, acquire usable information. In trade negotiations, acquiring information from your opponent is invaluable. This can come from trade bait posts, trade discussions, incoming trade offers, or messages in trade rejections.
Second, prompt an offer from your opponent. Dynasty fantasy football leagues are filled with people willing to tell you how their opinions are the best. Your goal is to get them talking and ultimately offering trade offers to you.
An incoming offer is more advantageous than an outgoing offer for three key reasons.
First, you are receiving information instead of giving information away.
Second, the offer is calibrated to the opposing GM's preferences. Nothing is worse than sending a trade offer that gets accepted only to realize you could have given less if you had known more about your opponent's preferences. The incoming offer limits the risk of this.
Third, an incoming offer leaves you with the power to accept.
When you receive an offer that you would accept, you have a lot of leverage. Only you know the offer is one you will accept. The opposing GM will have to wait for you to accept. Before accepting, consider shopping around your league.
For example, if you receive an inbound trade offer for Justin Herbert that you would accept, consider where he falls in your order of preference. Would you rather have Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, or Jalen Hurts? Consider sending the inbound offer to the dynasty GMs with Jackson, Allen, and Hurts to see if you can get a deal done for your preferred option.
You do not have the luxury of sitting and waiting forever on an inbound offer. Know the pace of your league and the pace of the negotiations you have had with this GM.
Is this something you can sit on for a couple of hours? Or do you need to send a message saying you need a little while before you can sit down and look at the offer? You can make up an excuse or reason to buy some time to send out other offers.
Overall, prompting an offer can be a difficult but very lucrative tactic, especially if you do so on high-priced players. Use your knowledge of your league and league-mates to get them to give you information you can use in trade offers.