There's a lot of really strong dynasty analysis out there, especially when compared to five or ten years ago. But most of it is so dang practical-- Player X is undervalued, Player Y's workload is troubling, the market at this position is irrational, and take this specific action to win your league. Dynasty, in Theory is meant as a corrective, offering insights and takeaways into the strategic and structural nature of the game that might not lead to an immediate benefit but which should help us become better players over time.

Flexible Rosters Bend, Brittle Rosters Break

This week we're continuing our series on simple heuristics, or rules of thumb, to help you succeed in Dynasty. Four weeks ago, I wrote about how complicated models tend to outperform simple heuristics in environments with low uncertainty, but as uncertainty increases, that observation tends to flip. Three weeks ago, I gave two such heuristics that to maximize value in rookie drafts. Two weeks ago, I talked about how maximizing value (instead of chasing wins) was the most sustainable path to long-term success in dynasty, and last week I wrote about how one of the best ways for good teams to remain relevant was to accept short-term pain in exchange for long-term gains.

I always like to write about concepts that naturally lead into and build upon each other to create a scaffolding for success, so this week's column will pick up where last week's left off. I advised that when players were nearing the end of their tenure in your starting lineup, it was usually best to move them for future draft picks, even if those aging players were still providing you with a weekly advantage and even if those draft picks were "only" as valuable as the player in question (i.e., even if the trades were superficially "fair" on both sides).

There's a huge advantage to trades like these beyond the way that they keep your roster young with minimal cost to your title odds in any given season. An advantage that's not captured in the trade calculators or rankings or value charts you might consult. The biggest advantage of these trades, in my experience, is that they keep your roster flexible (as opposed to brittle).

A flexible roster is able to gracefully absorb exogenous shocks and remain competitive. A brittle roster can also be competitive, but it is more dependent on events playing out the proper way. And that leads to today's rule: "Never sell flexibility for fair value".

Using Footballguys' Tools To Illustrate The Point

Let me provide an example. I'm in a dynasty league that gives 2 points per reception to tight ends. In this league, Travis Kelce is such a huge advantage that any team with him on the roster is an immediate title contender.

Indeed, Footballguys' League Dominator has a power rankings tool that estimates the weekly point-per-game average for every team in a given league, and the manager with Kelce is a front-runner to enter the season. (The 2nd-through-4th best teams are projected for between 140 and 142.5 points per game, while teams 5-8 are tightly clustered between 128.4 and 129.3 projected points per game; the manager with Kelce is projected 3rd with 140.9.)

But is this team wholly dependent on Kelce to remain relevant? One can test using the League Dominator's trade evaluator tool. Propose a trade where the team sends off his best player for another player with no 2023 value (in this case, I evaluated a trade of Kelce for Brenton Strange). Under this trade, the team's projected points per game fell from 140.9 to 124.2, which would be the new 8th overall and more than five points per game out of 7th.

A datapoint is useless without context, so for comparison: after likewise losing their most valuable player, the top team's projected average fell from 149.0 to 138.2, the second-best team fell from 142.6 to 134.9, and the fourth-best team fell from 140.1 to 131.9.

Losing your most valuable player will always hurt, but it will not always hurt equally; the manager with Kelce lost 16.7 points per game with him out and fell to 8th, while the other three contenders lost just 8.9 points per game and all remained in the Top 4 (albeit significantly behind the other top contenders). Their rosters were more flexible, while the roster with Kelce is much more brittle.

Being brittle is not necessarily bad (hot take: having Travis Kelce on your fantasy team is good, actually). This team is in an enviable position, and two-thirds of the league would likely swap places if given a choice.

But it does limit this team's ability to respond to adversity. Provided everything goes well (or even provided the right things go wrong), we might never notice the team's brittleness. If the wrong thing goes wrong, this manager better start making plans for 2024.

But Flexibility Isn't Quite That Simple

The exercise of using the League Dominator to estimate team strengths and fragility is a fantastic one, and I strongly recommend you incorporate it into your dynasty routines, but it's not entirely complete. The League Dominator is a tool to evaluate how things are; it lacks the imagination necessary to evaluate how they might be. It assumes that when holes arise, the only possible patches are those that already exist on your roster.

One of my favorite parts of Dynasty is how restricting the flow of incoming talent forces teams to rely more on trades to keep their roster intact. No team can count on hitting on 1 quarterback, 2 running backs, 3 wide receivers, and a tight end every few years in the rookie draft, so every team must, at some point, turn to the trade market to fill holes.

If the manager with Travis Kelce has enough valuable trading chips on his roster, he could respond to a Kelce injury by packaging a few together for Mark Andrews or T.J. Hockenson. Kelce is the closest thing to an irreplaceable player in fantasy football right now, but a move like that would greatly mitigate the damage.

Indeed, much of the drop in points per game comes from the fact that the League Dominator is trying to replace Kelce only with tight ends currently on the roster (in this case, Isaiah Likely or Luke Schoonmaker). Even a bargain-basement swap of a future 3rd for Juwan Johnson or Gerald Everett would claw back some of the damage.

So when looking at a team's flexibility, it's important to also consider the tradeable assets available on the bench. (Trading assets in the starting lineup is trickier because it patches one hole by creating another. But if a team is deep at receiver, say, it could trade its #2 receiver for a tight end and promote its #4 to the starting lineup, which might be a smaller downgrade overall.)

And this is where Flexes for Firsts proves its mettle because to trade the thing you have for the thing you want, the manager with the thing you want has to want the thing you have. And every manager (whether rebuilding, contending, or somewhere in between) wants future draft picks.

Evaluating a Hypothetical Trade

According to Dan Hindery's August trade value charts, Miles Sanders is worth about as much as a late 1st-round rookie pick in 2024. If you're a strong team but want another running back, trading next year's first for Sanders is a "fair" deal. But let's say you're like the Travis Kelce team above and four weeks into the season, Kelce ruptures his Achilles tendon. If you still had your future first, you would have eleven potential trade partners to acquire a replacement. Regardless of what your preferred replacement might be, you could rest assured that that manager would be interested in buying what you had to sell. Rookie picks are liquid assets.

But with Sanders on your roster, the picture is more complicated. Are there any teams that are already deep at running back? They probably won't be interested in acquiring Sanders. Are there any teams that are rebuilding for the year? They likely won't want Sanders, either. Even if Sanders remains healthy and productive, there might only be three or four teams looking to acquire him in October. And if none of those teams happen to have a viable replacement tight end, you're out of luck.

Similarly, if you decide to rebuild this year and trade Miles Sanders for a 2024 first-round pick, but then your team is unexpectedly feisty early in the year and you want to pivot to contention, you can always trade that first-round pick away again— if not for Sanders, then for someone comparably helpful to your lineup. (But possibly even for Sanders again, especially if the other team has underperformed early.)

The reverse is rarely true; if you trade your future first for Miles Sanders and then struggle over the first month of the season, it's much harder to trade Sanders away again for as much as you paid to acquire him. The pool of potential buyers is much smaller, and the odds of getting what you are looking for are much lower.

Trading a late 2024 first for Miles Sanders is fair value, but it reduces your team's flexibility, making it more brittle. Being brittle succeeds well, but it fails poorly. A flexible team preserves the ability to pivot if it later changes its mind.

(I've been discussing future rookie picks to this point, but it should be noted that promising young prospects are nearly as flexible.)

I don't want to suggest you should never trade more-liquid assets for less-liquid assets. The heuristic isn't "never sell flexibility", after all. But if you're going to make a trade that reduces your team's flexibility, you should demand a premium for the sacrifice. Trade for something worth more than the liquid asset you're giving up.

And if you can't get a favorable offer and "fair trades" are all that's available to you, you should put flexibility-reducing moves off for as long as possible. Once you make them, you're committed to a course of action, so don't commit before you absolutely have to.