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.

Let's Talk About Trade Deadlines

If Dynasty, in Theory were to choose a patron saint, it would be Bertrand Russell, who wrote, "Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise." Sometimes we take vague problems like tanking and attempt to make the definition more precise ("taking any actions that one otherwise wouldn't take if draft order was not a consideration") so that appropriate solutions become more apparent. Sometimes, we take something obvious ("sometimes dynasty leagues fold or managers leave") and attempt to quantify it more precisely so we can make more informed decisions.

(Another Bertrand Russell quote: "My desire and wish is that the things I start with should be so obvious that you wonder why I spend my time stating them. This is what I aim at because the point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it." Also: "William James used to preach the "will-to-believe." For my part, I should wish to preach the "will-to-doubt." None of our beliefs are quite true; all at least have a penumbra of vagueness and error. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.")

Today we're going to talk about one of those things that pretty much everyone has: trade deadlines. For most leagues, they're just a few weeks away. Most managers have always had one, so they tend to believe they must be important for vague reasons they never quite consider.

But we're going to dive deep on them. What is a trade deadline? Why is it so common? What is its purpose (both its stated purpose and its actual purpose) and does it generally accomplish that goal? Just as importantly, does it have any costs, and are those costs worth the benefits?

What is a Trade Deadline?

A trade deadline does exactly what it says on the tin: creates a deadline by which you must complete trades, after which trading will no longer be allowed.

Why Do Most Leagues Have a Trade Deadline?

Honestly, I believe the vast majority of leagues with a trade deadline established one because it was the default.

I don't mean for this to be uncharitable. I'm a big fan of defaults! G.K. Chesterton once wrote the following in defense of defaults:

There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”

This passage gave rise to an idea generally known as "Chesterton's Fence": The principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood. If every league you have played in has featured a trade deadline, then you definitely shouldn't get rid of it unless you're confident you understand the reasons it was there in the first place.

So Why Did Trade Deadlines Get Started?

The universalization of trade deadlines owes to two primary factors (along with several secondary ones). First, fantasy football is meant as a simulacrum of regular football. The NFL has a trade deadline, so many fantasy leagues adopted a trade deadline to match.

(A combination of mimicking the NFL and maintaining defaults is also a big reason why most leagues require two starting running backs today; fantasy football started in an era where fullbacks were the norm, so two starting running backs resulted in lineups that more closely resembled actual NFL teams. Teams no longer use a fullback, but we still start two running backs because that's the way it's always been done.)

The second main reason for a trade deadline is it prevents teams who no longer have a stake in the outcome of the league from influencing that outcome. This is a very, very good reason... in redraft leagues, where participants will often reach a point where they no longer have a stake in the outcome of the league.

Most dynasty managers got their fantasy football start in redraft, so it's understandable that many redraft conventions have simply been ported over. But one of the best parts of dynasty, in my opinion, is the fact that there is never a point where any participant no longer has a stake in the league. Even if you are not in contention to win this year, you're always in contention to win next year.

A third point I've seen raised is the idea that deadlines spur action, so trade deadlines can have the effect of increasing the number of trades as teams feel pressured to close deals in time. This may be the case; I've little doubt that trade deadlines increase the volume of trades in the period directly before the deadline, though I question whether this increase is enough to offset the guaranteed decrease in the number of trades after the deadline, and anyway, I'm not sure if "trading qua trading" is inherently good and worthy of valorizing. (There are aspects of trading that are unambiguously good. I just don't know if I subscribe to the mindset that more trading is tautologically better. Not all trades are created equal.)

Now, I'll admit my bias: I don't like trade deadlines in dynasty leagues and would prefer that they didn't exist. But I believe I'm offering a fair summary of the arguments in favor. If you don't want to take it from a noted deadline-hater like myself, my anti-deadline stances have inspired some bizarrely passionate responses over the years. You're welcome to read that piece as a prebuttal to the arguments I'm about to make, though (other than a bit about arbitrary consequences being good, actually) I don't think it raises any points other than those I've already outlined.

Trade Deadlines are a Constraint on Behavior

Teams trade when they believe it's in the best interest of their team. Disallowing trades after a certain point has the effect of preventing managers from doing what they would otherwise think was in their best interest.

Sometimes it's in the best interest of leagues to prevent managers from acting in the best interest of their teams. Tanking is a classic example-- from an individual self-interest perspective, managers are often incentivized to try to lose as much as possible. Because leagues are less fun overall when some managers are actively trying to lose, most leagues will include rules against tanking to prevent managers from acting in their best interest. As a result, everyone is better off on the net. This is good, we live in a society.

(As an aside: a better solution would be to align a manager's best interest with the league's best interest, perhaps by changing the way picks are awarded so that it's never to a manager's benefit to lose.)

Does the league have a compelling interest that would be best served by adding a trade deadline? Here are three high-level goals I think most fantasy leagues share, along with how they are impacted by the deadline.

Goal: Reward Prepared Teams Who Have Acquired Adequate Depth

This is probably the first goal that comes to mind when talking about trade deadlines. But I think it doesn't interact with the deadline in quite the way most people would think.

Imagine a league that starts 1 QB, 2 RBs, 3 WRs, 1 TE, and a flex. Now imagine three managers. The first has 1 quality QB, 3 quality RBs, 3 quality WRs, 1 quality TE, and no other quality players behind them. The second has 1 quality QB, 2 quality RBs, 6 quality WRs, and 1 quality TE. The third has 2 quality QBs, 5 quality RBs, 9 quality WRs, 3 quality TEs, and four extra first-round picks. (Remember, future draft picks are also functional depth.)

Now imagine the first team suffers no notable injuries from Weeks 13-17, the second suffers two injuries to its wide receivers, and the third suffers two injuries to its quarterbacks. There's no question that the third team was the deepest, and yet it is the only of the three teams that will be forced to start a "non-quality" player at any position.

Injuries are random. Having more productive players on your bench helps reduce the chances that they'll be especially damaging, but there's never any guarantee. You can stockpile depth at one position only to make it a month without a single injury there, or you can carry "sufficient" depth but hit an especially unlucky string of injuries at a single position.

Contrary to the popular narrative, allowing trades later in the season doesn't benefit those who failed to stockpile depth. If the first manager suffers a single injury, he or she won't be able to do anything to address it. If the second manager suffers one or two injuries, he or she could probably patch it over with one or two of those surplus receivers. If the third manager suffers virtually any number of injuries they will either have a replacement handy or an asset on hand to acquire one.

I don't mind that fantasy football has a large luck component-- in fact, this is another of the things that makes it the most fun-- so I'm not especially bothered by the idea that a manager of a "deep" team could still wind up brought down by an especially unlucky combination of injuries or circumstances. But it must be noted that if a goal is to reward teams that have adequate depth, removing the trade deadline accomplishes that goal much more efficiently than keeping it.

The teams with the most depth are the teams that are best positioned to benefit from trades.

Goal: Keep Competition High

As a fantasy manager, there's perhaps nothing worse than fighting for the final playoff spot only to see that the team you're competing against is facing a squad that isn't trying its best to win. This is why tanking is bad; it's just less fun when teams are gifted wins at random by quirks of the schedule. The most fun playoff races happen when teams are trying as hard to win in Week 14 as they are in Week 4.

Now imagine you play in a league that bans trades after Week 10. Let's say you're 4-5 and your top receivers are 33-year-old Adam Thielen and 31-year-old Keenan Allen. You're faced with a choice; you can either keep Thielen and Allen and try to win enough to make the playoffs, or you can decide that it's probably not happening and trade Thielen and Allen for future picks.

If you trade away your top receivers, any team that faces you in the last five weeks is going to have a much easier path to victory. It's best for the league if you keep them and try to make a late run. But doing so and falling short would be especially punitive and make it much harder to rebuild after the season, so the smarter play is probably trading them away.

In this case, the trade deadline pushes decisions far enough forward to incentivize managers to act in a way that makes the league as a whole less fun. It'd be much better to let that 4-5 team keep its receivers, try to make a playoff run, and still trade them away afterward once it became clear they were going to come up short.

The earlier your trade deadline is, the earlier teams are forced to decide about whether they want to compete or give up on the season, and the more games managers will play against "zombie teams" that are no longer trying to win.

Goal: Maintain a Path to Relevance

This is probably the single most important factor in dynasty leagues, the only thing that even makes dynasty possible. Dynasty promises that your team is your team forever. Everyone likes this promise when their team is good-- who doesn't want to be good forever? But nobody wants this when their team is bad. As such, dynasty leagues have many mechanisms in place to make it easier for bad teams to become good. Most notably, it awards the most valuable draft picks to the worst franchises. (This is yet another reason why tanking is bad; it distorts this process.)

The trade deadline, however, functions as an anti-parity mechanism. In the example above, if the team with Thielen and Allen rolls the dice and tries to make a playoff run only to come up short, the trade deadline prevents that team from using its valuable assets to improve before that value declines.

Additionally, there are a lot of reasons why good teams might not be interested in aging contributors early in the season. Many good teams won't have suffered enough injuries yet to become motivated buyers. Or perhaps they are interested in an aging starter but are worried if they acquire him in Week 3 that he might be injured or out of the lineup by the time the fantasy playoffs roll around. Additionally, many middling teams aren't sure yet whether they'll make the playoffs or not. (Our hypothetical 4-5 team with Allen and Thielen might be interested in adding Derrick Henry to shore up its running back position if it makes the playoffs, but won't do so before the deadline because it still doesn't know whether it's playoff-bound or not.)

There are often more buyers (or at least more-motivated buyers) for expiring assets later in the season, which means teams that are eliminated from playoff contention can get better prices to help them start building for next year. (This is also to the league's benefit; it's better for Adam Thielen to be traded for full value in Week 14 than for a fraction of full value in Week 9 just because one team is a motivated seller but no teams are yet motivated buyers. Making contending teams pay full cost for current production is a parity mechanism.)

Additionally, the ability to trade for short-term fill-ins functions as a potential tax on good teams. If a playoff team trades a future 2nd-round pick for Adam Thielen, that helps them in the short term but makes them weaker beyond 2023. This makes it easier for the worst teams to catch back up to the pack.

So Should You Eliminate the Trade Deadline?

Maybe you've found my arguments so far compelling. Eliminating the trade deadline allows managers to manage their teams how they want with fewer constraints. It enables the deepest teams to leverage that depth more effectively. It encourages managers to keep competing until the end of the season. It serves as another parity mechanism, both helping bad teams improve more quickly so they spend less time stuck in purgatory and encouraging good teams to pay a "contending tax" that brings them back to the pack in the future. (It also rewards patient managers who opt against paying that tax.)

Or maybe you haven't found them that compelling. I know from a decade of advocacy that many people feel strongly about trade deadlines, often for largely aesthetic reasons. I think there's only one other thing I've ever written about that has inspired so many passionate rebuttals. (I won't go so far as to say I'm objectively right and my critics are objectively wrong on that issue. I will note that everyone who listened to me about conditional lineups over the years had much less stressful experiences dealing with COVID-19 in 2020 and the fantasy fallout of Damar Hamlin's injury in 2022, though.)

The great irony is that all of my fantasy leagues still feature trade deadlines. Despite all my arguments, my leaguemates still have largely-aesthetic objections to allowing trades late in the season. (My home dynasty league initially allowed trades during the playoffs; this ended when a manager made a playoff trade because he felt it benefited his team, then complained afterward that he shouldn't have been allowed to do so because it was unfair to his opponent that week. For the record, I was his opponent that week and I didn't feel it was unfair. Nevertheless, I put the deadline to a vote and it passed.)

That's fine-- good, even. Ultimately, fantasy football should be structured in the way that is most fun for all involved. I have strong opinions about things like trade deadlines and tanking, but if you and your leaguemates decide that the most fun thing would be a league where tanking was expressly encouraged and trades were banned after Week 2, then I hope you create that league and have a blast playing in it. Just because it's not for me doesn't mean it's bad.

(I will say that the largest aesthetic objection-- to teams "buying" a championship late in the year-- always struck me as overrated. Teams can't "buy" a championship ex nihilo. Instead, they can sacrifice future title odds to increase present title odds, but the benefit to the rest of the league is that future titles become easier to win in exchange. Additionally, most attempts to "buy" a championship are spectacularly ineffective; I'll likely write much more about this later this season.)

But my persistent nagging has succeeded in pushing the deadlines back over time in my leagues, and I count that as a win. If allowing trades during the fantasy playoffs just "feels wrong", a very late trade deadline is almost as good as no deadline at all. If you stop trading at kickoff of the first playoff week, you capture most of the benefits listed above-- you encourage middling teams to strive for the playoffs, you allow eliminated teams to shop around for fair value for their aging contributors, and you dramatically shrink the window of time where deep teams are exposed to injury but unable to address it.

I'd imagine most fantasy football managers have never given serious thought to the trade deadline, and I think that's worth changing. If you're going to have a deadline, it's best to have it because you want it, not just because that's how it's always been. And maybe when you give it a bit of thought, you'll agree that fantasy would be more fun without it.