There's a lot of 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.

Trying to Win at the Trade Deadline

The calendar continues to turn in fantasy football, and now we find ourselves deep into trade deadline season. I'm not a fan of trade deadlines in dynasty leagues for many reasons, but I recognize their appeal, and whenever I bring up possibly abolishing them, I always get the same shocked response: without a trade deadline, what is to stop my leaguemates from buying a championship?

I understand the concern, though I don't share it. For starters, if you have a trade deadline, it doesn't stop the "championship-buying", it just shifts it forward a few weeks. More importantly, most of the times I see someone trying to buy a championship, they are doing so in a wildly inefficient manner. I'd certainly be more upset about my leaguemates' attempts to buy a championship if my leaguemates weren't consistently doing it wrong.

So today I wanted to look at buying a championship in dynasty-- both the common (and wrong) way, as well as the uncommon way that actually works fairly consistently.

How to Buy a Championship (the Wrong Way)

The road most people take when attempting to buy a championship is trading assets with little short-term value for assets with more short-term value, regardless of the respective long-term value of each asset. For instance, a future first-round pick has lots of long-term value but very little in the short term. On the other hand, James Conner has lots of short-term value (he's projected as the #13 fantasy RB over the rest of the season), but offers little over a longer horizon (he is 29.6 years old and the Cardinals have already started searching for his eventual replacement in the draft).

If all else is equal, a future first-round pick possesses more total value than James Conner. But if I’m attempting to purchase a championship, I can trade my first for Conner and increase the overall quality of my team with no immediate consequences.

This is a smart strategy except for the tiny little problem that it very rarely works.

We already discussed earlier in the year what a good team's realistic championship odds were (fairly bleak) and how much a single player would impact them (not a ton). As a refresher, let's remember the different ways a win-now trade can end.

The Four Ways Possible Outcomes of a Win-Now Trade

1.) You win the championship / you would have won it without the trade
2.) You win the championship / you would not have won it without the trade
3.) You do not win the championship / you would have won it without the trade
4.) You do not win the championship / you would not have won it without the trade

In Outcome 1 and 4, the win-now trade had no impact on the result of the season. It’s worth noting that these possibilities represent the two most likely outcomes, regardless of your team's strength or the trade being made.

Outcome 2 is the brass ring of win-now trades, the one everyone dreams of when they’re hitting the “accept” button. For the most part, your chances of winding up here might be around 5-10%-- if you're lucky. It would be easy, when analyzing possible outcomes, to merely estimate this possibility and end the analysis there.

Outcome 3, however, is also a real possibility. I have seen teams that won championships that, paradoxically enough, they would not have won if they’d made a win-now trade. A reader sent me my new favorite example last January.

When Championship-Buying Goes Bad

He was playing in the championship game in a league without a trade deadline, and Footballguys' League Dominator rated him as a mild underdog. He was in negotiations with an eliminated team to acquire Alvin Kamara-- the quintessential type of naked championship-buying that trade deadlines are designed to prevent-- and asked me what I thought about a deal he had on the table. I told him I felt it was an overpay and walked through the four possibilities. He reluctantly passed on the trade and went into the championship with the team he had.

Alvin Kamara had a bad week, finishing as the #43 fantasy back and underperforming the player this manager was hoping to replace. Had he made the trade, it would have cost him points. But unfortunately for this manager, the difference didn't matter-- he would have lost with the trade, but he still lost without it.

Fortunately for this manager, though, his opponent was also in negotiations for Alvin Kamara. When this manager dropped out, his opponent "won" the sweepstakes. And Kamara underperformed the running back being replaced on that team, too-- this time by a much larger margin. Large enough to swing what would have been a win into a loss.

The manager asking for my thoughts was unknowingly stuck in Outcome 4 territory (the trade was irrelevant, and he would lose either way), but his opponent was staring down the barrel of Outcome 3. I'm sure it felt terrible at the time to bow out of the running only to see his top rival become even more formidable as a result, but it turns out that not making a win-now trade not only resulted in that rival getting weaker in the long run because they overpaid for a short-term boost... it also (with the benefit of hindsight) was the only path to winning the league

Now, this isn’t to say that we can’t do anything to improve our odds of winning a title. Looking at the four possible outcomes above, #2 will always be more common than #3 (provided we’re better at predicting the future than a random number generator would be, which I’ll admit sometimes feels like quite a stretch).

But it is important to remind ourselves that the value of a win-now trade isn't determined by the likelihood of Outcome 2; it's determined by the net difference in likelihood between Outcome 2 and Outcome 3. Even managers who calculate the odds of #2 rarely consider the possibility of #3, let alone take the extra step to calculate and subtract the odds.

After considering all the possibilities, maybe it's worth going through with the deal anyway. Every deal has a price at which it makes sense. Marginal improvements are still improvements. They're just marginal ones.

But not all improvements in championship odds have to be marginal.

How to Buy a Championship (the Right Way)

Okay, so the most common method of buying a championship (trading long-term assets for short-term assets), only wins you a title you otherwise would have lost a small percentage of the time. And it has a not-entirely-dissimilar chance of losing you a championship you otherwise would have won.

I believe at the top I promised a much less common method for buying a championship that was virtually foolproof. So here it is, the 100% guaranteed method for buying a championship-- provided you are willing to live with the long-term consequences. (They won't be trivial.)

Step 1: Contact every other playoff team in your league.
Step 2: Pay them money to not set starting lineups.

Note that while this way is reliable, it's not especially profitable; it's a virtual certainty your total costs will exceed your league's championship payout. Every approach has its downsides.

Short of bribery, you’re just going to have to live with the fact that winning a championship is always a long shot. I’d recommend making peace with that realization and working on building the kind of team that will be in the hunt every year, maximizing the number of cracks you get at the prize. When this year doesn't go your way (and it usually won't), it's comforting to know at least there'll be next year.