When to trade players (1 Viewer)

I couldn't find a thread discussing this but if there is one give it a bump. Player values rise and fall, sometimes dramatically during the course of the offseason. Some stay put, but if you peruse some threads (dyno trades in feb-March) you'll find that some players whose situation has stayed the same have carried different values. 

     Take Rawls for example. Right after the season his value was higher than the month before the draft, when talk of drafting a rb in Seattle was being discussed at length. They draft 3 rbs, and now his stock is gradually climbing back up. CJ Anderson was probably a cheaper buy pre-free agency, then was boosted after, then back down after the booker addition. No one was talking about Torrey smith in March, but people are starting to realize he's probably the best wr they have. These situations haven't changed much but the values have. 

     Then you have guys like obj and Antonio brown. Can their value get any higher? Can they out perform their already monster seasons? While they are dominant forces in ffl, at some point their value perception will take a hit as will their actual production. Team makeup has a lot to do with it but at some point I think their is a "right time" to sell.

     The last group I want to touch on is the "upside" group. Guys drafted high can retain their trade value for a couple years, but when it crumbles it happens fast. I've recently had some discussions in the Dgb thread, my feeling being that it's time to get your value before it goes out the window.

     It's impossible to predict what will happen, but all of this is able to be leveraged. Any theories on this- I did search and see bracies "qyr" (quality years remaining) thoughts. Does anyone feel there is a good time to be buying low? Some easy ideas like "draft picks gain value before draft, lose value in season" are well known. 

I'm of the belief that I will trade any player if the deal is right.  Thats what makes this game fun for me.  It's as simple as that, perhaps to simple for some, but at the end of the day it's just a game.  

I think you can track player ADPs similar to looking at stock technical analysis. You are looking for buy and sell opportunities.

When a players ADP is higher than projections suggest they should be, that signals the player as a potential sell high and vice versa when a players ADP is lower than projections suggest they should be, that signals a buy.

It is very easy to time these things wrong anyways, because predicting the future is hard. Looking at ADPs over longer time frames can at least help inform your decisions.

To really gain a bargain (either selling or buying) requires that your perspective be significantly different that the norm. You buy when players are still unknown, or when there is bad news deflating the price. You sell when players perform well, which is often hard to do.

Quality years remaining is a separate idea, that evaluates a players remaining career value based on the averages of historical production curves. While this can be related to your decisions about when to sell or buy players, this is focused on the projection side of a players value, that you would compare to the ADP. Similar to buying low and selling high, you may decide to sell players before they reach historical land marks of decline or the opposite buying players when they reach those land marks because of the lower price. 

As far as DGB I don't see how his quality years remaining should be a significant factor in the decision. He is young and his career hasn't even gotten off the ground yet. If he busts his QYR is zero.

Selling him now you will not get the price you would have a month ago when he was going at the end of the 8th round. Currently he is a 10th round pick.which is about where he was being drafted in January. In February and March he climbed up to the 9th round as the ADP was likely more from dynasty drafts where age is a greater factor. He maintained this ADP leading up to the NFL draft then rose to the bottom of the 8th following it. 

You can see what I am talking about by going here clicking on DGB and then changing the graph to year to date. There are a bunch of nice ADP tracking tools around besides this one.

I don't put all that much effort into trying to predict how a player's value will move. Mostly I just try to buy players that I currently think are undervalued, and sell the guys that I own who I think are overvalued. I look ahead mostly to try to guess how much a player is likely to produce in future years, not how his value will move.

If I think that a player is misvalued, I do pay some attention to how quickly I think the market will correct itself in order to decide how eager I should be to try to make a move quickly. For example, if I thought at the start of the offseason "People are overvaluing Rawls because they're acting like he has already won the workhorse role, but I think that he may have to compete to win that big of a role" then I'd be trying to sell him relatively quickly, since my edge seems likely to disappear quickly as news comes out over the course of the offseason. Whereas if I'm thinking "People are overvaluing John Brown because Palmer doesn't have much time left as a top QB, and Brown's production is going to take a dive once he no longer has Palmer in his late prime" then I won't be in as much of a rush to sell him early in the offseason, since it seems less likely that other people will come around to my view over the course of the offseason.

It's a tough balance because what I've done in the past is sell players I wasn't all that much of a believer in (some right after a rookie draft, some after a decent season) only to see them blow up the season after.  I've also caught myself thinking "there's no way everyone can think player x is that good, I better sell him because there's no way everyone is right".  

I've learned to analyze situations more independently of my rankings or feelings on a player and look at it from what's around them for them to succeed.  Teddy Bridgewater is a great example right now.  He's shown he can hang in the NFL with a HOF RB, and very questionable talent at WR, but Diggs comes along and starts showing he can produce, then they draft Treadwell and AP is likely gone in the next 2 years if not sooner.  The passing weapons are now there and I think his value is likely to go up once AP is gone so is now the time to sell?  I'd say no, it's probably going to be when AP retires and people start pimping Teddy as a QB about to take a leap forward.  However if I don't like Teddy as a QB on my roster, and don't believe he'll take the next step, do I still sell?  I don't know that answer simply because you can get caught and end up selling cheaper than what it would have been when/if it pans out.

We all probably use ADP, "off-season trade" threads, trade calculators, or something of that nature to gauge a persons value, but it is league dependent and that's where the mystery falls in figuring this whole thing out.  Some cases seem obvious only to turn out the complete opposite of what you were thinking.  We've all likely seen it

I don't trade elite players in their prime.  Can't see myself moving OBJ or Julio or, if I owned him, Antonio Brown.   I'm going to enjoy the ride.  One possible exception is a stud for a stud trade, based on a positional need.  Its about team building for me - and gathering as many elite players as possible.   Elite guys can dominate the week or even a season.   I usually have enough quality, complementary players in the pipeline to compete.  I'm also confident of my ability to work the draft and the waiver wire.

I expect the "everyone has a price" crowd to criticize this..  but nobody usually beats down the door with an overwhelming offer.

I don't panic.  I own Rawls and although his value has fluctuated, I'm holding steady.  I like the team/talent combo.  Sure, the injury could be an issue but most players deal with an injury eventually.

There is a saying, "better to trade someone a year early rather than a year late".  So, if I'm successful in building depth and find an older player movable while still productive, I'll try to move him for a draft pick or other asset.

I share ZWK's opinion, couldn't care less about how someone's perceived value will change.  I focus on guys who will produce now or in the future for my teams.

I only draft guys that I really like...  think about that.  I either really like the team, talent or opportunity.  If that guy does well for a few straight games, the "sell high" posts will come out but I'm not looking to move them because I believed in them in the first place.

I will, however, try to move two talented guys for an elite player.  Think, two "8"s for a "10".  I've been known to overpay for a true stud.  I really don't see the downside here as it typically frees a roster spot and I'm confident I'll find someone else that I like.

If I recall, you moved DGB for Michael Floyd.   I'm not a Floyd believer personally as we may have seen enough to know who he is.  The news on DGB has been negative and he is on a team that I think wants to run the ball so I think you did OK.  Floyd adds depth and is probably more reliable for the coming season.  I may or may not have given up on DGB - not sure.  I do trust the eyeball test and really haven't seem much Titans recently. 

I'm not consumed with "getting something" for a DGB.  Even if he fails, I'll eventually get a waiver pick (and new player to follow).

After selling too early on a number of players I try to limit trades in the offseason when the hype trains are full steam ahead.  I wait until after week 6 to trade unless my team has been hit hard by injuries.  The most recent trade I regret is Odell Beckham for Le'veon Bell and a 2nd.  I traded Beckham at the end of his rookie year because I needed a bit of RB help and also had Julio and Dez.  It hasn't paid off.  If I waited til week 6 then circumstances would have changed and I'd probably still have the Stud WR instead of a Stud RB coming off an injury with a suspension looming.

It's better to sell a year too early than a year too late.

It's better to acquire a player a year before he breaks out than a year after.

The tricky thing about answering here is there is no set rule of thumb that you can follow.  It sounds like we are talking dynasty and I think it all comes down to you looking at each player and measuring what you feel is their long term value vs. the market rate.  This also includes draft picks, not just players.  All players have a sell point and I think strong arguments can be made to sell any player after a career year if you can get a monster deal.  I remember trying to trade Ray Rice after his monster year.  In that case I never got a huge offer and ended up keeping him and didn't get much more of a career out of him.  Leveon Bell is falling into this oh, if only I would have sold him last year or the year before.  I think it happens more with RB than any other position.  Guys like OBJ and DeAndre Hopkins may be at that point and I would consider monster offers for them but in some cases you do also need some studs so you sometimes have to be willing to not get maximum value if you ever want to win.  I would say that today some guys that I think are interesting sell candidates are Cam Newton (does his play style allow him to be elite a long time?), Andrew Luck (young yet and has put up some big numbers but was struggling a bit before the injury so will he be elite for a decade more?), Gurley (if you don't like investing a ton at this volitile position now might be the time to get maximum value), EE (hasn't played a down yet but is valued just as high as Gurley).  You also need to evaluate during the off season for free agency and rookie drafts and it's a best guess as to what will happen do to moves being made.  I was one who felt Miami wouldn't just hand the starting job over to Ajayi (I would have sold earlier this year do to my beliefs).  Rawls is a guy that I haven't been as high on as what his price point has been.  He is a high risk/high reward guy that I have less faith in.  I might be wrong.  The summary is it's always an evaluation and you need to always ask yourself if the market for any guy is higher or lower than your view and then buy or sell.

Every player is different. I think basically it comes down to what you think a players true value is by whatever methods you use to evaluate that.

If the ADP is higher than you would want to pay for the player and you have that player, consider selling. If the ADP is lower than you would want to pay for the player and you don't have that player, consider buying.

In both cases you have to compare what you are getting in a trade against what you are giving up as well. 

Then when you do find a match you would be happy with, you have to hope the other owner sees things differently than you do.

I try to remind myself that 90% of the time a player is neither as good as we think or as bad as we think. It's really easy fall in love with someone like David Johnson and start to see him as top 5 RB for the next few years, but that's very unlikely. There only a 2 or 3 guys per generation that are able to have that kind of success. It's also easy to look at Melvin Gordon's rookie year and write him off as a total bust. While he might be, chances are he is going be better than 2015 and will have a fantasy football role. 

Two disclaimers here:

1). I am answering coming from a redraft perspective as my dynasty experience is a bit limited

2). I understand that my post can be filed under the "Captain Obvious" category

For me personally--and this is keeping things as simple as possible--I basically look for two situations. 

Situation 1: When my projected outlook or thoughts on a player are disconnected from how the fantasy community in general is "valuing" that same player.    If I project a player to be far better than how the fantasy community is valuing him--he becomes a "buy low" target for me.   If I own a player the fantasy community is bigger on relative to what I think he'll be--he becomes a sell high.   

Situation 2:  Situation 1+ general roster awareness.    I use the phrase "general roster awareness" in the sense of knowing the strengths/weaknesses of all of the rosters in your league.  If you can spot teams with an abundance or a lack of depth in certain positions you can couple this with the premise in Situation 1 to further maximize returns from trades.  

Snorkelson said:

I couldn't find a thread discussing this but if there is one give it a bump. Player values rise and fall, sometimes dramatically during the course of the offseason. Some stay put, but if you peruse some threads (dyno trades in feb-March) you'll find that some players whose situation has stayed the same have carried different values. 

     Take Rawls for example. Right after the season his value was higher than the month before the draft, when talk of drafting a rb in Seattle was being discussed at length. They draft 3 rbs, and now his stock is gradually climbing back up. CJ Anderson was probably a cheaper buy pre-free agency, then was boosted after, then back down after the booker addition. No one was talking about Torrey smith in March, but people are starting to realize he's probably the best wr they have. These situations haven't changed much but the values have. 

     Then you have guys like obj and Antonio brown. Can their value get any higher? Can they out perform their already monster seasons? While they are dominant forces in ffl, at some point their value perception will take a hit as will their actual production. Team makeup has a lot to do with it but at some point I think their is a "right time" to sell.

     The last group I want to touch on is the "upside" group. Guys drafted high can retain their trade value for a couple years, but when it crumbles it happens fast. I've recently had some discussions in the Dgb thread, my feeling being that it's time to get your value before it goes out the window.

     It's impossible to predict what will happen, but all of this is able to be leveraged. Any theories on this- I did search and see bracies "qyr" (quality years remaining) thoughts. Does anyone feel there is a good time to be buying low? Some easy ideas like "draft picks gain value before draft, lose value in season" are well known. 

Click to expand...

But their situations HAVE absolutely changed...as you yourself noted.

Think about a ball game.  Is 4th and 1 the same situation when 7 points down with 30 seconds left in the first quarter as it is when 7 points down with 30 seconds left in the fourth quarter?  It's the same in that it's 4th and 1 and you are 7 points down.  But the context of that 4th and 1 drastically changes your philosophy in terms of what to do about it.

Roster changes (oe the lack thereof) as of March 1st is a completely different situation than it is on August 1st. To say the situation hasn't changed much is nonsense when we are trying to read the tea leaves of job security and depth charts.  Being the top RB on the depth chart on August 1st means something totally different than it did back on March 1st.

Some really good points here- league dependent is a good point. I agree with the "draft guys you like" point, I do that in redraft. I also avoid guys I don't like, and I mean personally, like ray rice. Maybe Aaron Hernandez is a better example, ray seems to have made an effort if I remember right. But if I just don't like a guy, I'll pass on him. Mike Wallace's fall from grace in PIT rubbed me te wrong way, and even if he played well in Mia or min, I probably wouldn't draft him. Crowell was one of those guys for a week but he has gone through great non public lengths to make amends. 

All it takes is one guy in your league to like someone to get a trade done. Take dropkick and i, I like Floyd's outlook and think DGB has been a knucklehead. Some people traded and held Gordon, others don't want to waste the roster space.

I think it's worth it to put guys that are in your plans on the trade block, just to see what comes through. 

Deanglo Williams- probably have more value to the bell owner the closer to the season it gets, but bell will appeal and seems to think he won't miss time. So do you sell now for perhaps less than you'd get from a panicked preseason or wait it out?

To go along with all of the other ideas in this thread that noone can realistically predict....it is better to trade players a week before they get hurt for the season...

Snorkelson said:

Some really good points here- league dependent is a good point. I agree with the "draft guys you like" point, I do that in redraft. I also avoid guys I don't like, and I mean personally, like ray rice. Maybe Aaron Hernandez is a better example, ray seems to have made an effort if I remember right. But if I just don't like a guy, I'll pass on him. Mike Wallace's fall from grace in PIT rubbed me te wrong way, and even if he played well in Mia or min, I probably wouldn't draft him. Crowell was one of those guys for a week but he has gone through great non public lengths to make amends. 

All it takes is one guy in your league to like someone to get a trade done. Take dropkick and i, I like Floyd's outlook and think DGB has been a knucklehead. Some people traded and held Gordon, others don't want to waste the roster space.

I think it's worth it to put guys that are in your plans on the trade block, just to see what comes through. 

Deanglo Williams- probably have more value to the bell owner the closer to the season it gets, but bell will appeal and seems to think he won't miss time. So do you sell now for perhaps less than you'd get from a panicked preseason or wait it out?

Click to expand...

I'd try to cash in on DeAngelo given that he is 33 and has a limited window.    I'd shop him and see how much angst the Bell owner has.

When I played I probably made more trades in most of my leagues (dynasty leagues) than any other owner. What I came to adopt was pretty straight-forward.

For the most part, no player is off limits.  If you draft a guy you just personally love, you are almost guaranteed to keep them too long, start them when you shouldn't, believe, in general, in them for too long.

With that being said (this is a dynasty league concept), I firmly came to believe in a "foundation player" concept where once I identified an extremely good player/elite player and had them, they became part of a small group of foundation players for my team and they, usually, where never offered in trades or considered to be traded unless the offer was one you simply can't refuse.  I found, for me, doing this helped me get a guy in a key position (top WR, RB,Te, etc) and then knowing I have that position set, I can turn all my other resources of draft picks and trade opportunities to nailing down another every week position.  Sounds simple and is but I often see people go completely opposite on this and chase their tail. They have a stud WR but had terrible RBs, so they decide to trade their strength for another..solving one hole but creating another.  In my actions, I solve a hole and then completely removed it from the equation and left it alone and then just hammered trade and drafts to fill in the remaining holes. 

You probably can't outline a guide on how to do the next part but I think in today's ff, knowing when to trade a player (in or out) is understanding opportunity for the real life player and the team dynamic.  Knowing how a coach values and uses a position, knowing when a great talent is an overpriced knucklehead waiting to get suspended, etc.  All these small nuances are the difference makers.  If you traded Josh Gordon away for Jamaal Charles a few years ago, you won big. If you traded a first and Coby Fleener away to get Josh Gordon a few years ago and that 1st became OBJ for the other guy or someone relevant, you lost.  It's all in that middle ground now.      

I agree with Shutout in regards to identifying who the foundation players are, how long you expect them to be that, and not to part with them unless you are getting another foundation player in return.

I called this core players, because I think about a roster as a matrix of allocated resource slots, some of them are roster churn spots, some of them are streamers or back ups, the others are starters, but may not be a long term solution, so that would be another category or tier, the core players are the starters whos value/performance I see as being stable for the next 3 seasons.

That is usually a fairly short list of players. I don't trade these players unless I am getting another player of that is also in the core player category. I use the word core because I see these as the inside base/foundation for your team. These are the players you are planning around long term. The layer outside of this are the starters who may only be short term solutions, these guys while important parts of your lineup, to me are more easily exchanged for some one else, because I don't really plan on them being starters for me long anyways. The backups have two layers outside of the starters, which are the spot starters, handcuffs and other players who you are hoping become starters in the near future. The last layer are the replacement level players who may or may not be better than what is available on waivers. 

If you think of this like an apple, the replacement level players are the peel, the back ups are the outside part of the fruit, the starters are the main portion of the fruit and you do not eat the core.

I try to trade for core players whenever possible. At the same time I don't like to overpay. So buying these players after they have established themselves is something I try to avoid doing, I try to get them before that happens, if I believe they are that good.

There are grey areas between all of these tiers. A lot of the time I am trading for a short term solution to fill a starting hole in my roster. Otherwise I am usually trying to trade for players who I think could become core players and trading away the players who I don't think will remain core players long or become them in the first place.

I think a lot of owners do this. They might call it the do not touch list, or the guys who are not available for trade or other things.