Is trading trending down in your league? (1 Viewer)

[smcindoe]

I'm in a few leagues where there's been barely any trading the past few years. We get a few deals before keeper day in the offseason, but the season is pretty quiet and even deadline week (this one) sometimes comes and goes with almost nothing. These are competitive (but not hardcore of big-dollar) leagues, and there used to be far more movement.

Maybe that's just a fluke of the leagues I'm in, but I've talked to a few people who report the same sort of pattern. One theory is that there's just so much information out there that everyone is working from basically the same player values, so it's hard to find a good fit for a deal. A season like this one with so many key injuries and early-round busts probably doesn't help, since the best fits tend to happen when you've got a surplus somewhere to deal from.

Is anyone else seeing this sort of trend in their leagues? Or am I imagining it?

 

[Fat Nick]

So in my longest-running league (12 team re-draft), which is going on ~8 years now, we've had maybe 10 trades in 8 years, and I've been one of the traders in probably 6 of them. Last year, we had 2, and I was in both. This year? Zero trades. I proposed 2 or 3, and didn't even get counters.

My take, honestly, is that people are often afraid of getting taken advantage of. The mere fact that you show interest in a guy on their team, and are willing to give up on someone on yours means you have to know something they don't. They then tip the balance scale to the point that the only way is if a trade looks way in their favor on paper.

Last year, I was able to make 2 trades simply because I was trying to churn my roster and drum up some players. I traded Mark Ingram for Reggie Wayne...would've been a horrible trade for me, but both ended up missing substantial time due to injuries. I also traded A. Bradshaw for K. Benjamin. Looked lopsided at the time as Bradshaw as a top-10 back, but I was playing the likelihood of an injury, and turned out to be right. In BOTH cases, I targeted a different guy with my initial offer and then "slid back" to the guy I actually wanted. I use this a lot because then they don't think you're focusing on one guy and know something about him.

In general though, my league is very unlikely to trade. Owners are afraid of being on the losing end, even when it's a mutually beneficial trade (WR heavy team trading a WR to an RB heavy team). It's frustrating, but I don't think it's unique to this season.

 

[Shrugs]

Yes, for everyone but me. I've made 23 trades in my two leagues. Without me, there have been eight trades in the two leagues.

 

[Fariq]

Yes. I don't think there has been a trade in either one of my leagues. Both are redrafts if that matters.

 

[SeanTaylor21]

Deep running dynasty (~7th year) and we typically have anywhere from 10-20 trades a year. The first few years we had trades almost weekly. The nature of the beast is that guys start to get comfortable owning 'their guys' and don't want to trade them for even a good offer.

Then you also have the guy who gave up Julio Jones (before his rookie year) and Donald Butler for Jon Beason right before Beason tore his achilles the first time. That guy has since made 2 trades after feeling bitter about the way the trade panned out.

 

[MikeHeel]

Trades are definitely less frequent in my dyno.

 

[Hankmoody]

I have executed 14, 29, and 16 trades in my three dynasty leagues. I have even pulled 3 trades in my local, which averages about .6 trades per year.

 

[thunderguns]

Varies from league to league for me (disclaimer: I only play dynasty):

I'm in a couple leagues where most people aren't sending many offers but will respond to mine (I've executed 2-3 trades in each league this year). I'm in a third league where there is very active trading going on. And my final league is one where I almost never see trades, and you really have to strike up a conversation with an owner and be really patient to get any sort of deal done.

 

[Wrigley]

20+ yr old re-draft league.

zero trades this year.

 

[Insein]

Yes way down. I agree with the sentiment that people are scared of getting fleeced.

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

I think scared of being fleeced is a part of it. But also there are too many "experts" on these sites and twitter that discuss trade where people get fleeced and then owners read that crap and think that's market value for their player. So they will only trade if they can fleece you.

Another reason is people especially in dynasty leagues used to really value players differently. Now, everyone wants the same players after they read something here or at DLF. For example, everyone wants Julio, Beckham or Dez and in turn they act like Calvin Johnson is Pierre Garcon. And the Johnson owners still want to sell him at Julio's price.

 

[Ilov80s]

Much more the opposite. We have never had more trades (redraft) from draft trades through to this week. Lots of MONSTER trades. I think it's partly the injuries and partly when teams see other teams getting better through big trades, they feel the need to try and respond.

 

[Ladsud]

Year to year in my main league. Some years no trades, some years its a bunch. It always seems to be a domino effect, once one trade happens it sets off a flurry and we get a bunch. Its like people are waiting for one person to check how cold the water is before jumping in.

edit: this was a big trade year in my league.

 

[FUBAR]

Zero trades in my refrafts.

Many more in my dynasty leagues but less than in previous years.

 

[BobbyLayne]

20+ yr old re-draft league.

zero trades this year.

I just made our first one in our 22 redraft. In the last decade we average just over 1 per year. I'm usually one of the trading partners. Been at least three years since a non-BL trade went down.

I also churn the #### out of my roster. I've led the league in transactions 18 or 19 times.

 

[ghostguy123]

All my leagues have less trades in the early part of the year than they used to, but there are still deadline deals going on between contenders and non contenders.

It makes sense. The more time that passes the greater the chance you have more of the players you want and targeted.

 

[ghostguy123]

Wow some of these leagues mentioned go a whole year with basically no trades??? Terrible.

 

[McGarnicle]

Every year we've had exactly one or two trades. This year, 7.

 

[CR69]

In one of my dynasty leagues, there have been 16 trades since we rolled over for 2015 and I have been in 11 of them.

In my other dynasty there have been 15 trades and I've been in 6 of them.

Only one trade combined in my two redrafts though.

 

[ShamrockPride]

In a 4th year dyno. We have a week 8 deadline. This was the first year we didn't have any deadline deals. I'd like to just think it's more of a down year, but we'll see.

 

[Pietaster2]

I'm only doing one (redraft) league this season so I've had a lot of time to focus on it. I've done five trades so far and one of my buddies in the league has done four. Only two of our trades have overlapped and the rest of the trades were with unique owners.

It's a league that hasn't done much in the way of trading over the years, so all of these trades really shook things up.

So, based on my very small data sample, trading is alive and well!

 

[bigbrownbag]

Yeah. I think 12 of us losers need to form a league and then we will have a SUPER active league.

I'm way more addicted to this shlt than the rest of the guys in my league.

Who wants to be commish?

 

[munygon2]

I play in 3 leagues (one 12-team and two 10-team) and there hasn't been a single trade all year in any of them. All 3 leagues have different people playing also, so I don't know what it is but no one seems interested. I've noticed the downward trend for about 3 years now.

 

[ConnSKINS26]

Not in my dynasties. Pretty frequent trade activity. All on MFL, decent criss-cross of shared owners across some of them.

Since the league page switched over or the start-up, whichever applies:

League 1 (14 teams): 58 trades (22 me) -- started up this year

League 2 (14 teams): 102 trades (12 me) -- 3rd year

League 3 (12 teams): 47 trades (8 me) -- 5th year

League 4 (12 teams: 49 trades (19 me) -- 7th year

League 5 (14 teams): 49 trades (11 me) -- 4th year

 

[Chapelboy]

Wow some of these leagues mentioned go a whole year with basically no trades??? Terrible.

Why is this terrible? Trading is not requisite to building a successful team or enjoying FF.

 

[Chapelboy]

My 15 yr dynasty (12-team, IDP, 35-man rosters) averaged about 60 trades a year between 2008-2013 I believe. We expanded to 16 teams in 2014 and our trading dropped off dramatically to about 25 or so a year. Perhaps supply and demand has a large influence...scarcity of players at key positions combined with increase in injuries? Just spitballing here.

 

[BigSteelThrill]

Not in my leagues. But we are local (typically) and hugely active.

 

[ghostguy123]

Wow some of these leagues mentioned go a whole year with basically no trades??? Terrible.

Why is this terrible? Trading is not requisite to building a successful team or enjoying FF.

Sex, alcohol, dessert, movies, money are not requisite to enjoying life.

 

[ConnSKINS26]

Wow some of these leagues mentioned go a whole year with basically no trades??? Terrible.

Why is this terrible? Trading is not requisite to building a successful team or enjoying FF.

If we're talking dynasty here, then I have to disagree. The worst teams in my leagues are always the ones that don't trade much. Think about how arrogant it is to draft rookies ONCE a year and be so confident in your own ability, that you don't need to trade to supplement or fix errors or fill holes, etc. Drafting and waivers can only do so much and essentially "standing pat" for years does nothing but allow a roster to stagnate and lose value over time. The only way to build a truly successful dynasty roster over time is to trade and take advantage of the fluctuations in player value, etc.

 

[Judge Smails]

20 year old redraft. We have had about 5 trades this year. Usually it's the same handful of owners willing to mix it up, and the others just don't have a realistic value of their players. Example, 12 team 1 QB start league and thinking that the guy on their bench is worth a WR1 like Julio when every team has a serviceable starter. Only teams that could really make moves were those with great RB depth during bye weeks. Most others were handcuffed.

 

[Chapelboy]

Wow some of these leagues mentioned go a whole year with basically no trades??? Terrible.

Why is this terrible? Trading is not requisite to building a successful team or enjoying FF.

If we're talking dynasty here, then I have to disagree. The worst teams in my leagues are always the ones that don't trade much. Think about how arrogant it is to draft rookies ONCE a year and be so confident in your own ability, that you don't need to trade to supplement or fix errors or fill holes, etc. Drafting and waivers can only do so much and essentially "standing pat" for years does nothing but allow a roster to stagnate and lose value over time. The only way to build a truly successful dynasty roster over time is to trade and take advantage of the fluctuations in player value, etc.

I agree with you in some respects. The truth is, I am one of the most active traders in my dynasty league, being involved in roughly 50% of the 60 trades we averaged between 2008-2013 (we expanded to 16 teams and trading slowed down). My point is, it is not such a terrible thing to have a league without numerous trades. I've seen teams win without trading a full year, but did work the waiver wire. Successful teams are built in different ways and I guess I'm mostly railing against the owners who are addicted to trading more than the game itself.

 

[ghostguy123]

Wow some of these leagues mentioned go a whole year with basically no trades??? Terrible.

Why is this terrible? Trading is not requisite to building a successful team or enjoying FF.

If we're talking dynasty here, then I have to disagree. The worst teams in my leagues are always the ones that don't trade much. Think about how arrogant it is to draft rookies ONCE a year and be so confident in your own ability, that you don't need to trade to supplement or fix errors or fill holes, etc. Drafting and waivers can only do so much and essentially "standing pat" for years does nothing but allow a roster to stagnate and lose value over time. The only way to build a truly successful dynasty roster over time is to trade and take advantage of the fluctuations in player value, etc.

I agree with you in some respects. The truth is, I am one of the most active traders in my dynasty league, being involved in roughly 50% of the 60 trades we averaged between 2008-2013 (we expanded to 16 teams and trading slowed down). My point is, it is not such a terrible thing to have a league without numerous trades. I've seen teams wins without trading a full year, but did work the waiver wire. Successful teams are built in different ways and I guess I'm mostly railing against the owners who are addicted to trading more than the game itself.

An entire year................no trades..........................this has nothing to do with not liking NUMEROUS TRADES.

A year without trades in a dynasty league is disgusting. If at the absolute very least it means teams are not trying to either get better at the trade deadline or to look ahead at next year when they are clearly out of the playoff hunt. Just that alone is horrific.

 

[Arodin]

In my primary redraft league, there was ONE trade this season.

In my primary dynasty, there were plenty...but every one involved my team.

So yes, anecdotally trading is down. I blame it on info saturation. Player valuations are becoming groupthinked to the point that you really have to hunt to find differences in valuation between casual owners that could fuel trades.

 

[habsfan]

3 trades in my 9 year redraft. This might be down slightly but not much.

If anything, when I look at the deals this year I see owners more willing to see the value of their players as a "bracket" rather than a concrete "bar" that other owners must reach or exceed.

I also don't agree that trade-less leagues are "okay" in terms of the long term health of a league. We've gone through periods like this, where you see everyone pointlessly churning the bottom of their rosters and scraping the bottom of the FA barrel week after week rather than working with another owner to actually solve their mutual problems.

It can become a mindset and quite frankly, when you play with people like this, it can make the hobby much easier because knowing that trades are as rare as lightning strikes can be a real tactical advantage.

 

[rickyg]

Trades have been going off like fireworks in my dynasty league. Not the same in my redraft. Dynasty leagues are great for mid-late season trading BC all of the bottom feeder teams who have no shot in the playoffs want to trade their high priced and older players for young up and coming talent with low salaries and rookie draft picks.

If you like trading join a dynasty.

 

[Fat Nick]

I definitely think a lot of it has to do with the type of league. We run a re-draft with 6 bench slots. There's only so much room to move. I'm guessing these leagues where people are trading 10-20x a season have deeper benches, and a lot of the trades are speculative. My problem is that I need the combination of targeted player, team who doesn't need him, and timing to even find an offer to make that's fair. There just aren't enough chips to "make change" to get to an even trade sometimes.

 

[Raback]

Today is trade deadline in my friends league and we had 4 deals already so far today. That's more trades than we normally have over the course of a whole year. I think a lot of it has to do with the amount of injuries this year.

 

[Jack White]

"If you're not trading, you're not trying."

I'm the most active trader in my league, and am almost always the one who initiates the action. I've been involved in five of the eight trades to date. I've also proposed many others.

This year, nine of the 18 players on my current roster were acquired via trade.

As a result of these five deals, here's who I have traded away and received in return:

Traded

Joe Flacco

Ryan Tannehill

Doug Martin

Jeremy Hill

Brandin Cooks

Mike Evans

Jordy Nelson

Robert Woods

Richard Rodgers

Vernon Davis

OAK DST

Acquired

Russell Wilson

Blake Bortles

Mark Ingram

Justin Forsett

Matt Jones

Rashad Jennings

Brandon Marshall

Jordan Matthews

Vernon Davis

Jacob Tamme

PHI DST

As you can see, I've both traded away and received some very good players. Fortune favors the bold.