I'm trying to find the article I mentioned above but here is the text of another one I wrote around the same time that is entitled
Dynasty Trading Psychology: It Pays To Advertise (behind paywall):
Some graphics are edited out on this post due to formatting
***********
Trading is the lifeblood of Dynasty Fantasy Football. Most of us would prefer to be in a league full of active and attentive owners where lots of trades go down. Unfortunately, that is often not the case, and even in some of the best leagues, there are usually at least one or two owners that are hard to reach (for any number of reasons) and that are hard to make deals with. I don’t know if I have ever gone through a startup draft or a rookie draft where there wasn’t at least one instance of someone reaching out to me and saying:
“Sorry, I didn’t see your offer and already made my pick. I would have taken it, though.”
Check your dang email. Check your dang settings and make sure you’re getting the right notifications in the right manner you would prefer. And
never, ever make a pick OTC without at least checking to see if you have offers. There are lots of owners, and I am one of them, that will often not make an offer for a pick until it is actually OTC. But a lot of times owners get excited when it is their turn and just click on their guy.
That is just one example of a thousand ways deals can fail to get done. I’d like to dive deeper into the psychological mechanics that go into trading because there are a thousand creative ways that deals
can get done, and I’d like to share some of those insights.
In short bench leagues, like FFPC, where we cut to 16 at the end of March, roster spots can be very valuable. Clearing room can be almost as important as the pieces involved in the trade. I will often include players coming back to me in a trade that I have no intention of keeping. It offers the partner some value, though, because they get to clear a spot.
We are all looking to consolidate but there are always teams willing to add players. Find them.
Some of the cut decisions we have to make in short bench leagues come down to difficult judgment calls on players that might fall into one of several different buckets.
***see trading table at link below***
https://x.com/Ship_Chaser/status/1559193160844161024
How do we matchup our thoughts on a player or draft pick with potential trade partners?
On top of everything else, there is the matter of “what kind of a trading partner is team A, B, or C in my league?”
Well, there are all types of courses. Loose, tight, aggressive, risk-tolerant, risk-averse. Looking to build long term. Looking to compete short term. Good about responding. Terrible about responding. Easily insulted. Amicable. Friendly. Dirtbag. I like to compare FF trading partners to poker opponents. A lot of the same personality traits and strategies can be seen in FF negotiations and interactions.
In my opinion, short bench dynasty leagues punish the risk-averse. The most risk-averse owners are the ones taking the biggest risk. The risk is inaction and collecting roster cloggers that plummet in value. You have to take all these factors (and so much more) when trying to get a trade done. That is why such a high proportion of offers get rejected (or just sit there).
I always try to find mutually beneficial deals and cater to my partner’s needs, whether perceived or actually communicated. If I can gut them, I will, though. I am a cold-blooded killer professional poker player in that sense. But it is absolutely not a prerequisite for me to
win a trade on paper to get it done. Yet we know there are those owners who won’t do a deal unless they know you know they are getting you over the barrel.
Sometimes I will try to sell a bluff and tell them why they would be winning the proposed trade, but typically I hate it when people do that to me and I think a lot of owners agree. But still, there are owners that you need to hold their hand and walk across the street. Last year at this time I offered a fairly complicated package. We had gone back and forth where I was targeting Juju. Long story short he told me that he didn’t like my pieces as much as I thought he did.
When all was said and done I ended up selling the three pieces I had in three separate deals with him over a few weeks and profited far greater than if he had accepted my original offer in aggregate. And I got Juju.
The moral of the story is to communicate with your league-mates and find out what they need and find matches for your own. You can find angles to improve your team that you didn’t know existed.