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LF Advice on trading (1 Viewer)

Haybale

Footballguy
So I’ve used this service for many years but I don’t think I’ve really ever used much of any of the things it has to offer and when I have I feel like I’ve used them poorly or at least not to their full strength. I use the value that is on the “your roster” and “rest of the season” and try to find trades that would be of similar value based on those. Not sure if that’s the best but that’s how I do it. Has anyone used the trade tool to any success? Any advice how to trade or get better at trading? Feel like I never know if I’m really trade raping myself or not

 
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The biggest asset you can have in trading is confidence in your evaluations.  Until you have confidence in your own evaluations you will always have difficulty making trades.  

 
Yeah I mean. The title is basically “how do y’all use the tools we have to become more confident with trades”. But thanks lol

 
Yeah I mean. The title is basically “how do y’all use the tools we have to become more confident with trades”. But thanks lol
I look at trends, upcoming schedules, and various opinions on players.  But the key is what Gally says.......be confident in your evaluation of a player.  Someone in my league was trying for 2 weeks to deal me Brandon Aiyuk.  I have no interest in him...I think Deebo is better, SF has a rookie QB on a team that would like to run the ball a lot.  I don't value Aiyuk very high ROS.

Most of the time you won't agree with your leaguemates.  Most owner overvalue their own players.  The easiest trades to make are to find a owner with a need that you're strong, and has a strength that you need.  Also, you need to look at the trade from the other owner's eyes.  Would I accept the deal if I were the other owner?

Trading is an art.  You got to do it frequently to be good at it.

Good luck

 
IMO, after starting off using it a lot, the trade tool isn't necessarily something that's going to give you an advantage if you use it every single time. If you feel your own football knowledge is low, then it likely will get you into a better position, sure. But, I have noticed a few shortcomings with it, IMO, and I feel you should be aware of them since you're planning to use it quite a bit.

The trade tool is often not up to date with breaking news. I assume it gets updated when the site gets updated. It makes you aware of this in the gap between Sunday's games and their Tuesday@2pm deadline. The rest of the time, if a player is suddenly out, injured, or their coach gets caught hating every minority group out there and it's probably gonna affect their play - expect the trade tool is not totally on top of things.

The trade tool works on site data. Specifically, numbers and variables. I mentioned the Jon Gruden scandal. Basically, there is no mathematical formula for how much it's going to impact your play to find out that your head coach is a bigot behind closed doors. The tool may be capable of making a rough estimate...but if you expect any more than that, you'll be disappointed.

You should be aware of other things the site offers. The weekly rankings are something I didn't know about until recently, and they are great to show you where your players rank compared to other teams, once you sync your leagues. It also shows free agents. There are certainly exceptions, but, to see an immediate improvement with your team, drop players you have that are low on the list, and replace them with the highest ranking free agents available. As long as you don't totally ignore player names and positions, and who you need for your starting lineup, this guideline should help you.

But the rankings should not be blindly trusted, either. There was a situation with Mixon, the recent injury. I'm sure there was lots of doubt that colored the rankings, because Mixon had been in the top 20 of the FLEX rankings all season long, and then suddenly fell down to 275+. Which was probably due to the fact that he had an injury, and the Cincy coaching staff has a history of not being honest about it. After the Sunday games where Mixon looked relatively okay, he jumped back to #12 or so. Moral of the story, if there is a sudden LARGE change in a player's ranking, the reason may change back very quickly - so don't make a move thinking a player will stay way down in the basement.

Here's the Season long pages, they make a new one for each week, and they update it as the articles for the week are published. It's pretty much a hub for all the articles they write. They link it in the emails they send before the player/team news, it's easy to skip over tho, cause it's usually in the middle of promos. Just don't let the matchups to take advantage of fool you out of sitting your studs. Anytime you let matchups determine your starters - you are essentially gambling when compared to a mostly consistent stud. Deciding whether or not to take advantage of a matchup comes down to football knowledge, or desperation because you have a strong opponent that week.

As for trade valuation - the site puts out many articles and can be confusing, stemming from a situation that is a form of option paralysis. There is a buy low/sell high article in the strategy section. It preys on fantasy expectations. Basically, the people who own the 'buy low' players are going to be more likely to want to move them. Though realize they want to move them because those players are UNDERperforming from their earlier projections. The owners are tired of waiting on them, and want to get something for them. And in general, if your football knowledge is low, don't expect an article or two to completely close the gap and have you win your league. There is a very real possibility that trading could WEAKEN your team, and you trade your way into the basement of your league, through random chance, or especially if you don't know what you're doing.

I'll answer questions if you have them. Good luck!

 
Yeah I mean. The title is basically “how do y’all use the tools we have to become more confident with trades”. But thanks lol
I didn't take it as that and I am not sure what the "LF" part means. 

The tools you need to use are your own evaluations.  I have never found any Trade Calculator that is accurate for my leagues and it's not close.  Those tend to only have you waiver on your own evaluations because they are so far off.  I think they are typically terrible to use with the one exception being if you know the other owner relies heavily on them then you can use that to help develop a trade they may accept because the tool tells them to. 

These tools are to help you come to your own conclusions.  Take the info for what it is...... a piece to the puzzle but the bottom line is you have to be confident in your own evaluation over everything else.  Once you can get to that point then trading is easy.   That is not to say that actually pulling off a trade is easy but it is easy to know when a particular offer should be accepted or not. 

ETA:  Another big bar to overcome is not being afraid to make a bad trade.  Nobody is perfect and sometimes things won't work out.  But if you are afraid to be wrong it's near impossible to pull the trigger on a trade.  

 
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