It's that time of the season. We're a quarter of the way through and fantasy baseball managers are accessing their rosters. Team strengths and weaknesses are identified. Trade offers are made. Some are rejected, others countered. In many cases, deals are consummated. While there's an art to trade negotiations, formulating and evaluating potential deals is a science. What follows is the next-level approach to analyzing trades, apropos to offers both made to you and those you propose.
The key to fantasy trading is understanding that the objective is to improve your team's potential to score points, not win the trade. Too many solely consider the perceived value in a vacuum of the involved players. This is myopic. The proper focus is on the potential of the entire roster before and after the deal. No matter where the involved individuals rank on the Player Rater, if your roster is better, it's a favorable swap. If there is an imbalance "on paper," it's fair to ask, "Can I get more?" If the answer is no, ignore the perceived talent disparity and make the deal; your team will be better.
Understanding you're dealing with roster spots and not individual players is intrinsic to correct trade evaluation. A shortcoming of conventional valuation is the assumption the player is active for the entire season. Assuming he stays healthy, this may be true for the upper-echelon players, but with most leagues employing reserve lists and the ability to upgrade via free agency or waivers, roster churn has become an integral component to managing a fantasy squad. This is the main reason evaluating trades based on projected value is faulty. The game isn't played in a vacuum; potential value is contextual.
As suggested, to properly analyze an offer, moves necessary to yield a legal roster are part of the equation. It's not your pitcher for my hitter. On your end, the math is comparing the current roster to the post-trade version, with my hitter and the pitcher(s) replacing the one swapped away, keeping in mind it doesn't have to be just one pitcher on that spot over the course of the season.
Next-level analysis almost always entails concentrating on the balancing moves. These can be enacted in several manners:
Free agency/waivers
Reserve
Player returning from the injured list
Player activated from a minor league reserve
This is even more relevant this week, as there has been a surge of intriguing prospect call-ups such as Keston Hiura, Austin Riley, Oscar Mercado, Nicky Lopez, Corbin Martin and Cole Irvin. As such, this could be the perfect time to construct a deal if you already have one of the prospects -- or if a competitor does and is searching for a way to activate him.
The notion here is on the surface, the players directly involved in the deal aren't of equal perceived value. However, when the backfill is one of those recently promoted, your overall roster is stronger, even though you seemingly gave away more than you got back.
An example could be something like acquiring two very good players and a lesser player for three good ones. The value-in-a-vacuum math says the package you're receiving is worth less than the trio sent packing. However, when you factor in the prospect activated from reserve, the potential upgrade over the lesser player tilts the scale in your favor. The best part is the deal likely helps the other person since they're getting "more value."
Circling back to the principle of roster spots and not individual players, knowing league rules and specifications is integral to optimize trade efficiency. That is, how effective is streaming hitters or pitchers? Frequency of moves, scoring (particularly in points leagues), availability on waivers or free agency, and size of reserve lists all factor in the algebra. Instead of replacing the lesser player in the above deal with a prospect, it might be possible to dedicate that roster spot to streaming. Often, you happen upon a surprise player, worthy of no longer needing to stream.
This last point is something to keep in mind in shallower leagues with plusher available player pools. At the time the deal is consummated, there might not be a player warranting a regular spot in your lineup, but someone will eventually emerge. Again, the key is valuing the roster spot for the duration of the season, not simply with the initial resident.
Conventional wisdom preaches trading from strength to improve weakness. The caveat as relates to points leagues is points are points. Positions don't matter. A point from a hitter counts the same as from a pitcher. If your team generates more points from sticks than arms, dealing a batter for a pitcher isn't necessarily the play. It comes down to the balancing players. The comparison is the new batter taking the spot of the one traded away and the acquired pitcher versus the original hitter and pitcher. The new pitcher and original batter are a wash, so the equity depends on the points that would have been generated from the roster spot occupied by the original hitter versus those of the vacated pitching slot. If you feel you can accrue more points from the pitching spot, dealing two players with equal expected production nets a positive outcome.
As relates to rotisserie leagues, it's not dealing from strength to improve weakness but dealing from a category where the likely loss is less than the expected gain in the other. Many times, the smallest loss emanates from a category in which you're not faring well; whereas, you can gain in one in which you're already in the upper half. The catch is it's far too early to gauge strength and weakness on a category distribution sense. This comes into play deeper into the campaign when standings have settled and category gaps are more apparent.
In this instance, it's more than accounting for the balancing players, though they're still important. The most common example of a deal of this nature is having a cushion in steals or saves, the two least correlated categories. The chief contributors to each may help elsewhere, but their primary utility is the singular category. The Player Rater may rank a stolen base specialist or closer ahead of a power hitter or starting pitcher, but if the perceived lesser player helps your team more, it's a favorable exchange. Again, it's obligatory to seek a more equitable deal based on value in a vacuum, but if it isn't available, go with the swap aiding your club's chance of winning.
Thus far, most of the attention is on evaluating received proposals. However, incorporating these aids in the conception of an overture to a competitor, it could require a respectful explanation since the benefit might not be immediately apparent. However, framing an offer with how it helps your dance partner often greases the skids for acceptance.
Often, the analysis is appreciated, especially if the norm is for the offer to be replete with straw-man player analysis. It's one thing to give your opponent a homework assignment like "Looking to trade Clayton Kershaw, make me an offer," as opposed to "You need pitching and have Keston Hiura on reserve. How about Clayton Kershaw even up for Whit Merrifield? Tim Anderson is running wild so you can afford deal Merrifield." Most would rather be presented with that than a hyperbolic description of how well the player will perform the rest of the season.
To reiterate, it doesn't matter how skilled you are as a negotiator if the deal doesn't help your club. The two key points to helping upgrade your fantasy team via a trade are:
Aim to improve your team, not to win the trade.
You're trading roster spots, not players. Evaluate the effect on your team's overall potential -- don't fixate on just the players involved in the deal.