The Complete Guide to Fantasy Football for Beginners Part 5: Trading

Trading is one of my favorite parts of fantasy football. One good transaction can hand your team the trophy, while one bad trade will leave you scrambling to avoid that last place spot. Trades can be unequal, deceptive, and even straight up delusional in some instances, so you need to be prepared to handle them. 

What is trading? Good question. A trade is extremely simple: two fantasy managers will exchange players with each other in the hopes of improving their squad as much as possible. Many leagues will have rules set in place to prevent uneven trades, such as a 24 hour veto period to allow third party managers to vote on if they feel a trade is unfair. Keep in mind that most leagues have trade deadlines and limits, so use your moves wisely.

The last thing you want to do is to be completely scammed by a rival manager and lose all your hard-earned progress you spent building your well-rounded squad. To avoid falling for shady offers, you need to look at what you are being offered and truly compare if you would rather have these proposed players than the guys you already have. If you want to know when to make a trade, here are the situations where it might be attractive to go make offers.

Positional Need: This is when you have adequate talent at every aspect except for a certain spot, for example, RB2. You are satisfied with your QB, RB1, WRs, and TE, and you are just missing the final piece of the puzzle. This is a perfect time to start shipping off your excess players for someone who can fill that role. 

Weak Bench: It’s common to have a strong starting lineup but an unsatisfactory array of substitutes, so a smart move could be to give away a starter for several reliable bench players. Make sure to not give up any premium talent, but if you have a starter you are willing to let go it would be smart to strengthen your backups to be better prepared for bye weeks and injuries. 

Buy Low: A good/experienced fantasy manager will be able to tell when a player has an unusual low value and is worth trading for. They look for signs of a breakout game, changes to the offense, and they analyze the player’s usage and performances to spot any trends. Sometimes, a player will have several fluky bad games that result from a difficult schedule, injury issues, or other various reasons. In that case, the manager who owns that player will be itching to trade him away, so you can sweep in and grab him before his value starts to go up again. Breece Hall, the New York Jets running back, started off his first four games in 2023 averaging around 7.5 points in PPR, and his value was falling. Managers were trading him away for cheap value, and he ended up finishing the season averaging 17 PPR points as the RB2. 

Sell High: Similar to the previous section, skilled fantasy players will recognize when a player’s value has become inflated. They have a streak of good games due to easy opponents, temporary offensive schemes that benefit them, or other reasons that won’t last throughout the season. Rival fantasy managers will see the point output and believe the player is rising in value, so they are willing to splurge for him and provide valuable assets in return. The manager who owns this player will take advantage of the value and trade him away for more reliable weapons, while the manager who bought this player will be left scratching his head after several weeks. Justin Herbert had over 20 points every game before the bye week last season, and was averaging 24. Following the bye, he only averaged 15 and severely struggled, proving the first four games were a fluke. Herbert owners who recognized this and sold him before he spiraled profited massively.

The above are all valid scenarios to offer a transaction, but what about when someone messages you proposing a trade? There have been countless times where I have been messaged to accept a trade just to see some absolute nonsense (no I am not giving away Christian McCaffrey for the Chiefs Defense and Geno Smith). 

Here are ten tips when analyzing a trade to make sure you never end up on the losing side:

1. If they are offering a defense or a kicker, it’s a scam 99% of the time. 

2. Make sure to figure out why they are offering these certain players - you don’t wanna hit accept just to find out the RB you’re receiving just got suspended.

3. If you’re unsure, it’s always a good idea to put the trade in a trade calculator first - some good websites include WalterPicks, ProFootballNetwork, and RotoTrade.

4. Once you see the initial offer, don’t hesitate to respond back and ask for a little more value even if the proposal seems fair.

5. Before accepting a player, always check if you can find a player with that same value on the waiver wire.

6. If someone is offering you a plethora of bench players for a top star, truly ask yourself if any of these bench players are worth starting. Five rotational players don’t match up to a first round pick, and a player brings no value if you don’t ever use him. 

7. Trading for a player with the intention of trading him away again is an extremely risky move that I would not recommend. Many times the follow-up trade will break down, so don’t proceed with this strategy unless you are 100% confident each trade will go through.

8. If your squad is doing well, then an idea to consider could be to trade away some players for an injured star. If you don’t follow, I mean that you can trade for an elite talent that will miss some weeks for cheap, because they are at a low value. For example, if you are on top of the league and Justin Jefferson becomes injured and is set to miss four weeks, you can buy him for cheap and he will benefit you in the playoffs. The manager who has Jefferson will want to trade him away for some players who they can start immediately. 

9. Always analyze what positions your opponent needs during negotiations. Don’t try to give away players they don’t have a use for, such as offering Dak Prescott to a manager who already has Josh Allen. Instead, look at where their squad is weak and which players they truly would want. If they are lacking a solid tight end, they will be more willing to accept a mediocre player at the position that you can afford to spare.

10. Don’t forget to look at a player’s strength of schedule, or SOS, before accepting a trade. 

Trading is always risky, and it’s unlikely you will ever find an offer with zero downside. You will probably be on the losing side of some trades, and that’s okay. It’s always acceptable to reject an offer, and don’t fall for any manipulative or deceptive tactics. Remember this: you don’t need to make trades to improve your roster. In this next section, we will go over another potential way of adding squad depth and finding new stars: free agency.