Afternoon guys,
I am Jon Davidson, first time writer, long time reader. Last year was my first year doing a dynasty league and being the commissioner. The rule set I came up with, probably the best in the galaxy, I’ll save for a seperate post. What I am looking to discuss is trading.
I absolutely love trading, almost as much as winning. The dynasty league opened trading in March. We had 27 trades in one month. I helped facilitate all but 4. My team was not personally involved in all trades, but my strategy made me a key cog in most trade talks.
What I set out to do was to figure out where everyones mindset was. I off course had my targets I wanted get so as I began reaching out to all managers I found out what players they value on their respective teams.
Once I had a good feel for who everyone wanted to move or would possibly move I started connecting the dots.
One exampIe is when I was trying to help a manager trade one of his 3 qbs (Herbert, Kyler, Purdy). After no one seemed to be interested in Kyler I decided well, I am! Ended up making that deal a 4 way trade. It was my second attempt at pulling off a 4-way trade but this one proved succesful. I traded away future 3rds, 4ths, and one 2026 2nd and some special team quality wrs for Kyler. I also was able to help him trade away Herbert and Kamara for Hurts and Pollard. To help with that I brought in a 4th manager who wanted to dump Daniel Jones contract to give to the original Hurts manager.
If that makes your head spin imagine trying to please 3 other managers in one trade and explain the spider web of details to them and you on the internet.
I recommend talking with all of your league mates and gauging how they value their players. In many instances it opened doors for myself to make deals and help pair them with another willing manager to fulfill their mutual interests. All of this work also led to some good faith deals where managers came off of players they didn’t really want to but since I had been so helpful to them in getting deals done they were more willing to work with me.
I do believe the key to keeping talks going is do not try and rip people off. You can burn a bridge with that manager and if a bad deal goes through you can unknowingly burn bridges with other managers.
Make a plan for what you want to do this year and upcoming seasons and go after it. One thinf you will find is there is a ripple effect. Once you acquire or trade away a player your needs and targets will change. Enjoy the ride!
- Jon