I've received a lot of Tweets and Fbook messages recently asking whether it would be smart to trade X for Y + Z. For example, "Should I trade Matt Forte for Randall Cobb and Zac Stacy?"
In the coming weeks, I hope to write more about trade strategies, because they're critically important to a fantasy manager's success. There's enough fodder concerning fantasy trading approaches to fill a 200-page book. The "1-for-2" pitfall is important to understand, because it should be avoided 99 times out of 100.
A key to fantasy success is what I call "consolidation": continually finding/adding elite and near-elite positional players to your roster, so that by the fantasy playoffs, you have a highly concentrated roster of talented players.
Depth is meaningless by playoff time; you're not going to start Markus Wheaton over Alshon Jeffery. So trading one of your great players for two lesser players creates two problems: (1) you'll be in worse shape come playoff time, and (2) your opponent who receives your great player will be in better shape for the playoffs.
If you need depth to fill bye week gaps, there should be enough good waiver options to tide you over. And if you face a truly horrible week where a third or more of your players are on bye, it's almost always better to take the loss than to hand over a key cog in your team.
Obviously, if the 1-for-2 trade undercuts fantasy success, the inverse must be true: 2-for-1 trades (e.g. Antonio Gates and Nick Foles for Alshon Jeffery) raise your scoring output potential while freeing up a roster spot for a sought after free agent (in this case, someone like Travis Kelce or Kirk Cousins).
So the next time you receive a 1-for-2 offer, just say no. And in the meantime, find ways to consolidate your positional strength so that your playoff team has 10 superlative players, as opposed to six superlative players and eight guys who aren't much better than someone you could pick up off waivers.
In the coming weeks, I hope to write more about trade strategies, because they're critically important to a fantasy manager's success. There's enough fodder concerning fantasy trading approaches to fill a 200-page book. The "1-for-2" pitfall is important to understand, because it should be avoided 99 times out of 100.
A key to fantasy success is what I call "consolidation": continually finding/adding elite and near-elite positional players to your roster, so that by the fantasy playoffs, you have a highly concentrated roster of talented players.
Depth is meaningless by playoff time; you're not going to start Markus Wheaton over Alshon Jeffery. So trading one of your great players for two lesser players creates two problems: (1) you'll be in worse shape come playoff time, and (2) your opponent who receives your great player will be in better shape for the playoffs.
If you need depth to fill bye week gaps, there should be enough good waiver options to tide you over. And if you face a truly horrible week where a third or more of your players are on bye, it's almost always better to take the loss than to hand over a key cog in your team.
Obviously, if the 1-for-2 trade undercuts fantasy success, the inverse must be true: 2-for-1 trades (e.g. Antonio Gates and Nick Foles for Alshon Jeffery) raise your scoring output potential while freeing up a roster spot for a sought after free agent (in this case, someone like Travis Kelce or Kirk Cousins).
So the next time you receive a 1-for-2 offer, just say no. And in the meantime, find ways to consolidate your positional strength so that your playoff team has 10 superlative players, as opposed to six superlative players and eight guys who aren't much better than someone you could pick up off waivers.