My Experience Working With A Co-Manager

Before agreeing to join Chad Young in the management of his dynasty franchise, I had never really co-managed a team. There were a few situations in which I drafted a team and handed it over (and vice versa) but never a true collaborative process. In a properly deep league (like dynasty), having an associate is an enjoyable experience.

After about one year of working together, I think Chad and I have this co-managing thing down cold. The arrangement does have it’s shortcomings, namely a certain lack of agility. However, a collaborative approach comes equipped with plenty of benefits too.

Managing our roster isn’t actually very involved. It’s a weekly league with four waiver moves per week. It’s usually pretty obvious who we will or won’t be starting. Most of our team is dedicated to pre-MLB talent, and we can’t use platoons because of the weekly lineups. I could see how a daily moves dynasty could become a little tedious from a roster management perspective.

Mostly, we plot and scheme about trades. With 19 other owners, it’s useful to divvy up the talks. We’ll share taking the lead in trade discussions based on availability and workload. If I’m pushing an advantageous deal to acquire a player we don’t technically need, Chad will go look for a place to alleviate our new-found depth.

We also get to pool our knowledge which has benefits outside of our shared league. When I joined up last winter, I was very excited about drafting Carter Capps and Odubel Herrera. I wanted to pick them immediately. Which would have been fine – we took Drew Pomeranz with our first selection. We eventually landed both Capps and Herrera, and we hope they’re both long-term cornerstones.

Chad also stole Capps from me in our ottoneu league. Jerk. He’ll tell you he liked Capps before I brought him up, but I’m willing to bet he would not have bet more than $1 if he didn’t know that I considered him the perfect blend of Craig Kimbrel and Ken Giles.

Meanwhile, it was Chad who talked me out of trading Nomar Mazara a couple dozen times. Ditto Bradley Zimmer. I’m very happy with those various non-trades now. I’m always over-eager to trade any non-producing player. He was also responsible for the acquisition of Byung-ho Park. I think. That’s how I remember it.

Through unspoken agreement, we use consensus valuations on our players. Recently, we traded Dominic Smith for Dalton Pompey (I previously had talked Chad into dumping Pompey for Ben Zobrist and Tyler Clippard). My expectations for Smith are much higher than Chad’s. His expectations for Pompey are much higher than mine. We arrived at a middle ground that allowed us to agree to a trade despite conflicting valuations. It helped that we also perceived certain intrinsic benefits to owning Pompey.

Our partnership works in the way it does because we have similar, overlapping knowledge of the player universe. Our opinions and preferences diverge only subtly. But sometimes knowledge in a partnership is asymmetrical.

I usually see two variations of this relationship. Sometimes, a less skilled manager with plenty of free time will pair up with a more talented owner who lacks the focus to properly run a team. This is the consultant method to co-ownership.

Other times, the lesser owner is simply there to tag along, finance, or learn from the better owner. Let’s call this an alpha-owner arrangement. In yet other alpha-scenarios, one owner will take point on all negotiations simply because they’re more aggressive. They’ll consult with their co-manager if trade talks mutate outside certain pre-set parameters.

All of this is to say that there are many ways for a partnership to work. In my experience, two methods of co-ownership are best – the alpha-owner approach or the shared responsibility approach. Alpha owners can benefit from a more rapid response to opportunities.

Chad and I will occasionally lose out on a trade target because we’re still discussing whether we even want to submit a bid (let alone the contents of the bid). This would be less of a concern if Chad or I made unilateral decisions. However, I believe we benefit from our more carefully curated consensus-based approach.

The third type of partnership I mentioned – the consultant method – suffers from a fatal flaw. Like the consensus approach, it’s not agile. You’ll often fail to leverage brief opportunities. And like the alpha approach, the burden of the work is on just one owner, forcing a greater time investment for the same results as consensus partners. In short, even though it’s a very intuitive arrangement, I don’t recommend using a consultant-like co-owner

So, who else has experience with co-management?