Trade Season is Upon Us

I’m a big fan of patience in fantasy baseball. I think it’s essential to success. Obviously, there are times when aggressive action is needed so you can get the year’s J.D. Martinez or Michael Brantley (hard to remember that the top 30 pick from this year was an afterthought heading into ’14), but by and large I will lean toward the side of patience throughout April and into early May. I’m not averse to an April trade, but they are few and far between for me as I’m often willing to give my drafted players at least a month before any major moves, especially with the top half of the draft.

However, as we approach the two-month mark, we actually start to get a feel for our fantasy teams. Strengths and weaknesses are becoming more evident and with that, trades become a bigger part of the equation. With that in mind, I have some dos & don’ts that will improve your trading experience this season and going forward. I’ve been refining these for years and they’ve served me well thus far.

DON’T tell the league to make you offers – If you are serious about improving your team with trades, then sending a mass email with guys you’re willing to part with followed by a call to action for other owners to engage you for those players isn’t the way to go. First off, the players available are usually the flotsam of said team and thus there is little attention paid to the email in the first place, but then the idea that they’d have to do the work to acquire these players is ludicrous.

You can send out a trade block email just to make it known that you’re in the market, but only do so in addition to also going out and making your own offers. Expecting the league to come flooding with offers after a trade block email is silly. How often do you really respond to those? I know, never. So why would you expect the rest of the league to respond to yours?

There is one exception – If you are already talking to someone about moving a blue chip prospect to strengthen your title chances or selling off studs to look toward the future, it is beneficial for both you and the rest of your league to announce your intentions in a league wide email so that you give everyone a fair shot at the guy(s) in question and also get yourself the best deal possible. Now, you don’t have to do this, but there’s zero downside for you.

You can let the initial trade partner know at the outset, “hey, I’m going to give everyone a crack here, but I like the deal we’re discussing” and he/she should be totally cool with that. Meanwhile you let the league know, “hey, there is a leader in the clubhouse for the services of player x, if you’re interested please let me know, otherwise I’ll be moving forward. I just wanted to give everyone an equal shot at this high quality asset.” Again, there is just no downside for you to do this.

DON’T downplay the guys you’re getting in an attempt to advance the negotiation – The minute you start sending me emails telling me how bad my players that you want are or will be in the future is the minute I know you’re a) lying to get the deal you want as you clearly believe they will be status quo or better going forward or b) stupid because you’re purposely taking on bad assets. I highly doubt it’s ever b), so ditch the negativity and just play it straight up. Just think about how ridiculously it reads for the other guy as you’re doing a to 10-point teardown of Tulowitzki as you try to convince someone to trade him for Zack Cozart and Aaron Harang.

DO try to make sure the deal is even for both sides – The definition of “even” is contextual and varied based on your league, but the goal is to make sure that both of you come out of a deal feeling your team has improved. Win-win trades are absolutely the way to go. If you purposely try to rip someone off in a trade, you’re burning a bridge and possibly losing a trade partner for rest of his/her time in that league if not several.

Remember the old customer service adage, a satisfied customer might tell 2-3 other friends, but a dissatisfied customer will definitely tell 10 or more. If you become known as the ripoff artist in the league, you will have a hard time consistently winning unless you draft perfectly and then ace the waiver wire all season long. We’re not in customer service per se, but I think it still plays in terms of your reputation for dealing within a league.

Obviously some deals will work out overwhelmingly in one side’s favor by the time we review in October, but that doesn’t mean it was a ripjob when it was consummated and that’s really what I’m talking about here. I’m focusing on trading hurt assets, taking advantage of breaking news that everyone might not be privy to, and things of that ilk.

I understand it is everyone owner’s responsibility to complete their due diligence before making a deal and they would have no one to blame but themselves if they got hosed by dealing for a guy who had just gotten hurt, but that doesn’t mean it won’t still hit your credibility. If you make people afraid to trade with you, you may benefit in the short-term with that first ripoff trade, but you’ll do more harm than good to your chances in the long-term.

DO put thought into your offers – When sending an offer, focus more on the guy you’re trading with than yourself. You know how no one wants to hear about your fantasy team when you’re telling them about it at a party? The same thing applies when you start off a proposal discussing the guys you want your trade partner to give up. Begin by letting them know what they can get out of dealing with you. “It looks like you need some home runs, which I can definitely supply. I think you might be interested in Mark Teixeira.

Meanwhile, I was thinking a trade of Teix for *insert player(s) you want in return* would work well for both of us. You’re five homers away from three points and then another handful away from another group of points” or something to that affect. In that scenario, you’ve made just a cursory mention of who you want while focusing the attention on how much they can benefit from talking trade with you. If you start the email by telling me how poorly your pitching has gone and that’s why you need my Jake Odorizzi, I’m unlikely to care. At all.

DO respond to ALL offers – There’s nothing like sending out an offer and getting crickets. Just respond, it doesn’t take long. I’ll go so far as to say that even if the offer is utter garbage in your eyes, simply reply saying, “no thanks, that doesn’t improve my team and the offer would need A TON of work to get talks going.” That’s direct without being entirely rude and it gets home the point that he’s nowhere near a trade with track he is on. I will freely admit that this is still something I struggle with at times. If I’m not interested and don’t respond right away, sometimes I will forget to circle back and then four days later when the would-be trade partner pulls the deal, that’s when I realize I completely left it unanswered. Don’t do that.

DON’T veto trades – OK, maybe I shouldn’t make a 100% blanket statement as there are some outlandish situations where it may be called for, but by & large vetoes are utter trash. Don’t impress your player values on the rest of the league. What if at the end of April last year, someone was buying into Jeff Samardzija’s surge as a breakout and decided to move Prince Fielder for him after worrying that Fielder’s slow start might be a continuation from 2013’s downturn (relative to his previous excellence) or the start of something worse.

You may not like it and you may not have accepted the deal if you were the Fielder owner, but there isn’t something overly objectionable about that deal even before hindsight because we don’t know the reasoning behind the Fielder owner making the move. Maybe he’s a better scout than you are and wants to roll the dice. Who are you to say he can’t?

Maybe he thought Fielder just wasn’t going to put it together as the season went on (and of course now we know he got hurt and his season was over in mid-May), but the point is, he/she paid their money into the league and unless you can prove collusion (and good luck doing that), it’s a deal that has to pass. That’s an extreme example, but few things about this game piss me off more than trade vetoing, especially in a cash league where adults have paid to manage their team however they damn desire.

Just because you might not make a move doesn’t mean it’s unequivocally wrong. Unless you’ve got a collusion charge that will stick, stop vetoing trades. It’s pathetic. You don’t know the future any more than any other league mate so stop pretending you do. You suck if you do vetoes. You really do.

DON’T tell the league to make you offers on your guys – Yes, I’m repeating this one because it is important (though not more important than avoiding stupid vetoes). “Hey guys, I need power and I have Definitely Regressing in the outfield, Never Good to Begin With in the infield and Piece of Crap Pitcher I Got On Waivers Eight Minutes Ago now available for trade. Send me offers!  Thanks.”

Yeah, no. And it’s not even that much better if the three players are Superstar Bat, Stolen Base King and Ace Arm, either. But it’s usually the garbage that is being made available AND you now want me to do the work for you to acquire the worthless pieces. Gee whiz, thanks. Now these kinds of emails are something worth vetoing.