Every league has its issues, but I’ve never come across a league that didn’t have a problem evaluating trades. Whether you’re trying to figure out what to offer another team or debating whether a trade is “fair,” there is no perfect method.
Every league is different — different sizes, different scoring systems, different starting rosters. And every team manager evaluates players in their own way.
As a result, no one can agree completely on whether a deal is fair. That’s why every trade is a negotiation, both with the team you trade with and the league itself.
Of all the questions I talk about with fantasy football buddies, even the ones in other leagues, I get the most questions and discussion about the fairness of trades or whether a trade offer makes sense.
And so I thought it best to share a couple of tools that I use to evaluate trades in a completely neutral way. These tools are completely free, and once you try them, I think you’ll find they make assembling a trade offer easier as well. Rather than calling up a buddy and having to talk through trade options in your head, these tools can help you find what should be considering a good offer before you go to the bargaining table.
But before we get to the tools, a quick aside on vetoing trades.
WHEN TO VETO A TRADE
There are several schools of thought when it comes to vetoing a trade. The two extremes are the most common.
On the one hand are the folks who say a trade should never be vetoed as long as it’s agreed upon by both trade parties. In that system, it’s up to the league to kick out any members who abuse the trading system or who get taken advantage of in trades all too often.
I don’t believe in that practice much because it opens the floor for complaints and because throwing a member out of a league is never a painless process.
The other end of the spectrum requires the league to vote to approve all trades, which gives any league member the right to veto any trade for any reason. These leagues get riled up over the slightest trade variables, and it can really ruin a good fantasy football league when trade arguments get heated. League members will always abuse the veto.
I think the ideal system is somewhere in the middle, but here’s my general rule of thumb: you should be able to defend your trade to the rest of your league with solid reasoning. If you can’t do that, you shouldn’t be making the trade.
Buy lows and sell highs are going to happen. Really, they’re encouraged by even this fine fantasy site. So don’t get caught up in the heat of an argument over trades that may help a good team get better and lose sight of how a trade helps both teams.
That said, it’s often helpful to have a neutral third party to evaluate trades. Not only do a neutral opinion help you decide what a reasonable offer would be before you send it, but it’ll also help you look at a trade from an outsider perspective if you’re a commissioner or if you’re trying to decide if a veto is necessary.
2 TOOLS TO EVALUATE TRADES
Paid tools and league-site specific tools (Yahoo!, etc.) exist, but I have found these two free tools to be perfectly satisfactory. And for the purposes of this article, I’ll stick to the free ones that anyone can use.
1. My standby for the past two seasons has been KFFL’s Fantasy Football Trade Analyzer.
It’s not much in the looks department, but KFFL’s trade analyzer gets the job done. You simply enter the players on either side of a trade, choosing the range in the alphabet in which their first name falls to shorten the list of names to choose from at each spot.
Unlike other tools, KFFL does a little more thinking for you by also taking into consideration the starting roster and size of your league.
It feels a little more complete to provide this sort of info when evaluating a trade, but I still wish that KFFL would consider incorporating a FLEX position as an option on the roster. So far, I’ve simply ignored flex postions as a part of my starting roster when entering the form, but for leagues in which you start 2 RBs and a FLEX position, having that third running back to start in the FLEX can be extremely more valuable.
KFFL doesn’t ask for any type of scoring notes, but neither does the other tool I’ll talk about. It starts to get really tricky to look at trades once you start talking about various scoring systems, so I understand the reasoning behind not including it. But if it ever did…that would be awesome. If the league uses PPR scoring, for example, wide receivers would be much more valuable.
I really do like what KFFL brings to the table. The output they give to evaluate a trade tells you not only the most valuable pieces being exchanged, but who’s “winning” the trade and how severe the difference is. In the end, KFFL will give you a definitive answer on whether Team 1 or Team 2 should reject the trade or approve of it as a very fail deal.
In my experience, KFFL tends to be pretty conservative on how it rates players, not giving much credit to players on the rise as compared to a stud who’s not performing up to their expected level. But I still love you, KFFL. Good work.
2. The new kid on the block that I’ve also been using late this season is Fantasy Football Nerd’s Trade Analyzer.
It’s only in beta — and to be honest, maybe I shouldn’t be telling you about it yet — but I already find what Fantasy Football Nerd is building very useful.
FFN’s tool is much faster to input players with a search box and arrow buttons to place a player on either side of an offer. Once players are entered, the analyze button gives you an almost instant answer on who has the better end of the deal.
Since Fantasy Football Nerd doesn’t take into consideration any data on league size or starting positions, it’s hard to say that its trade values are as complete as KFFL’s trade tool, but it is nice to get the quick answer, even if it’s a quick and dirty answer.
I also like that they give a numerical value on exactly how much more valuable the winning side of the trade is.
Also on the plus side, the Fantasy Football Nerd tool lets you know that the winning side is getting “the better end of the trade by XX points over the course of the rest of the season.” So you know that their trade tool is looking at how a player will do the rest of the season and not just how they are currently valued. The rest-of-the-season (ROS) value is always what I care about more in a trade than how much a player is worth at that given moment.
Then again, some people may not want something like this out there giving away that “buy low” and “sell high” edge.
HOW TO USE THESE TOOLS
I find myself using both of these tools on a regular basis to put together and judge trades. Fantasy Football Nerd’s analyzer is a nice, quick way to build a trade when you’re trying to put together an offer, and once you’ve got the basic idea together, KFFL is what I feel is the most fair way of judging whether the other owner will think you’re crazy or not for sending it.
KFFL’s analyzer is also the best indicator as to whether the other owners in your league will burn you alive for making that trade. But don’t take it as gospel since KFFL can be a little stingy when it comes to studs versus up-and-comers, as I said before.
As a commish, I’d make KFFL’s Trade Analyzer a regular part of my tool set. When the league starts to get upset about a particular trade, it can sometimes quiet the masses by providing a soothing, “This trade is fair” response. It can also help in challenging an owner to defend a trade when it seems more sloppily assembled.
If you can’t defend a trade by discussing player values, you don’t deserve it, and these tools should help you make a great deal.
For those of you not so concerned about fairness as you are about winning (okay, all of us), I’d definitely bookmark Fantasy Football Nerd’s Analyzer to quickly survey any trade offers you receive and figure out whether to accept.
While it’s in beta now, the FFN analyzer is only going to get better, and Fantasy Football Nerd has already demonstrated a great ability to synthesize a number of opinions and give an unbiased consensus opinion through their weekly rankings.
TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK
Neither of these tools are perfect, and as each evolves, I’d love to hear your feedback on which works best and if you have any interesting ways of using them. I’d also like to hear about any other tools you use when evaluating trades or putting together a trade package. Tell me all about them below in the comments or drop me a note.
Happy trading!
someone should make an analyzer that takes into account your league scoring system… esp for PPR and IDP leagues…
That would definitely be great, @nickfalvo:disqus. Unfortunately, I think it’s just too difficult to create this at the moment in a way people could trust. Projections can be subjective, so some of these future values wouldn’t be reliable when calculating based on scoring system.
It’d be nice if some of the fantasy league hosts like ESPN or Yahoo! worked to integrate this into their platform so that they could score trades. Maybe we’ll see that in the future.
I don’t see the value in current trade tools. tools need to account for teams’ rosters. a player scoring 15 pts/week on your bench is worth 0 pts. tools not factoring this in are (possibly) taking trade offers completely out of context. worthless.
While it would be nice if tools could account for the total sum and parts of the two teams involved, @983479f1bb0cd142476720d89d9c0e54:disqus, I’m not sure I agree with saying any benched player’s value is zeroed out.
Sure, you as owner of Team A may look at Team B and say their benched RB is worthless to them, but that doesn’t mean you can offer them scraps to acquire a player worthy of starting for your team. There’s still a fair market value for each player, regardless of who owns them and whether they are starting, and tools do a pretty good job of accounting for that.
I think a limitation of trade analyzers is their usage only of past performance statistics. After Week 6, I used Fantasy Football Nerd and fantasysp to crunch numbers on a trade where I sent Megatron and Andre Johnson for AP and Larry Fitzgerald. Both engines assessed the trade as a good one for me, based on Tron and Andre’s poor performances to that point. The trade was a disaster and I’ve been digging out ever since. I think the human element is still needed. One tool that I know of that combines analysis of performance numbers to date along with an expert’s opinion is a simple one: Dave Richard’s Fantasy Value Charts on CBS Sports. Do you agree? Do you know of others?
Thanks for your comment, Shaun.
I do agree that some human element is necessary to truly evaluate all aspects of a fantasy football trade. The problem is that it’s just not feasible for tools that automate trade valuations throughout the season.
Providing weekly opinions alone is time consuming, which means most experts have no time during the season to analyze specific trade scenarios. Dave Richard’s value charts provide a ranking system for trades, but even these charts don’t necessarily take into consideration your scoring system specifics. But short of paying an expert for personal fantasy football advice all season long, his charts are probably the closest thing you’ll find to human trade analysis each week during the season.
http://www.fantasysp.com/nfl_trade_analyzer/
The only trade analyzer you’ll ever need.
That’s a good rec. I’ve experimented with the Fantasy Sports Portal trade analyzer a bit in past seasons, Shane. When I used it previously, if I remember correctly, it wasn’t as updated as the two I discussed here. I was unable to find a few players in the database.
Testing it just today, it looks like it’s ready to go for the 2014 season so I’ll have to give it another shot. I’ve never been able to find one that really covers all the bases, but it doesn’t hurt to have options.
So I have a trade I have Julio Jones on my team already I am thinking of trading for antonio brown Ty montgomery and aaron rodgers for me giving up aaron rodgers deandre hopkins and devonte freeman? I have solid running backs like fournette, Theo Riddick, Darren Mcfadden while zeke is suspended. This is a ppr league and I just love the idea of having julio and antonio brown on my team thoughts?