The Trading Blues - Part III

This is my third and final stab at discussing how to liven up a dead league that doesn't trade. I could talk about this all year, but one challenge there is that I actually am in a league where trading is mostly limited to dump trades as well. The worst part about this is there are four or five owners who will make or attempt to make fair trades, four or five owners who will only make this year for next year deals, but one or two owners who don't even try to do anything because the dumping culture is so pervasive.

Once again, I'll share my old leaguemate Brett's comment about how hampered his league is because of the dump trade culture:

And how about the lack of non-dump trades?

nobody's dumping yet, and nobody is going to trade good keepers without getting keeper value for them, so tons of players are basically off-limits for trades until later on. Also you don't want to sell low (there's no point in me trading Ensberg now, for example), and among other players, you've got a few cheap guys that are either a) worthless at worst and not tradable at best (eg. Endy Chavez) or b) guys that you're not going to get anything in trade for but have some potential so you want to hold on to them. What's left are maybe a couple players per team who are priced at value and performing well.

This is one of those instances where I agree with almost everything the poster is saying and, as a result, I don't know what to tell him that isn't just regurgitating his comments.

It's definitely true that you shouldn't trade your strong next year freezes in a straight up trade. I used to do this years ago, and it definitely was to my detriment. Why should I trade a $10 Delmon Young straight up for a $18 Mark Teahen when I know that I can get A-Rod at $45 and Tejada at $35 later on from the last place team?

However, there are instances where you might want to consider trading a slightly cheap player for someone at value, depending on what you need and what the market is like. A common mistake I often see is someone holding on to a cheap veteran thinking that he'll be able to trade that veteran in a dump deal later. Typically, this doesn't happen, because rebuilding teams aren't interested in 33-year olds who had a career year the year before.

As far as selling low and selling high, we're pretty much in the Internet information age where that just isn't going to happen. I'm not sure Morgan Ensberg is a good example; he looks like he probably should get traded by a Roto squad that can get value for him. But what is the appropriate value? Trading an Ensberg who you drafted at $30 for a player who is worth "only" $15 is painful, but sometimes you have to bite the bullet before that player loses most or all of his value. One of the keys is figuring out when or if to make that trade. I'm always amused when Rotoworld says to buy someone low or sell someone high. It's well and good that Mark Teixeira got off to a slow start in April, but I'm doubting that too many of Teixeira's owners flipped him in an A.L.-only league.

Brett's final point is one I wonder about, though. If you have too many guys on your roster that aren't tradeable or you're holding on to for the sake of potential only, you're going to lose. There's also a difference between a guy who might turn into something and a guy who probably won't but you don't want to move because you own him at $5 and you're feeling lucky.

Brett's points, in my opinion, go back to my orginal point in my first post in this series. If your league's rules allow you to FAAB players at very cheap prices, keep farm players at extremely low prices, and keep 15 guys, teams will sit back and wait for the dump trades. There's little incentive to do anything. However, part of the problem is the culture and the fear of making a fair trade now because teams will make dump trades later. I was always looking for fair trades when I was in Brett's league because I knew that this was one avenue to improve my team. Yes, dump trades are another avenue. But you have to always be looking for ways to improve your squad.