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Thursday, December 31, 2009

Timeless Trading Rules

Fantasy sports are my hobby, buying and selling stocks is my job. After finishing up my undergraduate degree at UMass I went to work for a small electronic trading firm located in Atlanta GA. It was here that I first learned the essentials when it comes to trading stocks. Trading players on your fantasy sports teams is amazingly similar. In both cases you only have information from the past that you can combine with an outlook of the future in order to determine the right times to buy and sell. It was this skill that I attained that has led to my success as a fantasy sports player. While in training to be a professional trader, certain time tested rules were constantly hammered into my brain. I was thinking about a few of those rules this morning and decided that it’d be good to share some with you, and offer their relevancy to fantasy sports. These should serve as excellent guidelines to use when pondering future trades.

The Five Rules To Being A Successful Trader…….in Fantasy Sports!










1. Plan Your Trade, and then Execute Your Plan.
Sounds simple enough right? But I’ll venture that many of you out there almost take this for granted. What often happens is that you decide on a player to trade away, earmark either a player or particular stat category to trade for, and then as you make offers and receive counteroffers, the final result is often very far from the original intent. Anybody can push a button to offer or accept a trade; the true player knows what he’s giving and getting in every deal. I made this mistake earlier this season when someone offered me Jason Kidd for David Lee. I thought it too good to pass up and just jumped on the deal. After it went through I realized I now had too many assists (Kidd and CP3) and too few Rebounds. I then had to turn around and deal Kidd away, making the first trade pointless.

2. Be Emotionless – DON’T FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR PLAYERS
Cause they could give a rat’s a$$ about you! Don’t trade for a player because he’s an icon, or he’s on your hometown team, or he has a hot wife. Don’t hold players because they just had a ridiculous night or stretch of games. How many of you out there wish you dealt Andrew Bogut after that 18 rebound performance or Jennings after he dropped 55 points or Camby before he started complaining about injuries? When a player is hot, that is the best (and toughest) time to deal him away. Fact is, everyone saw that performance and everyone wants him on their team, and they will pay dearly to have him.

3. Make Sure You Get Full Value
There’s two types of trades in fantasy sports, trading for necessity and trading to sell high. Sometimes you can mix them. Trading for necessity means you have to make a deal because you’re getting killed in a stat category and your season is on the line, you are NOT in a very good position to bargain and most people know it. Trading to sell high is the BEST bargaining position to be in, and your goal is to add quality to your squad. Sure, some players are going to continue to outperform after you’ve dealt them away. Guys like Kevin Love and Carmelo Anthony haven’t shown signs of really slowing down. So what! If you got the proper value from trading with them, you’re at least no worse off than before. When I Sell High on a player, my aim is to package the deal as a 2-2, adding in a bench player, and targeting one Buy Low player that has the ability to reach the same level as my sell high, AND another player of good value. Like dealing Carmelo Anthony and John Salmons for Amar’e Stoudemire (when he was a buy low) and Jameer Nelson. By seasons end, Amare should at least = Carmelo, and Jameer should be > Salmons, whereas when you made the trade, Carmelo was so hot and Amar’e so cold that it looked (to the other guy) like you were getting robbed.

4. Do NOT Trade Based on Advice From a Friend
You’re out at a party, or chillin in school and one of your boys who doesn’t play in your league is talking about last nights games and he’s all like ‘WHOA did you see Deron Williams last night?!, He looked AWESOME, he is definitely the best PG in the league!’. Then you jump on your league page and start making offers for Deron without doing any homework. Your friend is an idiot, he doesn’t know your team, doesn’t know what you need, and is about as reliable as Joe Schmoe the Sports Writer.

5. Do NOT Overtrade
We have a goal in mind each season; try to stack our team as much as possible. This requires lots and lots of deal making. But look, after you just turned over half of your roster, maybe from making 2 or 3 deals, you gotta let the team play a bit. If you had bought low on David West last week, and then dealt him away this week, you’re going to be missing this hot streak he’s going on. You need to let these guys bounce around a bit. Give them a chance to rise in value, and other players a chance to drop in value. Yes, trade many times a season. But overdoing it can be ruinous. Just remember the two types of trades we make, and if you aren’t making one of those two types, you’re over trading.

Keep these rules in mind before sending offers, before answering offers, and before pulling the trigger. Discipline is the single most important factor in determining whether or not you are successful.

18 comments:

Dipset said...

10 team h2h

PG: Chris Paul, Devin Harris, Jose Calderon, Mike Conley
SG: OJ Mayo
SG/SF: Jason Richardson
SF/PF: Josh Smith, Rudy Gay, Rashard Lewis
PF/C:Brook Lopez, Andrea Barnagni, Joakim Noah, Luis Scola

THIEF, THESE ARE ALL MY TRADES. AM I THIEFFF OR NO?

traded redd for marion

traded jason thompson for calderon (early in season)

traded amare and tyreke for kobe and elton

traded kobe kidd elton marion for deng ariza nene chris paul

traded nene for oj mayo and thaddeus young

traded deng ariza and deron williams for devin harris josh smith and rudy gay

traded lou williams and thaddeusyoung for rashard lewis and mike conley

i picked up noah off the wire in the pre season, got real lucky.

dw said...

Great article!

BTW, the trade went through and I got Jefferson for Boozer. Now my team looks like this:

PG: D-Will, Rondo, Mo-Will
SG: Wade, B-Roy, Kevin Martin
SF: Iguodala, Lewis
PF: Jamison, Love
C: B-Lopez, A-Jefferson, Bargnani, Noah

John Salmons was dropped so I'm looking to pick him up for 3s and STLs, though Blake Griffin is out there too, and I'm deciding between the two...

Thief said...

Home, ink it bro! Do not let speights hold up a great deal.

Mamba, yeah you b thievin!

DW, tuff call but u know which one I chose lol.

lohome93 said...

alright thief...im thinking of pulling a huge deal

my sauce (10 team h2h, 10 roster spots, 3 bench)

pts-16.13
rbds-6.32
assists-3.11
spg-1.07
TO-0.47
3pg-0.85
blocks-0.66

The owner of CP3 is currently second to last in the league and has been inactive

however he just got back into it and is desperately trying to make deals

im thinking its the perfect time to thief

is lebron for cp3 a good deal for my team?

my team-
westbrook
terry
lebron
morrow
garnett
b.lopez
g.wallace
jamison
biedrins
griffin
flynn
a.randolph
dalembert

y4rivera said...

Thanks Thief, I appreciate you taking the time out to try to make those adjustments.

Mike said...

Theif, I am currently 0-7 and out of playoff contention so I am just trading for value at this point. Do you consider Rudy Gay a sell high candidate? If so, what players should I target by packaging him with Grant Hill or Tayshaun Prince? The following players are untouchable: LBJ, CP3,Wade,Durant, DWill,P Gasol, Melo, Dwight, Lopez, Rondo, Dirk, Kobe, G Wallace. I was thinking possibly Kevin Martin or Brandon Jennings as perfect buy low targets.

Pouch25 said...

Thief,
Lots of great stuff going on here! Happy New Year and I hope Lady Thief had a nice birthday. My wife was cracking up when I told her about Lady Thief. Did she think of that nickname, or did you?

I'm loving your 2 for 1 trade ideas. I need threes and FT% and he is looking for steals.
I'm trying to theive me Ray Allen for Artest/Speights. But, if that doesn't work I might have to go Stuckey/Artest to land me Ray Allen. Too much for Ray, Ray?
Here's my secret sauce:

points: 14.41147629
rebounds 6.453368532
assists 4.168201417
steals 1.098076123
TOs 0.468497312
3 ppg 0.793804023
Blocks 0.935143438

current roster:
kidd, rondo,stuckey,lebron(Got him for Wade/Westbrook), bargs, b lopez, frye, a randolph, and j noah.

Brett said...

Without playing up Kevin Martins injury history, can anyone convince me not to trade E. Gordon and Bargnani for Kevin Martin and Frye?

Jared said...

sup thief, i'm in a 10 team roto league and my squad is as follows:

deron williams
lou williams
andre iguadala
antawn jamison
marc gasol
baron davis
elton brand
troy murphy
allen iverson
andrew bogut
jeff green
michael redd
danny granger
stephen curry

sauce scores
pts: 16.69
reb: 6.38
ast: 3.89
stl: 1.16
tos: 0.45
3pm: 1.01
blk: 0.75

my league also factors in fg% and ft% so i don't know how that affects my squad. definitely want to attain a tier one player. what do you think of these offers?

iguodala and jamison for lebron

deron williams and Steph curry for cp3

thanks thief

Thief said...

loho, Lebron and CP3 are pretty equal. Go for CP3, but try to not give up LBJ.

Pouch, HAHAHA! I thought it up, after that trade she made. LOL. Yeha I like that offer for Ray Ray, he does wonders for your FT%.

Mike, hmmmm, I think Gay is a solid keeper to have. Trying to trade up with him, maybe go for Brandon Roy?

Brett, how about this, I can't give you any solid reasons to not trade for Kevin Martin. However I don't know what the goal of your trade is (i mean the treys and blocks are a swap) and I odn't know if you have any other, better options (like just trading for KMart).

Thief said...

Jared, I like the first offer, solid. The second one, how bout trying instead Iggy and Granger for CP3?

Mike said...

Thanks thief but I offered prince and Gay for Roy and got rejected like an hour ago. Anyone else? Or just hang onto Gay.

Mike said...

Just got offered Ben Gordon, Redd, Aldridge for Gay. I love the deal value wise as I have 2 scrubs to drop but do you think I could still trade Ben Gordon in the off season for a draft pick to a keeper staved team? 12 teams, 3 keepers.

Thief said...

Ink it dood, that's top value.

Brett said...

I didn't mention that I am punting blocks and have been losing consistently in FG%, so Bargnani loses a little value. I'm also loading 3ptm and FT%. I'm leaning towards making the deal, since I think Martins volume FT% will allow me some flexibility in maybe rostering a less efficient FT shooter on top of Frye.

jb rdl said...

thief,i am looking for a trade with my peja and i want to get a big. an owner in my league owns yi but he has a great amare and camby. do you think yi will slow down or will he have a breakout season? happy new year bro.. PEACE!!!

Carlo said...

hey thief,

what do you think of this trade?

MY dwade and bogut for his peja and cp3?

Pavel said...

ayo.

how about this trade

i give:
butler,beasley,brooks

for:
roy,kevin garnett

too much? too little? your thoughts?