Mike and Dan are in a new dynasty league together. Dan has drawn the #4 slot in the startup draft, while Mike will be drafting 9th. Both owners do their research and set their boards, and Mike decides that he has a clear-cut top 4 players, so he wants to trade up from #9 to #4 to ensure he lands one of them. He decides, as a quick rule of thumb for trading up, that in order to move up X picks this round, he’ll be willing to move down 2X picks, give or take a few, in the next round. He approaches Dan about his interest in trading, and Dan readily agrees. As a result, Mike sends Dan the 1.09 and 2.04 picks, while Dan sends back picks 1.04 and 3.04. Mike moves up five picks from his first round pick and down 12 picks from his second round pick, which was a little bit more than his “2X in the next round” rule, but close enough that he considers it a small price to get his guy. Mike gets his top-4 star, and everyone is happy.
Only pick 2.04 rolls around, and suddenly Mike is not happy anymore. It seems that a star has fallen, someone Mike had rated as the 9th best player in the entire draft and who he figured would have been long gone by now. Had Mike known this player would fall, he would have just held on to his original picks… but there’s no use second-guessing now. Mike approaches Dan once again about trading up. Mike sends his 3.04 and 3.09 picks, and in return, Dan sends back his 2.04 and the 5.04. Mike moves up 12 picks, and then with his next pick he moves down 19, which is actually a bargain according to his “2X picks in the next round” rule. Mike is thrilled that he was able to get such a sweet deal.
Only pick 3.09 rolls around, and Mike’s not thrilled anymore. Another player has fallen- a sure-fire 2nd rounder according to Mike’s draft board- and Mike isn’t able to pick him because he’s traded away his pick. Mike calls up his buddy Dan and asks if he’d be willing to make another deal. Mike sends Dan the 4.04 pick and the 5.04 pick to get back the 3.09 and the 6.09, moving up 8 picks and back down 17 picks, or pretty much spot-on value according to his rule of thumb.
By now, you can probably guess where this story is going. Pick 4.04 rolls around, and Mike’s getting antsy with all the value still on the board and the knowledge that he’s not picking for another round and a half. He offers Dan the 5.09 and 6.04 picks in exchange for the 4.04 and 9.04, moving up 17 picks and down 36 picks. And then he gives the 6.09 and 8.04 for the 5.09 and the 10.09, moving up 12 and down 29. And then, to get back his original 6th rounder, he gives the 7.09 and 9.04 for the 6.04 and 12.09, moving up 17 and down 37.
The final result of Mike’s frantic wheeling and dealing with Dan is that he moved up 5 places in the first round, got back all of his original picks in rounds 2-6… and then had to wait nearly three and a half rounds before selecting again at the 9.09. For that upgrade in the first round, Mike blew a hole in the middle of his team, essentially moving back from the 7th all the way to the 10th and from the 8th all the way to the 12th. Had Dan asked for that deal from Mike in the first place for the 1.04, Mike never would have accepted… but because of his frantic efforts to get back what he gave away, that’s the final deal he wound up with.
Where did Mike go wrong? It’s hard to point to any one of his individual trades and call it bad. There’s nothing at all wrong with going up and getting a sure-fire stud at the top of a startup draft; I’ve made trades just like it in the past and have been very pleased to do so. And if there really was a 1st round talent left on the board, that second trade was an absolute steal. Each of Mike’s trades is easy to defend. In practice, the rule of thumb that moving up X picks in one round is worth moving down 2X picks in the next round is one of the best and easiest-to-remember rules for trading picks in fantasy drafts, and will almost always produce reasonably fair trades. Mike might have been losing a few percentage points on each individual trade, but taken one by one, it was basically a rounding error. It’s only when all of those rounding errors are added together that it becomes clear that Mike got himself a raw deal.
So if each individual trades was fully defensible, why was the final outcome of all his trades so indefensible? Mike’s true errors were two-fold. The first is that he failed to expect the unexpected. In every draft, players will fall and value will present itself. We rely on tools like Average Draft Position when doing our preparation, all the while losing sight of the fact that an “average draft” is a very different beast from a “typical draft”. But this error- our failure to expect the unexpected- is an error for another article. Instead, I’d like to point out how quickly Mike found himself in a vicious cycle. In order to get back what he gave up, he gave up more. Then, in order to get that back, he gave up more still. Each move fixed his previous one, but necessitated his next.
It’s easy to look at this exaggerated example and laugh, because we’re all too savvy to ever do anything like that. In truth, in Dynasty leagues where every move has an impact that is felt for years to come, we all find ourselves in vicious cycles from time to time. I’ve personally seen this particular situation play out, where a team created a hole in the middle of the draft to trade up early on, and then rather take their medicine and sit out for a while once that hole was upon them, they got impatient and traded back up to fill it. Or maybe instead of addressing a position with a talented young stud when he had the opportunity, he decided to patch it over with a cheaper veteran addition. Then, when that veteran aged or flamed out, he had to replace him with another vet, who eventually had to be replaced with another vet, who eventually had to be replaced with another vet.
Another vicious cycle that is quite common in dynasty leagues involves trading future draft picks. Many teams are quick to trade away future first round picks when they’re situated far off in the future. Then, when that rookie draft rolls around, they get swept up in the hype and want to participate, so they trade right back into the first round, often giving up another future first in the process. And guess what they’re going to do when that bill comes due?
The flip side of the vicious cycle is the virtuous cycle, where one good move paves the way for another good move, which in turn sets up another. Instead of trading future assets for current assets, many owners prefer to trade current assets for future assets. I’ve found myself on the opposite end of those future-first-for-current-first trades plenty of times. In the most extreme example, I have one league where I have entered the offseason with four first-round rookie picks for three straight years (and I expect that trend to continue, as I’m already up to three first-round picks in the 2015 draft). One particular owner has been involved in trades that netted me his future first for a current first in three consecutive offseasons, now. It's easy to point out the absurdity of the final outcome, but the simple fact is that not one of his trades, taken by itself, seemed unreasonable, even if the end result does. Meanwhile, by enduring the short-term pain necessary to accumulate all of those picks in the first place, and by demonstrating discipline in my willingness to continue deferring payment, I’ve managed to build a juggernaut strictly off of residual income from those trades, and others like them.
Another example of a virtuous cycle is trading several good players for one great player, which frees up roster space for more fliers, which increases one’s chances of getting another great player, which alleviates the need for depth, which frees up roster space for even more fliers, which causes the cycle to repeat once again. The simple fact is that it’s easier for an owner with a lot of studs to find more studs, because he has less need of spot starters and "by committee" players, leaving him more roster spots to devote to long-term developmental assets.
Rather than looking at individual moves in a vacuum, it’s important to look at every move from a more distant perspective, analyzing how it might impact other moves that we will make in the future. We should work towards breaking out of any negative patterns we find ourselves in, where every mistake we make compounds and sets us up for another mistake in the future. We must be willing to pay costs rather than constantly trying to shift them and leave them for our future selves to deal with. Similarly, we should strive to get ourselves into self-sustaining success spirals, where our good moves of today set us up for more good moves in the future. Dynasty leagues are set up so that all forces are arrayed against continued success- the best teams get the worst picks in every round and have the hardest time adding quality talent. In order to overcome these headwinds, it helps to establish some virtuous cycles and build some offsetting tailwinds, too.
