If you play in a standard fantasy football league, your trade deadline is likely right around the corner. In honor of deadline day we’ve put together the 5 most common types of trade partners you’ve likely encountered in your fantasy football careers. Each has their pros and cons that you can use to your advantage when negotiating deals with them, the key is knowing who you’re dealing with before opening that trade offer notice.
Behold, the 5 most common kinds of fantasy football managers when negotiating deals:
Draft Purist: This person has likely been in your league for years, but no one can remember ever successfully making a trade with them. They draft their team and stick to their guys like Gorilla Glue. It doesn’t matter what their positional needs are, or what you’re offering, every trade is insta-declined without so much as a thought to making a counter offer.
You may even have a Draft Purist who falls on the far end of the spectrum. Someone who may decline your perfectly reasonable trade offer and counter with something like Cooper Kupp, Patrick Mahomes, and CMC for his kicker. Which in fantasy football parlance is essentially telling you “f*ck off”.
While their loyalty to their players is admirable, eventually everyone in your league knows to just steer clear of them. Which makes them the equivalent of having a computer auto draft and dress their players week in, week out. They’re not much fun to have around, but if they pay their league dues then what’s the harm? After all, this person has also likely never won your league either, often electing to go down with the ship rather than make any kind of move that might bring them fantasy glory.
Low Baller: This is the George Costanza of your league. Always looking for a deal, or some sort of angle. They’ll offer you whatever name they recently claimed off the waiver wire and try to convince you they’ll outproduce your RB1 for the rest of the year if you just hit accept. They’re doing you a favour really…
They’re generally the ones to offer trades, but in the rare situation where you try to flip them something they suddenly turn into Rick from Pawn Stars. You’ll get a counter offer, but it usually comes with players you have no interest in and a message along the lines of “the best I can do is…”
The Low Baller’s true strength is their persistence. Never one to be discouraged by 20 failed trade offers, they’re usually good for 1-2 trades per season. This usually comes after crippling injuries to another owner’s team has them desperate enough to consider accepting their offers. True to form, they run their team like a Pawn Shop and wait for others to be down on their luck, and then pounce.
Babyface: The new player to the league. Maybe they’re new to fantasy football, maybe they just don’t yet fully grasp the scoring settings. Whatever the case, this person is usually the one treated like fresh meat by other owners who offer “pointers” in an effort to make them believe they have their best interests at heart. After all, a friend wouldn’t rip off a friend right?
Well all’s fair in love, war, and fantasy football. This person will usually get fleeced once or twice a season, leaving other owners frustrated not so much that the trade was made, but that they weren’t the ones to capitalize on the “mark”.
Every league has this person. EVERY league. If you’re currently reading this and can’t think of who would be this individual in your league, then I hate to break it to you, but this bio is about you…
Spammer: This person operates on volume. They’ve done the math, and they know if they send out 10 trade offers in a year, MAYBE they’ll get one deal done. But what if they send out 1000 trade offers? The odds have to increase exponentially right? Right?…
The Spammer sends more purportedly lucrative offers than those Nigerian princes who keep emailing you about the $10M they want to give away. They’ll even go so far as to send multiple versions of the same trade to try to prove how serious they are about getting a deal done. “Oh you don’t like that offer for Kyler Murray? Well I can also involve Player B, C, D, E….”.
Spammers tend to share a lot in common with drunks at closing time. But instead of firing out 2AM “You up?” texts, they’re firing off 50 late night trade offers for you to wake up to in the morning. Occasionally this strategy will backfire, and they’ll have so many theoretical deals floating around that they lose track of who they’ve included in them. If you’re patient enough, you may be able to turn their strategy against them and have them offer something of actual value which you can accept.
But beware, in much the same way that they’ll flood your inbox with offers, they’ll also be quick to flood your league message board with pleas to have the commissioner reverse the trade they “accidentally” made with you.
Mansplainer: Whether this is a man talking to a woman in your league or not is irrelevant to this individual. To them, they have supreme knowledge of all things fantasy football, and they are more than happy to tell you why you’d be an IDIOT not take their offer.
Armed with questionable injury reports, advanced stats you’ve never heard of (but they insist exist and are SUPER relevant to their trade offer), they operate like a predatory lawyer trying to convince you your assets aren’t worth nearly what you value them at. You’ve likely heard some version of their pitch before, it goes something like:
“Jonathan Taylor as your RB1? I guess, but given Frank Reich’s reliance on the XYZ system his production is about to fall off a cliff. Why don’t you trade him to me for Odell Beckham Jr.? He just got traded to the Rams and he’s going to be STUD with Stafford. I’d keep him but I have too many WR’s as is and I need a RB. Accept it quickly though, I’ve got other managers sending me offers for him as we speak”.
Remember, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been playing fantasy football for, the Mansplainer is the authority on player valuation in their minds.
Now that you’re armed with this knowledge, shoot your shot on trade deadline day. Just keep in mind who it is you’re talking to on the other end.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner