Every fantasy sport and every fantasy league deals with trades. Every league has a guy or girl that doesn’t trade at all. We all know the person that sends 10 trades a day even after you reject the first nine offers. There are plenty of 3-for-1 guys to boot. That being said the value of trades matter. Make trades matter again. Kidding. Not going there. But they do matter and the value of them matters even more. What you get out of a deal might look weird on paper to some people, but it should be dependent on your necessity and what you can do to your other league mates.

You just finished your draft and realized you’re lacking at wide receiver. Your friend -- because this is a home league -- notices that and sends you a trade that seems completely outlandish, but you improved at a position you were weak at. Same situation, you just finished your draft in your home league and you get a notification for a trade. It’s a 3-for-1 and the first thing that comes to mind is the Nick Young question mark meme. Basketball reference sure, but it’s relatable in this instance. 

Lets circle back to the point we made about necessity. Just because it feels like a trade is not balanced doesn’t mean it’s a bad trade. Everything is relative, like the title of the article points to. Think back to the 2019 campaign. The percentage of teams that drafted Lamar Jackson as their QB1 was very small. If you say you did, you’re probably lying. Kidding, but not really. Because you had Jackson on your roster, you were more than likely actively trying to move your other quarterback to improve depth at the skill positions. You might be very weak at QB and deep at WR so an offer is made to you for one of your best receivers. Generally you wouldn’t consider a QB for a plus WR a deal you would do but position scarcity makes it relative.

Example: Player X may have had both Jameis Winston and Lamar Jackson while you have Kenny Golladay but because you are four receivers deep behind Golladay and need an elite QB, Winston is worth trading for despite the rest of the league thinking that this trade doesn’t necessarily make sense.

We’ve all experienced bye week hell, right? That one week where four, five maybe even six of our players have the same bye week. It’s hard to imagine just outright dropping some of these players considering they’re Davante Adams or Leonard Fournette or Mark Andrews . Not happening. So what’s the plan? Well, after your draft is completed, you know you could be in bad shape for Week 5 and you begin formulating a plan on what you’re going to do, with trades being the most reasonable way to fill out your roster. You may not get the value you wanted back, but you’re able to send out a complete team and compete instead of just throwing a week away. With a lot more leagues trending towards most points making the postseason, every week matters, so sacrifices may be made.

Another piece of the pie is setting your league mates up for future failures. We mentioned bye week hell for ourselves, but getting a league mate of yours to fall for bait could be fruitful, especially if we’re on the cusp of missing the postseason. If you do a deal that seems one-sided, it may have specific intentions that could keep that aforementioned team from the postseason because THEY’RE the ones on bye week hell. It’s the little games, as a fantasy owner, you may think of throughout the season that allows you to pull the trigger on trades others may scratch their heads at.

When making trades, don’t just make them blindly. You need to put thought behind a deal, knowing your roster, when each player's bye weeks are and the bye weeks of the players you’re looking to acquire as well, whether they’ve passed it or not and if it falls on a week that benefits you. Or in the opposite case it doesn't. Improve your team based on your needs and don’t let somebody talk you out of doing just that