A key element of nearly every fantasy baseball league is player trading. Team owners make trade offers to other league members throughout a season with the purpose of improving their own roster.
When receiving or making trade offers, there are some aspects to consider aside from how it affects your team. Improper or selfish behavior on your part might make certain team owners apprehensive about making any deals with you. Also there are some actions related to trading that could even leave most of a league upset with you.
To help keep this from happening, please read the four points of fantasy baseball trading etiquette that are listed below.
1. Do Not Burn Bridges
During a fantasy season some owners will make trade proposals to you that are very unbalanced in their favor. For example, someone may want your star slugger in return for a backup outfielder. Although this might be aggravating and insulting, it is best to just reject the offer and avoid any nasty comments in return.
Aside from being childish, trading insults with another owner will probably eliminate future trading with them. It is possible that same owner may have a player you want later in the season. An ongoing feud with that person is likely to eliminate any chance of making a deal.
2. Assess Opponent Needs
A good trade offer should help both teams that are involved. Before sending a proposal, analyze the opponent’s roster and spot his weaknesses. Offering useful players in return increases the likelihood of your trade being accepted.
Besides looking at an owner’s current roster weaknesses, also determine the potential impact of losing the player(s) you want from him. Possibly you are asking for his only third baseman, which would leave him nobody at that spot. If a good backup third baseman exists on your roster, a wise move would be to make that player part of the trade offer package.
3. Respect League Fairness
Certain team owners will not be successful and unfortunately find themselves near the bottom in league standings. Despite an overall poor performance, owners should not trade away talent just to help a friend that owns another team in the league. Even if a league majority vetoes something like this, members will still be unhappy that two teams tried pulling off a purposely lopsided trade.
A season starts with the notion that each owner will be competitive until the end. Unloading your most productive players to another team essentially equates to quitting. At the same time, the owner receiving those players gets an unfair advantage against everyone else.
4. Be Proactive
Some team owners merely notify the league that they will listen to offers for a certain player on their roster. This is not a good idea since other league participants may see it as desperation, laziness or apathy on your part. Putting together individual trade proposals for other teams is always the best course of action.
If other owners believe you are desperate to move a player, they might send you weak and unbalanced trade offers in return. Also, other owners will not respect any perceived laziness or apathy and might just completely ignore your requests. To keep this from happening, do the proper homework and construct your own deals.