- Dynasty Trade Secrets | Everything You Need to Assess Your Roster
- Dynasty Trade Secrets | Understanding Player Values
Trading is an exciting, strategic aspect in dynasty fantasy football. In dynasty leagues, a fantasy manager’s success often hinges on their ability to trade efficiently. Fantasy managers can fill gaps in their roster, improve weaknesses, and provide depth to their overall squad. Successful trading requires a solid understanding of player values, league trends, and negotiation skills. In our Dynasty Trade Secrets, we will dive into different aspects of the trade to help you dominate your league.
Dynasty Trade Secrets
In the first article of the Dynasty Trade Secrets series, we discussed assessing your team roster to determine whether you are a pretender or a contender. I encourage you to read that first as we will be building on each article:
STEP 1 | ASSESSING YOUR ROSTER
STEP 2 | UNDERSTANDING PLAYER VALUES
We use player value to determine trade value, which is the amount that could be received if they were traded. Player values are constantly changing, and those changes are based on various factors.
INJURIES
Injuries are a significant factor in player values. For example, if a running back is injured, their replacement may temporarily rise in value. The running back situation in San Francisco this year was a perfect example of this situation. Using the Dynasty GM trade browser, here were some trades for Jordan Mason after the news broke that Christian McCaffrey would be placed on Injured Reserve.
JORDAN MASON AFTER CMC INJURY
- Team A: 2025 2nd
- Team B: Jordan Mason
- Team A: Tee Higgins
- Team B: Jordan Mason and Christian Watson
JORDAN MASON AFTER 2024 SEASON
- Team A: 2025 3rd
- Team B: Jordan Mason
- Team A: Jordan Mason
- Team B: Christian Watson*
*Christian Watson suffered a season-ending injury before this trade was made
That is a substantial change in player value that can be directly attributed to the health of Christian McCaffrey. Conversely, this also opened a buying window for Christian McCaffrey as his value declined during the 2024 season, allowing a cheaper transaction for teams who still believe in CMC’s talent.
TRADES
NFL trades also affect player value. A trade can lead to a player seeing more or less opportunities. If a player moves to a crowded position group, their target share or touches may shrink, lowering their fantasy production. Diontae Johnson is a perfect example of how a trade could directly plummet a player’s value. After Diontae Johnson was traded from the Steelers to the Carolina Panthers, he produced a career-low season across three different NFL teams.
Trades allow you to send away players clogging up your dynasty roster who are providing minimal value to your team. During the trade deadline, Khalil Herbert was traded to the Cincinnati Bengals, and fantasy managers were able to capitalize on the NFL movement with the trades below:
- Team A: Cedric Tillman
- Team B: Khalil Herbert and 2025 3rd
- Team A: Khalil Herbert
- Team B: Courtland Sutton
LEAGUEMATE TENDENCIES
We must also understand the market value based on your league and the fantasy football community. The fantasy football community can influence player values through trends. A player might gain hype after a big weekly performance or viral training camp highlight—inflating their value temporarily. One example that I vividly remember was the infamous “Mike Davis’ Quads Photo.”
You also need to know your leaguemates’ tendencies. A team that is a die-hard Dallas Cowboys fan will likely pay more to acquire Ceedee Lamb than other teams in your league.
Sell high or buy low are commonly used terms throughout the fantasy football community. Sometimes, players score fantasy points at an unsustainable rate due to a team’s schedule or a high touchdown volume, which opens a trading opportunity to sell high. In 2024, Nick Westbrook-Ikhine was the perfect example. The time to sell Westbrook-Ikhine would have been during Week 9 through 13 when he finished as a WR2 or better 4 out of 5 times. After those weeks, he failed to produce double-digit fantasy points. While he was worth a 2025 3rd or more at one point, he is now ranked as dynasty player 292 overall.
Buy low means acquiring a player who is performing poorly or undervalued by other managers. You must identify players you believe will bounce back and perform better in the coming weeks or seasons.
For example, Josh Jacobs was a great buy-low candidate for the 2024 season. Jacobs rushed for a career-high 15 touchdowns. Rashee Rice is a great buy-low option. Rice played in only four games before requiring season-ending surgery; in those games, Rice posted 17.3, 18.5, and 29.1 fantasy points. I would be comfortable sending a late 1st or early 2nd round pick for Rice.
Review | Understanding Player Values
Overall, player values are fluid and can change rapidly based on game or practice performance along with external factors. As a smart dynasty manager, you need to know when to capitalize on those values to optimize your trading efficiency. If it helps, we can think of it like a stock market, though dynasty values can often be more volatile than the stock market.
Trade Target of the Week | Dynasty Trade Secrets
I have spoken about A.J. Barner in other articles as a target to acquire. It’s for good reason, as the price to acquire him should be feasible. Barner finished his rookie campaign for the Seattle Seahawks with 30 receptions, 245 receiving yards, and 4 touchdowns.
Seattle’s new offensive coordinator, Klint Kubiak, loves to feature the tight end in check-down options for the quarterback. Over the final 3 weeks of the 2024 season, Barner finished as the TE9 and TE11 while sharing duties with Noah Fant. If Seattle chooses to cut Noah Fant, they save $8.9 million in cap space, according to overthecap.com. I would try to add Barner as a potential throw-in piece during your trade negotiations.
For more trade targets, see my most recent Free Agency players to trade for or away:
We have New Rookie Draft Content!
Don’t let the dynasty trade secrets be the only research you do this offseason. Check out our most recent rookie mock draft for SuperFlex leagues:
