The Law of Averages

Doug Veatch

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Being reactive instead of proactive is a common flaw I see in a lot of dynasty owners these days.  Coaches sit around and wait for trade offers to come their way.  It just doesn’t happen.  During the season, I’m lucky if I receive four or five trade offers in each one of my leagues (and most of them are so far off, I don’t even consider them an actual offer).  The best way to make your team a contender in a hurry is by successfully negotiating trade offers.  Yeah, drafting helps too, but the turn around on draft picks can take time.  In this article I’d like to focus on taking advantage of something the corporate sales world likes to refer to as, “working your law of averages.”

The whole law of averages concept isn’t a new one.  It’s been around as long as I can remember.  To put it into its simplest terms, the law of averages basically states that one out of every ten sales pitches (or trade offers in our case) are going to result in a sale.

Here’s the deal.

If you submit ten trade offers either through your league website, or via text (which I feel is the best way to get trade negotiations started), the law of averages says that one of those ten trade offers are going to be accepted.  Now, they may not get accepted as you originally sent them, but that’s why we call them “negotiations.”

On the other hand, let’s say that you put ten offers out there and not one of them gets accepted.  This is where determination comes into play.  You have to “work” the law of averages.  Put out another ten offers.  It is mathematically proven that two of those offers have a high probability of getting accepted.  If the second time around doesn’t work out, keep the offers coming and eventually the law of averages will work into your favor.

Being a successful salesperson, I can tell you that just because you get into a slump, it’s not the end of the world. You have to believe that every “no” is getting is getting you closer to a “yes.”  One of my all time favorite quotes from any movie is from Boiler Room.  The quote goes a little something like this, “A sale is made on every call you make.  Either you sell the client some stock or he sells you a reason he can’t.  Either way a sale is made, the only question is who is going to close?  You or him?” Sound familiar?  It’s a chess match I constantly play when negotiating a trade.

The law of averages is never going to work for you if you’re always sending lopsided offers clearly in your favor.  The biggest mistake I see coaches make when sending out offers is sending a blind offer.  To me, a blind offer means you didn’t take the time to really dissect your potential trade partner’s roster.  You just saw a player on their roster you wanted to acquire and sent out an offer with no regard to what his team needs are – these types of offers are always going to get declined, and most likely with no counter.  Am I saying start off with your absolute best offer?  No, absolutely not.  However, at least have the decency to make an offer that you think has a good chance of at least getting a counter, and go from there.  Take the two extra minutes to truly examine your potential trade partner’s roster and determine their biggest team need.

This all sounds like a lot of work, right?

Well if your reading this article right now, chances are you are just as obsessed with dynasty football as the rest of us here at DLF.  You probably spend multiple hours per week thinking about it.  Put that time to good use.  Setting your lineup every week and hoping for the best isn’t good enough.  Be an active member of your league.  Action causes reaction.  I guarantee you that every coach in your league has multiple players on their rosters you would love to acquire.  How many times has another coach acquired a player you wanted to get a hold of?  Were you just thinking about landing that player or were you proactively putting together deals to make your goal a reality?

Championships aren’t just going to be handed to you.  You’ve got to earn them.  Sitting back and waiting for the offers to start pouring in is a recipe for disaster.  Is that the type of coach you want to be?  Start putting offers out there.  Using this practice helps you in more ways than just stockpiling your roster.  It helps you master the art of negotiating.  Also, it’s going to make your offers a lot more likely to receive a counter offer, you’re putting the time and effort into making legitimate offers.

Every player is available for the right price, and that price is almost always negotiable.

doug veatch
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