The Dynasty Trading Post: January Edition

Ryan McDowell

tradingpost

The off-season is all about improving your dynasty team and trying to build (or maintain) a championship level team. One way to do that is through the trade market. With the fantasy season over and the NFL season nearly complete, most dynasty leagues have re-opened trades and the #dynastytrades are flowing. I want to share with you some things I’ve noticed as I’ve scoured Twitter for the latest dynasty deals.

With his late season flourish, one of the hottest names of the early off-season is Dolphins’ wide receiver DeVante Parker. That was already going to be the case, considering Parker nearly a WR2 over the season’s final five weeks after barely touching the field much of the season. That bump in production coincided with an injury to Rishard Matthews, who is now a free agent. Parker scored double-digit fantasy points in four of his final five games. To top it off, Miami then hired offensive guru Adam Gase as their new head coach. While there are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to what the new Miami offense will look like, most are viewing this as a huge positive for Parker, who is creeping into the second round of startup drafts. With this particular trade, considering the uncertain value of third round rookie picks, the deal is essentially Parker for TY Hilton and Isaiah Crowell. Both of those players disappointed this season, so I’m actually surprised this deal was accepted, even though it is way too early to give up on Hilton. I expect Parker’s price to continue to rise throughout the off-season in both trades and startup drafts.

One of the key parts of my off-season plan for virtually all of my dynasty teams is to complete one or more consolidation deals. These types of trades are just what they sound like. I want to group two or more of my expendable assets in order to acquire one of the top players in the game. Ideally, that means moving two or three depth players for one that will crack my starting lineup, though that is not exactly the case here. Both Hilton and Devonta Freeman are starting caliber players themselves, but I still like the side acquiring the best player, Julio Jones.

You hear the same comments nearly every year about this time. “This draft class is okay, but wait until next year!” This is one of the rare example where this is really true. Over the next 15 months, the rush will be on to acquire as many 2017 rookie picks as possible, and not even exclusively first round picks. Not only is the 2017 draft class looking like a star-studded group, but there is quality depth as well. Getting a 2017 second or third round draft pick thrown into a trade could pay off in spades. As I mentioned above, I like consolidation deals in which I am acquiring the best player and while that is clearly Le’Veon Bell, I can’t fault the side receiving multiple first round draft picks either. I wouldn’t strongly recommend selling off players of Bell’s quality, but do what you can to stockpile those future draft picks. Some of the top players in the class of 2017 are expected to be Leonard Fournette, Nick Chubb, Dalvin Cook, Juju Smith, Christian McCaffrey and many more.

For a player who didn’t even see the field this season, Bears’ receiver Kevin White sure has been involved in quite a few dynasty trades early this off-season. I had my concerns about White entering the league and that was before we knew anything about this mysterious leg injury that cost him his entire rookie season. White was a bit of a one year wonder in college and entered the league older than most of his peers. Add in the fact that he just lost his offensive coordinator and his quarterback is the unpredictable Jay Cutler and I’ll be avoiding White unless his cost is much cheaper than we see here.

In the first deal, White is swapped for another disappointing rookie, Ameer Abdullah, along with a late first-round pick. Now is a pretty good time to buy 2016 draft picks as many seem down on the class in general. I can understand why, but I also expect draft fever to hit a few owners in every league. Draft picks are nearly always a tradeable commodity.

Secondly, White is packaged with a relatively high draft pick this year for Randall Cobb and Matt Jones. While I can see both sides of this deal, I’d be buying both Cobb (I expect a bounce back as he returns to his familiar WR2 role) and Jones (his value should climb once Alfred Morris is officially out of town) and this is a fair price to acquire the duo.

Finally, White is basically flipped for a trio of draft picks, including two future first round picks. I’m not sure if White was even worth a first round pick once we learned of the severity of his injury late last off-season and I don’t think he’s done anything to gain value. I would gladly sell him for a trio of top 18 picks and Ty Montgomery and Charles Clay are just bonus players.

ryan mcdowell