Salary Cap Confidential: Trading

Dan Meylor

It’s easy for salary cap owners to get overwhelmed when attempting to make trades. Earlier in the series we covered the factors to consider when attempting to value a player including production, age, situation, salary and contract length. Those five elements alone are enough to give an owner anxiety. When you have to evaluate each of those factors against the same ones for the player you’re getting in return (or worse, multiple players on each side), it’s easy to think trading in salary cap is just too difficult. This installment of Salary Cap Confidential will alleviate some of that anxiety.

Before we get too far into things, it’s important to know that understanding your league’s trade rules is incredibly important. For instance, most cap leagues offer owners the ability to cover portions (or all) of a player’s salary or trade salary cap space outright as part of a trade negotiation. If your league doesn’t allow this, it’s going to be more difficult to successfully make trades than every other paragraph of this article will make you believe. I suggest you find a league that allows such things if yours doesn’t.

Trading Tip #1: Value Cap Space Properly in Trade Negotiations

I’ve stated throughout this series that salary cap space and cap flexibility is the most important asset you and every other owner in your league has so it should be used in trade negotiations wisely. If you’ve properly valued each side of a trade, you should have a firm handle on whether you’re willing to cover part of the player salaries you’re trading away.

I like to use the time of year as a general guideline for how fiercely to hold on to cap space. Early in the season when there are so many transactions still to be made, I always hesitate to cover salaries or trade cap space. Late in the year however when I have a firm handle on my team’s fate and how much room I’ll need, it’s much easier to let it go. Giving away salary cap space a year or more out isn’t a consideration.

Trading Tip #2: Target Cap-Strapped Owners in Trade Negotiations

This is good advice no matter what time of year but is especially good advice for owners leading up to the free agent auction.

Most owners want to be active in the upcoming auction. When you get the feeling that’s the case, there are a few ways to creatively get them what they want including offering a lower paid player for a higher paid player that is more productive, offering to take an overpaid player off their hands (as long as they pay a portion of their salary) therefore giving you a reasonably priced asset, or taking their overpriced bad contract and a draft pick or picks for cap space – which is a tip in itself.

Trading Tip #3: Acquire Bad Contracts for a Price

I have a friend that calls this, “eating sins.” Essentially, you offer to take a player and the bad contract the owner gave him along with something else (usually a draft pick and/or an underpaid player) and in return the other owner frees up cap space. This is a tactic usually used during a rebuild but is a useful tool to any savvy owner with cap space to make such moves.

Trading Tip #4: Target Assets other than Players and Picks in Trade Negotiations

We’ve already covered current cap space as an alternative trade chip but many leagues allow you to trade future cap space or franchise or transitional tags. Targeting these assets – particularly during the season – will often times catch other owners thinking it’s not a big deal, when down the road you’ll gain an advantage. Again, this comes down to knowing your rules and understanding exactly how advantageous it is to have these extra resources.

Trading Tip #5: Use the Free Agent Auction as a Trading Ground

I’ve heard many cap owners say there are two trading seasons that exist in a salary cap league: pre- and post-free agency. Pre-free agency, each franchise will have more salary cap space than any other time during that particular year, so owners have room to make moves. Meanwhile, post-free agency trading often requires owners to get more creative and work a little harder to keep both teams under the cap.

On the surface (and in the opinion of many cap owners) pre-free agent auction trading is easier but that isn’t always the case. Sure, every owner has the flexibility to make moves, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he or she is more likely to hit accept. In fact, it may be exactly the opposite. With a full free agent crop of players about to hit the open market, many owners figure they can fill their needs during the auction rather than giving up trade compensation.

While pre- and post-free agency both have their trading advantages and disadvantages the truth is, mid-auction may be the best trading opportunity for cap owners. After all, on top of having every owner’s attention locked into their teams, there is so much information at your fingertips. You can see what positions and types of players other owners are targeting, you know who missed out on filling a need, and best of all owners still have the cap space to take on a contract or two.

Keeping a close eye on the auction as a whole and using the information gathered can point you directly to an ideal trade opportunity. In fact, there are times that opportunity presents itself mid-auction. After all, you already know the losing bidder is interested in your player. Perhaps there’s a player on his or her roster that you want more.

This leads me to…

Trading Tip #6: Keep Notes

This is covered in another installment of the series but is worth repeating here. There is no better fantasy format to keep notes on your fellow owners than salary cap. If you’re paying attention, they’ll tell you not only what players they like but also how much they prefer to spend on specific positions and how many years they’re willing to commit to player contracts, not to mention what positions they’re willing to spend draft picks on and how willing they are to use franchise tags, etc.

Notes on these subjects are very useful when trying to identify trade partners for a contract you’re looking to unload or seeking the perfect piece to add to a deal to get the yes!

Trading Tip #7: Veteran Players Often Come at a Discount

So many salary cap owners see the format as an extension of dynasty but that’s not always true. In fact, cap leagues should be seen by owners more like re-draft than dynasty. You can take advantage of this with regard to more experienced players. Veterans have more value in salary cap, particularly on one-year contracts. They can often be acquired cheaply either in the free agent auction or by trade due to the dynasty mindset bias toward youth.

Trading Tip #8: Target Expiring Contracts

Again, cap space is king. I’ve said many times that there is no such thing as a bad one-year contract and that applies to trades as well. Savvy owners look a year (or further) ahead at their cap situation and if they find a salary they’re not sure they want on their books, they work to swap it out for an expiring deal. Whether you’re competing for a championship or in the opening days of a two-year rebuild, acquiring an expiring contract can’t be a bad thing. At the very least, it adds to your cap flexibility down the road.

Trading Tip #9: Take a Loss Today for a Win Tomorrow

In some ways this sounds like the opposite of tip number eight, because it is — and in some ways it’s the exact same thing as tip number eight.

Acquiring the lower rated player isn’t a bad thing. Maybe you want the lower rated player because he’s just as cheap and you can keep him longer, maybe the contract is not guaranteed giving you flexibility, or maybe it’s a cheaper salary (even $1 cheaper). If it makes your team better or gives you the flexibility to make your team better down the road, it’s the right deal no matter what any cheat sheet says.

Trading Tip #10: Be Honest About your Chances

If you’re not truly a contender, sell! That means sell your useful players with expiring contracts (for whatever you can get if you must). They’re worthless to you unless you can tag them or re-sign them. If you are a contender however, by all means, go for it!

Hopefully this installment helps get a few deals done in cap leagues, next week we’ll cover some rule ideas in Salary Cap Confidential: Cool Rules.

dan meylor