Thinking about trades from the point of view of a spy novel.

It’s the start of the season, with the draft finished and every fantasy team’s roster tweaked for the opening day, though maybe not quite tweaked enough–something doesn’t quite seem right with your team. There’s a hole somewhere, and none of the free agents available will fill it. You’re starting to think about a trade–but you might be thinking about it the wrong way.

While we all start to think trades at some point, there is a tendency among fantasy managers–especially inexperienced ones–to take a “make me an offer” approach. It can start with a post on a league message board, or an e-mail to the other managers, and it often opens with something like “I’m looking to get rid of X Player,” and might go on to list certain stats or players the manager is looking for in return. As Patrick has pointed out, this is the exact wrong way to go about finding a trade, even if the errant manager is trying to get rid of a good player.

You might have better success thinking about trades from a mindset found in a spy novel–specifically in John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Framed by the erection of the Berlin Wall, le Carré’s story follows Alec Leamas, a British spy, from his defeat in East Germany to his return to London. From there, his spymaster Control sends Leamas out for one final mission: to pose as a dishonored turncoat spy, and act as a lure to bring out and bring down the head of East German Intelligence.

It might seem strange to compare a group of fantasy managers to a network of spies and double agents, but many of the tactics overlap because much of the distrust and intrigue does, especially with regard to trades. For whatever reason–because we think we know more than the other managers, because everyone thinks they are great at bargaining–many people seem to think they can pull off a magnificent bamboozle, trading away junk players for gold. Or, at least, and at the same time, everyone is afraid of being taken by such a magnificent bamboozle. But the effect is the same–any trade offer is treated with suspicion, inspected from every angle for the hidden catch.

In the face of so much built-in mistrust, how do you get the other side to believe what you want, whether it’s a spy’s story about a turncoat, or a manager’s projections about a rookie’s performance? In le Carré’s book, Control prepares Leamas for his inevitable interrogation by East German Intelligence by instructing:

Don’t give it to them all at once, make them work for it. Confuse them with detail, leave things out, go back on your tracks. Be testy, be cussed, be difficult. Drink like a fish; don’t give way on the ideology, they won’t trust that. They want to deal with a man they’ve bought; they want the clash of opposites, Alec, not some half-cock convert. Above all, they want to deduce. The ground’s prepared; we did it long ago, little things, difficult clues. You’re the last stage in the treasure hunt.

Now. Some of this might be tempting to carry straight over, especially the parts about drinking like a fish and being testy and cussed, but let’s take a moment to look at the whole picture these spies are starting to create: someone who’s difficult at times, confusing other times, and inconsistent, yet true to their principles–a “clash of opposites.” In short, someone human. Not a computer that calculates perfect trades; not a fantasy baseball genius who enlightens his fellow managers with wise comparisons of players; but a regular person who isn’t out to take advantage of anyone. This might seem an obvious point, but I find too often managers let the greed for a killer trade distract them from the reality of having to make an agreement with a fellow manager.

Furthermore, Control’s instructions get to an essential point–just as he knows Leamas’s adversaries want to deduce the false story Control has prepared for them, so does your fellow manager want to calculate a trade’s benefits on his own. Even though all your preparation for the same trade means you could probably list a hundred reasons why he should accept your trade offer, it won’t ever happen until he convinces himself it’s a good idea. If you know your fellow manager as well as Control knows his East German counterparts, you’ll know what stats he needs to see to be convinced.

This isn’t the only way to think about trades, and it isn’t always the best way. It takes a lot of research and knowledge, not only of your players and your fellow managers’ players, but also of your fellow managers–what they value, and what they don’t (most people tend to value certain stats or players more than others, or more than what objectively “should” be valued more. These idiosyncrasies should be taken into account for any trade). It takes hints, dropped here and there, about who you value and who you don’t–who you’re happy with and who you have high hopes for. It takes long and continued conversations with other managers to find out their feelings about their teams.

It may seem like a lot of work. But thinking of trades in this way underscores the importance of intelligence to fantasy success; not just about stats, but about your opponents. And it also gives you an idea about the great amount of work a gold-player trade requires–much more work than simply sending out that email, but with a much higher rate of success.