In fantasy baseball and fantasy sports, trades are a fast way to improve your team, but they can also be difficult to pull off.  The Fantasy Sports Corner at thebaseballchick.com is here to help.  The following are 5 tips that will allow you to complete the fantasy trades that could be the difference between a long, disappointing off-season and a fantasy league title.

• Know Your League

The best way to get a trade accepted is to know the people in your league.  Most of us are in leagues with friends and coworkers and chances are this is not the first season.  If this is the case, then you know your competitor’s favorite teams and players and also their usual fantasy sports strategy.  Use this to your advantage.  If Chad Billingsley is struggling but you have a Dodgers fan in your league, why not make him an offer? 

• Know Their Needs

Before making an offer, take a good look at the detailed league standings.  If you need stolen bases, don’t make an offer to another team that also needs stolen bases, it’s never gonna happen.  Need for need trades are the most likely to be accepted.

• Do Not Low-Ball

It is always a good idea to try to get a little more than you are giving, but if you offer too little you may anger the other manager.  This goes hand-in-hand with knowing your league.  Some managers will be fine if you come in too low with the first offer, they know you are just starting a conversation.  However, there are some managers that will just refuse to even listen if they feel they are being low-balled (although I’ve found that if you make a good enough offer, even someone that has said they won’t deal with you will at least take a look).

• Pay Attention To Counter-Offers

Counter-offers are a great way to see what players of yours the other manager is high on.  Once you know this, you can use those players to get the ones you want from their team.

• Timing

The majority of trades are all about timing, so always be ready to pounce.  A team lower in the standings may lose a big name player to the 15-day DL and cannot afford to go 2 weeks without the stats.  If you are in a position to wait, you should immediately try to get the big name at a discount.  If you are in a keeper league and you see a team that seems about ready to throw in the towel and start rebuilding for next season, then you want to be the first one to make an offer for the free agents and big contract players.

Tags: advice, Fantasy Baseball, Sports, thebaseballchick.com, Trades

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 30th, 2009 at 10:15 am and is filed under Fantasy Baseball Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.