You're on the clock in the fourth round. An owner contacts you with a two-for-two trade. Give up pick No. 4.07, as well as pick 9.06, and he'll give you picks 5.08 and 6.06. Do you pull the trigger? Or do you just stand pat and choose the highest-rated player on your board. Ian Allan weighs in with his answer.
This is in the head-to-head league run by Fanex. In short, it's a PPR league, with owners starting 3 WRs plus a flex (RB-WR-TE) player.
Neither side (at least to me) jumps out as the obvious winner. There's not a knockout gotta-have player sitting on the board, which lessens the appeal of just standing pat.
But for a more analytical answer, think back to Mike McCoy. He's the businessman friend of Jerry Jones who created the "draft value" chart that the Cowboys used in the '90s. Jimmy Johnson and Jerry Jones, as legend has it, liked to move around in the draft. But sometimes when you're only on the clock for 5-15 minutes, it's hard to calculate what's a fair trade. So they commence to create a reference sheet they could have at their disposal in their war room.
They hired McCoy to study the relative values of each draft spot and assign points to each. That allowed them, in seconds, to get a rough estimate of the fairness of the various trades being bandied about.
That concept, of course, can be translated easily to fantasy. Rather than working in the abstract, you can work simply off the expected points you expected each player to produce. You put together your draft board for any given scoring system, adjust each player's production so that it's relative to a baseline-type player at his position, and then you've got "draft chart".
In this case, the proposal is picks 43 and 102 in exchange for picks 58 and 66.
Picks Nos. 43 & 102 = 50 + 8 = 58 points. Picks Nos. 58 & 66 = 41 + 31 = 72 points.
So while not excited to give up my fourth-round pick, the choice should result in something like a 14-point gain. So I agreed.
It gets a little more complicated when you try to factor in that you won't pick players 43, 58, 66 or 102. Every time when you choose, that's the worst-case scenario. At pick 43, for example, I would have gotten a player worth about an additional 8 points. If that player had been worth 20 points (a guy who should have gone in the early second round), then I would have balked on the deal.
While pick 43 had that extra 8 points, no doubt the same will be true of the remaining picks. I might get two top-50 players with these next two. We'll see.
Here's the draft chart I used. This doesn't apply to all leagues. It's only for a 12-team PPR league with 3 starting WRs and a flex player.
| IAN'S DRAFT VALUE CHART | ||
|---|---|---|
| Pk-Value | Pk-Value | Pk-Value |
| 1--140.0 | 36--60.3 | 71--27.1 |
| 2--138.2 | 37--58.5 | 72--25.9 |
| 3--135.2 | 38--57.6 | 73--25.6 |
| 4--129.3 | 39--54.3 | 74--24.5 |
| 5--125.9 | 40--53.7 | 75--24.4 |
| 6--123.0 | 41--52.5 | 76--23.6 |
| 7--119.6 | 42--52.0 | 77--22.7 |
| 8--110.4 | 43--49.7 | 78--21.9 |
| 9--105.8 | 44--49.6 | 79--20.3 |
| 10--105.3 | 45--48.3 | 80--19.3 |
| 11--105.1 | 46--45.9 | 81--19.2 |
| 12--101.8 | 47--45.8 | 82--18.3 |
| 13--101.8 | 48--45.6 | 83--17.8 |
| 14--95.1 | 49--45.4 | 84--17.1 |
| 15--92.2 | 50--45.3 | 85--17.0 |
| 16--89.9 | 51--44.7 | 86--16.8 |
| 17--87.1 | 52--44.1 | 87--16.4 |
| 18--85.8 | 53--43.6 | 88--16.1 |
| 19--82.3 | 54--42.9 | 89--16.0 |
| 20--79.7 | 55--41.9 | 90--15.3 |
| 21--79.7 | 56--41.3 | 91--15.2 |
| 22--76.9 | 57--41.2 | 92--14.9 |
| 23--76.5 | 58--40.5 | 93--14.7 |
| 24--75.5 | 59--38.6 | 94--11.9 |
| 25--74.6 | 60--37.5 | 95--10.8 |
| 26--74.2 | 61--37.2 | 96--10.4 |
| 27--72.8 | 62--35.4 | 97--10.2 |
| 28--71.0 | 63--33.1 | 98--9.0 |
| 29--70.3 | 64--32.8 | 99--8.2 |
| 30--68.9 | 65--31.2 | 100--8.2 |
| 31--67.2 | 66--30.8 | 101--8.0 |
| 32--64.9 | 67--29.6 | 102--7.7 |
| 33--64.5 | 68--27.6 | 103--7.2 |
| 34--62.6 | 69--27.5 | 104--7.1 |
| 35--61.8 | 70--27.2 | 105--7.0 |
I haven't made any notable picks so far.
At 1.06, I shopped the draft pick but nobody was interested in moving up. I selected Ray Rice, who was No. 3 on my board.
At 2.07, I went with Darren Sproles. My board indicated I should have selected wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, who was worth a few more points, but by selecting Sproles, it should give me more flexibility in the middle rounds of the draft (I didn't want to get backed into selected a running back in the sixth or seventh round, when at that point the much better choice might be a wide receiver -- that was the thinking).
At 3.06, I was torn between Randall Cobb and Danny Amendola. That was the day Cobb had the arm injury, and with the slight worry there, I opted for Amendola. I would have loved to wait until pick 4.07 to select Amendola (and maybe he would have made it there), but I didn't feel like taking that risk.
--Ian Allan