Clever ways to move up in the draft?

[keebs3]

Obviously in a rebuild you want to move some pieces to a competitor for those early round picks. But, I'm curious on how some of you have build your teams by finding clever ways to accumulate early picks. For example, last year I got a few mid round picks as a tack on in trades. I then moved 2 3rds for a 2nd. Then I moved a 2nd and future 3rd for a 1st.
Eventually I ended up with 3 first round picks while not giving up a 1st round player.

I'd like to hear your story or advice on how you sneakily move up that draft board without making a lot of noise?

Keebs

[Reljac]

Target competitors who have sustained a key injury and give them a player that is performing well at the right time.

They are often faced with trading that first or giving up on the current season. I've had this work well in the past as subsequent injury to the same team will lead to early picks at times..

Using this I've gotten early firsts from Justin Forsett, Ryan Matthews, and Arian Foster all in the last few years. (All three got injured post trade, which was unfortunate for the other owner, but paid handsomly for me).

I will say however, Depending on how bad a rebuild... I'd typically recommend trading out of early spots unless a true WR stud (think Julio, AJG, Calvin) is sitting there to take.

[kamihamster]

Target competitors who have sustained a key injury and give them a player that is performing well at the right time.

They are often faced with trading that first or giving up on the current season. I've had this work well in the past as subsequent injury to the same team will lead to early picks at times..

Using this I've gotten early firsts from Justin Forsett, Ryan Matthews, and Arian Foster all in the last few years. (All three got injured post trade, which was unfortunate for the other owner, but paid handsomly for me).

I will say however, Depending on how bad a rebuild... I'd typically recommend trading out of early spots unless a true WR stud (think Julio, AJG, Calvin) is sitting there to take.

This. I went into a season knowing I would be bad. The guy that finished 3rd had an aging RB core in Foster, AP, and Morris. He also had a deep WR core and lost Keenan Allen week 1. I had Lamar Miller and knowing I was going to be bad, I offered Miller for Keenan and his '17 1st (1.10). It's not a high 1st but I am in the works of packaging it with a 2nd to move up depending if Mike Williams falls past 1.07.

[sjcourtney56]

I always seem to be moving future picks and a decent but not great piece to land current 1st round picks. This year I went into the season with multiple mid round picks but no first and, knowing that my team (in sig) is ready to compete now but needs rb depth, I moved a lot of future picks and some decent pieces (think Eric Ebron level) to end up eventually landing picks 3 & 4 in order to take two of Cook/CMC/Mixon. Now I have no 1sts for next year but will have enough quality depth at RB/WR that if I really wanted a player I know I have the assets to go get him.

[mratlanta]

Try trading with teams that have been good for a couple of years who you expect to drop off (they have a lot of older players, you think they've over performed, etc.). They may think their 1st will be late because they are a good team. You think they're destined to fall. I did this last year when I traded my late 2016 1st for an annual playoff contender's 2017 1st straight up. He thought his pick would be 1.9 or higher. His team ended up tanking and I got the 1.2 pick this year.

[WhatWouldDitkaDo]

Target teams who need depth at different positions. I recently traded away Dion Lewis and Vance McDonald to a team that needed depth at RB and TE. I didn't mind getting rid of them since they were going to be roster cuts anyway. Just try and be in the shoes of the other owner and try to anticipate their needs.

[TheChicken]

The best way to move up during a draft is to have the picks to allow other owners to move back. Every year there will be a handful of mangers who either do not fancy who is available at their pick or want extra picks. Owners who do not fancy the 'ADP player' at their pick usually want to stay invested in the draft so want some draft picks back (rather than trading their picks straight up for a player.) Try and hoard 2nd rounders.

[kamihamster]

another way i do it is trade 2 or 3 years out. really only works if you're in complete rebuild or have lots of depth, but i find that people let those picks go much easier than next years pick.

also in season, trade older but still productive players for 2nds, then in the offseason, package 2nds for 1sts

[KCLep20]

I trade guys I'm not a believer in, but who have massive hype around them. For instance, last year I traded Matt Jones for a 2017 1st and also traded CJ Anderson for a 1st. Both guys did nothing, and i ended up with the 1.03 and 1.11 to show for it.

Another option is to trade back in drafts. I had the 1.03 last year but didn't want anybody, so I traded it to a team for their 2017 1st which ended up being the 1.02. that worked out well, but even if it was the 1.05, that would still be better than Treadwell who I almost took in 2016...

[Valhalla]

Trade for the paper champ contender's picks. Accumulate picks projected to be low as often as you can, as they are sold cheap. The offseason paper champs believe they are locks for the playoffs and will be looking for those extra role players that can give them the depth to be injury proof. You can often get a first for a depth player as the first is set to be in the 10-12 range. Yet, year after year, the offseason league rankings don't reflect end of season standings. In a highly competitive league, predicting the playoff teams is tough business. In short, pay 10-12 prices for a pick that is quite likely to rise in price and impossible to fall.

Another method I like is trading late firsts for future picks. If a paper champ or two actually does become a champ or goes deep in playoffs, no big deal. Hold that late first until the draft and then trade it for a random 1st and 2nd in the following draft. Chances are you will end up with a higher pick. If you constantly have 3-4 firsts, you can, year after year, use the early picks for yourself and roll the late firsts into the next year hoping for more early firsts and accumulating future seconds as well. Rolling picks back into later years is really no big deal if you've had picks rolled into your current year, as you can always afford to let 1-2 late firsts go when you have 1-2 early firsts.

[Seventy5]

There are always dozens and dozens of ways to pull off rebuilds, but I think the easiest and fastest way is to focus on accumulating roster value and desirable assets. To use examples, I’ll quickly walk through the 1.5-2 year plan I had for team two in my sig which was basically built off stockpiling picks and positioning myself within the tiers I wanted to be in:

-Try to bring a chess mindset/approach to a checkers tournament. Or, in fantasy football terms - be active and learn what each owner in your league is trying to do with their roster so you can think a few moves ahead to get what you want. Know that Team A will almost always flip his future picks away for a cheaper price than Team B, or that even though Team C treats RBs like they have the plague…team D seems to value RBs like he’s playing in a redraft league. Know that team E will never have a pretty looking roster on paper, but he’ll load up on the productive guys nobody wants (Fitzgerald, Decker, Olsen, Tate, Eli, Gore, Jordy, etc) and then put that bargain shopping strategy on repeat every year to playoff birth after playoff birth. Know that Team F will treat the 1.06 rookie pick like it’s a near lock to become a stud, and that Team G whiffed on his 1sts a few years in a row and would now rather just cash out for a safe/secure asset he knows will produce for a year or two instead of swinging for the fences on a rookie. If you know the styles of the owners in your leagues, you can use that knowledge to stack win-win deals with different owners that eventually work on in your favor (and theirs… for their roster goals anyways). Find deals that allow both teams to walk away feeling like they won. If team B is rebuilding and realistically 1-2 years away from competing, don’t offer him Larry Fitzgerald at full price + tax…realize he’s looking at that DeMarco Murray on his roster and probably thinking he’ll be out of the league by the time his roster is competitive and just wants him off his roster/he will likely sell for 60 cents on the dollar because something is better than nothing. Or that one team may not give you Todd Gurley for your Keenan Allen, but another owner likes Allen more than his Brandon Cooks and the Gurley owner would trade him for Cooks. Just because you don't have the assets to get the player you want doesn't mean you can't get him for the price you want if you get creative with your trading approach... it will just require an extra step and a look around the rosters in your league to find the assets you need to pull it off (example: in this superflex league Jay Cutler is sitting on the waiver wire and waivers do not clear until 9/1. I don't have a 3rd QB and had the 3rd lowest BB Dollars remaining, so I shipped two 2018 3rds off to a rebuilding team for $200 blind bidding dollars giving me $150 more than the 2nd highest team (two teams with the highest budget remaining are both contenders in need of a QB2). I view it as basically giving two 3rds to get Cutler/a back up QB in a superflex league with increased QB scoring. If someone else manages to jump ahead of me...I'll just trade for more to lock him up)

-Zig when everybody else is zagging, and zag when everybody is is zigging. Or, in fantasy football terms, acquire picks when everyone is trying to score points and sell picks when everyone wants them again. Rookie picks almost always increase in value during the off-season because owners aren’t having to set lineups each weekend, which seems like common sense, but that’s when most trades involving rookie picks take place. The focus goes from trying to trot out productive lineups weeks 1-17, to having a pretty looking youthful roster full of shiny toys with upside and potential. Try to buy picks a during training camp-around week 4-6, because after that 20-40% of the league will know they have no realistic chance at winning the year and pose as competition for the picks you’re trying to acquire from contenders. Rookie picks and ‘potential’ are always overvalued and production undervalued during the off-season, while rookie picks and youth are undervalued during the season and production value returns to where it probably should be all along. Don’t buy assets when they are most desirable and sell when nobody wants them, flip the script and buy the assets when they aren’t wanted and sell when they are. Buy-low sell-high is thrown around as if it’s common sense, but maybe 10% of dynasty owners actually follow it.

-Utilize the waiver wire; it is the easiest way to stockpile extra 2nds and 3rds for free. The more Rob Kelly, Cameron Meredith, Tyrell Williams, Jalen Richard, etc types you pick up before the break out…the more opportunities you will have to flip them to contenders for their 2nds and 3rds they aren’t stressing over letting go. Those players rarely sustain long-term success, so for every Arian Foster and Victor Cruz…there are fifty Zac Stacy, Stevan Ridley, Tre Mason, Gary Barnrdge, Joique Bell, Roy Helus. With that said, study the players tape and figure out if you think their success is sustainable, because acquiring a Stefon Diggs, Doug Baldwin, Jarvis Landry, Isaiah Crowell, Travis Kelce, or Dak Prescott for a 4th or free every year is the quickest way to speed up a rebuild. However, that can be difficult when you have borderline prospects such as Ty Montgomery, Terelle Pryor, Jamison Crowder, Tyreek Hill, etc who could easily be worth double 20 weeks from now or sitting on the waiver wire while you kick yourself wishing you had cashed out. If you’re leaning towards said player probably not blowing up, maybe cash out for something that you could live with if they do but would be thrilled with if they don’t (Hill/Montgomery/Pryor fall into that mid-late 1st zone where if the pick was from a non-playoff team, I’d probably flip them for the 1st because that 1st is a safe asset that will NOT lose value between now and next years rookie fever season. An Alfred Morris in Washington has (or had) value…you just have to figure out if he fits your window or if you should let a contender use his production up for however long it lasts.

-If it doesn’t fit your rosters window and isn’t nailed down to your roster… sell it (when the time is right). If it has no realistic chance of rising in value and is clogging a roster spot…cut it and keep churning out the last few bench spots until you find something that does. Sometimes the 3-for-1 deals you pull off where you send three Cs for one B pay off in the long run - you get the safer and more valuable asset, and you clear two spaces on your bench to find another C or two (although there are obviously times when your C-rated players end up surpassing the player you traded for). I normally try to get something out of players I don’t want on my roster long-term though…an upgraded future 3rd or 4th is still a roster value increase. Rinse and repeat.

-Take the time to break down the starting lineups+depth+tradable assets in your league to get a general idea of where their future picks will end up. It’s never exact, but you can sometimes get pretty close. In a 12 team league, I break them up into four tiers of three: strong contenders (#1-3 which are nearly guaranteed to make the playoffs and have a crack at winning), playoff bottom feeders (#4-6 which are good enough to make the playoffs, but may have a few holes and aren’t favorites to win on paper), just missed the playoffs (#7-9, which are teams with 2-4 decent assets and some youthful upside, but have too many holes in their starting lineup), and then the rebuilder/builders (teams ranked #10-12 that are almost guaranteed to have a top six pick with a real chance at being top three. Once you have that, and if you know the owners in your league, you can figure out where the best values are. Teams that are clear rebuilders will treat their future 1st as if it’s the 1.01, so there is rarely value in acquiring their pick unless you can get it for a non-cornerstone asset (see you later Tyreek Hill/Ty Montgomeryetc). Teams ranked 7-9 will be hesitant, but may think they’re one or two pieces away from making a playoff run. Teams ranked 4-6 are usually the best targets, because they view themselves as a playoff team but 1-2 injuries or their Cordarelle Patterson, Devante Parker, Kevin White etc types not breaking out all of a sudden leave them with holes they didn’t think they had. The contenders 1sts are the easiest to get, because they will likely pay a 1st for your DeMarco Murray…which is a win-win because it increases their chances of making $$$ and you get rid of the asset who is likely to be worthless by the time you’re contending. I always target picks in the 4-8 range, because they’re easier to acquire but still offer a return on your investment if their teams don’t perform the way they hope. I did this the last two years in this league, and even though it didn’t work out two years ago, it did this year and I lucked into owning the 1.01, 1.02, 1.03, 1.04 and two other mid-late 1sts (which, is extreme luck, but even acquiring just one top four pick at a 1.06-1.10 price helps).

In summation, know your league, be active in all phases of the game (trading, waiver wire, communicating, etc), and I think the most important thing is to know which rookie classes to load up on. Acquire a ton of picks in 2015-2016 and you’re probably going to whiff on the majority of your picks (but you still have opportunities to sell-high whenever a player gains popularity, such as Langford, Matt Jones, etc). Load up on 2014, 2017, or 2018 picks and the depth of those classes increases the odds of you hitting on a few 2nd-4th round players such as Allen Robinson, Jarvis Landry, Davante Adams, Martavis Bryant, Devonta Freeman, Derek Carr, John Brown, Isaiah Crowell, etc (even some of the whiffs like McKinnon, Terrance West, Sims, Jeremy Hill, Tre Mason, had sell-high opportunities to cash out for more than you invested)

[onetwothree]

Be decisive. Know who you're willing to deal and offer them every chance you get even if you're likely to get rejected. Only takes one owner.

If you see a team sustain an injury, be the first to offer a substitute for any pick you can get.

Gotta be willing to grind it out and constantly look at rosters and anticipate what teams might do or what they need. You'll be surprised how many owners will give up picks to fill bye week holes.

[moishetreats]

Try trading with teams that have been good for a couple of years who you expect to drop off (they have a lot of older players, you think they've over performed, etc.). They may think their 1st will be late because they are a good team. You think they're destined to fall. I did this last year when I traded my late 2016 1st for an annual playoff contender's 2017 1st straight up. He thought his pick would be 1.9 or higher. His team ended up tanking and I got the 1.2 pick this year.

This is my favorite. I'll add a corollary.

Trade productive veterans (if you can afford to) to lesser teams that are getting antsy trying to compete. For instance, for my Team 1 in sig., I traded McCoy -- yeah, I'm a championship contender -- to a lesser team that's looking to improve in a package for his 2018 1st. If he improves, then so be it. I can use that pick to get another win-now player in-season. If he doesn't improve, though, it could easily be a top-4 pick next year.

[keebs3]

Nice- tons of good stuff here. Thank you everyone for taking the time to respond!