By Matt Morrison (@dynastyjerk)
Hello Dynasty Owners and welcome to another start to the week. We are halfway through August which means that all of us here at Dynasty Owner (and elsewhere) are switching from off-season mode to pre-season mode. For some of you, the pre-season starts right after the NFL Draft. However, the most common event that gets everyone excited about real, meaningful football has to be the start of the pre-season games. Ah yes, the sound of children going back to school mixed with the increased frequency of our favorite podcasts…It’s a great time of year.
With that being said, I am also changing gears as I transition from the “Contract Spotlight” series over into a “Trade” series. Throughout the rest of the pre-season, and into the regular season, I will be delivering you all the info that you need to know about trading here on the Dynasty Owner platform. That includes values, trading away players and identifying which players you should be looking to trade for prior to their breakout. For all these trade articles, I will be utilizing a brand new tool released by Dynasty Owner…
The Trade Calculator
The Trade Calculator is something that I have heard numerous requests for from Dynasty Owners, and it has arrived just in time for the NFL pre-season. A trade calculator in itself is not a new invention, but when it comes to Dynasty Owner, it takes on a whole new meaning. As we know, all of our projections here take into account several factors…
- Age
- Fantasy Production
- Projected Length of Career
- Salary
All of these are standard for “regular” dynasty leagues except for salary. Taking into account a player’s salary takes on a bigger meaning when you are considering trading away one of your Dynasty Owner assets (player, draft picks, Dynasty Dollars or an Amnesty Provision). As I mentioned in the opening, I will be using the Trade Calculator to identify value trades, players who you may want to trade away as well as one player who I would recommend trading for in each article. Let’s jump into the first two trades for this series…
Trade Away
All of the trades that I discuss in this series will be subjective. Your willingness to pull the trigger on these trades will depend on your team’s roster construction and one to three year goals in Dynasty Owner. These shouldn’t be taken as gospel. Rather they are examples of fair trades that both I and the Trade Calculator agree on.
| Player | Position | Salary | Left Years on Contract | Age | Value | |
| Team A | DJ Moore | WR | $20,628,000 | 3 | 26 | 4397 |
| 2024 2nd Round | – | – | – | 2250 | ||
| 2024 3rd Round | – | – | – | 1000 | ||
| 7647 | ||||||
| Team B | A.J. Brown | WR | $25,000,000 | 4 | 26 | 6788 |
| 6788 | ||||||
| Results | 11% In Favor Of Team A | |||||
There are a couple of reasons that I would be actively looking to trade away DJ Moore at this point in the pre-season.
The first reason is that I’m not fully convinced that Moore will take a giant fantasy leap this year. Yes it’s possible that he is playing with the best quarterback he’s ever had. Yes, he should easily be the number one wide receiver in this new offense. However, with the rushing baseline for Justin Fields ($4,714,989), I don’t see a path for him to be a Top 12 WR at least this year. The Moore trade to the Bears will be a much bigger difference maker for Fields than it will be for Moore.
The second reason is that DJ Moore made a brilliant play in last Saturday’s pre-season game. He took a bubble screen 62 yards for a touchdown. It was his only touch of the game, and it was blasted all over Twitter/X. There is no doubt in my mind that this one play will dramatically increase Moore’s ADP in startup drafts as well as his trade value in all leagues. If you can find someone who is overreacting to one pre-season play, then maybe this trade is possible. I, personally, would much rather have the A.J. Brown side and I don’t think it’s very close, even though the Trade Calculator favors the DJ Moore and the picks side. You can use the Trade Calculator as a way to start a conversation about players who you’d like to trade away from your Dynasty Owner team.
Trade For
Dynasty Owners can also use the Trade Calculator to figure out a fair offer for a player who they want to acquire from another Dynasty Owner. For example, this proposed trade that Trade Calculator grades as pretty close.
| Player | Position | Salary | Left Years on Contract | Age | Value | |
| Team A | Joe Mixon | RB | $5,750,000 | 2 | 27 | 3539 |
| Team B | D’Andre Swift | RB | $2,134,729 | 1 | 24 | 3814 |
| Results | 7% In Favor Of Team B | |||||
Without context you may be questioning which side of this trade I prefer. The truth is that I would much rather pay the more than $3,000,000 premium for Joe Mixon. Based on the Trade Calculator, this trade is very close in value, and I agree. However, I am not convinced that Swift is the starting running back for the Eagles yet. That, and I believe that Mixon is being undervalued this year following the fear that he was possibly going to be suspended. Mixon is likely to be a Top 10 running back this season, and he is making significantly less than previous years when his salary was $12,000,000.
These two hypothetical trades are just a couple of examples of trades that could be finalized in Dynasty Owner, and the Trade Calculator can be a valuable tool in order to help Dynasty Owners both find fair value, and hopefully convince your trading partner that the trade is fair.
As always, thank you for reading. If anyone has any suggestions on real trades that were either accepted or rejected that they would like me to analyze, please let me know. I would appreciate it if you followed @Dynasty_Owner on Twitter/X as well as subscribed to Dynasty Owner on YouTube. Thank you all. Take care and be safe.
TheJerk