Manic Rantings of Startup Draft Trading

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I said I wouldn’t do it; I said I’m reformed. I don’t need ANOTHER startup draft. But next thing you know, @ContextCapper keeps throwing around a “traders league”, and here I am. I’m diving headfirst into the action with the Chad’s Trading League startup draft, and the league name did not disappoint. 

With a fresh startup comes a whole wave of startup pick trades. These are daunting for newer players (me included). You’re staring at a random number on a screen. Is the 2.09 worth a 4.10 and a 6.05? How much is your 2025 first-rounder worth in start-up pick value? These are all questions that need to be answered to start our team with a solid foundation. Huge shout out to a friend @Nerdboitakes who spent hours in multiple startups helping me figure out startup pick values.

Draft Position & Scoring

I drew the 1.01 draft position, and my first thought is, I hope I can get some intriguing offers. Most Dynasty Twitter is screaming, “Take value, trade back, acquire assets” until they’re blue in the face. The worst-case scenario of the 1.01 is that I roll into the season with Josh Allen (QB-BUF) and watch as he carries my team to the playoffs.

Let’s set the stage. The Chad’s Trading League is a 12-team, start-11 Superflex league with relatively standard scoring: 1.0 PPR, 0.5 TEP, 6.0 points per passing touchdown with a Third-Round Reversal. So, we have quite a few roster spots to fill out, and we will be picking at 1.01, 2.12, 3.12, and 4.01 for our first four picks.

Now, onto the trades. On one side, we’ve got the 1.01 pick, shining like a beacon of hope for my dynasty roster dreams. But on the other side, there’s a trio of picks: 2.04, 4.09, and 8.09, plus that juicy cherry on top—a future first-rounder in the 2025 draft. 

Draft Plan

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Drafts can go off the rails quickly. All it takes is a string of quarterbacks to run for a receiver to slip into the back end of the first round. We have to stay fluid and identify our draft plan early on. 

Is your draft room QB and WR hungry like every other Twitter draft lobby? Do your league-mates value RBs? Who wants to punt Year 1 and play for 2025? Who is going full win now and selling every draft pick from 2025 to 2026? Take a look around your league and get the lay of the land. If everyone trades up to win now, maybe the “One Year Punt” option is a great plan. Is everyone trading back and playing for 2027, waiting on the emergence of Arch Manning from Texas? Maybe you can get a good deal on trading up, get solid assets, and go for the wins now. 

Either direction you choose, if you fail to have a plan, you plan to fail. We don’t want to walk into a draft with the idea of “I’m going to draft Caleb Williams at 1.11″ and have no backup plan if he goes before we get a chance to draft him. But, depending on your draft slot, a general plan for the first three picks is advised. 

For instance, at 1.01, if I was not able to trade back, I planned to draft Josh Allen (QB-BUF), target a WR at 2.12, and 3.12/4.01 would most likely be WRs again based on ADP. This would be, to me, a great start to a draft. Top-tier players at the premium positions in fantasy football that most managers will covet, and these players should retain their value for the next two or three years. From this position, I’m flexible. I can play for a win-now strategy with Allen and top WR talent, or I can trade back draft positions to acquire future capital in the hopes of building a true juggernaut in 2025. 

Trade Evaluation & Tiers

It’s even more important for startup trades to have your player rankings sorted into tiers; we’ll get to why a little bit later. The easiest example of a positional tier is the QB position. There is a clear tier of top 3 scoring QBs for Dynasty Fantasy Football. Josh Allen (QB-BUF), Patrick Mahomes (QB-KC), and Jalen Hurts (QB-PHI) all are usually in the top 3 PPG each season for the QB position, with Allen (24.1 ppg) and Hurts (23.1 ppg) leading the way this last season. All three of these players will be picked between the 1.01-1.04. 

Now, Kyler Murray (QB-ARI) is a fantastic fantasy quarterback. He’s lost some of his shine with the knee injury last year, but the buy window is going to come to a screeching halt when the season kicks off in September. Kyler is a step down from Hurts/Allen in the points department, but still scoring a respectable 19.1 points per game, he is more than adequate as a QB1. Is the 5.0 points per game you gain with Allen worth a 2025 first?

 Obviously, I don’t think so because I traded the 1.01. So, while we’ve traded from the QB1 overall to the QB11 by ADP, we’ve tiered down, but are still scoring respectable points in our QB1 slot. We’ve also traded up into later rounds and acquired future draft capital. 

Average Draft Position

Evaluating pick values is difficult in the startup. Is a 1.01/9.12/11.12 worth the 2.04/4.09/8.09 and a 2025 first-round pick? They’re just numbers on a spreadsheet. So, we need to go to the Average Draft Position. We’ll be heading to Dynasty Data Lab to help us. Here, we can set up our league settings and get a general idea of the selections around the ADP of our picks. 

Average Draft Position is a guide, not a gospel. According to Dynasty Data Lab settings, Kyler Murray is currently off the board at 2.09. This means he could go off the board at 1.11 over Caleb Williams and Anthony Richardson, or he could go after sandwiched between Jordan Love (QB-GB) and Trevor Lawrence (QB-JAC). There might be a Murray lover in your draft who takes him at 2.02 over the WR prospects available there. Or your league might be all in on rookie fever and drafting the young prospects over established players. 

This is where our tiers come in; we need a general idea of who we want to draft for a draft slot. I’ll continue to use the QB position as our example here; Caleb Williams, Anthony Richardson, Kyler Murray, and Jordan Love should all be available around the 2.04 pick. I’m comfortable starting my Dynasty team with one of these QBs at the 2.04 slot. If none of these QBs are available, another position of similar talent, such as WR, should be available. For instance, if we have a string of QBs go off the board in the first 20 picks, Amon-Ra St. Brown (WR-DET), Marvin Harrison Jr., and Bijan Robinson (RB-ATL) will have slipped past their normal ADP. This gives our team value in theory. 

However, I’m never targeting Sam LaPorta at his current ADP of 2.06 overall. There is a clear tier break of value for him and his position. For me, I’d much prefer the QB and WR values early in the draft or even the high-end RB players in Breece Hall (RB-NYJ) and Bijan Robinson (RB-ATL). 

These tiers can be a gradual drop-off in production or fall off a cliff level of tier break. We’ve thoroughly reviewed the options available at 2.04 and our draft plan, so let’s move on to the other picks. 

Upcoming Picks

The trade up from 9.12 to the 4.09 factors in just as much to this trade as the 2025 First Rounder. At the 4.09 slot, we have players like Jaylen Waddle (WR-MIA), Brandon Aiyuk (WR-SF), and Nico Collins (WR-HOU). At the 9.12 draft slot, we have players such as Tyjae Spears (RB-TEN), Chris Godwin (WR-TB), and Keenan Allen (WR-CHI). These aren’t players we’re excited to have on our roster. They help us score points and push for titles, but they aren’t the foundation on which we build our team. 

So our trade thus far is roughly a 2025 First, Kyler Murray, Nico Collins (or a WR equivalent in the WR18 range) for Josh Allen. Not a bad haul in my personal opinion. 

But we are still moving up the draft from the 11.12 slot to the 8.09 slot. A few selections at the 8.09 range are rookie WRs such as Ladd McConkey, Troy Franklin, Jonathan Brooks, and Marquise Brown (WR-KC), all going around the WR 40 range. At the 11.12 slot, we begin to pick the bottom of the draft barrel at positive values, such as the RB35 range and the WR 50 range. 

Startup trading can seem daunting when we don’t have players assigned or when the draft board hasn’t begun to fill out. But if you create your own ADP and tier rankings, you can get a rough estimate of what your startup trades are going to look like.

I hope you enjoyed the article! If you have a trade topic you would like to discuss or if you’d like a trade analyzed, please DM me at @DynastyReviewHQ with your league roster and scoring format. Keep grinding those trade lines! #DFFArmy #AlwaysBeBuilding #FantasyFootball #DynastyLeague #StartupDraft #TradingStrategy