The Actual Art of the Deal Itself
In the first two parts in our series on trading, we talked about how perceptions can skew player values and how you should use that to your advantage. And we offered ideas on how to get some trade talks started. Once you get another owner interested in talking trade, you find yourself in the negotiating phase of the process.
The negotiations themselves are the most intuitive aspect of trading. This is when you need to understand your trading partner. You have to get a feel for a pace, and an approach that work best with him. That is, of course, a whole book in itself, but there are general principles that seem to work with most everyone.
I always like to give the other owner options. In addition, I like to let him chose the deal, even if I only give him one logical choice. Obviously, it does not always work as well as you would like, but for me, trade negotiations look like an inverted pyramid. In the beginning, my job is to offer many ways for my potential trading partner to move closer to a trade.
The longer you can keep an owner talking trade with you, the more invested he gets in the trade, and the more likely you are to get one done. Ideally, the concept is to start with a nice spread of options and then slowly narrow the choices down until you both arrive at the set of players you want to exchange. If you and your trading partner get there together, you have a good shot at getting the trade done. If you get there too early, if you get to far ahead, it is simply too hard to drag most owners there after you.
The main benefit of this approach is that by giving some control, apparent or otherwise, to the other owner, you keep him open-minded throughout the negotiation. If I am after Bob Wickman in exchange for Tim Wakefield, a surplus SP on my roster, I might start with "If we did something based on Wickman for Wakefield, what kind of additional player would you be looking for?" (You may not think that's a decent value-for-value exchange, but if Wakefield is surplus for me and I need saves, I will add a player to Wakefield because I get what I need and make my team better, even if I have overpaid a bit. The only problem would be if I could have gotten a better closer for my offer and didn't explore enough to find that better deal). My potential trading partner might say he's looking for a corner infielder. Let's say I have Pedro Feliz and Mike Sweeney and I'd agree to add Sweeney to close the deal.
I'd counter with "Well, I have Feliz and Sweeney, we could talk about them, but if you want Feliz we may have to add a little in from your side. Do you have any thoughts?"
I didn't offer Wakefield and Sweeney for Wickman because that can be answered with a "no". If he wants Feliz he might come back with something as an offer and we are still negotiating with options still open. The possibility of a deal remains alive. But if he doesn't want to go any farther, or the two of us end up exhausting other possible combinations as we continue to discuss the deal, he may very well, in the end, reply with "Well, would you still do Sweeney and Wakefield for Wickman?"
Did you see what happened?
He just offered me my deal.
Trade talks do not always (or often) wrap up quite that neatly of course, and you might need to shuffle the names a few times to make progress. Nevertheless, the key principle is to keep the other owner in the talks until you have exhausted all reasonable scenarios. If you are the one that approached the other owner, chances are that you need to steer the talks more gently than if he's engaged you. If he has come to you, then you can assume a little bit higher level of interest on his part and you can be a bit more aggressive in your stance.
Keeping your trading partner comfortable and interested is usually half the battle. And half of the battle of doing that is not fencing your trading partner in. Keep options open, keep exploring possibilities, and keep the discussion going. Before too long you will either narrow the talks to something that works for you or find out that you aren't close enough to continue.
Before you get to either of those possible destinations however, talks sometimes reach the point where you need to turn the screws.
If things are not going your way, it may be time to walk away. This can be incredibly effective. You do not have to call off the negotiations; in fact, you shouldn't. You can simply turn your attention away, leaving the door open as you go. "Well, Rick, I'd like to get Wickman from you and I'm willing to talk about it, but Feliz and Wakefield is a bit more than I'm willing to do today. I'm going to work on some of the other talks I have going, and I'll give it some thought. Maybe I can come up with something else to offer. Meanwhile, if you have any ideas drop me a note."
I can't tell you how many times this has worked for me, especially if I am are far enough into the proceedings that I have succeeded in creating that situation where the other owner really wants what I am offering. Sometimes it is the next note, sometimes it is a week or two later, but many times the owner will come back to work out something very close to your deal.
Even though you turned away, you've left the door open in case you change your mind. If you leave the door open, you can always go back with a different set of options.
Keep in mind that things change quickly, especially the value that owners put on specific players. I like to make sure my potential trading partner knows this as well. I like to keep an air of immediacy about our dealings. I do not want to make him feel rushed, but I do not want him to think I have all my eggs in his basket indefinitely.
No matter how comfortable I want my trading partner to be, I like to make it known, almost from the first note that I am talking about the player in question with other teams. And for me, most of the time that's the truth. There are very few instances where I'm talking about trading a player when I don't tell the rest of the league that I'm thinking of trading him. "Shopping the deal" is what my league calls it, and as we have discussed before, it is common sense for effective trading. When everyone knows a player are available, all interested parties can get involved in making offers. Remember that every player has a different value to every team, and ultimately you are looking for the team who values your trade bait the most. That the team from whom you'll get the best return for what you are offering.
The other obvious benefit of shopping a deal is that competition for what you are offering will drive the price up. Any time you get two or more teams after your player, you have a bidding war, and you are in the driver's seat.
Any team talking to me about a player knows that everyone else knows this guy is on the block and most likely one or two other teams are making offers. I'm more than willing to let my trade partner assume that there are one or two other owners exploring a trade for the player he is interested in. If there are, in fact, one or two other owners interested in that player, all the better. Extra leverage never hurts.
The only time, potentially, that you don't want to shop the deal is when you are going after a player that you believe will generate interest in other owners. In that instance you want to keep as low a profile as possible because, naturally, you do not want to get into a bidding war for the player you are after. You want to be the only owner talking to that player's owner. That ensures you get the lowest price possible. Once another owner's footprints get in the trade cheese cake, chances are the price is going up. In the instances where you need to get a bargain or a lopsided trade, the best way is to limit the discussion between you and one other owner. Closed negotiations produce lopsided trades. Open negotiations mean that whatever is being dealt goes at market value, at a minimum, and could draw inflated value if a bidding war breaks out. The type of deal you are looking for determines the way go about trying to get it done.
If the negotiations are going your way, then keep on it and keep the ball rolling. Keep checking in with the other owner ... not in a stalking kind of way, of course, but in a way that keeps the talks on the front burner. This is delicate of course, and you need to respect that an owner has other things to deal with in his life if he says he'll get back to you by the weekend. You also need to understand which owners in your league do not respond well to being pushed too hard. Every situation is different (I'll pause for you to jot that little pearl down).
But while you need to be patient, you shouldn't have to lose a deal to wait for an owner. If you get another offer you want to act on, all you can do is honestly tell your first trading partner that you need make a decision. If you are upfront and clear with your trading partners, they will understand and they will usually respond in kind.
Now is the time for your sell job if your partner needs a little push or if you are in a tight bidding war. If you are close to a good deal, then stay on it and find a way to close it, time is your enemy when you are close.
Once you get near the finish line, you need to take stock of the deal that you are about to close and make a final decision as to whether you should seal the deal. Next Tuesday we will talk about evaluating a trade before the final rubber stamp.
