Dynasty Superflex Bestball Trade Strategy - Tiering Down

Different league setups offer different challenges and require different strategies. A lineup league that starts only 8 or 9 offensive players requires a different approach than a deeper bestball league that starts 11 or 12. In lineup leagues, I feel more comfortable with the consistent guys and I'm always looking to consolidate my depth into elite starters for my lineup. However, in deep bestball leagues, I wanna do the opposite. I want as many potential scorers with high ceilings, even if they cannot all be elite or may not be consistent scorers, on my roster. My bestball team is only as good as the depth on my bench really.

So something that I like to do, and have been doing all offseason, is making trades where I tier down at a position to acquire multiple players or a lesser valued player within the same tier or tier below along with a draft pick. If I can trade a player but still get back 2 players who produce or a supposed lesser player in return with similar production AND a draft pick, I'll do that all day long. I'll just keep accumulating more throws of the darts to potentially hit on to fill my bench with productive players. If you can do this consistently you will build better overall rosters that compete and win more frequently in bestball dynasty.

Here are some actual trades I made this off-season in a 12 team Superflex ppr 1TEP bestball dynasty league that starts 11 and has a 29 man roster with no IR spots or Taxi squad. This team was an orphan I acquired with some good starters, a couple of 1st Rd picks, but absolutely no depth. I'm talking a bunch of useless roster cloggers on the bench. So I knew I would have to leverage some of the bigger names on my roster and even my 1st Rd picks, and break them up into more assets. The team was a fringe contender last season (it scored a lot of points but had a bad record), so my goal is to fill the bench with more assets via tier down trades and the resulting draft picks from those trades to then have enough firepower to compete.

So the first trade I made was back in mid January. At the time, AJ Brown was valued higher than Puka Nacua. Plus, I had another owner who viewed their values that same way. I trade away AJ Brown & Miles Sanders for Puka Nacua, Aaron Rodgers and the 4.08.

My QBs at the time were Joe Burrow & Lamar Jackson. I had no other QBs. I knew I at least needed a 3rd QB who had a secure starting job in the NFL. Essentially, I ended up breaking AJ Brown into Puka Nacua & Aaron Rodgers, while as a throw in, I obtained the 4.08 for Miles Sanders. I don't think I lost any production tiering down at the time from AJ Brown to Puka, but picked up a nice extra piece in Aaron Rodgers that will serve as a good 3rd QB for me. Meanwhile, I turned Miles Sanders into a decent late round dart throw in what's considered a fairly deep rookie draft class this year.

For my next trade, I decide to put Waddle on the trade block and see what I can get in return to continue to add more bench pieces to this dynasty bestball roster. I managed to negotiate Waddle, my 1.08 & a 2025 3rd for Pittman, Mike Williams, 1.12 & 3.02.

At the time of this trade, I knew I still had many bench spots to fill with players that can produce to make this team a true contender. Tiering down from Waddle to Pittman didn't seem like much of a loss to me particularly in the short term. Of course Waddle is a great player, and will have many fantasy spike weeks, and a long fruitful career, but his upside is capped as long as Tyreek Hill is playing. And Tyreek has said time and time again that he plans to play 2 more seasons before retiring. In which case, over the next 2 seasons, Pittman probably out produces Waddle as the clear top target in Indianapolis. Pittman did outproduce Waddle last season in total points, and in points per game 15.6 to 14.2. And for the value difference I got Mike Williams. Say what you will, yes he's older and coming off an ACL injury, but he was a top 10 WR with 16.7 points per game before his season ending injury last year and has always been a big play receiver throughout his career which makes him a great bestball acquisition. He's supposedly on track to be ready for training camp and should have plenty of spike weeks catching passes from Aaron Rodgers assuming they both stay healthy. He could play the Jordy Nelson role in that offense, and if you don't remember, Jordy was a big body, big play receiver like Mike Williams who had many years of fantasy relevance catching passes from Aaron Rodgers. I don't think it's out of he question that Mike Williams has 2 good years playing with Rodgers who insists he'll play 2 more years with the Jets. It also gives me a low key stack on my team.

I did have to move down in the rookie draft from 1.08 to the 1.12 to make this trade happen. At the 1.08, based on Sleeper rookie Superflex ADP, we're most likely talking about Brock Bowers or Xavier Worthy. Whereas now at the 1.12, I'm likely to have my choice of Ladd McConkey, Keon Coleman or Bo Nix. And I'm fine with that. I think once you're outside of the top 7 in this year's rookie draft, there's a significant tier break. Perhaps if I valued TE in this format, which I don't based off the WoRP (Wins over Replacement), I would've approached this trade differently. But as you can see based on the WoRP chart below, TEs just aren't as valuable in this specific league format. (Shout out to southharmonff.com and dynasty-daddy.com for their WoRP and league analysis tools!)

For my drop from the 1.08 to 1.12, I got the 3.02, but swapped my 2025 3rd. According to the Power Rankings Tool at the aforementioned dynasty-daddy.com site, after this trade, my team is now sitting at 3rd in Trade Value and 4th in PPG/Playoff Contention. So that 2025 3rd I just gave away is likely to be a late pick in a weaker draft class. While at the 3.02 this year, I can likely take a stab at Roman Wilson, Jermaine Burton or Marshawn Lloyd. But you never know what can happen, I've had rookie drafts already where Troy Franklin and Adonai Mitchell have fallen that far. 

With this league gearing up for it's rookie draft, I'm sure I'll try to put together at least one more tier down trade like the ones I've just described to further fill my bench and acquire more picks. I'll also be looking to buy backup RBs on the cheap to stash on my bench, sell off 2nd year players that didn't produce as rookies and sell off other young players I just don't believe in any more to acquire more picks...but I'll save the specifics of those moves for another post to come!