I made a flurry of trades in this league.

Trade 1 - Deandre Hopkins for Jeremy Hill:

I’ll probably regret this one, but I thought it was close enough when it was offered to me that I just shrugged my shoulders and gave it the old “Why not?” Unlike most others, I am intrigued with the idea of starting BOTH Gio and Hill. Both together generate a decent amount of RB points week to week as starters. If one gets injured, team output would likely increase (a sort of good news and bad news).

Trade 2 - CJ Anderson for a 2016 1st

The other team was a non-playoff team last year (a bottom 2 team), but has nice young pieces to build around.  The team could end up converting youth to win-now, so I did not make the trade counting on the team not making the playoffs. I went in on the assumption that the team is middle of the road.  In the FFPC, a middle of the road team has a better chance to be the 1.1 than the 1.12, simply because the competition in the consolation bracket for the 6th worst team is much easier than the competition in the money bracket for the 6th best team.
 
Although my team is also in win-now mode, I looked at this trade specifically considering where I could park value to save for the future.  Accordingly, I removed entirely this year’s production from the equation and looked only at the potential future value of the two assets.  Both obviously could go up or down in value, but how far up and how far down would determine the value of the trade for me. 
 
Lets say for argument purposes that CJ Anderson is worth the 1.6 right now.  In a year from now, his value could blow up, but probably never to the level of the 1.1 (in my estimation, due to age and other factors).  However, the downside for a promising RB new on the scene such as CJ Anderson is bottomless.  He could lose his starter role or suffer a major injury among other things.  As with most players but in particular with a RB, value tends to go down over time.    
 
The future 1st is a much less risky asset.  At worst, it can be valued no less than the 1.12 (which would be very unlikely to begin with as mentioned above).  However, it has similar or better upside than CJ Anderson in that it could be worth as much as the 1.1 next year.  For that reason, future 1sts are a great investment vehicle in dynasty (stability with upside).  In addition, a future 1st does not suffer from the natural trend of players’ values going down over time.          

Of course, it is CJ Anderson’s expected current production that evens out the deal, but every trade has a different purpose and for my purpose for this particular trade (saving value for the future in a safe investment), I accomplished my goal.   

Trade 3 - 2015 1.08 for another 2016 1st:

That makes 3 2016 1sts, this one from another middle of the road team. I am still trying to win-now in 2015, I promise. I am almost done with saving for the future and will be focusing on 2015 soon enough.

I do prefer to have 3 or more 1sts going into the next year regardless of stage of a team, even if it means sacrificing a little bit of win-now firepower.  For this team, I started Year 1 (2013) with 7 future 1sts , Year 2 (2014) I acquired 3 future 1sts, and Year 3, I am good with 3 (but looking to end up with 4 or 5 in an ideal world). 
 
In the long run, these little sacrifices each year should result in a powerhouse team. 

Trade 4 - 2015 1.12, Doug Martin and Bishop Sankey for a 2016 1st (you guessed it, middle of the road) and the 2015 3.05.

Martin and Sankey brought in so much less value than I had hoped. Oh well. I did get my fourth 2016 1st.


Here is the team now:

QB: Big Ben, RG3

RB: Jeremy Hill, Gio Bernard, Justin Forsett

WR: Julio Jones, Dez Bryant, Odell Beckham, Jeremy Maclin, Cecil Shorts, Marques Colston

TE: Jordan Reed, Eric Ebron

2015 Rookie picks: 1.05
2016 Rookie picks: 4 1sts


Overall Assessment: The team is looking very good for the future and competitive for 2015. Now that the future is in great shape, I can focus the rest of the off season on upgrading the team’s chances for 2015.