Dynasty Trade Value Chart: Background

Jimmy Johnson created the famous Trade Value Chart for NFL GMs to use for trading draft picks. It is a based on the first pick being worth 3,000 points and a exponential decrease in value over 224 picks to a value of 2 to 3 points, depending on the chart edition/source.

In Dynasty, only players at skill positions are available to be drafted so the chart needs to be converted to show the more drastic decrease in value. A good average seems to be about 8 draftable players instead of 32. To encourage trading I start at the second overall pick which is 2,600 pts, instead of 3,000.  Then count off every 4th pick until I obtain all the picks needed for my dynasty rookie draft.

A 4 round 12 member rookie draft chart looks like this:

Notice how the curve is basically the same as the curve in Jimmy Johnnson's version:

We end up seeing a large drop off in talent in the first round, and by the time we get into our 4th round, we are drafting guys that were drafted in the 5-7th rounds in the NFL which makes sense according to the DTVC. As with the real TVC, it works for trades involving picks only. However, the DTVC can still be used with a player involved if both managers can agree on the value of the player relative to that year's draft class, basically pretending if that player were draft eligible. 


There are many applications of this tool, if the league can agree on its validity. I've made this the basis for a compensation system for claiming practice squad players based on draft position if the player claimed was drafted, or based on performance if the player claimed was a FA addition. There may be a connection for the TVC for redraft leagues but I can't see it. Expect more on the applications soon.