How Trade & Pickup Scores Work
Two simple ideas, lots of small numbers.
Did the players you got out-score the players you gave up? Did your waiver pickups produce after you grabbed them? That’s it.
Two Numbers
For every trade, we sum the points your acquired players scored after the deal, and subtract the points the players you gave up scored after the deal. Positive = you won. Repeat across every trade in your career.
Every successful waiver claim or free-agent add gets credited with whatever points the player scored from that week onward. Spotting talent first is the skill — even if you later dropped him, he still counts.
Started vs. Total
Imagine you scoop Baker Mayfield off waivers Week 3. He scores 317 points the rest of the year — but you never start him because you’ve got Joe Burrow already. Did Mayfield really get you 317 points of value?
We track both versions of every trade and pickup:
- Total points — every point the player produced after the transaction, bench or starter.
- Started points (the headline)— only points scored while in the receiver’s starting lineup. Once you drop the player, attribution stops. This is the fairer measure because it strips out the bench-hoarder effect.
Career rankings sort by Started; Total is shown alongside so you can see both stories. The Mayfield example: Mitch’s total pickup score gets +317, but his started score gets +0 — Mayfield sat all season.
Kyle's CMC heist
A 2024 trade between Kyle and Carl in Week 7. Carl wanted a star-name running back. Kyle wanted to bail before CMC’s Achilles got worse. Numbers shown as started / total.
- Jahmyr Gibbs234/280
- Deebo Samuel Sr.28/83
Carl actually started Gibbs almost every week — those points are the real loss.
- Christian McCaffrey48/48
- Jordan Mason2/23
- DeVonta Smith30/133
Kyle's started surplus: +182. Total surplus: +159. He came out ahead by either measure.
Notice DeVonta Smith: 133 raw points but only 30 of those came when Carl actually started him — the rest were on Carl’s bench. The started-surplus calculation strips that out.
What it does not measure
- Declined tradesIf somebody offered you a great trade and you turned it down, that doesn't show up here. Only executed trades get scored.
- Drops in tradesSometimes a trade includes a forced drop to make room for incoming players. We ignore those drops — they're roster mechanics, not the trade's value.
- While-on-roster nuanceA pickup gets full credit for the player's points the rest of the season, even if you dropped him in week 8. The argument: you spotted him first; what you did with him after is a different skill (call it "stewardship"). A future "roster lineage" feature could split that out.
- Trade-then-bust luckIf your trade target tears his ACL the next week, you take the L. Fair? Depends. Same logic as draft picks: bad luck is part of the game, but the score reflects what actually happened.