How to bring your fantasy team back from last
It’s already too late. I’m over baseball this year. When I get back from vacation, I’m switching to fantasy football mode. If that sounds familiar, you’re in the right place. We’ve talked about how to seal the win from the top and how to get out of the middle, but now it’s time for the hardest, though most fun part. How to come back from the bottom.
Admittedly, this article is probably a week or two late. If you get into the second week of June and you’re buried, it’s time to hit the panic button. It’s time to stop waiting for high picks to bounce back. It’s time to move on from injured players on your active roster. You need to start picking up ground now. Like right now.
You have to strip your team down to the studs and rebuild it. It will be a lot of work, but if you want to be competitive, it’s necessary. Here are the steps you need to follow to make it happen.
Map out your path to victory
Look at this the same way you looked at building a roster in March. If you didn’t do that in March, this will be great practice for next March. The advantage you have now is you can accurately scout your opponents’ strengths and weaknesses. How do you stack up against the rest of the league in each category? Which ones can you realistically catch up in? Which can you neglect slightly and are there any you would be better off just punting? In head to head categories leagues, it’s about identifying the six categories (assuming 5x5 scoring) you can get really strong in and try and take each week. In points, it’s a little more straight forward and more a matter of riding the hot hand the rest of the way for you. Be prepared to hit whatever weekly roster and transaction limits your league has and stream relentlessly.
Whichever format you’re in, you need to turn your roster over significantly. Think of yourselves as the Miami Marlins every seven years or so. Every player must go. But you need a plan and a clear destination. Mindlessly making transactions will leave you in the same spot you’re in now, maybe even worse.
For example, I have a bottom dwelling team in one of my leagues. It’s head to head categories and I have strength in Runs, Homeruns, Steals, and strikeouts. That’s only four. Wins are one of the flukiest stats in sports so I never chase those. There are no decent closers on the wire so saves are out. But there are pitchers out there with low strikeout totals who are very solid in ERA and WHIP. Their owners likely undervalue them. Since I’m already strong in strikeouts, I can (and need to) roster pitchers who don’t excel there. So, Runs, Homeruns, Steals, Strikeouts, ERA and WHIP are now all I care about. Charlie Blackmon, not a star but only helps me in batting average and RBI? Immediately on the trade block.Those categories are dead to me. Rhys Hoskins, having a good year, but not a major contributor to the stats I am focusing on, make me an offer.
Map out a plan and execute on it.
Move on from long-term IL players
Any player who is on your active roster and on the IL for an extended period is gone. To be clear, this can include trades, you don’t have to drop them. But, unless they are a top 75ish overall player, I lean to drop. Mike Trout is a trade, Mike Moustkas is a drop. Make sense?
For me, this is a higher priority than replacing the struggling players. At this point in the season, you have to win now and these guys are doing literally nothing for you. In fantasy football, your bench can (and should) be almost entirely speculative lottery tickets. In fantasy baseball, you use your bench players every week. They should all be contributors. To put it frankly, stashing injured players on the active bench is a luxury for the teams at the top of the standings. That isn’t you.
Take what you can get in a trade. Anything that helps you. I wouldn’t be so crazy as to trade Shane Bieber for someone like Jake Arrietta. That is just silly and won’t help you at all. But I would trade him for players who are hot that I otherwise would never consider for him, like Carlos Rodon or Joe Musgrove. Any team at the top of the standings would be a fool to turn down that type of deal and you are desperate. Be bold.
For players who are not elite like Bieber or Trout, I have no regrets dropping them. I would add any player on a hot streak right now in their place.
Sell low on struggling stars
Similar to the above, but more nuanced. Here you need to first identify who has a bounceback in them and who doesn’t. There’s no way to know for sure. But as discussed in previous articles on The Dugout, look into the advanced stats to drive these decisions. For example, a player with a high rate of hard contact, a low BABIP and a league average or better K rate, you want to try and trade for reasonable value. A guy with a drastic change in any of those areas, or other symptoms of true decline, take whatever you can get for him and if nobody bites, drop him. For example, Eugenio Suarez fits the description of the former. I see a bounceback there, you just can’t wait for it. I don’t want to just give him away and want a top 75 to top 100 player back. Matt Chapman on the other hand has red flags all over him. Factor in that he’s coming off of a pretty significant injury from last year and I will take what I can get there in a trade and if that’s nothing, I drop him.
Be prepared to trade your studs
The downside of your position is that you have a team full of under-performing players. Less experienced managers, or ones with less time to analyze players aren’t going to be lining up to acquire those players. But anyone will be happy to take a productive player from you. This is where you could probably dangle a star player packaged with a dud and so long as you aren’t asking for anything crazy, make a trade happen.
Keep in mind, if trading away a productive star, especially one you spent an early draft pick on, you want to gain more players back than you give up. Think two-for-one or three-for-two. You have a full roster you need to reconstruct here, so you’re trading individual upside for volume.
For example, if I have Gerrit Cole and I am buried in last, I am looking to trade him for a package of something like Brandon Woodruff and Kyle Tucker. Under normal circumstances, you would never make that trade on its face. Woodruff is a clear tier below Cole and Tucker is a third tier hitter. But, look at your roster afterwards. Would your offense be better with Tucker? Would your pitching staff tank with Woodruff? Maybe even kick in a player like Yoan Moncada (who you should take whatever you can get for) and see if you can get back an Anthony Rizzo or Ramon Laureano type in a three-for-two. Your trade partner may not make that deal for Moncada normally, but they might do it to get Cole.
You have to acquire as many talented players as possible and the only assets you have of value are ones you probably don’t want to give up. But you need volume of productive players over individual upside and star power to start your comeback.
Don’t give up
This is partially a PSA. Don’t be the person who stops setting their lineup because they fell out of it. You agreed to play. Your parents wouldn’t let you quit Tee Ball because you committed to it at the beginning; the same applies here. People who do that are the worst and it’s grounds to be booted from your league. You don’t have to actively scout new players to add, make trades or make daily tweaks for rain-outs, but at least fill in a complete lineup for the week on Monday. Most sites let you look ahead and set it for the week in advance. Yahoo even has a feature that will auto fill your team. Just turn it on and look at it once a week for 10 minutes.
Though likely for the 5 of you reading this, I don’t need to tell you that. You’re still trying to win and this is for you. At least one or two people in your league will check out. Some people are genuinely afraid to make trades that will help them. Others are too passive or don’t do the math to realize they are falling out of the race. For some reason, people associate the All-Star break with the halfway mark and it really isn’t. It’s closer to 60 percent of the way there and if you play in any sort of head to head league, that’s closer to two-thirds of the way through your regular season. But, there is enough time if you act immediately.
If you’re in a 10 or 12 team league, that means there are at least three to five people waiting for you to pass them. Catch some luck and some savvy moves and you only need to pass one or two more to get back in it.
There’s no silver bullet and no instant fix. This is going to be a flurry of moves. Several trades and tons of adds from free agency, but it can be done. You just need to start now.
