Deciding When It's Time Send a Slumper to the Dumper

Easily, the single hardest thing to do in fantasy sports is to call it quits with a player you had high expectations for…..at least it should be the hardest thing to do. Owners tend to fall into one of two categories, either they cut bait on a player too fast, and essentially sell low on him, or they hold on for dear life from day one to the end of the season. Obviously neither of these scenarios is ideal, and obviously they don’t account for all the times we do make the right move, be it to continue holding or to drop quickly. Also, and again obviously, any B00B can sit back and tell you after the fact that you made a boneheaded drop, or boneheaded trade, or were stupid to hold so and so. This post aims to discuss the steps I like to take in the situation where a player has….gone cold.

To make the example, I’m going to use Jason Richardson, a player I own and unfortunately my timing on him was about a week early else I’d have gotten him a lot cheaper. J-Rich officially went cold on December 12^th with an 8 point 5 board ugly performance. His next game was even worse, and then didn’t even play in the following match, all surrounding a minor hand injury.

Step #1 – Two Bad Games in a Row = Keep playing him

If I benched every guy on my team after a spate of two or three bad games, I’d miss out on an enormous amount of bounce back games. You know what that does; it takes the REVERSION out of MEAN REVERSION. So yeah, I don’t do too much quick benching. On the 19^th J-Rich dropped 22 points and proved to me he still had it, but more importantly, by not benching him I was able to pick up the bounce back game stats. This is in essence a micro view at the Mean Reversion strategy working in process by the way, but it didn’t end there.

Richardson put up another stinker on the 23^rd, quickly bounced back for two nice games, and then put up an abysmal 4 point 2 rebound performances on the 28^th, not much better on the 30^th, and again a 5 point 2 board game on January 2nd. Three poor games in a row – not good. 

Step #2 – Three Bad Games in a Row = Decision Time

Can’t ignore this sign now, three tough games in a row following a stretch that was wholly uninspiring. Now’s where I face my choice, do I bench him or do I continue to play him, the thoughts Trade and Drop do NOT enter my mind. Seriously, trying to deal ANY player after a 3 game slump, with the latest being a 5 point performance is plain stupid. What could I possibly expect to get in return? You’re kidding yourself if you don’t think every single fantasy owner at least looks at the last 5 games he’s played in. If J-Rich were on another owner’s team, I’d be hammering him with Thieving offers right now, trying to vulture up another stud. I’d be counting on his worries hoping to score big. Buy Low, Sell High.

Back to the situation, and it’s decision time. Do I bench or do I continue to play him? Now I told you all before J-Rich is one of my ROTO studs. He provides a stat line that fits real nice into any lineup. I made the decision at that point to stick with him. So far so good as the next two games were gems, scoring 20 points in each, dropping two treys in each, shooting over 47% from the field in each. That’s the J-Rich I know, mean reversion works again.

But suppose I hadn’t chosen to stick it with him. Suppose this was Trevor Ariza or some other guy I wasn’t sold on. Suppose I come to decision time and I choose bench. Fine, he goes to my bench and another guy comes onboard and we watch. Again I’m not sending out trade offers here as that would be pointless unless I’m looking to toss up a partial birth abortion type deal.

Chances are though, that if I’ve gotten to the benching stage, I’ve decided that eventually I’d like to deal him. Read that again, if I benched him, I best have decided that eventually I want to deal him. Something about my original analysis of him has changed and I don’t want him anymore. We all make mistakes, fine.

So we watch him for a few games, maybe a week or so and we see how he progresses. Then comes the two back to back good games, 20ish points, 5+ boards, somewhere in that range. Here’s where it gets ugly, cause here’s where many will all of a sudden fall back in love with the guy, and go right back to playing him. You’re like a battered wife, he hits you and you’re all talking divorce, but once things settle down, you’re back in love. Bad Bad Bad fantasy owner. This is the PERFECT opportunity, and possibly the ONLY opportunity you’re going to get to deal him.

Mid performance on that second game, you need to be sending out those offers. Hammering everyone in your league. Check who needs what stats and dish him out there. Don’t be selling low, sell him like he’s right back in the swing of it. Get VALUE. Remember, everyone loves the hot hand, everyone loves to buy high, and this is the time to ink it. Hopefully you’ll pull it off, and hopefully you’ll get a more consistent player on the verge of an upswing who will offer some better consistency, crisis averted.

Step #3 – No Trade, Things Don’t Get Better, Time to Drop.

Maybe those back to back 20 point games don’t come. Maybe they came and you missed the opportunity, or no one bit the offers, and now he’s back slumping again. This time it’s longer, this time he’s on a 7 game bad streak. Ugh. It’s alright though; he’s been on your bench so he isn’t exactly hurting you. But again, we’re at decision time. Two choices, either try to dump him off low, which would be nice but unlikely, or send him to the graveyard WW. This is where many people cut bait on Charlie V. Rightly so, the dood was becoming a severe liability and there were better options out there.

Fine, done, he’s gone and now you’re holding someone new and the relationship is over. DON’T LOOK BACK. It’ll kill you. On the 8^th game Charlie V posted a nice stat line and all the bait cutters had Seller’s Remorse. You ignored the fact that he was 4-6 from beyond the arc, a statistical anomaly. You’re upset and loathing the move. Who cares, move on. It’s your season, you made the decision, and I promise you this won’t be the ‘make or break’ choice for your season, so long as you followed the steps.

Stay consistent in your approach. If you have conviction in a player, if you’ve done the research, don’t dump him too quickly. Use your bench for what it’s supposed to be used for; benching a slumping player when it’s obvious he needs to be benched. Make the decisions when they need to be made. Don’t be that guy The Thief comes knocking on the door of, tempting you to sell low before you should. Be the Thief.

This is how we dominate our leagues. This is the road to victory.  

P.S. I DID end up dumping Roy Hibbert earlier in the season. I DID end up going back to him. There was a material change in his playing time and situation and my analysis again changed. It was almost a month apart and it’s been a good move. It’s OK to do this, but have a better reason than ‘he just had one lights out game’.