Raise your hand if you took a long look at your fantasy teams over the just completed All-Star break.
Most of you likely did, and came to the realization that you needed a plan on how to approach the rest of 2015-16 based on where your teams are in the standings. With that in mind, we press pause on the usual buy low and sell high recommendations this week to dispense advice on how to proceed over the remainder of the season based on where you sit in your leagues.
If You’re Contending
Those of you currently winning or within striking distance of first place, remember: there is always room to improve. Resist the urge to rest on your laurels, since that can lead to being overtaken by more proactive GMs. But also beware of tinkering too much, especially where it’s not truly needed.
While top teams can’t ignore the waiver wire, you might not be able to use it to upgrade, particularly in deeper leagues. What that means is, your focus should be on making trades — but only the right trades.
You need to propose offers to — or be ready to respond to offers from — GMs in sell mode. You have to be attuned to your chief rivals, making certain to at least keep pace with swaps they make, while still being prepared to walk away from a deal if it’s highway robbery or won’t benefit your team enough.
Specific Advice: don’t use the same criteria to make roster and trading decisions now as you did when you made drafting decisions in the fall. At this point in the season, it’s all about where you stand in your league’s categories and which players best help you keep leads or gain ground. When deciding between two players, go for the ones who provide goals and PPP, since it’s harder to find contributions in those areas versus, for example, assists, hits, PIMs and +/-. For goalies, it’s about wins, since saves are normally easier to come by.
If You Are Out of the Running
First off, the time for denial has passed. If you think losing is bad, what’s worse is failing to capitalize by improving your team for the future. Fantasy hockey mostly differs from the NHL, but one area the two have in common is many top teams were among the worst at some point within the decade before they became elite. Like them, the way to improve is by rebuilding.
Even in one-year leagues, you should be able to get better by trading for draft picks. In keepers, the key is walking a fine line where you avoid getting too carried away by trading assets you shouldn’t, while also not being so overly cautious that you end up kicking yourself later for holding onto players you should’ve moved. And you need to be confident that any deal you make is the best –- or at least as close to the best -– as you can get, which means reaching out to multiple GMs and, if push comes to shove, starting a bidding war.
Specific Advice: your trading decisions should be driven by how many keepers you retain. If you’re in a keep-eight league, do whatever you can to end the season with no more than eight keeper-worthy players on your roster. If necessary, trade two borderline keepers for a player who’s a no-brainer. And be careful about getting draft picks in deals, since in non-dynasty keeper leagues those can have less value than they might appear to.
If You Are in the Middle of the Pack
This is a tough spot. The first thing to do is see if your team has a realistic path to win, which means you have to able to improve while, in most cases, other teams above you get worse. Maybe you’re excited since you have Sidney Crosby and Phil Kessel, who both seem to be heating up. But if a team above you in the standings has Evgeni Malkin and Patric Hornqvist, then gains you make might also be felt equally by that team for no net improvement.
The harsh reality is that at this point in the season, middle ground teams are less likely to win than they might think. Be prepared to flip the switch to become a seller once you’re genuinely out of the running.
Best specific piece of advice: the waiver wire can be a life raft. Teams above and below you might be so focused on trades that they fail to realize fantasy-worthy players are out there, even now.
For All Teams: What if You Have Only a Limited Number of Moves Remaining?
In leagues where teams can only make a limited number of moves, some of you might have just a few left to use. What should you do?
Conventional wisdom used to recommend saving moves until the trade deadline to be able to pounce on players who, after changing teams, suddenly became a fantasy asset. In truth, those days are largely over. Not only are there fewer major deals being made on deadline day, but it’s rare for a player who wasn’t already fantasy-worthy to be elevated to that status solely because of being traded.
What that means is, unless your league has no injured reserve, you shouldn’t hesitate to use remaining moves sooner rather than later. That doesn’t mean you should automatically rush to use them, but you need to be ready to pounce when a player on the waiver wire (such as one that appears in this column as a buy-low) passes the sniff test.
Specific Advice: in one-year leagues, be wary of picking up older or younger players on teams in the playoff picture, since the grey beards might be rested from time to time over the stretch, while the youngsters might be de-emphasized in favor of trying to spark veterans for the second season.
Good luck!
