When is it Too Late to Add a Player?

Adam Jones is Baltimore’s fantasy star. Photo by Keith Allison.

One of my keeper leagues has a late trading deadline and I imagine you might play in a league that is similar. Non-contending teams are looking to build for next season by trading this season’s assets to contending teams in exchange for players that will benefit them next season. This infusion of talent on contending teams for the late season push is called a rental (read more about rentals here and here).

But when is too late for a rental to realistically make a difference for a contending team?

After all, it would be foolish for a contending team to trade away next year’s assets if the short term talent infusion likely won’t make a difference. The good news is there is a way to make a pretty good estimate of the benefit.

You do this by calculating your current average weekly output, but you also must calculate the average weekly output for your opponents. Most of the major fantasy baseball host providers make this simple.

For example, let’s say you trail your opponent in home runs, but you have a sizable lead in stolen bases. An obvious solution would be to trade a speedster for a slugger. But what if your opponent’s led in home runs is insurmountable? Let’s find out if it is.

First, sort your team by weekly totals. You should already be familiar with this if you are doing due diligence mid-season. If not, get to it! Here’s how.

Once you have your weekly totals you need to calculate your average home runs per week. Just like any good projection system doesn’t calculate outputs, and instead calculate’s component skills (like HR/FB), you don’t want to look at raw number outputs as they have much more variability over the course of the season. You need to calculate average per week.

"Don’t do this: Week 1: 10 home runs, Week 2: 4 home runs, Week 3: 9 home runs, etc.This doesn’t help you.Do this: total home runs [divided by] number of weeks = HR/week"

Currently, my team has 150 home runs through 19 weeks, which is good for 7.9 homers per week (150 / 19 = 7.9). Not bad, but I need more homers to catch my opponent. So I need to calculate his homers per week as well. For argument’s sake, let’s say he’s going at 8.1 HR/week, meaning our teams are matching each other bomb for bomb, which makes sense considering we are close in the standings in this category.

At the time of this writing there is only 5-6 weeks left in the season. If I’m averaging a measly .1 homer more than my opponent per week, then mathematically I’ll gain maybe .6 homers. Even rounding that up to an even homer, it’s clear that I need to pray to the homer gods that my guys get hot and his cool down.

One note: If you’ve made lots of trades or significantly mixed up your team, then calculate from the time of your most recent shake-up. If you added Domonic Brown in June, then you probably started trending better in home runs from that point. Do your calculations using the numbers of weeks after that infusion of homers as it gives you a clearer picture of your current team’s potential.

Now we need to dig down to the player level. How many home runs per week is the player you are trading away averaging? Let’s pretend I am packaging Alex Gordon with a top line pitcher in order to get Adam Jones.

"Alex Gordon: 13 homers / 19 weeks = .7 homers a week.Adam Jones: 24 homers / 19 weeks = 1.3 homers a week."

Obviously, there is a reason they play the games and it never works out this evenly, but you have to look deeply into how roto fantasy baseball works over a long season if you have any hope of winning consistently at this game. Your trying to gauge a realistic average here, understanding that stats can come in fits and starts.

While you are given up Gordon’s .7 homers a week, you gain 1.3 homers a week, giving you a .6 per week net gain. Let’s toss out the pitching loss, assuming you are fine there, but let’s do keep in mind there are just a few weeks remaining.

".6 homers gain per week [times] 6 weeks = 3.6 homers potentially gained"

So how big is your opponent’s lead? If he’s only a homer or two ahead, then the rental might be worth it. If he’s 5 or more homers ahead then you are counting on luck. That’s a place you may find yourself in anyway, but understanding this is helpful in that it always you to look realistically at the gains. If the gain just isn’t there, then you should look elsewhere for an advantage because it’s simply too late to add a player and expect him to significantly turn around your team.

As the long baseball season winds down you are playing with razor thin margins. You need to be able to separate realistic opportunities from a hail mary gain. By rationally pursuing the realistic opportunities while avoiding the panicked long shots, you just might be able eek out the win. But it always helps to cross your fingers and hope your guys get hot.