Maurile Temblay - Roster Management

While this article will try to help you answer that question and others like it, the article will not contain any "Who should I add/drop?" lists. It is a strategy article. Instead of ranking a given set of players from best to worst in some absolute sense, I will identify some of the issues you should consider when rounding out your roster mid-season. After all, the right player for your team may not be the right player for somebody else's.

The Three Roles For Backups

It is an obvious point that, in a given week, only your starters can score points for your team. Obvious, yes, but worth repeating: only your starters can score points for your team. Since your backups cannot add to your point total, they must serve some other purpose. There are only three useful roles for a backup:

1. Fill-in for a starter who is injured or on a bye. To be a useful fill-in, a player must score points each week - dependably, much like a starter. In fact, a fill-in should be someone who would make for a capable starter on another team; he doesn't start for yours only because your team is so strong. You will generally only need one, or at most two, fill-ins at each major position (QB, RB, WR). Beyond that, additional fill-ins are wasted roster spots since they'll never get a chance to do their job. If you've already got Ike Hilliard and Peter Warrick on your roster as fill-ins for your starters, what good would it do to carry Wayne Chrebet as well? He'll never play. Trade him or drop him and use his roster spot to stash away a potential stud.

2. Potential stud who might blossom later in the season. The potential stud is a player who may sit on your bench all year and never contribute a single point, but he may explode into a legitimate every-week starter. Clinton Portis, early in the season when Mike Anderson was the starter, is an example from last year. (Mike Anderson himself is a fine example from the 2000 season.) Potential studs are often backup RBs: this year's candidates include Chris Brown, Maurice Morris, Justin Fargas, and perhaps Michael Bennett, among others. People who stashed Lamar Gordon and Marcel Shipp on their rosters at the beginning of the year are already seeing some rewards. Backup QBs can sometimes qualify as potential studs - Marc Bulger being this year's example - but for the most part, backup QBs who take over and do well are harder to predict than their counterparts at RB. For instance, Chad Pennington and Matt Hasselbeck were probably picked up off the waiver wire last year in your league after they had become their teams' starters, while Clinton Portis was almost certainly already on a roster when he got the nod. There are 32 backup QBs in the league who have a chance at stepping in and succeeding if given a chance. The list of RBs with similar potential is much shorter, so ending up with the right one isn't as tricky. (Does anyone think Jesse Chatman would be a stud if LaDainian Tomlinson were injured? Or that Chester Taylor would be a stud if Jamal Lewis were injured?)

3. Member of a "committee". Sometimes a team will use a "committee" approach at a certain position instead of having clearly delineated starters and backups. If I've got Brad Johnson and Drew Bledsoe on my team, I may not consider either one a permanent starter or a permanent backup. Instead, I may rotate them, starting whoever has the better matchup in a given week. A committee player is almost like a fill-in, and may be counted as such for the purpose of balancing your roster between fill-ins and potential studs. Quarterbacks and defenses are the positions where a committee approach is most commonly used, generally because - unlike RBs - they are plentiful enough that most teams can carry several decent ones on their bench, and - unlike TEs and PKs - they score enough points to make a difference, particularly in their good matchups, so carrying several decent ones is worthwhile.

Ideally, you will have a few players on your bench who will fill more than one of these three roles. For example, if Shaun Alexander starts for you at RB, Maurice Morris will fill each of the first two roles at once: he can fill in for Alexander when he's injured, which is exactly when his stud potential may also be realized. Kevan Barlow is another example: he gets enough carries each week to be a nice fill-in, but he has stud potential as well. An injury to Garrison Hearst would make Barlow a legitimate every-week fantasy starter.

Finding The Right Balance

The number of players you should keep on your bench from each category will depend on factors specific to your own league. Primarily, it will depend on the quality of player you can expect to find on the waiver wire at any given time, which is a function mostly of league size and roster size.

In an 8-team league with small rosters, there will be some pretty good players available on the waiver wire whenever you need them. You can thus use the waiver wire as your fill-in pool, picking up Curtis Martin or Kevan Barlow for this week if you need a RB who can get you 5 or 6 points. If the fill-in candidates on waivers are just as good as the ones you would stow on your bench, why keep any of them on your bench? You'd be better off stacking your bench with potential studs.

In larger leagues with big rosters, on the other hand, you cannot just pick up a Curtis Martin or someone similar whenever you need him as a fill-in. Any RB who scores points week in and week out will already be on a roster. When you need a fill-in, you will have to look to your own roster because the waiver wire will be bare. You will therefore have to keep at least one, and more likely two, fill-in players at each major position (QB, RB, WR). Otherwise, an injury to one of your starters could effectively end your season.

There is one rule that applies to almost every league, no matter the size: Do not keep a backup TE or a backup K on your team. It is a waste. There are a handful of TEs who can win games for their teams, but the rest are generally within a point per game of each other. There's absolutely no reason to keep guy who averages 3.8 points per game on your bench when there are plenty of 3.4 PPG game guys on the waiver wire. The same goes for kickers. There are always kickers available on the waiver wire who will be in the same PPG range as whomever you would keep as a backup.

Conclusion

For every player on your bench, you should be able to identify which specific role(s) he fills for your team. If he doesn't fit into one of the three roles I described above, he is probably not helping your team and you should find a better use for his roster spot.

After you've identified every player's role, you should ask yourself two follow-up questions about each one: (1) Will he ever start for your team? And: (2) If you cut him, will he or someone similar be available on the waiver wire later if you need him?

If the answer to number one is no, you've probably got too many fill-ins at that position and could profitably use that player's roster spot to stash a potential stud instead.

Along the same lines, if the answer to number two is yes, you are wasting a roster spot on a fill-in who adds no value to your team. Use his spot instead on a Maurice Morris or Chris Brown or Willis McGahee or someone else who, by the time you need him, would not be readily available from waivers since he'll have become a legitimate starter. When that happens, already having him on your bench will pay off big.