Knowing When To Call It Quits

Are you stuck in the middle? Perennially finishing between 5th and 8th? Never getting an early enough pick to fix your team and never getting anywhere in the playoffs? Is your roster full of guys on their way to the retirement home? Might be time to make a change.

Time Your Teardown

If your league has a trade deadline, that's your cue to evaluate your team and standing in the league. Contenders will be hungry for help to make a playoff push, and you'll be able to get a better return in trades. Productive vets see their value drop during the off-season, so you want to time your moves to coincide with value peaks.

Journey To The Bottom

Check your league settings here and figure out whether Points For, Record, Lottery, or something else determines draft order…

This is important. Please find your way to the bottom without going too far. Since most leagues use "max points” for non-playoff teams, this article will assume that rule, which aligns nicely with the worst record. Lottery drafts will be a bit different because you'll need to adjust for those specific settings.

Assuming this is an existing league, not rebuilding right out of a startup, take a look at prior years to get a good feel for the average scores. Check both the weekly and the season totals. This will give you approximate ranges that you need to be under. You can also look at the projections and your schedule and start to figure out how low you need to go.

What To Sell

First, please take inventory of your roster. Identify all the old guys. RBs decline in value after 26, while WRs start to peak and then decline around 27. QBs and TEs last longer but also lose perceived dynasty value as they approach 30. They're your first priority to move. You don't want players who score points in inverse proportion to their value. This doesn't mean take bad deals. Send them off to contenders who will be glad to add their points at reasonable prices.

Non-elite RBs come next. Their jobs are constantly at risk, and you want that liability and their points off your roster. You can keep the elites as long as you minimize your points elsewhere, and let's be honest, if you had too many elite RBs, you probably wouldn't be rebuilding. Everyone else will be after RBs with jobs, so these too should be an easy sell.

Non-Elite WR/TEs will be the hardest to turn over. They are the most abundant assets and will score you the most empty points while not accruing a ton of value. Find someone looking to tier down and pair some WRs together for them.

What To Keep

Keep the young players with upside to help form the core of your roster. Only sell off as much as you need to get your points under the threshold you established earlier, or if you notice that you're in danger of winning weeks that you shouldn't.

Young QBs and any remaining elite RBs/WRs/TEs will form the core of your team. Consolidating around a small number of higher-end players will help limit the points that you do end up scoring.

Draft picks. Hoard the 1sts and 2nds. You'll need those to either draft players or trade into known assets later.

What To Trade For

Picks are an obvious target. They can't get hurt, they generally only go up in value, and they're easy to trade.

The next target would be injured or suspended players. They won't score points while hurt and will help bolster your team when they return. Contenders will be looking to replace their injured ones with your healthy ones, so this is your chance to offload the middling players that nobody wanted earlier. Don't go overboard buying injured guys, though; focus on ones that will hold future value.

Finally, if you're really in a battle for the bottom, swap players who haven't had their bye yet for ones that have. It's an easy way to shed some points, and you might be able to gain favor with your leaguemates by providing them a service.

Work The Waiver Wire

Load up on backup QBs and RBs. Grab everyone you don't want as a competitor until a starter goes down. Backups will keep your max points down, helping you lose weeks and earn that top draft pick. They can also immediately gain value and become highly sought after, allowing you to cash in before they add points to your total. If someone drops a player who's injured and out for a prolonged period, that's gold for you. They might not want to wait for the rehab and return, but you can.

Stay Active

The key to a successful rebuild is to stay active. Keep selling backups when they ascend. Buy injured players. Consolidate into injured studs. Keep an eye on your points vs the rest of the league. Consolidate into non-injured studs if your points are low enough. Build your roster's value.

Tiering down is usually a great move in bestball, as it gives you more players with a chance to make your lineup. As a rebuilder, it's the opposite. Consolidate value into higher-end players, ideally injured ones and QBs, so that when they’re back to full strength next year, you’re ready to contend.

Build Back Up

Tearing down is easy. Building back up is harder. Have you accumulated picks, consolidated down to a core group of players, now what? It's time to look at your roster and determine whether you can get to a place where you'll have 2x the starting requirements and start filling out depth.

Starting with your rookie draft, be open to trading back and accumulating production. Other teams will need to clear roster space for rookies, and you can take advantage by adding productive vets to clear those zeros in the rebuild year. For the picks that you do make, focus on players with a path to targets. Don't worry about that tight end that will take 3 years to break out. You can always trade for them later.

Be open to trading your picks for proven players. Draft picks are dart throws, and you're not going to hit on all of them, but you'll be able to buy established players and take the risk out. Package 3rd round picks and later to move into the upper rounds or into vets. Those late picks have the worst hit rates, and to get out of your rebuild, you need hits. Feel free to take a couple of chances with high-upside bets, but if you make 8 picks in the 3rd and 4th rounds, you’re going to have a bad time.

Profit

Rebuilding isn't glamorous. Nobody remembers your 3-11 season. But they'll remember the trophy two years later. It's easy to get complacent or bored in a rebuild. Stay disciplined, stay active, and don't let a lucky week throw you off target.