An examination of a fantasy team’s bench may seem like an odd subject to start the ball rolling on a new blog. 

Figuring out the best way to leverage bench spots, however, is an under-appreciated skill set. Most fantasy baseball owners waste their bench spots and derive little value from those non-active spots on a team’s roster. Many owners see their bench as the contingency plan, or what to do in case an active player gets injured. As such, many owners typically fill their bench spots with a well-balanced portfolio of positional and pitching back-ups — players who can be plugged into the regular lineup upon news of a twisted ankle, steroid suspension, or any unexpected calamity. When things don’t go wrong, these back-ups sit on the bench as an afterthought, similar to the way the chubby kid in Little League waited to get his one pinch-hit in a blow-out game.

But there are better ways to use a bench. A non-active roster spot does NOT have be valueless. Every roster spot has significance and can be leveraged towards success. Here are five ideas to get better value from your bench.

1. Keep A Reserve Spot Open Because Your Team Never Sleeps In: Baseball is a long season and major league ballclubs play mostly every day. However, no ballclub plays every single day. To give ballplayers rest, the powers-that-be behind MLB schedules rotate rest days on Mondays and Thursday. This means that when you look at your active lineup on those two days, you are likely to see about half of your squad with no games to play. Most fantasy leagues have limits on the number of games you can accumulate at a given position. However, designated rest days are insufficient respites for professional ballplayers. Even the workhorses of the league typically get 10-20 extra games off per season. The typical number of bench spots is insufficient room to have every position covered and besides, why commit yourself to one backup when you can search the waiver wire for a ballplayer who has a truly great matchup on that day your superstar is getting his breakfast-in-bed? Pick up a player on Monday, drop the player on Tuesday, and find a different player on Thursday. In the end, you’ll want to reach the full maximum games allowed at every position, which should add to counting stats (runs, RBIs, steals, home runs…).

2. Keep A Reserve Spot Open For Free Agent Pitchers Who Are Facing The Washington Nationals: Very similar to the last idea, this one covers pitchers. There are only a handful of starters in baseball who you can count on to deliver solid performances no matter the match-up. All other pitchers have good performances and bad ones. In the race towards accumulating wins and strikeouts, most owners will suck up the bad performances from their rostered pitchers. But unlike a real-life fantasy baseball team, most leagues allow you to pick up a free agent pitcher with a great match-up. Typically, C-list pitchers with A-quality match-ups will outperform B-list pitchers with C- or D-quality match-ups. So save your ERA/WHIP and get a couple more strikeouts by using a bench spot to churn through those great match-ups. We’ll have a post later in this season on how to recognize candidates for pitch-and-ditch.

3. Try A Banana Split:  In real-life major league baseball, ballclub managers love to use platoons. Typically, righty batters hit better against lefties and lefty batters hit better against righties. That’s one example of a “split,” or a scenario where a player hits great in one circumstance and lousy in another. But fantasy baseball owners have access to more possible platoons. For instance, the Colorado Rockies hitter who does great at home and lousy on the road. Or the Chicago Cubs hitter who smacks it around during the day, but doesn’t seem to have the same batting vision at night. Look harder at your ballplayers and see if they might benefit from a platoon-mate. For instance, Brad Hawpe is criminally bad against left-handed pitchers. If he’s on your roster, you may wish to reserve a bench spot for another outfielder you can sub in on those days Hawpe is facing a lefty. Rostering two left-handed batters at the same position who kill right-handed pitching can be a way of surpassing the production you’d get from a superstar at that same position.

4. Hook With Trade Bait: One theme that will become apparent in later days on this blog is that we view rookies and prospects as mostly overvalued. But there’s value in someone else’s overvaluing. Especially when it comes to hyped prospects who get their big call-up. Using a bench spot to reserve next month’s most buzz-worthy player can pay off when negotiating trades.

5. Middle Relievers Set-Up Success: OK, so you have Jake Peavy. Big deal. I have Hong-Chih Kuo, Scott Shields, and Joey Devine, and I’m going to rotate these no-names into any active pitching slot where my starters have rest-days. Guess what? My Kuo + Shields + Devine contributes a better ERA, WHIP, with more strikeouts and wins than your Peavy. Better yet, when you drafted Peavy in the 4th round, I drafted another stud outfielder and thus my batting totals are killing yours. You get the point…

Of course, all this depending on the rules and roster composition of your league. But if you’re sitting on players you’re not using in those bench spots, you’re wasting a lot of potential value. Don’t let your bench be an afterthought.