Neglecting Your Bench is Perilous
We may not have an Aaron Wan-Bissaka this year, but can Martin Kelly be this season’s Ryan Bennett? Will Leander Dendoncker see regular minutes? Is Mason Greenwood this season’s Raul Jimenez or this season’s Isaac Success?
Time will tell. However, the fact is, it’s far less important to find the next bargain basement superstar than to make sure our fantasy bench warmers are seeing regular minutes on the pitch for their real teams. They don’t need to play well. They just need to play.
Most of us already intuitively understand this idea. This article will quantify its importance using some examples and probability math. Don’t worry. I’ll spare everyone the cringe-inducing statistics and formulas.
The Math
The odds are actually quite high that at least one bench player will count toward our score in any given week. If you take a hypothetical team where each outfield player has a 90% chance of starting, there is a 65.1% chance you will need at least one bench player that week. There is a 26.4% chance you will need at least two bench players, and there is a 7.0% chance you will need all three.
The table below illustrates these probabilities.
I have also included two example teams, both in 4-4-2 formation. One example team is actually my current starting roster: TAA, Van Dijk, Laporte, Coleman, Salah, Sterling, Sigurdsson, Perez, Jimenez and Deloufeu. It’s safe, boring, and very template.
The other team I’m calling “Pep Roulette.” It consists of TAA, Zinchenko, Laporte, Digne, Salah, KDB, Willian, Perez, Vardy and Wilson. It’s a decent team, but has more rotation risk than the first.
Team Pep Roulette will use the bench frequently – nearly 58% percent of the time. In nearly one week in five, two bench players will be required. Even my relatively safe team still needs to access the bench regularly.
This allows us to quantify the value of having bench players who actually see the pitch versus non-playing fodder.
Expected Value of the Bench Players
As the table below shows, a 2.25 points per game bench player in the “Bench 1” position is expected to score nearly 50 points for Team Pep Roulette over the season. The second bench player is worth 16 points, and so on. I’ve also included a table for a 3.0 points per game bench player
Clearly those who ignore the bench do so at their own peril.
Implications
This leads to some pretty basic rules of thumb for our teams:
- At least one regular starting bench player is a requirement.
- Two regular starting bench players is advisable.
- Three regular starting bench players is probably unnecessary.
- If you find yourself without any starting bench players, make it an immediate transfer priority.
- There is some benefit to finding a higher quality bench player (e.g. a 3.0 ppg vs a 2.25 ppg), but these usually cost more. In reality, any starter will do.
Technical note: the bench usage probabilities are calculated based on each player’s Expected Minutes as presented on the Rate My Team page.
5 years, 5 months agoThere are two options for me:
A) TEAM 1 (1.0 ITB)
Heaton (Pope)
TAA, Walker-Peters, Zinchenko (A Smith, Dunk)
Fraser, Salah, Pérez, Lucas Moura (Moutinho)
King, Aubameyang, Deulofeu
B) TEAM 2 (1.0 ITB)
Alisson (Button)
TAA, Walker-Peters, Zinchenko, A Smith (Dunk)
Fraser, Salah, Sterling, Lucas Moura (Moutinho)
King, Deulofeu (Greenwood)
Opinions?