Mid-Term Grades

I thought this might be a good point in the season to review our progress so far on both the Buy Low recommendations and the Sell High recommendations. When I started this blog, all the way back on December 3rd, I tried to be as clear as I could about my strategy. Of course there is risk involved by selling the hot guys and buying the cold ones. However so long as you weren't holding more than 2 recently bought, cold players on your team at once, you limited the risk. I told you my goal is to be right about 70-75% of the time, which would leave us with stacked team (3 of every 4 turned it around). Finally, I assumed you traded for value when you bought low or sold high, meaning the player you traded for/away was roughly equal to the one you got/gave. Let's take a look at how we did on the buy side:

12/3/2009: Buy Caron Butler - Caron was very undervalued and ranked over 100 at that time. While he has not been the player he was last year, this still turned out to be a good move.
12/4/2009: Buy Derrick Rose - remember when no one wanted Rose? It did take a bit longer for him to come around that I would've liked, but Derrick has turned into a nice fantasy contributor.
12/4/2009: Buy Amar'e Stoudemire - hard to believe he too was ranked over 100. Some of you got real steals on Amar'e and he's provided a solid return.
12/5/2009: Stephen Jackson - This was right as he was getting dealt to Charlotte. You love me for this call!
12/7/2009: Buy Eric Gordon - this was right as he was coming back from injury. Gordon has been wholly unimpressive and I'd say your no better or worse for having him.
12/7/2009: LaMarcus Aldridge - This was right after Oden went down. I thought he would really take off, he has been pretty much the same through the season.
12/9/2009: Devin Harris - My first bad call here. Devin hasn't turned it around and while I still like him as a buy low, he hasn't given us much reason to celebrate.
12/9/2009: Pau Gasol - Pau was nursing an injury then too, and even though he's back on the shelf, the price you paid for him in early December was cheap relative to how well he's been when on the court. A nice buy
12/10/2009: John Salmons - Salmons has had an unimpressive year, but at the cost of players like Courtney Lee, he has proven to be a solid end of the rotation guy. Especially the steals.
12/11/2009: Antawn Jamison - This was right after he got injured, during a brief cold spell. Huge return here.
12/13/2009: Michael Redd - I did warn of the injury risk, and said to trade him off after a couple big games, but still, this wasn't a good call. Too many people got stuck with him.
12/13/2009: Gilbert Arenas - I can't say the same for Gil. He was ranked 130 when we made this call, and he was top 30 when he got caught with guns. Bad luck on the gun charge, but he was great during that stretch.
12/17/2009: Emeka Okafor - has he been awesome? No not really, but he's been a solid big man, and at the time people were ready to drop him to the WW (many of you grabbed him off the WW). He's been worthy of a roster spot.
12/22/2009: Brandon Roy - another huge return. Roy was not playing well when we made this call, and his price was very cheap (ranked in the 70's). Since then he's been one of the best players in fantasy.
12/22/2009: David West - remember when everyone was cutting bait on West? He was TERRIBLE in December, and has been AWESOME since.
12/28/2009: Ben Gordon - Ben still hasn't fully healed. I'll say this was a bad call, but there is still time for him to be a solid contributor.
12/30/2009: Blake Griffin - man I did that whole write up on his knee woes in college, and how risky it was. No one took it on the chin worse than me with Blake, bad call.

That about does it. I also called to buy Boozer and Rashard, but that was like 4 days ago so we need more time to see. As I count it, we had 11 Good Calls (Butler, Rose, Stoudemire, Jackson, Gasol, Salmons, Jamison, Arenas, Okafor, Roy, West), we had 4 bad calls (Redd, Blake, Harris, B Gordon) and 2 that were a wash (Aldridge and E. Gordon). That puts the hit rate right at 73%. Not bad if you ask me! What do you think, did we do a good job on these? Tomorrow I'll highlight the Sell Highs and we'll again evaluate.