As you sit and endure a full two days off from real baseball, your fantasy baseball GM responsibilities get no time off. If you feel like you’re out of contention in a re-draft league, it is still up to you to make sure you have a proper lineup set (no DL guys starting, please) and when the top half of your standings comes calling for trades, you give the offers legitimate thought and not just blindly accept whatever is presented to you. If it’s a keeper league, be shrewd with your deals and make sure you’re getting the best keepers for 2018 you can get. If you’re in contention in either format, it’s time to really start working that roster into proper second-half shape. You need to build up in categories you are lacking while also consolidating your roster in anticipation of the array of call-ups likely to enter your player pool.

Building up in categories you are lacking is the obvious first step in making your second half push. You have to do some hardcore analysis of your roster and make sure that everyone there has a specific purpose. That may require making some tough cuts, but there is no time to sit there and wait for some guy to come around when he’s been a bummer all season long. Everyone has their favorites and everyone wants to believe they were right about a player, but it’s time to put that ego in check and realize it just may not happen for some guys.

Take Trevor Story, for example. Does he have great power potential? Of course he does. And he’s got Coors Field to help nurture that power. But will he deliver? Now that he’s past his first-half injury and looking ahead to the second half, will he turn it around? Those who owned him last year and those who bought into him on Draft Day are probably holding steady here, but you have to look at what’s been presented to us so far in order to make an objective, informed decision.

That 35.2-percent strikeout rate is atrocious and what’s worse is that it comes with a 14.5-percent swinging strike rate. The contact rates are well-below average, he’s struggling with breaking stuff and he’s popping everything up in the air. Yes, at Coors, that can be helpful, but he’s not getting good wood on the ball and therefore not putting it over the fences. Warning track power is all we’re seeing so far and he’s actually proven to be a worse hitter this year than he was last year. Given his plate discipline issues in the minors, it doesn’t look as if he’s learned anything or progressed at all.

Waiting on Story, as well as a number of underperformers who are either in serious decline (Carlos Gonzalez, Albert Pujols) or just haven’t been able to take that next step (Tim Anderson, Kyle Schwarber) in the second half is going to be an exercise in futility. It’s not exactly about playing the hot hand, but to sit there wishing a guy turns it around is only going to waste valuable time you could be using to start your movement in specific categories. And we all know what my granddaddy used to say – “You can wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which fills up first.”

Roster consolidation is also vital at this stage of the game. Your league’s trade deadline is coming up just as fast as the MLB trade deadline is and you want to be proactive here. Waiting until the actual deadline is only going to make trading more difficult as your competition is going to start ramping up their trade work as well. If you’re looking at your roster and you see players you continuously move in and out of your lineup based on hot/cold streaks or match-ups, it’s time to start turning them into full-time players you can happily leave in your lineup every day.

If you’re flipping back and forth between Alex Bregman and Yulieski Gurriel at third or your corner infield spot, package them up for someone better. There are plenty of middle-of-the-pack teams in your league standings who have holes in their starting roster, so why not fill them for them and take their Adrian Beltre off their hands? Got Ender Inciarte and David Peralta? Try dealing the pair for Andrew McCutchen. Having productive players on your bench may give you security from injuries, but with the influx of talent you’re about to see from the trade deadline and late-season call-ups, why not free up some bench space for them while improving your starting roster? There is obvious risk involved, but you’re never going to gain any ground in your standings if you’re just using the same, old mid-level guys.

It's time to start sending those emails more frequently. Make those calls. Take your potential trade partners out for a beer or three. You need to shore-up your roster with stronger bats and better arms. Make the moves you need to make and consolidate your roster as you wait for bigger names on your waiver wire. They’re coming. Don’t you worry about that. They come each and every year. You just have to make sure you’re prepared when they do.