It’s always fun to speculate when a player might increase in value…

Because just as important as buying is knowing when to offload a player. Even if you're a pure collector, you can still make money by selling at the right time and buying back in later.

Keep an eye out for these 6 warning signs:

Fewer minutes, platooning, or moving to a bench role are all going to hurt hobby value.

For example, think about a QB that’s about to get benched for another (Alex Smith losing his starting job to Patrick Mahomes comes to mind).

Or, a platoon RB situation, or a baseball player getting moved to a DH role. Sure, they can still hit home runs, but it’s a clear sign that the player is likely on the downswing.

Don’t let a few outliers like Tom Brady, LeBron James, or Steph Curry make you think that’s the new norm. I’m not one to try and buck history, as you’ll usually be wrong.

Giannis comes to mind. Only 4 players in NBA history have averaged 24 points and 10 rebounds at age 32 or older. It’s a reminder that the Greek Freak is probably going to have a steady downcurve, especially with the injuries he’s had.

Players often rise significantly when they go on playoff runs, only to see those gains drop significantly when they get eliminated.

Here’s an Anthony Edwards PSA 9 Green Prizm that I sold near the peak at $100. After they got eliminated, his pricing dropped immediately to $70 - $80:

Drake Maye saw this as well when they lost the Super Bowl:

I picked those two examples because they were predictable. It seemed like the T’wolves would lose to the Spurs, and the Patriots would lose to the Seahawks. I always try to sell before a risky series or game.

This one is more about pricing action, but it’s even stronger when you can pair this with your knowledge of a player.

Let’s look at Patrick Mahomes’s pricing chart on a rookie Donruss PSA 10.

Pricing has stayed remarkably within this channel - almost never going above $1,400 or below $900 (I’d call the few above and below outliers and forget about them).

So, we can actually draw clear lines at the top of this channel and the bottom:

You can see that price hit the top line (the “resistance” line) in Feb 2025, again in Oct 2025, and it’s hitting there again now.

The last two times, price dropped afterward. There were good reasons for those drops (Super Bowl loss and poor play for the Chiefs).

But, and this is common in all pricing charts with enough volume, the market behaves as a whole.

What I mean is, the hobby has basically decided “this card shouldn’t go above $1,400.” So it hits that mark, and it drops.

It takes something big to push through. Of course Mahomes could do it, but I’m not sure why this team should be better than last year. He’s coming back from injury, and yet he’s pushing up against 2-year price highs?

I’d bet on him dropping down.

A great player with one big injury can recover, price-wise, pretty quickly. Tyrese Haliburton comes to mind in that he’s already recovered much of the lost pricing from his torn Achilles.

However, when a player seems to be always injured, their pricing suffers because of it. There’s a sort of collective sigh from the hobby, a “well, that guy’s out again.”

So yes, this is obvious. Injuries hurt a player’s value. But so often, collectors and flippers hold onto those guys for way too long. Hoping for just one more triumphant return and to sell a peak that never comes.

Zion actually had a pretty good season last year, but between him being on a bad team and the fact that no one has faith in him, his price keeps dropping:

It’s a little different if you’re an all-time great already, like Mike Trout. When he does have a flash of playing well (like to start the season), his prices jump because he’s one of the best ever.

Not so with someone like Joel Embiid, who continued to fall despite actually having some big games near the end of the season.

Almost always, you’re better off letting these guys go earlier than later.

In basketball, average-to-good players don’t become MVP candidates. If I told you that Franz Wagner would finish 2nd in MVP next year, you’d laugh.

It does happen all the time in baseball and football, though. And when it does, it’s a great time to offload those players as they’ll often fall back down soon after.

In the last 25 years, Steve McNair, Cam Newton, and Rich Gannon have all won the NFL MVP. Not bad players, but they were guys with outlier seasons. If you look at top-3 votes, there are some crazy outliers.

Or there’s Cal Raleigh. Good player who turned in an all-time season in 2025, only to be one of the worst players in baseball this year. It’d be like if Jokic averaged 10 points per game next season.

Usually, the best play is to sell those cards rather than believe you’ve got the next Kurt Warner on your hands… because odds are, you don’t.

The hard part isn't spotting these signs. It's actually acting on them instead of waiting for a rebound that might never show up. I’ve been guilty of this too many times to count.

If you're holding a card and you start checking boxes on this list, don't wait for confirmation. By the time everyone else notices, the price has already moved.