Instead of kicking players and replacing them with bots in active matches add the bots first to the match and keep the person in a match for a longer time (1-5min). This way if they have do fix the connection or do something quickly they can just click on the screen and continue playing or join back if the game crashed. If they do come back the bots wont respawn anymore and disappear from the match.
In the scoreboard it would show the afk player in green and the bot replacing them in red instead of it being greyed out.
If the match is nearing its end the afk player would be removed from the match and receive the -20% like how its currently works