Fantasy File

If your team is toast, now is the time to make bold moves

You were counting on this guy to carry your fantasy team? AP

By Jacob Luft, CNNSI.com

You came here for a reason.

You want help with your fantasy baseball team from an established expert in the field.

That's not me.

The last time I won in fantasy baseball, the other George Bush was president and my league consisted of three other kids on my block. Hey, Einstein couldn't get simple math; I can't get fantasy baseball. Nobody's perfect.

The season is about one-third of the way through. At this point, reality is setting in. If you are anything like me, then you have realized that, once again, you have failed to randomly assemble a group of players that can outhit, outrun and outpitch your friends' group of players.

(If you are nothing like me and routinely win or finish in the money, then, as Cartman would say, "I hate you guys. I hate you guys so much.")

The season is dragging on. The standings are unforgiving. Your FAAB/waiver pickups, who were performing fine as free agents, implode upon arriving on your roster. Your top slugger, the guy you took in the first round or bid 35 bucks on, has been on the sideline for weeks with something called a "mid-collateral-thigh-contusion/abrasion." He should be back "any day now."

Breakfast doesn't taste good. Your favorite CDs are collecting dust.

Life's little victories aren't nearly as sweet. It barely registers on your radar when your annoying neighbor -- who leaves the garbage out for days -- finally moves out. You fail to crack a smile when your overbearing boss gets hemorrhoids and his wife catches him cheating with the secretary.

None of it matters.

All you know is your roto team is in the second division and falling faster than AOL stock.

Your wife asks why you are in such a glum mood. You want to blurt out, "My WHIP has been climbing for weeks and I blew all my FAAB money on Joey Hamilton! Of course I'm in a terrible mood. Why can't anybody understand that?" But you quickly realize how much of a loser this makes you look like. Unless your wedding vows included something like, "in sickness and in health, in last place or in first," she doesn't want to hear about your "fantasy" baseball team.

So you shrug your shoulders and mumble under your breath. The anger is repressed longer, festering until it becomes a ball of hate packed so tight it becomes a black hole -- a singularity -- in your stomach, sending its contents -- your lunch -- time-traveling through a wormhole that connects to somewhere in the Crab Nebula.

You step back and take time to reflect. Why do you care so much? You're competitive, that's why. You don't like to lose, especially to your close friends. The players on your fictional team, they don't know you from Adam. It's not personal. When your ace gives up nine runs (seven earned) on nine hits in two innings, it hurts him a lot more than it does you.

You begin snapping out of the funk. Your thoughts become clearer. Amid the ashes of a once-promising season, there lies one glorious silver lining: The trade deadline is still months away.

There are still two-thirds of the season left. Make a move. Be bold. Pick one of your best players -- an "untouchable" -- and offer him around the league. Maybe you can get several players in return who can help you in more categories. Maybe, by offering this superstar, you will be able to acquire other players you thought were untouchable on other teams. Maybe he breaks his leg a week after the trade and it kills one of your opponent's chances.

If you are in a keeper league, there is at least one other struggling team that is playing for next year and will give you good talent for your top prospects.

Take chances on guys. Fry the transaction wire. If you are going down, do it in a blaze of glory. Even if it doesn't make your team better, at least you will get the very temporary adrenaline rush that comes with making trades. I'm not saying this will make your team better, but it might. Anything to break the monotony of looking up the same group of losers in the box score every day.

After a couple of weeks, you will wake up one day and realize this other glorious fact: It's almost time for fantasy foootball season!

Jacob Luft realizes the irony of failing in fantasy baseball despite being a baseball producer for CNNSI.com.

 

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