Something to Think About Before You Draft

The year is 2008 and the Boston Red Sox (my super-creatively named fantasy team) has reached our league's championship. Finishing with the #1 seed in the league and looking unbeatable, the scent of victory was in the air. The tickling feeling one gets in their stomach when so close to achieving glory was ever so present in my gut. As I gazed upon my computers monitor, I remained convinced that this was it! I was going to take the championship! This, of course, is undoubtedly the same feeling LeBron James would have before Game 5 of the 2012 NBA Finals or the sensation Koji Uehara would have as he trotted to the mound for the 9th inning on the cool night of October 30th, 2013. Alright, alright - maybe I didn't put as much work into my fantasy team as Koji and LeBron would into their respective crafts, but man did it feel like it. Saturday, the second-to-last day of the championship match-up, my dad was taking my brother and I on our annual trip to catch a New York Mets game. No one in our family is a Mets fan but we are all ginormous baseball fans and heading out to see a Mets game was always a fun time. This year we had the pleasure of seeing Johan Santana, one of my favorites growing up, face off against the young up-and-comer Ricky Nolsaco of the Florida Marlins. Ricky was having a great season (what would end up being the best season of his career to date) and he also happened to be on the Boston Red Sox (once again, my poorly named fantasy team). Caught up in the excitement of going to the Mets game, I made a rookie mistake. I forgot to set my lineup. Remember now, we are talking about 2008. I wasn't fortunate enough to own a SmartPhone at the time so once I climbed into my dad's car, it was too late. Ricky would be on my bench for the day. Santana ended up pitching a complete-game shutout and the Mets won the game 2-0. It was enjoyable as always. The bad news was that Ricky also had a great game - on my bench. He struck out 10 Mets that day over 7 innings. On Sunday, I ended up losing the strikeouts category 111-109 and the overall match-up 5-7. Had I put Nolasco in, I would have won strikeouts and tied the overall matchup 6-6. The tiebreaker would have gone to the higher seed. In this case, that was me. Enjoy that off-season, Pete!

There is no way to prepare for crazy, unfortunate situations like that in fantasy. If anything, the moral of that story is to not be a fool and set your roster ahead of time. The unexplainable, unexpected, and unbelievable happen every season. No one expected Jose Bautista to hit 54 homeruns in 2010 and no one could have reasonably assumed Matt Harvey would give owners one of the best first half's in baseball... but then go down for Tommy John in the second half of 2013. Baseball can be random. You can examine stats up and down, look at all the scouting footage you can get your hands on, and even get re-Tweeted by Peter Gammons for making an excellent point. The bottom line is, you can't predict baseball. You can only give your best attempt at predicting the future.

Heading into a draft is a spectacular feeling. It's a clean slate, a chance to show everyone else that you know more than they do. At the same time, it's the easiest (and most obvious) situation where an owner can ruin their season. Some people say owners need to be bold to come out of a draft on top. Others insist that reaching too far for players will almost certainly come back to bite the drafter in their bottom. Whatever system of rules you abide by for your fantasy drafts - stick to it. Who knows? Maybe you end up in a draft with a fantasy mastermind who has a crystal ball in his possession and knows for a fact that Chone Figgins is going to come roaring back into baseball with 50 steals. If that's the case, you lost! Tip your cap. Most likely, though, you will not end up with a predictor of the future. The most likely scenario is that you end up in a draft with a bunch of other weathermen desperate to predict what's coming their way this season. When the clock is ticking on your pick, only you are on that clock. Not Matthew Berry, your grandmother, or the local weatherman. You. So why not make it your pick? Forget all of the outside noise, the suggestions, conjecture, and analyzing. This is your team and if you think CC Sabathia is going to return to the days of sub-3.5 ERA and 200+ strikeouts then reach for him and let the rest of the league prove you wrong - or CC prove you right. Morons like me are always capable of beating ourselves by forgetting to put Nolasco in. True morons, though, are those who let others beat themselves on draft day. Losing is tough. Looking back and wondering why on earth you took someone's advice on your own team is even harder. Trust your gut, draft your own team.
-PB