Fantasy baseball, like any good addiction, has its fair share of high highs and very low lows. I am currently in the midst of a very low low. My team is fading fast. It must mean something, even though I’m not really too sure the intent of the meaning. The league has been together for several years. It is a common thread that binds a group of people who have, since the beginning, spread across the country. Since the league began, people have gotten married, children have been born, houses have been bought–people have moved on to bigger and better things. Some have made lateral moves, some have made cross country moves. Jobs have been won and jobs have been lost. The same could probably be said for marriages, though most of the group seems to be doing pretty well in that department. The one common thread, the on thing that has kept us together all these years, has been our fantasy baseball league.
The league name used to change every year, but for the past several we have been using the tastelessly witty moniker: Pete Gray’s Arm-e. It’s not a great name, but it’s good. Because it exists and has existed for as long as it has existed, it has become the thing. For the most part, the teams have stayed consistent. It used to be a year-to-year draft. Teams came together year after year. People had their preferences, but they had to get lucky in the draft if they wanted to keep the names and numbers that they had become so familiar with each summer. Four years ago we switched to a keeper league. Things got noticeably more spicy. Lopsided trades were made late in the season. While these trades would have been vetoed with good reason in the past, the advent of the keeper system made the trades a new and good thing.
I have always been something of a buyer. The trade, the transaction, the add, the drop, these are the things of movement that keep me interested. Usually the dog days are cause for the hope of some instant gratification–the instant gratification that comes with winning a meaningless computer league. I have made nine trades and 106 total acquisitions. We are a head-to-head league with a little saber spice, so there is reason to attempt the stream of pitchers on a daily basis. However, at this point of the season, strategy has nothing to do with the daily match-up. Even though I won the league last year, there is a very good chance that I will not even qualify for the playoffs this September.
I fault my trigger finger. I fault my need for the transaction, my need to feel movement, even if the movement is perpetually backward. I fault the Kevin Youkilis and Clayton Kershaw for Jason Heyward and Ubaldo Jimenez deal I made early in the season. I fault luck and BABIP, but none of it really matters. I gave up half my team (literally) for Buster Posey and his wildly cheap salary in the construct of the league. I am now playing for next year and the year after, which means I’m still playing. Like any good addiction, the more you lose, the better you think you feel–the better you think your chances are for success, for power, and for some form of virtual glory.
