No problem
When you believe in things
you don’t understand
then you suffer.
Superstition ain’t the way.
- Stevie Wonder
I am just intelligent enough to know that there is no direct cause/effect relationship between the things I am about to share with you. But having said that…
I am a New York Met fan. I also enjoy playing fantasy baseball. But I have come to understand that I cannot combine those two things and have it work out well.
Back in the 1990′s I played what was then known primarily as rotisserie baseball. I joined an established league of friends in the Boston area and they played exclusively American League rosters so I never had the opportunity to choose any Mets. But in 2007 I was invited to take part in a league that utilized players from both the American and National Leagues, a so-called mixed league.
I was very excited to at last own a Met and exercised my 1st round pick on David Wright. The season began with Wright in a bad slump. For the month of April Wright was hitting .244 with 0 home runs and 6 RBI. On April 30th I was approached by a league member who inquired about Wright’s availability. I replied that he was very available because being on my team was killing him. This fellow laughed and offered me Brandon Inge and Jose Valverde for Wright. I happened to need a closer so I accepted the offer. We shook hands on the deal and that evening I submitted the transaction to our league commissioner. The next day, May 1st, Wright hit his 1st home run of the season. He finished that season at .325 with 30 home runs and 107 RBI. His new owner was quite happy with the transaction, and as a Met fan I was happy to have relieved Wright of the burden of being on my team.
In 2008, wary of this experience, I did not draft any Mets. In late May one of my fantasy team’s outfielders went on the disabled list and I needed a replacement. After scouring the league’s waiver wire I noticed the best available outfielder was Ryan Church. Church was having a hot month. He had hit 6 home runs in the previous 3 weeks, including 1 the day I was checking the list of available players, and was hitting over .300 for the season so I picked him up. 10 games later he went on the disabled list with post-concussion symptoms. I cut him but the damage had already been done.
As the 2009 fantasy draft unfolded, my pick came up and the chalk said Johan Santana was the right pick at my slot. He was available. I was very wary but decided that surely I could not destroy a player this good, so I picked him. In 2009 Santana had the lowest win total of any year of his career as a starting pitcher and in August succumbed to injury spending the balance of the season on the disabled list.
My 2010 draft motto was “no Mets.” I vowed not to harm the career of another player on my favorite team. I made it through the draft successfully avoiding any healthy Mets. But my fantasy team got off to a horrible start. It has been bouncing between 7th and 9th places in a 10 team league and is last in the league in home runs and RBI. When Ike Davis was called up to the majors by the Mets I prayed for someone to pick him up. No one did. He sat on our league waiver wire. I didn’t want to touch him but when he hit his 1st career home run off of the Shea Bridge at Citi Field I could no longer resist and I picked him up. In his 30 at bats on my team he had 7 hits, no home runs, for an average of .233, and I realized I had done it yet again. Determined not to destroy his career at such a young age I decided to be fair to him I had to release him. So Thursday afternoon I cut Davis. Friday night in his 1st at bat of the game he hit a home run. In his 2nd at bat he hit another. And I resolved once again to never have a Met on my fantasy team.
So all should be good in Met world as relates to my fantasy team. Except there is one problem. Recall that I said in the 2010 draft I avoided picking any healthy Mets. I did pick one Met but it was a late round pick that I didn’t think could do much damage since he was already hurt when I picked him. Currently filling the one disabled list spot on my roster is Carlos Beltran.
Beltran enjoying his time on my roster
12 comments
metsfan4decades
5/8/2010-10:18am at 10:18 am (UTC -4)
That’s some pattern. I don’t pretend to know how fantasy baseball works – never playing it myself – but are you allowed to cut a guy on the DL? If yes, please do so quick. Then maybe when he starts his running program it will be pain free and we’ll see him gracing CF once again by the end of June…..
stickguy
5/8/2010-10:58am at 10:58 am (UTC -4)
yes you can. and yes he should.
DNDJohan aka kistics
5/8/2010-10:23am at 10:23 am (UTC -4)
Great piece Grave! If you are referring to the TRDMB league as the 2010 league, can someone trade the entire Phillies roster to Grave? Please?
DNDJohan aka kistics
5/8/2010-10:25am at 10:25 am (UTC -4)
Oh BTW, if you wish to trade Beltran, I will trade you for him at a fair(?) value for him.
stickguy
5/8/2010-10:59am at 10:59 am (UTC -4)
not sure how that wold work. It seems he is bad luck to Mets, but not the rest of his team. So would getting a phil cause that player to have a bad year, or a great year (to even more screw the mets?)
GravediggerHebner
5/8/2010-11:15am at 11:15 am (UTC -4)
No it’s not the TRDMB league, it’s a different one (straight roto, not H2H).
dirtysanchez
5/8/2010-10:58am at 10:58 am (UTC -4)
great piece grave. Its one of the hardest things to have a favorite team and play fantasy baseball(or football). The truely difficult part comes with pitchers against your favorite team. Games become very bittersweet and I vowed after 2009, I wouldnt play fantasy baseball again…obviously that didnt happen lol.
trs86
5/8/2010-11:12am at 11:12 am (UTC -4)
Hey I got Beltran too
Mr North Jersey
5/8/2010-11:21am at 11:21 am (UTC -4)
HAHAHAHHAHAHA! Great Post Grave!
It’s like that old saying,
“If you really love a person (in your case player) sometimes you got to let them go.
GravediggerHebner
5/8/2010-11:28am at 11:28 am (UTC -4)
Yeah. I mean I guess I have no choice but to release him.
Which is absurd. It’s just coincidence. Right? Isn’t it?
In no way will I get a player of his caliber onto my roster if I do release him, and no one will trade me anything for him since he’s hurt and has no specific return date. So you can see my problem. On one hand I must release him, for the good of the Mets, on the other hand it’s about the worst possible transaction for my fantasy team. In my 3 years in that league I’ve finished 4th, 1st and 3rd (those were out of 12, this year we cut to 10 teams) so I kind of feel like I know what I’m doing. But this year my team is just awful (currently in 9th) and it could really use a 2nd-half infusion from a player the caliber of Beltran.
I can’t remember for sure (and I can’t access in-season roster moves from previous seasons) but I think I also picked up Luis Ayala near the end of 2008 looking for some “cheap saves.” So my track record is universally bad with Mets. There are NO exceptions. I should probably just go back to AL only leagues.
Mr North Jersey
5/8/2010-11:32am at 11:32 am (UTC -4)
gategem
5/8/2010-12:49pm at 12:49 pm (UTC -4)
Speaking for all the Mets fans in the this universe and all parallel ones it’s time for you to join a monastery and take a vow never to use a computer again.