I was suffering through an incredible hangover during my fantasy baseball draft last year. Not that it really even mattered; I was screwed from the get-go. Since my inaugural draft in 2008, each team I’ve built has been worse than the prior year’s team. My first go-round ended with a second-place finish, because, honestly, I had no clue what I was doing—I closed my eyes and went for any Cabrera or Lincecum or big name available. Now I painstakingly hew my lineup weeks in advance by studying whom John Q. Blogger has as his top five closer sleepers or why Ian Kinsler’s power-speed combo exceeds the merits of Dustin Pedroia. I parse each nugget of insidery info, regardless of outlet or understanding. Simply put, I’ve taught myself how to draft a fantasy baseball team until the time comes to actually draft it.
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On the surface, my league is pressure free. It’s a simple rotisserie keeper league blueprinted by espn.com, the standard for vanilla online sports coverage. There’s no auction or money involved (praise God), and there are rarely distractions during the draft (aside from hangovers). I play remotely with a mix of friends from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that I met years ago through old punk-hardcore bands and music labels. A few have mutated into die-hard fantasy assassins, but several could give a shit; they’re just playing to hang with buddies via the Internet. I begrudgingly fall somewhere in the middle of the pack—much too committed to the league and resigned to fail.
Once draft morning does roll around, though, I’ll be sitting at my desk, frazzled, paranoid, and surrounded by baseball blog printouts with scribbled notes and players names circled all over the place. My plan will be to not fuck up. But Josh Beckett will dupe me into thinking he can repeat his pitching numbers from last year, and I’ll worry too much about the availability of J.J. Hardy. Joakim Soria (or any closer for that matter) will end up on my team way too early, and I’ll curse the person who was tasked with transporting Ryan Braun’s urine (Braun is unfortunately a keeper on one of my opponents’ teams). Near round 21, after the glow of my laptop has melted a fifth of my brain, I’ll start getting punchy and try to track down Ken Griffey Jr. so that I can add him for pure novelty value. Then I’ll realize he’s retired and draft Manny Ramirez instead. Adam Dunn will start to look pretty good hanging around in the 25th round.
