Have you ever loved something so much that you stop being able to tell where it ends & you begin?

Baseball. AmIrite?

The season has barely begun & I am already consumed by the beautiful, fanged creature that is Fantasy.

With clawed feet, it pads up to me in the dead of night & shakes me awake, screaming things like-

I THINK YOU HAVE TO DROP CHRIS DAVIS.

&

WHY HAVEN’T YOU FILLED YOUR DL SPOTS?

BUT IT’S NOT FANTASY’S FAULT!!

It’s mine, b/c Fantasy is an extension of me (& of all of us who really play.)

…It puts a face to the monkey on your back. Actually, it puts a whole roster of faces on the monkey.

How you read these faces is very important. They can be very revealing–

Last week, for instance, they revealed to me that I f*cked up @ the draft–

Which led me down a path of progressively more & more demeaning trade proposals-

Ultimately revealing that I am a terrible Fantasy slut, who can’t even give it away (basically) for free.

This is my story.

Prologue (An Uber Inauspicious Start)

In the foggy, tipsy post-draft haze- I distinctly remember having suppressed a sinking feeling as I tried to track down my Uber driver. Uber, then exhaustion, eventually consumed me… & just when I thought I was safe–

 I woke up, still in my draft overalls, with a sense of doom.

The Fantasy monster was back.

Act 1 (The Syndergaard Chapter)

We open on-

 The first day of Fantasy is like the first day of school & I knew I was going to run into my ex (Syndergaard) w/ my frenemy (The Palmballers.)

ALL I was hoping for was that maybe Noah wouldn’t look so damn good.

Instead, he went 6 scoreless innings against the Braves, complete w/ 7 Ks. 😥

I started Fantasy with regret & a points deficit.

I regretted playing hard to get & sleeping on Syndergaard @ the draft…

This regret was followed by quite a few more. Namely (in the order in which they were drafted by me)– Anthony Rizzo, Nelson Cruz, Hanley Ramirez, DJ LeMahieu, Chris Davis, Alex Bregman, & Carlos Santana. (I guess I was just being a power-hungry champ, blinded by big names…)

Don’t get me wrong, these are all excellent players. It’s just that, in a shallow H2H league, that kind of power is not hard to come by…

Act 2 (Drinking & Trading)

Close-up on me-

As mortals, we have to come to terms w/ the fact that we may never know the answers to some of life’s great questions, like-

Why did I draft 7 1B eligible players & only 3 closers, 1 of whom is currently serving a suspension?

Just as supply & demand can play a key part in strategy, drinking & bargaining can play a key part in healing a broken heart & an unbalanced team.

…Is what the drunk & desperate (me) think, so I sent out a group text-

‘This is just to let you know that I have begun drinking & contemplating trades…’

The smart & sober (Crabtree) took advantage by sending an incredibly uneven trade proposal, as I knew he would.

I countered & we wound up agreeing on Jeurys Familia & Jose Ramirez (from my team, the ‘Staches) for Seung Hwan Oh & Javier Baez (from the Cracker Jacks.)

Sure, that’s still an uneven trade, but I was in it for having another available closer sooner rather than later (just as Crabtree was in it b/c Oh had been f*cking up & he was Oh-ver it 🙂 ) & for a multi-position-eligible-back-up SS.

Act 3 (The Fantasy Pharma Bro)

Cue foreboding music-

Before I could regret my trade w/ Crabtree–

It was vetoed.

Yes, it takes 2 to veto, but only 1 Pharma Bro (The K-Town Selfie King & Hoaxer)-

Diabolical.

I thought… & genius. Of course it had been the Hoaxers’ plan all along to control the market on RPs (& use them to control his pitching stats) & SBs (he also targeted base stealers who hit for AVG @ the draft.)

His goal is to build a winning machine that, w/ careful managing (or, rather, w/ careful benching,) ALWAYS takes SBs, FPCT, AVG, OBP, Ls, SVs, ERA, & WHIP.

I knew the joke was on us-

The Hoaxer had(s) us all in compromising positions & for what he knows we will all eventually need-

He wants nothing but the best for himself (& his beautiful machine.)

…The trade negotiations that followed can only be compared to when you’re trying to break things off w/ a f*ck buddy after a bad break-up & subsequent dry spell-

You know it’s not a good look…

You say each time is the last time,

That you will not stoop any lower-

Yet, to each ‘You up?’ text, you find yourself responding…

Until you finally wind up offering Jeurys Familia & Christian Yelich for Alex Colome & Hector Neris.

That’s pretty slutty, so imagine my surprise when he rejected my offer & THEN SAID HE WANTED STARLING MARTE (my best/only shot at competing in SBs.) That’s just wrong.

I had to end the madness & put down the phone.

Epilogue (The Karma DL)

Sometimes, after a difficult ordeal-

It’s just you & your monkey…

So, I took a long, hard look @ my roster, made some moves (including dropping Hanley Ramirez, DJ LeMahieu, Chris Davis, & Alex Bregman & picking up James Paxton, Cam Bedrosian, Odubel Herrera, & Elvis Andrus,) & I wound up winning my week 1 match-up against the Palmballers, 7 – 4.

As for my DL spots-

Shortly after sending this text (directed @ our league’s newbie, my match-up this week)-

…I found myself putting Jackie Bradley Jr. & Buster Posey on the Karma DL-

Something someone else I know should be wary of, ’cause guess where he’s going when the time comes…

😉

Here I Go Again (On My Ooown,)

Your Grl On Base