Blogs

Anthony Maggio

Fantasy Purgatory

June 24, 2007 1:07pm CDT

All of us fantasy sports veterans know the feeling.

You hop on to your league's website one morning about midway through the regular season and find yourself staring at a virtually insurmountable deficit with no real way to fix things or climb out of your hole. Injuries and failure to meet expectations has reigned supreme, and your few season highlights or big weeks have been largely overshadowed by the inevitable drops down the standings ladder.

Welcome to fantasy purgatory.

I finally succumbed to the realization of my presence among the fantasy non-elite in one baseball league this week, as my flurry of attempts to initiate trade talks have been ridiculed while my fair offers have been deemed inadequate for acceptance. It's a tough existence, especially when the waiver-wire cupboards are bare. There is certainly a feeling of helplessness when you head to your league's free agent pool searching for strikeouts and find only Wandy Rodriguez, Doug Davis, and Kip Wells waiting for you.

But I learned last week that being frantic about the situation will only make things worse. Remember, you're not going to win every league you play in. To be honest, that is the best approach to actually coming back and winning in leagues where you find yourself well out of the hunt in midseason. Allow me to explain…

In the second week of June, I was in trade discussions and a deal was laid out that would have me receiving Randy Wolf and Michael Barrett along with the guys I wanted Matt Holliday and Brad Hawpe for a collection of players that, for the most part, I did not want to part ways with. I nearly pulled the trigger simply because my team is desperate for the home runs, RBI, and batting average that the two Rockies would have supplied, but as my colleagues Ted and Pooch have previously explained in articles about Wolf and Barrett, both would have severely hindered my already underachieving club. Sure, I'd love to have Holliday and Hawpe, but by not making the deal I still have Russell Martin, Eric Byrnes, and a handful of other players who have actually been serviceable this season. There have been several more examples of teams trying to buy low on several of my injured/underachieving players (I'm talking about you, Lance Berkman) that I could have accepted if only to get a few numbers on the board quicker. Pulling off such deals may make you feel good about unloading a guy who has done nothing for you all year and adding someone who might help out immediately, but all you are doing is diluting your talent even further.

By getting rid of the guys you counted on back on draft day and picking up flashes in the pan, you aren't giving yourself a chance to win – you're giving yourself a chance to not finish last. When stuck in fantasy purgatory – as tough as it is to sit on your hands – sometimes the best thing you can do is just wait it out and hope that your merry band of injured underachievers plays to their potential in the second half of the season.

In my case I look at Berkman, Johnny Damon, and Stephen Drew and hope they can figure things out. Then I peer at my DL of Chris Carpenter, Mike Piazza, B.J. Upton, Randy Johnson, Lyle Overbay, and Adam Loewen and hope that a handful of them can come back and produce as expected. Sure, I'm asking for an awful lot to go right to end up in the money, but its better than the alternative of trading all of them away for the Barrett's and Wolf's of the world, only to watch my former underachievers turn it around and lead another team to a fantasy title.

That's not fantasy purgatory, that's fantasy hell.

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