Don’t Give Up, Don’t Ever Give Up

I’ve done my fair share of bragging, so I wanted to go a different route today. On the “Ask An Expert” feature on RotoWire, I frequently get questions from people stating some sort of variation of “my team is tanking, this is my roster, should I start preparing for fantasy football?” Well, I could be asking myself the same question, as my team in my home league currently resides in dead last more than two months into the season. I’ve pretty much been there from the beginning, and I’m 61.5 points out of first place. Right now, the baseball season is approximately 38 percent finished, so the “it’s still early” excuse no longer flies.

No one wants to hear about my specific fantasy team, but in this case, I want to use my example to highlight a broader point, which is not to throw in the towel, no matter how bleak your current situation looks. I currently have a 1 in both ERA and WHIP. Here is some of my staff: Matt Cain, Chris Young, Brett Myers, Ted Lilly, Derek Lowe, Johnny Cueto, Pedro Martinez, Max Scherzer, Joe Saunders and Jonathan Sanchez. Now, it’s possible that group finishes with a 15 (its current total) in a standard 5X5 league, but I’d say the odds are greater they triple that score by season’s end than staying put.

Now, this doesn’t apply to keeper-leagues the same way; I recently lost David Ortiz, John Smoltz and Nick Johnson to injury in an 18-team keeper format, and I’ll now be looking toward next year (you hear me Staff League 1?). Again, my main point was bigger than my specific team, and maybe I’m overly optimistic in that regard, but really, it’s crazy to give up right now. Last year when June began, Ryan Braun was hitting .222/.214/.370 with one homer; he was a consensus top-15 pick in 2008. In Yahoo standard scoring leagues, Ryan Ludwick and Xavier Nady are currently top-25 ranked hitters. Shaun Marcum, Joe Saunders, Ryan Dempster and Justin Duchscherer are top-25 pitchers, all trailing No. 1 ranked Edinson Volquez.

If you are behind the eight ball and down in the standings, that just means you need to be extra diligent with pickups, lineup decisions and be sure not to make panic trades. And if you have trouble with this in your league by other members – that is, owners who completely neglect their team because of slow starts – one method of correcting this other than kicking them out is to deploy a tiered payout system. Increase your league entry fee, but make the payouts go to 80 percent of the league, giving incentive to those fighting for 5th-10th place. But I for one am not playing for 5th place. Don’t give up, don’t ever give up.