There’s not much left to do. You’ve printed out the 2010 fantasy baseball rankings. You’ve paid attention when I went over my fantasy baseball sleeper posts. You even drew a mustache on your mirror so every time you look at yourself you look like me. The only thing left for you is actually taking part in a fantasy baseball draft. No sweat, you’ve been mock drafting for the last two months. First few rounds fly by. You’re cool with a capital Clooney. Rounds 5 through 8 come and go. Nothing to it! You pack a bowl for yourself for your glaucoma and shotgun it into your cat’s face. Round 9 comes, Adrian Beltre is drafted right before you and now the first bead of sweat forms. Where are all of the third basemen?
Suddenly, you’re burning up like you just chugged a bottle of Emeril’s Creole Seasoning. Worse, you have cotton mouth and have no time to go to the sink. Outside, it’s raining. Then “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink…” starts playing on loop in your head. Over and over again like a Lady Gaga song chorus. You look up at the draft timer and you have 30 seconds left. You look at the reflection of yourself in your framed supposed-to-be-ironic poster that reads, “The glass is half empty, deal with it” and you begin to sob. Not happy “I just won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar” sobs, but sad “Please let me out of your van; I don’t want my skin to be made into a suit” sobs. With three seconds left, you draft Chris Davis.
Immediately, everyone in the draft room begins to mock you. Nice reach, I think Matt Stairs is still available for your corner!… Hey, I didn’t know Bill James was drafting with us!… You suck! And, with that, you open the window to your bedroom and jump out. Luckily, you live on the first floor and only bruise your ankle. You limp back through the house, ignore your Mom’s take-out-the-freakin’-garbage complaints, sit back down at your computer and zombie your way through the rest of the draft. Only half paying attention because you know you screwed up the Davis pick.
It was a reach. You probably could’ve took Davis a few rounds later. But it’s not the ruination of your draft. Reaching is a part of drafting. If you’re not reaching for guys that you want then you might not know which guys you want. You don’t want to reach every single round, but sometimes it’s not only appropriate but it’s necessary. Wouldn’t you rather have a guy you want in the 9th round then a guy you don’t want in the 16th? Draw an emoticon on your hand and learn to smile again. It’ll be all right.
