Kicking Rocks: A Case of the Januaries

While the movie Office space made the phrase, “somebody’s got a case of the Monday’s” a modern day staple of the American workplace, I think it’s time someone in the fantasy baseball community made the adjustment and coined the phrase, “a case of the Januaries.” Because let’s face it, this month sucks, plain and simple. The GM winter meetings have come and gone, the majority of free agents have already signed, Spring Training isn’t for another month and a half, and the baseball news feeds are pretty much barren. The derivative distraction that is fantasy football is finally over and…well…neither the NHL nor the NBA come close to that glorious six months of MLB deliciousness. I’m bored. And boredom brings on depression. And depression brings on…the Januaries.

Obviously there are things you can do to help distract yourself…

You could spend a little extra time with your significant other, but really, she’s still mad at you for blowing off her best friend’s engagement party back in September because you had to be in front of the computer to make your waiver claims when the site rolled over at 3 AM. She says she forgives you, but when you’re sitting together on the couch, flipping through the channels and you pause for even a split second on the the MLB Network, you immediately hear that disapproving “tsk” and know that she’s going to bring it up again soon unless you put on her favorite show or start rubbing her feet. No thank you.

You can sit and click through a number of the sites you frequent during the season but most of them (FanGraphs excluded) don’t have the fresh content to get your juices flowing. Most of them are still doing all their behind-the-scenes work — getting their draft kits, magazines and upcoming season’s player rankings together. Sure, there’s some content, but in the end, how many times can you read about some idiot who keeps driving up Michael Bourn’s ADP?

Maybe you call up a buddy from your keeper league and try to talk strategy with him, but all he really wants to do is run down your players, talk about his own grueling decisions between a $4 Ryan Doumit and a $3 Wilson Ramos, and brag about how Matthew Berry re-tweeted his clever thought on the crappy officiating during the BCS title game. I don’t care how many Lagunitas IPA you’re sucking down to cloud your judgment; the conversation is getting old, and fast.

Mock drafts can be fun, but let’s face it…in the end they’re like a bad sexual experience. You get yourself all worked up about getting ready to draft, you pre-rank your players, dig out a couple of tasty sleeper names, jump into the draft room, throw out a few quips in the chat area, make some picks and brag about them, razz a buddy about some of his choices, you make it through 25 rounds of glorious excitement and then……nothing. You’re done. Finished. The team you just picked is going nowhere because there is no season. There is no league. Hell, these guys aren’t even yours. You can sit and analyze the roster grid in the end, the equivalent of a forced cuddle I suppose, but when it’s all said and done, you know this experience really just isn’t going anywhere.

No, this month just isn’t any fun. I need more baseball, both real and fantasy. I need position battles. I need pitching match-ups. I need boxscores. I need FAAB dollars to pick up another shortstop. I need all of that and I need it right now. Because all I’ve got going at this moment is a stupid case of the Januaries.