Therapy Soup for the Fantasy Soul

After the long grind, for many, it is a time to rest. A time to turn off your fantasy baseball brain for a few months, or maybe sink completely into fantasy football. Or, perhaps, just reintroduce yourself to those people who keep claiming to be your family. But one more important task remains before putting the 2022 season behind us – we must take stock, gleaning whatever lessons we can from both the highs and lows in search of a better process.

Now is the time to do so because as you sink into other endeavors, the memories will start to fade, with only the results remaining, while the path you took to get there fades into the background. But that path is what you need to remember for future success, noting what made things rough and where you ran downhill. Remembering you won or lost in 2022 won’t win you a single thing in 2023 if you don’t remember why.

With that in mind, let’s go through some of the lessons I learned and how I’ll apply them moving forward. Now, keep in mind, this is told from my POV and my strengths and weaknesses might not be yours. But the same line runs through all of it – Know your strengths, play to your strengths; find your leaks, plug your leaks.

This won’t just be a rundown of how I did in my leagues because that seems super boring, both for me to write and for you to read just two paragraphs before clicking back over to Jeff. Sure, we’ll talk about some results but the focus will be on the processes, both in terms of what went right or wrong in 2022, and what can be learned for 2023. And it also won’t just be lessons – we need to also get cathartic and do some primal screaming.

Yesterday, I treaded into the choppy waters of Reddit, imploring users to give me their tears so that we might drink them in the name of giving everyone a little therapeutic schadenfreude. If they suffered a bad beat or delivered one, I wanted their stories, for two-fold reasons.

For one, taking a little of the aforementioned delight in the pain of others can do wonders for putting any of your own losses into better context because hey, at least you’re not them. And for two, having a forum to speak your pain aloud is a good thing! Hell, some might even say that is an integral component of therapy – or, being a good partner, for that matter. Sometimes it just feels good to vent and have someone tell you, “wow, that really sucks”.

Bonus fold: Beats so bad they can only make you laugh are a good time for all, though, so let’s also intersperse some of the best (worst) examples from our Reddit friends, letting their tears wash away all our own shortcomings. And please, if you need any therapy yourself, feel free to add your pain in the comments. But do be aware that the current leader in the clubhouse of pain, “Trent Livingston”, will be hard to beat.

We gotta warm up to ol’ Trent, though – let’s start off with an appetizer:

The pain of needing just one measly RBI pulled out to the root by a real-life move you can do nothing about. I’m sorry, SwWayin. That really sucks.

Lesson #1: Take Delight in Victory, Find Delight in Defeat

You never know when your next championship will come, take pride every time you do. But if you lost a squeaker, don’t beat yourself up. And if you won a squeaker, or were a bad-beat deliverer, don’t let whatever “luck” got you to the finish line diminish the work that went into getting to the front of the pack to even have a chance to win.

Fortunately, while only having mixed success, no bad beats were delivered to me in 2022. I suppose I might have delivered one in winning a 12-team Best Ball that we drafted at FPAZ last October but that was more of a late-season surge than a brutal beat. Ok, who am I kidding – I probably would’ve been more than annoyed had the situation been reversed.

Shelly Verougstraete was near the top all season and had kept a dominant lead for most of the second half. No matter how well things went, I just couldn’t get closer than ~150 points. But remember in the last full week of the season when Anthony Santander went double-dong on back-to-back nights, with Jose Altuve joining him for one of them? Plus, three homers from Dansby Swanson? And Danny Jansen, J.D. Martinez, and Mitch Haniger all kicked in two? And Marcus Stroman, Nestor Cortes, Bailey Ober, and Joe Ryan all shoved for a total of 43 K and a 0.27 ERA over 33 IP? Sometimes baseball comes in bunches.

But even with taking pride in getting to the end, last-minute silver still stinks:

I’m sorry, cliffyw (and Shelly V.) That really sucks.

Lesson #2: Format for Success

I only started dipping my toe into the NFBC pool a few seasons ago, with a whole foot going in this past year. But I like to tackle new things with a wide berth and before going further, I need to pare my leagues down to the types I believe suit me best, instead of doing a little bit of everything. This might not apply to you now but for those looking to increase their fantasy gaming, figuring out which of the multitude of formats will work best for you should be of utmost importance.

2A: Nick Hates DC

Sure, I could’ve called this “Nick Hates Draft-and-Hold” but then how would it burn my friend Derek, who goes almost exclusively by DC, hmm? But seriously, this brand of fantasy is just not for me, whether Draft Champions on NFBC or elsewhere, as it undercuts some of my biggest strengths. Granted, my DCs this year were so hilariously racked with injuries that it was hard to do anything but laugh. I mean, what else can you do with teams that spent months having 25-30 players (of 50) on the IL?

You can only rename and move on:

That’s right – nine hitting points. Drink it in. Also, I just entered the first DC of the 2023 season on NFBC. So-oooo:

2B: Nick Hates Daily

Here lies Nick’s career in playing daily leagues. Once, Nick loved daily and thought some of his biggest advantages were in it, leveraging the minutiae of matchups and burning up the waiver wire. But that Nick didn’t have kids and this Nick does. And this Nick simply can’t hang anymore and has been basically donating money in his daily leagues the past two seasons.

It’s not that Nick…errr, I actually hate daily leagues, or DC’s. They both have their merits and aspects that I enjoy. But I have finite time for fantasy and am better served by focusing where I think I’ll have the most success. And that’s not in daily leagues and not in leagues without FAAB. Speaking of.

Lesson Three: Don’t Light FAAB on Fire

Okay, I’m probably being a little hard on myself. Last year, I made a habit of lighting FAAB bucks on fire but was looking to improve the process in 2022. And to an extent, I believe I did but was still too loose early in the season and was still in on too many call-ups. And while I cut way down on Saves chasing (another preseason goal), that damnable category still cost me way too many frivolous dollars in some leagues.

One thousand dollars seems like a lot in April but August comes quickly. While I don’t want to tone down any necessary aggression, I need to be more judicious early in order to have all of the September streaming bucks I’ll need.

Unfortunately, sometimes your best-laid plans quickly go to rot:

I’m sorry your genius move ended up less so, space_beatle. That really sucks.

Lesson Four: Keep Paying For Saves

For the first time in my life, I paid for Saves in 2022. For the most part, at least, leaving most drafts with two closers within the first 100 picks, using extra-early picks on Josh Hader/Liam Hendricks, and later ones on Emmanuel Clase, Jordan Romano, and Taylor Rogers. This was partly due to not wanting to do any of the aforementioned currency burnings but also as a bet on the number of full-time, year-long closers continuing to dwindle. Basically, I just got sick of screwing with Saves.

And I’m never going back, baby! Sure, the players have to actually work out but investing early picks in closers just made life so much less stressful. Less stressing about trying to decipher the tea leaves that are modern-day bullpens, less stressing about how much money to burn on the latest suspect closer in Oakland. Love it.

But besides eliminating stressors, elite relievers allow me to build rosters that best play to my strengths. And so I’ll hit the gas on them again in 2023, making sure to secure two top guys from the early goings.

Wait…What’s that? We’ve now entered the Davis Martin portion of our pain procedures? Okay, let’s get it over with:

Okay, okay; now we’re just piling on? Just one more? Okay, just one more:

Yikes, boolgates, I’m so sorry. That really sucks. And that goes for you too, Foldzy84, BoBoTheBezt, ArrivesLate, and anyone else who got wrecked with vengeance by Davis Martin. None of you deserved it and I’m sorry.

Lesson Five: Pocket Aces, Smocket Aces

Again, this is a strategy (taking two starters super early, sometimes in rounds 1/2) for which I see the appeal but just isn’t for me. My strength is pitching, both in terms of finding it on the wire and in the second half of drafts. Taking early aces undercuts this strength and I’ve consequentially ended up with too many teams that are imbalanced. Baseball will always baseball but I’m now fairly confident in being able to find solid pitching later in drafts, and short of that, getting lots of value from wire surfing. So I need to try and leverage this confidence as much as I can by holding back on elite starters in favor of continuing to pay up for Saves and attacking bats. Speaking of.

Lesson Six: All the Bats – But Also Maybe More

A boatload of injuries is easy to point to as being the cause of a lot of my anemic offenses, as the IL seemed to spend most of June and July treating my most-rostered player’s list like some sort of vision board. So even though having FAAB hits like Michael Harris II could stem some of the leakings, needing to find a neverending line of IL replacements in 15-team leagues generally doesn’t work out. But I can’t just blame it on injuries, as draft boards with the likes of Joey Gallo and Myles Straw, will certainly attest to. As will all the FAAB I burnt up trying to fix my holes by trying to catch lighting in a bottle. Spoiler: not much was caught.

While I failed to plug the large holes, I did become more adept at managing the smaller ones, getting better at anticipating platoon-based PA boosts. And those lessons I’ll carry into 2023. But with a pitching plan that involves few early starters and a pair of high-priced closers, you better believe I’m going to be hammering those bats.

Big starting bats? Yes. Big bench bats? Yes. Big bat bats? YES! All the bats. Bring them to me and let me eat them up. Nom-nom-nom-nom-nom-nom-nom.

Thinking about eating all of those bats is making me thirsty. Let’s wash all of these lessons down with a final batch of fantasy tears, mixing in some pain-makers with the pain-takers before getting back to our poor Mr. Livingston, still leading in his miserable clubhouse.

At least you probably didn’t have to do a fake writeup about a heartbreaking loss in which your favorite player let you down, like thebostinian:

I hope Lars9 can at least take solace in being the 1990s Braves of fantasy baseball:

An 1800-point lead not equaling money is some brutal math:

If you can believe it, this was not the only person to compare their fantasy baseball team to a certain real-life baseball team in New York:

Okay, enough appetizers. Mr. Livingston, this is your 30-second call.

It’s not that this is the most brutal bad beat of all time (though it is pretty awful) but the timing of everything is just a horrible cherry on top and made for just a terrible sweat.

The Situation: Going into the final day of the season, the categories were such that our guy TL only needed to win one of Ks, Wins, or RBI, holding a 15 K and 5 RBI advantage while being tied in wins.

First Blows: Framber Valdez and Marco Gonzales combine for 15 K and one win, with TL’s opponent moving into a tie in the former, and a lead in the latter, also tying things up in RBI.

The Sweat: One strikeout or one RBI and our hero is sunk. But while he doesn’t have anyone else going, luckily, his opponent is out of bats. Our villain does have a collection of bullpen arms but the brave Mr. Livingston watches all of their games go final, one by one.

All but one, that is. Just a lonely Dylan Floro remains standing in the way of fantasy gold. But huzzah! The Marlins are up by four in a meaningless game and Floro just pitched the day before…Why would Miami even put him in???

But then Jake Fishman entered the chat, allowing two hits in the bottom of the ninth and forcing Donny Baseball to make one final move. Gimmie the rightie, he (probably) murmured through the shadow of what was once a glorious mustache. Gimmie the damn rightie.

And so the sweat began, with everything hanging on the balance of a single strikeout. Robbie Grossman immediately started 1-2, with our intrepid hero forced to watch along on the ESPN gamecast, hoping with every refresh that he wouldn’t see a red circle with its ominous three. But Grossman worked a seven-pitch walk, followed by Guillermo Heredia lacing an RBI single. With one out and two on, suddenly our Mr. Livingston has picked up a few more outs – a two-RBI single might just bring the hook for Floro.

But after Ehire Adrianza lined out on the first pitch, it was all down to rookie Vaughn Grissom. A strikeout will bring crushing defeat, while almost anything else will bring gold.

Sweat, Part II – The Final Sweatening

Vaughn, of course, starts 1-2. And then the sweat continued for ten more pitches. Foul after foul after foul. But hey, at least the good news was that Grissom seemed intent on not ending his regular season with the bat on the shoulder.

Nope, if Grissom and his 70.7% Zone Swing% were going to go down, it would be swinging, not just staring at some cheese…

Game: Tears