What Went Wrong?

Welcome to Championship Week in Fantasy Baseball. If your team is currently fighting for the league trophy; this article is not for you. Nope. This article is for the majority of fantasy owners that fell short of the gold this season. Did you fight valiantly only to fall in the playoffs; or did your team crash and burn from the start? In either case, something went wrong for your team this season. Even though the sting of defeat is still fresh, there’s no better time to look back on your draft to figure out why your team isn’t fighting for the gold this season.

You made terrible picks

Let’s face it, you expected Hanley Ramirez to win the NL MVP, Carl Crawford to single-handedly carry the Boston Red Sox and Adam Dunn to hit 50 home runs. In retrospect, there’s no way you are drafting those guys again. Going back and realizing that you chose the wrong guys is frustrating in that — even though no one predicted those players to struggle this much — you failed as an owner. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do to prevent this from happening in next season’s draft. You can research guys as much as possible, but you’re still going to draft some guys that fail to live up to expectations. Better luck next season.

The injury bug struck

You probably came out of your draft loving Adam Wainwright and Brett Anderson as the anchors of your rotation. Justin Morneau had enough time to recover from his concussion, right? Every team deals with injuries throughout the season, but some are clearly worse than others. Certain teams can get by without Josh Hamilton for a month; losing Wainwright for the entire year is a huge blow. On top of that, the injury bug could care less about the timing of the fantasy playoffs. Hanley Ramirez was shut down early this season, and Rickie Weeks barely played down the stretch — likely causing many fantasy teams to scramble for last minute replacements. This situation can be somewhat prevented next season. Obviously, injuries are going to happen — some of which we cannot predict. In the cases where guys have a history of injury — or are coming off an injury — make sure you pick up a solid replacement.

Luck dragons

Perhaps the most frustrating of all the fantasy ailments; luck dragons. You studied up before the season, picked out your best sleeper candidates and coasted all the way to the top seed in your league. Your team looked like the juggernaut of the league and there was no way you were going to lose to the six seed. Then, your team decided to hit .203 and all of your pitchers picked this week to implode. Luck dragons can be particularly frustrating because you succeeded as an owner only to see your team blow it in the end. Unfortunately, there’s no cure for luck dragons at this time. You drafted pretty well, and it’s not your fault that bad luck struck at the wrong time.

So for all of you suffering from fantasy frustration right now; where did it all go wrong? While things may seem dreadful now; trust me when I tell you “it gets better.”