Jack's Flash - Patience is a Virtue

[Jackstraw]

So, now that I got school behind me, let’s pick it back up…



For me this time of year works out really well. As a professional student my life gels perfectly with the baseball season. During Christmas break I get to start reviewing and preparing. The beginning of the semester is usually a little sluggish so I get to spend a lot of time preparing for the draft. Then Spring Break rolls around and it will fall right inline with having to make the trip to wherever I’m drafting at.



Then it all hits the fan… During the time that we wait for the season to start, I try to get as far ahead of school as I can. The end of the semester is always the beginning of baseball season. It doesn’t matter how far ahead I get with school, it interferes with the season. The overlap of the two can be a killer… But not this season!



Instead of it being a curse this year, I’m making it a blessing in disguise. If you are listening to the radio or reading the news, everyone is preaching that the season is early and you can’t make any projections based on this small sample. Whether it is the real game or our fantasy game, they are right. This is the time of year that you need to practice patience more than any other. If you are like me and just make moves to be making moves (it is the remainder of the addiction to daily roster moves for me), then this time of the year can make or break you.



For instance, I had Rajai Davis in nearly every league that I am participating in. Over the weekend when I heard he was getting demoted, I went ahead and pulled the trigger on him. His numbers were really bad on a bad team, which doesn’t do much to make you think he is going to get any better. When the news came out, it was a no-brainer to cut ties with him. Well, a no-brainer for the impatient that is.



Immediately after dropping him in all but one league, the news comes out that he is heading across the bay to Oakland. It figures. And then he goes 3-4 with a triple. Geez! Will my impatience hurt? Maybe. Will it help? Yeah, for somebody else probably. Oh well, the best thing is not to dwell on it but move on.



It’s only a mistake if I don’t learn anything from it. Even though I shifted my focus back to school for a few weeks to keep me from making drastic moves that could hurt later in the season, I still made them. So for me, patience has always been an issue and I see that I still need to work on it. All of you guys that dropped Brian Bannister in Week 1 need to learn a little patience too. And everybody else whose dropped Brian Fuentes in the last two weeks, well it wouldn’t hurt you to learn a little patience either.



Just remember a few weeks ago everyone was counting the Tigers out. Uh, news just in… Detroit is good. And, Kansas City is mediocre. Way back in the beginning, I said hold off on betting Detroit, Kansas City, and Atlanta. There was something wrong with the picture. Now after they’ve played a reasonable sample size of games the picture gets clearer. Kansas City is a team on the rise. Like what we’ve seen with the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays, you can only go so many losing seasons without getting a little bit better. It is simple economics. If you don’t win, people don’t come see you. If people don’t come see you, then you’re losing money. Simple, simple, simple… It should have been easier to see.



Oh yeah, I know… Some of you seen it coming. I’ve participated in the Vegas AL auction league in the past and I know about Kansas City now. Kansas City is where the next great sleeper is going to come from. Yeah, right! Then why do Tampa Bay players always get bought for a higher average value? Because Tampa is where the next great sleeper is coming from, that’s why! If you really saw it coming, then you’re a Royals fan:O) Truth be known now, KC is good, not great, and it didn’t come from a sleeper. It came from a change in leadership.



Detroit didn’t expect them to be any good either and came in over-confident, cold, and underestimating the enemy. Trey Hillman did a great job of capitalizing on it. He got the team motivated and he made a lot of money for KC fans at the expense of everyone else’s wallet. Simple economics again… Winning makes people happy and happy people spend money:O)



Detroit had some adjustments to make. Cabrera needed to settle in, Dontrelle wasn’t used to pitching in a cold environment, Granderson suffered a stroke of bad luck, and Detroit lovechild Brandon Inge was about to lose his starting job. Finally they are starting to jive like everyone expected. I would certainly watch them to go on some long winning streaks as they revert back toward the expected norm.



The jury is still out on Atlanta.



The other team that I pounded on early was Oakland. They are proving me wrong right now, but it’s still early… As Detroit will go on to win game after game, Oakland will go on to lose game after game. Harden might get 15 starts this season. Street may get 20 saves. And Rajai Davis will be a flash in the pan for a little while, then he will hit the bench, and then late in the season when Oakland has finally crapped out Davis will get some playing time so that maybe they can help him learn how to hit. Or maybe he gets traded to one of the big dogs at the end of the season… Who knows? Don’t dwell on it.



Practice patience guys. Don’t come out betting big money early. Don’t make big moves on your roster early. Don’t give up on the season early on. Do like I did and find something to occupy your time to keep you away from making a big mistake out of just making a move to be making a move.