Outjury Would Be a Better Name Than Injury

[DOUGHBOYS]

I get a kick out of somebody being drafted, then have that drafter state, 'I think this will be an injury free year' or something to that end.
This reckoning is based on zero per cent information, 100% hope.
We all know the trade off. If Troy Tulowitzki never got hurt, chances are that he'd be a top three pick every year.
But he does.
That's the reason he falls in the first round. Usually to that first drafter who 'thinks' he'll be injury free. Most of us know he won't. His position kicks his ass.

I took Carlos Gonzalez with the eighth pick of the Pre-mature Draft. Already, I am having buyers remorse.
The Rockies want to move CarGo to center field this year. Just what CarGo needs, a larger chance to hurt himself. Not to mention that he has opted against a surgery he probably would be better off having.
Seemingly small things, like a move from left field to center and choosing to have nature mend a finger and not a surgeon add up.
Like Tulo, CarGo would be one of the first players off the Boards if not for injuries.
As is, he has become a five month player, seemingly allergic to September when his drafters need him most.
Plain talk, CarGo is a yearly tussle.
Like Tulo, his numbers scream for him to be drafted, only to have drafters scream once he hits the dl.

We like to call it risk/reward. We tell ourselves that ANY player can be hurt at any time, not just fellas like Tulo and CarGo.
For fantasy, with players going out of our lineups, injuries should be called outjuries.
Anyway, we call it risk/reward, but really, it is a calculated risk.
It's a little like planning a cross country car trip.
Do we take the Corvette Convertible that spends a lot time in the shop?
Or do we take the slower Honda Accord that's hardly spent a day in the shop?
The ride would be so much cooler and we, ourselves, feel cooler in the Corvette.
We also know, we'd worry every night about making our destination without something bad going on under the hood.
Tulo and CarGo are Corvettes. Cano and McCutchen are Accords.
Sure, something could happen to the Accord, but that likelihood is far lesser than the Corvette.

Matt Harvey had Tommy John surgery. It could happen to any arm. At least we say that now. As drafters, we are suspicious.
If Zack Wheeler needs Tommy John this year, we start raising questions. The first of which will be, are the Mets doing something wrong with their pitchers?
And through no fault of his own, a drafter may bypass Jonathon Niese.
I read an article in a medical magazine that a pitchers arm is not designed to throw the ball as hard as it is being thrown now.
They predicted surgery for any pitcher who's arm speed exceeded that of a certain point.
After reading it, I didn't have much appetite for drafting Aroldis Chapman.
Since, I've realized that Tommy John is like the common cold, it's going to strike each year and get somebody.
We don't know who.
We are at the mercy of luck in whether that pitcher will be on our roster or not.

The worst injury for a fantasy player is a player who under performs for a month or two, then gets hurt and is out for the season.
This player does not have the opportunity to rectify his numbers, and we're left with a wreck to fix.
Sometimes, an injury would unknowingly save us. BJ Upton owners would have preferred Upton to run into a fence and break a leg in the first game of last year.
A thought that, I'm sure, has Upton drafters grinning right now.

Roto World does its best to let us know about injury, but some reports need to be read between the lines. Never trust what a player SAYS. The player only says what fans want to hear or perhaps even what HE wants to hear.
Most of the time, it'll be stuff like, 'I'll be back tomorrow' or 'I expect to play the first day eligible'.
Kevin Youkilis is the King of saying something, doing another.
In my mind, he is at his locker telling reporters, he can't wait to get back on the field and in the Managers office five minutes later telling him that his injury may be worse than thought.
I now don't care what Youkilis does on the field or off, because I know he'll never be on my roster and never a worry to me.

If fearing an injury to your player, watch him. I benched Miguel Cabrera for most of the last three weeks of this year.
He made me hurt just by watching him. Cabrera would have been better served with a dl stint than playing.
If I, as a fantasy owner am playing my 15th best offensive guy in replacing Cabrera, really, why is Cabrera playing at all?
Hanley Ramirez played in the playoffs with a fracture. He struck out and grimaced almost every time up.
I admire Hanley for wanting to play, I do. At the same time, Mattingly and Leyland were only playing Cabrera and Hanley hoping for a miracle.
They were playing Miggy's and Hanley's bodies and getting Don Knotts results.
It was plain to see that both were hurting their teams, not helping.

I used to think a strong NFBC bench would get me through injury. And it did in the past.
Now, the injuries come to fast. Now, the bench is just a band-aid for a broken leg. We can't think of our team in seasonal terms any more. We have to think of them as a week to week entity. And like it or not for those who wish it didn't take so much time, FAAB becomes larger and larger.It's not a good thing for anybody.
It was one of the reasons I liked the one pitcher replacement rule on Friday.
Some folks are under the impression that there is no streaming in the NFBC. Dead wrong.
Fantasy Managers use FAAB to stream pitchers. Every week of every year.
With a one pitcher replacement on Fridays, that streaming could come from their bench and less streaming would be done with FAAB.
The one pitcher replacement could have been a big help with the injury factor and I'm betting a rule that is just too soon for its time. I'm guessing it will be in effect as soon as next year or the next.
The multitudes of injury will see to that.