Reading Between The Lines

[DOUGHBOYS]

Whether we like it or not, we're a slave to rotonews, no matter the site we use. In the e-mail draft just finished, I drafted a fella that I had never heard of 10 minutes before I picked him for the draft. He had escaped Cuba and was coming to America.
It was the 49th round of the draft. A time of the draft where 'what the Hell' replaces common sense of earlier picks.

Rotonews can sometimes be beneficial, sometimes a heartache. It depends how we read between the lines. Last year, during the Main Event, it was reported that Jason Motte had a small tear. As for myself, I don't care how teams describe a 'tear'. A tear is a tear. He was off my radar. Others took him knowing of the small tear and hoped for the best. Others drafted him without knowing of a problem at all. They didn't check their rotonews.

No matter how we feel about the rotonews, we still have to check. Constantly. We have to do our due diligence. We become a kid with a decoder ring. We have to determine what is important in these reports. A few things I pay no or little attention to are opinions by writers or coaches or managers.
Opinions mean little. Very little. When it comes from a writer, they are only trying to put two and two together. We can do that.
When it comes to coaches or players, they will speak glowingly of their own players.
They have to.

In our e-mail draft, Travis Snider was picked in the 50th round. I think I've taken Snider a handful of times during his career. He was one of those guys who had coaches speaking of him as if he were going to be a superstar.
"The ball makes a different sound when it comes off his bat". That statement was made by more than one of his coaches.
To a fantasy player, it doesn't matter WHAT the sound is. It matters WHERE the sound is. And in Snider's case, that where has been mostly in the minor leagues.
The same can be said for pitchers. A coach will say that, "That catchers mitt was popping when he threw".
So what?
Catchers mitts have different sounds. I've heard high school pitchers make catchers mitts pop.
Grandioso statements, signifying nothing.
We can't blame these coaches or managers. That player plays for their team.
It is much like drafting Troy Tulowitzki, with a message saying, 'I expect him to play 150 games this year'.
That is just part of being human.
We want the best for our kids, our players, and our fantasy players.
If Tulo had been taken by another guy, he may have laughed and snickered that he'll never get 100 games out of him.
Drafting him adds 50 more games.

Here are some of my thoughts on rotonews...
I totally ignore all trade rumors.They do not help me as a fantasy player and most are just outright wrong.

Managers like to smooth over injuries. Don't listen to what a manager says about a players injury. His lineup is what really does the talking.

Never, ever listen to a player about his own injury. I don't want to put our fearless leader in a bad light, but I think about him when seeing a player talk about an injury.
Players always say they'll be back in the least amount of time. If they're out of the lineup, they'll be back tomorrow.
If they're DL'ed, they'll be back right after the 15 days are up.
I think about Greg during this, because he sets timetables that are never met. For instance, Championship Drafts will start after the World Series, that turns to November, that turns to the middle of November...you get the picture.
There is nothing wrong with this, Greg and players always WANT to do things with the earliest time frame possible, it is just not do-able.
Thankfully, most players are like Greg and have our best interests at heart, folks who believed Corey Hart do not Heart Hart.

Because a guy's name is mentioned in rotonews, it does not make that guy any better of a ball player.
Chris Volstad's name was mentioned the other day and a fellow asked where he'll be drafted.
To me, he has a better chance of being drafted into the Army than my fantasy team.

Pay no attention to opinion's about where a free agent will sign.
We all have opinion's and these opinion's are probably no better than yours or mine. Players go where the money is.
They rat's ass a park that would benefit them more and young players especially, do not care if a team is a winner or not.
To them, it is about $$$ and we have no idea who is offering the most money for anybody.
The last two years, the Angels 'surprised' everyone by signing Pujols and Hamilton. For some reason, we think players like these will sign back with the teams that may be losing them.
The Cardinals and Rangers can now thank the Angels for a possible grievous error.

Sometimes our own opinions suck.
I was of the opinion that after the season, Carlos Gonzalez would have surgery on his thumb. A thumb that had him missing another September. I swear that when CarGo gets those promotional calendars in the mail, he tears out September.
Anyway, my opinion backfired. He's not getting surgery unlike Dustin Pedroia who is getting surgery.
Now, I know these two injuries are probably totally different. But we as fans and fantasy owners feel better if our player gets things fixed during the off season.
In our minds, Pedroia has a new thumb in March.
CarGo does not.
CarGo could have a re-occurrence of thumb issues or worse, a chronic injury for the 2014 season.
In my mind, Pedroia was pro-active. CarGo was lazy.
My opinion sucked because I picked CarGo in the Pre-Mature Draft. It'll be the only time I take him in the coming year.
Some players think that time heals injuries. Most of us who are banking on these players don't trust time.
It doesn't work that way, especially for players who already have the tag- Injury Proned.
If a doctor tells a pitcher he needs Tommy John, we think that pitcher should get the surgery the next day. We know that time doesn't help and will never draft a player that does. We trust the player, we don't trust time.

I slap myself for taking CarGo and his thumb when I should be slapping myself for taking him at all. Sometimes numbers cloud our judgment. When CarGo is 100 %, there are few players that can put up his numbers.
The problem being that CarGo has to be 100 %. He doesn't play well at 90 %. He doesn't play at all if lower.
Its been said that health is a skill.
What about guts?
Pedroia would play at 10 % if it helped his team. His owners knew the thumb was a drag on his power, but they were appreciative of the other four categories, and certainly the Red Sox and their fans appreciated the effort.
I won't be drafting Yasiel Puig this year. I don't need the headaches. He's going to have seven coaches and 24 other players coaching him this year and still, he'll be suspended, hurt, or just plain act like a baby.
While Pedroia was going back for second helpings on grit, Puig was standing in the entitlement line for seconds.
Puig has the body of Adonis and the brain of Jethro Bodine.
Puig was made for daily leagues. He's a one night stand. The girl we meet at a bar that won't quit talking, but we can overlook that for one night to get to that body. There is just no way we could put up with that for a year though, no matter how outstanding the body is.

And, I've rambled on again. Starting with rotonews and ending with Puig.
So I'll end with this little snipet from a rotonews site.....

'Reckless driving charges against Yasiel Puig were dismissed in a Chattanoogan court on Wednesday.

Puig was pulled over driving 97 mph in a 50 mph zone back in April when he played for the Chattanooga Lookouts. Judge David Bales read a letter from Dodgers' Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Lon Rosen that called Puig "an asset" in the Los Angeles community, citing his charity work. The judge said he wasn't giving preferential treatment to Puig because he was a baseball star. Puig had a clean record prior to the incident.'

The judge said that he wasn't giving preferential treatment to Puig because he was a baseball star.
However, it did make me wonder if Puig's name could be found on the Judge's Championship fantasy roster.