Attrition And Its Bitches

[DOUGHBOYS]

Fantasy baseball covers every spectrum of our personality. We laugh, cry, love, hate, adore, despise, surprise, matter of fact, yell, and are somber. No other hobby does that. A gardener does not yell at plants, hoping for quicker growth. A stamp collector only deals with non- moving parts. Our hobby lets us 'enjoy' every emotion.

During drafts, we start feeling a kinship to our players. We'll defend them against others who don't seem to care for them. We'll exaggerate their virtues. We may even exaggerate them so much, that it becomes laughable to others. We'll exclaim that we have a 20 game winner of a pitcher taken high in a draft. Optimism always runs higher as we're drafting or just concluding a draft. It is the only time, really, that a fantasy player can enjoy optimism.

When the season begins, that optimism turns to reality. We find that there are a lot of parts that go into our players being successful. First on the list being, attrition. The word is hardly used during drafts. Attrition is something that happens after the draft is over. Even during a draft. Cole Hamels in the fourth round was a good idea. One RotoWorld report later, and we see Hamels being taken in the seventh.

During or after drafts, some like to make projections. They may assign their star pitcher 20 wins and then work their way down their staff assigning Win totals, like they're sure to happen.
Then, attrition gives them the finger.
On average, at least a third of 50 players (I made that number up, but it sounds about right)drafted in a Draft Championship will be rendered useless. There'll be injuries, benchings, players suspended, players sent down to the Minor Leagues, or players who retire, or don't catch on with a team.
Attrition has already begun. Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Dempster, Barry Zito, Mark Mulder, Kevin Youkilis, Franklin Gutierrez, and others are already rostered by unsuspecting drafters this year.


We can argue whether a pitcher will win 20 games or not, but it's silly. First things first, we want our pitcher to not miss a start. We take this for granted when drafting them. We can forecast 20 Wins, not injury. Even though injury is more likely to happen.
Pitchers make less starts and throw less innings when they do start now.
Their Managers treat them like a Ming Dynasty Vase, ever careful not to break their prize.
Back in the day, pitchers were rode like horses to Championships. Now, pitchers are rode like Clydesdales, for folks to enjoy in short bursts.
This only seems to make things worse. More injuries occur now then back in the day.

At any rate, attrition effects us all. Attrition also is the cause for most of the emotions described in the first paragraph.
Attrition is like a hurricane blowing through a trailer park in Arkansas. We can only hope that we're the only trailer standing after the hurricane leaves. It plays no favorites. Yet, it does.
We can draft two shortstops and five 2B and pray that nothing happens to the shortstops, only to see three of our 2B get hurt, one suspended, and the other sent to AAA.
Attrition happens.

In a Draft Championship league, attrition is king. Sometimes, it is not who we have playing at the end of the year, it is HOW MANY.
Main Event drafts or 30 rounders are different. Attrition is soothed by FAAB. Instead of taking our lumps and using lesser players or no players, as in a 50 round draft, we spend imaginary money battling attrition. Some of us find that we are just as cheap with imaginary money as we are with real green. Others spend like there is no tomorrow, let alone September.
We draft Troy Tulowitzki and convince ourselves this is the year he'll be healthy. When realization sets in that the position of Shortstop has once again kicked Helen of Troy's ass, we can't wait for Sunday FAAB.
FAAB is our band-aid. Designed to fix our boo-boo's. The pain is still there, but at least we're going to get it patched up.
We find the list of shortstop eligible players and gulp. They can be described in one word.
Suckage.
We make the best of it, turn in our list before the deadline and wait a half hour.
The wait turns from the nuisance it was for the first 10 minutes to excrutiatingingly long ticks of each clock.
Dammit, we want to know who is starting in place of Tulo this week. We have plans to make!
20 minutes gone. We tell ourselves we're stupid for even thinking about it....then, we'll hit 'refresh' again.
Finally!
The results are here and we give ourselves a little fist pump. We got the top guy on our list.
We lost Tulo. We had to wait and suffer through FAAB. We had to pay $$$ for a lesser replacement.
And we now have... Jordy Mercer!
AND WE GAVE OURSELVES A FIST PUMP!!!!!
Are we mad? Are we stark-raving mad?
What the Hell kind of hobby is this?
If gardening, Tulo would be the rose destroyed, only to have the gardener celebrate the weeds that was Mercer, replacing it.
Yes, we are crazy.
Attrition is a bitch.
And worse, with our kind of behavior after attrition happens, we are all attrition's bitch.