The Why and the Where vs. The Who and the When

[DOUGHBOYS]

Ever notice how pitchers are no longer 'wild'?
Now, they have issues with their location. Ugh.
Pitchers can only 'suck' to their owners or fans.
To their Management, they are having trouble with their mechanics.
Or tipping pitches.
Or hiding injury.
Admitting that a pitcher sucks is last on the list.
Right now, Matt Harvey sucks. So does Sonny Gray.
As fantasy owners, we care little what the problem is. We only know that we have bad stats in our bank accounts.
We don't care why. We want to know when this problem will be fixed.

The word 'why' is something we think and worry about during drafting season. We want to know why a player accumulated the stats he did. It may influence us in who we select in drafts.
During the season, we want the stats.
We don't care why Matt Carpenter had six rbi from the leadoff spot.
We don't care that Chris Carter struck out three times in going one fer four with a homer. We care about the homer.
We don't care that Khris Davis has a 40/5 k/bb ratio. He hits homers.

During playing season, we no longer should care much about where.
We can't help where our players play or pitch in most of their games. During drafting season, San Diego pitchers and Rockies hitters looked more appetizing. But, they were overdrafted and what we have on our rosters is what we have on our rosters. We can bench our pitchers throwing in Denver and bench hitters in San Diego (more about that later). We make decisions based on what builds our stats. And in the long run, where we get those stats from is of little concern.

During drafting season, why and where are influences. They make us assemble the players in the order that we do.
During the season, who[/i and when take precedence.
Who we have drafted cannot be changed. We have to live with Harvey, Gray, or whatever other choice we regret.
Once rostered, no matter their excuses, we have three options.
Start 'em, bench 'em, and toss 'em.
When is almost as important. We want our players to get hot while they're in our lineup. We want them to be non-productive when on our bench. We want them to be suspended or have paternity leave with notice and while rostering a player at their position to take over for them.
Getting notice about a suspension or paternity leave when a lineup cannot be changed drives fantasy players nuts.
Timing is everything.
I know, I had Brandon Crawford on the bench this past hitting period because of 'where' (San Diego) he was hitting.
When I have two homers on the bench, I feel like an idiot. I call myself an idiot. And even when I'm talking to my wife or friends, I'm still thinking, You benched Crawford...Idiot!'

Timing effects us with unknown leave too. We don't know when Rougned Odor will serve his time.
A ruling could come today, tomorrow, or next week.
We can only fortify our 2b positioning and be as ready as possible when it does happen. Our job is to lose as few games as possible. And the greed in us wants him to be suspended when his team is facing six southpaws that week.

When a pitcher has a two start week is a big deal for us.
We would like those two starts at home against Atlanta and Atlanta, please.
But, we never get our wish. That would make it tooo easy.
So instead, we decide between a mediocre pitcher at home vs. Minnesota or our best pitcher with two starts, on the road against Boston and the Cubs.
That's just how the fantasy Gods roll.
Then watch the game, just knowing that whatever we did, we did wrong.