BY ADAM RONIS
One of the reasons old school people don't like fantasy baseball is you are forced to root for your rivals. As a Mets fan, it's hard not to own a player from one of your rival teams in the NL East. The Phillies have three of the top offensive players in fantasy and the Braves have a few, too. Hanley Ramirez is also a top-5 player. How do you go about this?
It's one of the toughest things in fantasy. I own Jimmy Rollins in two leagues, Brad Lidge in one, Mark Teixeira in one, Jeff Francoeur in two, Brett Myers, Kevin Gregg and Jon Rauch. You can't discriminate in fantasy, although I do my best to avoid drafting Yankees. I own Bobby Abreu in two leagues and A-Rod in one. Besides that, I don't own any Yankees.
Here's an interesting scenario I hope never happens to me. Say you are playing in a head-to-head championship game. You have Jimmy Rollins on your team and he is up against Billy Wagner with the tying run at third and the winning run at second. If Rollins singles to score two runs, you win $2,000. If he doesn't get a two-run single, the Mets win the division and a playoff berth. If he comes through you win the money, but the Mets season comes to an end with no playoff berth. What would you root for?
Comments (9)
I gotta take the cash baby!!!
The Mets will get swept in the playoffs this year anyways, so might as well get some money for my baby momma's hair extensions...
No all jokes aside , I will always take a Mets playoff birth over winning a fantsy league but there are exceptions (depends on how high the prize is, I set my bar to 5Grand)
By the way have you ever owned Derek Cheater ???
I have never owned Jeter.
The money. Let's be real, I love baseball but I'm going to look at this just like the players do when they sign a contract. SHOW ME THE MONEY!!
Hey, what can I say I'm jaded because I live in Pittsburgh and have to deal with the Pirates year in and year out....
Wagner hanging a 3 pitch backwards K on Rollins; well worth 2 grand.
Adam, what you think of this trade: Sonnanstine and Burnett for Bonderman and Jered Weaver? I would get the latter and he just lost Buchholz. It's that to much of a low ball? I figure Sonnanstine's record will look nice.
The players dont care about me so I dont care about them. I want the money.
What would you root for?
I'm not high on Bonderman this season. Something isn't right with him. Sonnanstine is decent, but very hittable. I still like Burnett and Weaver. It's a fair deal.
Richie,
I'd likely root for the Mets to win. Hopefully, I'd be winning enough money in my other leagues to make up for it. What you are saying is correct, but I want to see my team win a championship. If the jackpot is a large sum, then I might change my mind.
It's easier for me to say because I'm not in a head-to-head league and I don't play for that much money, but I'd have to go with the Mets victory every time. At this point, it feels like I have a better chance of winning the lottery than seeing another Mets world series, so go with the scenario that gets you in the playoffs.
And for the record, I have a no-Yankees policy in fantasy. I try to stay away from Braves as well. Then again, I've never finished in first but I'd like to think that's unrelated.
I would say that anytime there's a choice between money and loyalty to a sports team it's a tough scenerio. I think everyone has a price. Like the movie ''Indecent Proposal" a married man is offered $1,000,000 to let a wealthy business man sleep with his wife. An entirely different scenerio but the same concept. I would have to say that if I was in a scenerio between winning $2,000 or my team(Mets) making the playoffs, I would say that I couldn't lose. Depending on how you look at it it's not such a bad scenerio, although it does cause a little schizophrenia. I would say that if I was in a scenerio to win $2,000 but the Yankees had to make the playoffs in order for me to win the money, lets just say that if I won the money I would still feel like I lost.