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Fantasy Baseball and Opportunity

I have played fantasy football for at least four or five years before I played fantasy baseball because, well, I didn't have many friends who knew enough about baseball to play fantasy. Aside from bragging rights, fantasy football is rather boring. Not football itself, but just the slowness of it. You draft your team, and your players are who you have, essentially. You set your lineup and forget it. Every year, there are a small amount of players who come virtually out of no where to produce big time numbers and help you to the postseason or a championship if you're lucky enough. Sometimes it's one player, sometimes more, and it's impossible to predict.

Who could have predicted that Alfred Morris could go from afterthought prospect to one of the best players in the NFL? If you don't follow the NFL you probably have no clue what I'm talking about, but I have a point, I promise. I'm debunking the myth that in fantasy baseball there are less breakout players out of no where than in the NFL. This may not be a *real* myth, but from what I've heard from friends and baseball writers, they seemed to share the same sentiment that fantasy football is more about being opportunistic than drafting the right players.

If you were lucky enough, last season you either had the opportunity to pick up a free MVP or you drafted him really late and stashed him. If you weren't so lucky, you saw someone else do the same and reap the rewards. If that guy wasn't you, I apologize, and hopefully you've recovered by now. If not, then I suggest you to not take fantasy baseball so seriously. Then again, I wouldn't know because I actually owned Mike Trout last year.

Even if you missed out on Mike Trout, hopefully you could have gotten in on the breakout party. Other players who broke out in 2012 in no particular order, include Chase Headley, Edwin Encarnacion, Chris Sale, Josh Willingham, Bryce Harper, Kris Medlen, and the list goes on. There are plenty of opportunities to help win your leagues whether it's low draft picks, savvy waiver wire pickups, or just a rookie stash.

I always thought fantasy baseball was more of a calculated fantasy game, rather than complete randomness. While there isn't complete randomness, if you picked up, say, Chase Headley and Kris Medlen last season, your team vastly improved. When you see a player have a hot April, or even a first couple weeks to the season, don't worry about whether you should pick them up or not, you definitely should. The worst that could happen is that you lose a waiver move, or some free agent acquisition bucks on a player who isn't that great. It's also well worth that small risk to get the next MVP or a very solid player. Tomorrow, I'll go more in depth on opportunity and what exactly you(and myself) missed, or hit, on.