(*) MASTER NOTES: Admit it, it's over

I have been tossing around a bit research that has made it into some radio conversations over the past month. The research says that fantasy teams in fifth place or lower at the end of April have only a 20% chance of winning, at best. The further down you are in the standings, the lower your odds.

The research is backed up at the major league level. Since 2002, only 23% of teams that were more than three games out of first place on May 1 went on to win their division. Three games seems like nothing to overcome, but there it is. (You can track back the standings by date yourself at ESPN.com.)

So put yourself in Paul Goldschmidt's shoes right now. You've just come off of a breakout season. Your whole career is ahead of you. Opening Day brings the promise of new beginnings and the chance for your team to contend.

And then the Diamondbacks go SPLAT.

This is not just a little splat, mind you. This has been one big HUGE HONKIN' SPLAT at the beginning of a season. If you're Paul Goldschmidt right now, all you see is that you still need to go out there every day for the next 22 weeks and your team can't see first place without a telescope.

At the highest levels, Diamondbacks management is likely doing its best to spin this state of affairs so that attendance doesn't plummet. Marketing is a wonderful thing. Some of you who are Diamondbacks fans are probably thinking, "There is always a chance the team will turn it around, right? After all, it's only May. There's lots of time! There's always hope!"

Hope, yes. But realistically, the baseball season has already ended in the Arizona desert.

You see, since 2002, there have been 22 teams that ended April at least 9.5 games out of first place. Guess how many made it to post-season?

None. Not a one.

If we cast out our net a little further and include teams that were 9 games out, we add four more. Of those 26 teams, only one sniffed October. In 2006, Minnesota opened the season 9-16, nine games out of first. They ended up backing into a division title by a game over the Tigers, which lost their last five in a row. Then the Twins went three-and-out in the ALDS.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement for hope.

But that's all we've got, right? That slim glimmer of a happy future that baseball fans have been clinging onto for decades.

How's that been working out for you?

On page 58 of this year's Baseball Forecaster, we define Hope as "a commodity that routinely goes for $5 over value at the draft table." Clearly, it was hope that pushed Bryce Harper into the first round in this year's drafts. For all you Harper owners, you got what you deserved.

Hope is overrated. Hope has no substance. It has no place in sabermetrics or any corner of intelligent analysis. It's empty.

Songwriter Ben Folds tells us:

"You know what hope is?
Hope is a bastard
Hope is a liar
A cheat and a tease
Hope comes near you?
Kick it's backside
Got no place in days like these"

My Tout Wars team is in 12th place with 26.5 points, about 10 points out of 11th. It is not an unfamiliar spot for me. My teams often start slow and then I spend a Herculean effort to move up. And I always do, and I will again. I have never finished in last place in my life, and I won't this year either.

But I'm not going to win. If this was a money league, odds are I won't taste the cash. I might grind it out for the next four-and-a-half months to finish... 7th. In all the years of grinding out bad starts, I have finished as high as 2nd. Twice. I suppose that was worth the effort, but as former Tout and current Rays scout Jason Grey always said, "second place is first loser."

Winning is everything, but that's clearly not happening in two of my three experts leagues this year. Everything we do is about percentage plays, and the current standings say that it's over in Tout Wars. It's over in the XFL. And neither hard work nor hope is going to get me anywhere in either of them.

It's a slap-in-the-face reality check. Some of us are just not going to win this year. And yes, at this early point of the season, we do know. I know. Ben Folds knows. And if they are willing to come to terms with reality, Paul Goldschmidt and the Arizona Diamondbacks know too.

It's over.

 

 

 

So, what now?

Sigh.

Well, we keep on playing.

Why?

Because we are idiots.

No, no... we keep on playing for the sake of sportsmanship. We keep on playing because winners never quit. And losers never win... or quit... if they ever hope to become winners... um... Heck, we keep on playing because it's the American Way!

I don't know. Why do we keep on playing if there is really no hope to win? If the percentage play is really 0%, why bother?

I suppose because there are occasional miracles. It's that one-in-a-million happenstance when the Red Sox come back from a 3-0 deficit, facing Mariano Rivera, to win four straight against the Yankees. It's that 9th place fantasy team, 40 points back at the All Star break, that makes a second half run to a title behind Javier Vazquez. And, I suppose it's the simple joy of just playing, regardless of winning or losing. There may be no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but the rainbow is pretty damn nice on its own.

And I suppose, no matter how remote the odds, is there really such a thing as 0%? Even at 0.0001%, Jim Carrey reminds us, "so you're telling me there's a chance."

So we play on, but it's not about hope. Even when there won't be a championship, we'd like the chance to be spectator to one of those occasional miracles.

Maybe hope is a bastard but miracles do happen.
 

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