Monday Rant: Hanley Ramirez is Sabotaging my Fantasy Squad

Hanley Ramirez is now concerned about his slump to begin the season.

“I know I’m going to get out of it,” he said. “At the end of the year, the numbers are going to be there.

“So I’ve just got to go through it right now and try to get out of it soon, get back on track.”

Hopefully that happens sooner rather than later. If you remember, I used the #3 overall pick in the draft on Hanley Ramirez. He’s burying me, along with the likes of Adam Dunn of course. But Hanley is a guy you need the production from. Especially when you leave a guy like Troy Tulowitzki on the board. Especially when I knew better, when I had talked with colleagues the week earlier and said that I know I needed to take Tulo over Hanley because something like this scared me about Hanley. Tulo seemed hungrier to me.

People want to keep preaching patience. They want to tell you that it’s early. But in  a money fantasy baseball league, teams aren’t easy to jump. You get the stats early and you take them and don’t look back. You don’t win leagues on what is supposed to happen in the future.

Right now, the numbers that Hanley has given me are meager at best. No longballs and 7 RBI’s. A .182/.299/.242 slash line in a league that counts all of those categories and walks. He’s scored four runs.

Tulo on the other hand, has provided his owner (well ahead of me in the standings) with 7 home runs, 16 RBI’s, and a .333/.430/.705 slash line. That’ll work from a shortstop.

So lets say I decide on the argument against Tulo. After all, I stupidly bought into the fact that he gets hurt; which I’m growing fairly certain this is the prime year of his that he plays in 158 games and is fine all year. The other guy I had my eye on was Ryan Braun. The only thing the Hebrew Hammer has done is go out and prove that he’s adequate competition to take home an MVP award over Tulo.

Braun has the 7 homers, 18 RBI’s, he’s stolen two bags and scored a league leading 21 runs. His slash line is gorgeous at .377/.479/.688 for the year and he hasn’t really gotten hot yet, he’s just working at the yeoman’s pace that he will probably toot along at all year.

Jeffrey Loria needs to have a wine and seafood sit-down with his shortstop and let him know that it’s time to get his shit together. Buy him another diamond pendant, kiss his ass, extend him until 2032 if you have to. Whatever it’s going to take to get this emotionally fragile player to start hitting his weight again and then some.

If I have to field one more trade offer for Hanley that amounts to a 4th tier outfielder and a 3rd starter for a last place club, I might have to shoot someone.

Monday’s are awful, and they’re even worse when your first round pick in a money league is killing you with his remedial 0 for 4 performances that amount to my team as a whole hitting around .221 collectively.

Dear Hanley, please get your shit together soon or I’m parking your ass on my bench daring you to spite me and replacing you with a slap hitter like Erick Aybar. No matter what you do for the rest of the year and the next two dreadful years after this one in which I am subjected to your moodiness and lack of hustle; I will never forgive you for April 2011, you goon.