Hammer Away

Taking a break from the exciting world of steel sales, I have decided it is time to explain to the two people who accidentally clicked on this site and read all about our fantasy drafts the "hammer theory." I know what you're thinking, "What the hell is wrong with the authors of the website? I clicked on this to see some serious Yankee-bashing, and I read about someone drafting Matt Hasselbeck in the second round?" Deal with it. As an aside, my arm hurts. Not sure why. I appear to have bruised it at The Commish's wedding. Maybe TAD is angry that I (apparently) traded Clinton Portis to him for his fiancee a few weeks ago. Or, that I threw him under the bus when he informed his fiancee that he couldn't dance because he was engrossed in conversation. "It's OK man, I think keeping your lovely future bride happy is far more important, I think we're done here anyways."

So the Hammer Theory arose following to our Fantasy Baseball 2006 draft. Some background info. Bernie Williams, or Pasta-roni (in case you can't tell, he's super-Italian) had some less-than stellar keepers. Possibly due to the fact that his printed-out Yahoo sheet did a piss-poor job of selecting him a good team the year before. You know, because it doesn't necessarily take into consideration things like potential for the next year, offseason moves, dimensional changes to ballparks, etc. Relying instead on stats from the year before and overvaluing stolen bases and saves.

His one good keeper was Jake Peavy in the 6th round. Surprisingly good pick at that point in the draft, he must have had Peter Gammons on the phone at the time. Or he fell alseep and someone else made the pick for him. Fortunately for the defending champ of the league, Muffin Man, he opted to make his own offseason moves. Armed with the knowledge that starting pitchers are a complete crapshoot and help you twice a week in FBB, tops, he dealt a fifth round pick for the right to keep Roy Oswalt in the third round. For those of you keeping score at home, he would have three picks in the first six rounds. A tough task to beef up an offense whose backbone is Bobby Crosby.

Selecting 7th in the first round, and with the likes of Andruw Jones, Carlos Beltran, Aramis Ramirez, and Carlos Delgado available, BW opted to get the best fake pitching staff in the league, and drafted Randy Johnson. You read that correctly. At this point, five beers deep, I thought someone had slipped acid into my drinks. I was wrong. If nothing else, it gave me the opportunity to ask every subsequent round if Randy Johnson was still available, because I would be willing to "take a flier" on him in the 13th round. His logic (seriously): "I wanted to build the best pitching staff in the league." (The other two picks he made in the first six rounds: Carlos Beltran and Billy Wagner. Yep, another pitcher.)

In any case, a few months later, I developed the now-famous Hammer Theory. It went something like this, (please note: the original transcript has been lost, as I had been drinking heavily and none of the other people in the room were responsible enough to write it down)...

"It's like if we were all on a desert island, and we each had our own supplies. So we've all got some stuff, like meat, clothes, water, matches, etc. Except that Bernie Williams has two hammers. Now don't get me wrong, this is helpful in building a home, or smashing in someone's skull or whatever, but it's really only useful once in a while.

So, let's say a box of supplies lands on the island, and we're dividing them up. And we're all taking some food, and some water, and Bernie shows up and says, 'Oh look, a hammer. I want the best hammer collection on this island, I'll take that hammer.'

Someone says, 'You know that you have no food or water, you know, stuff that keeps you alive.'

He replies, 'You'll see. This hammer collection is going to keep me alive the longest.'

And it's not even a good hammer. It's like, one of those stupid hammers that has the ronded edge instead of the pry-bar. And the handle is kind of rotting, and it's all rusty and looks like it might crack. There was a nice, stainless steel hammer available in the box, but he liked the hammer because it had an orange handle, which is his favorite color."

So, yeah. Basically, BW's draft strategy is to become the strongest at a position with the lowest concern from other managers. Good stuff.