If you’re a voracious consumer of baseball analysis – a judgment that, if you’re reading one of my articles almost three months before the season starts, I would deem fair – you’ve heard the following phrase plenty of times:

Better a year too early than a year too late.

This, of course, refers to older players’ inevitable decline. The sentiment is simple and sensible. You’d rather miss out on a player’s last good year in the sun than risk suffering through paying full freight on a season where the bottom falls out. It’s more common in the realm of actual baseball than fantasy, given the involvement of contracts – which some leagues do use – and millions of dollars – which…well. But it remains a decent guiding principle in our game.

Change the subject from “old quality player” to “breakout,” though, and that’s a special brand of pain –  regardless of format, but particularly in deep dynasty leagues. Take it from someone who watched Marwin Gonzalez, Aaron Altherr, Eddie Rosario, and Chase Anderson become highly relevant in 2017 after giving up on them in a super-deep 20-teamer filled with some of the best fantasy analysts around. That, uh, doesn’t help the ol’ rebuilding efforts.

It doesn’t even have to be somebody you rostered at one point before they turned into the player you thought they could be. It can be a worse feeling to have not done so. You’ll find yourself staring at another owner’s roster, filled with a mixture of envy, longing, and rage as he enjoys the fruits and future of the guy on whom you had your eye but didn’t pull the trigger.

Why, though? Why didn’t you snag that player at the end of the draft or pluck him off the waiver wire when you had the chance, if you really believed? Perhaps you didn’t truly think their chances were good enough. But the beauty and cruelty of the game is the host of reasons for this lack of decisive action on your part. Too many variables factor into the daily calculus of maintaining a roster to simply write it off as, “If you love it then you shoulda put a ring on it.”

For instance, many owners found themselves kneecapped by a spate of early injuries last season and in leagues that hadn’t revised their allotment of disabled list slots upward to anticipate the consequences of the new 10-day DL. It’s a lot harder to give an unproven guy a shot when your roster looks like an overcrowded M*A*S*H unit.

Maybe you were outbid. Did your feckless, Yankee-loving coworker dump his entire FAAB into Aaron Judge a week into the season or wait until just after you got stuck in Dollar Days to nominate Luis Severino in the auction? You might have had a lower waiver priority. Even worse! Your most bitter rivals now own Cody Bellinger and Jose Berrios for the next half-decade because you chose the worst possible time for yet another fruitless save spec add (Kyle Barraclough, we hardly knew ye). Perhaps you were sticking with a player you already had, either to your credit (Never doubted you for a moment, Justin Verlander!) or your detriment (Trevor Story, why hast thou forsaken me?). The possibilities for excruciating failure are truly endless! ¯_(ツ)_/¯

The point is, making the right calls early in the season can be tough, even if you’re an experienced player. You’re dealing with small samples, decision paralysis, and more cognitive biases than you can shake a stick at. All of which is to say, you gotta cut yourself some slack. You’ll never stop making wrong decisions, nor will forces stop occasionally conspiring again you when you’re on the right track for a change. As a wise man once said, “Existence is pain. Please enjoy Arby’s.” There’s too much happening out there these days that’s legitimately serious to get all twisted about this game. Besides, letting your emotions get the better of you is a surefire way to compound the error with more irrational moves down the line.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be over here totally not stewing about the time I waited five minutes too long to pick up Mike Trout in April 2012.

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