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It’s almost time to pick your fantasy baseball team—which means it’s almost time to encounter the cast of familiar characters that seems to find its way to the table at every auction or draft.
Old-School Guy: No fancy laptop computers for him! This guy eschews modern technology in all its forms, arriving with a stack of well-thumbed draft guides and a bunch of pages hot off his dot-matrix printer. If anything has happened to a player since early February, he knows nothing of it. This can be infuriating—but it also presents an opportunity that may be difficult for other participants to resist: “Whoa, Old-School Guy, are you sure you want to draft Ryan Braun first overall? He was eaten by wolves last Thursday.”
Already Picked Guy: Despite easy access to newfangled inventions like spreadsheets and pens, this guy keeps trying to draft players who’ve already been selected. You know the guy I’m talking about—the one who in the sixth round declares with total confidence: “I’ll take Miguel Cabrera.” Bombarding this guy with profanity and flatware is not enough: Many leagues impose penalties for this transgression. But the sanctions should range in severity. For instance, if he tries to draft a player who was selected more than five rounds earlier, the penalty should be a year of Jeff Francoeur on his roster. It’s the only way he’ll learn.
Drafts Mostly Blue Jays Guy: Every fantasy league in Canada has at least one—but it’s better when you’ve got two. There’s nothing more enjoyable than watching a pair of grown men race to nab Colby Rasmus in the fourth round. It’s easy to see the appeal: Whoever lands Rasmus will be able to watch all 154 of his strikeouts on TV.
Knows Everything Guy: He can always be relied on to pipe up instantly with factoids that undermine your selection. “Hey, you know he’s hitting .171 in spring training, has a wonky ankle and plays Adele in the clubhouse, right? You still want him?” Knows Everything Guy eats, sleeps and lives baseball—yet somehow always finishes in the middle of the pack, a fact that gnaws at him all off-season and will send him to an early grave. Ha ha.
Guy Who Disappears for Half an Hour and, Upon His Return, Demands to Know the Last 17 Guys Taken: “But dudes, I needed a smoke!”
Too Much Stuff Guy: A metre-high stack of magazines. Two computers. About a thousand sheets of foolscap. Three sherpas. This guy leaves nothing to chance. Inevitably, during his first-round pick, it takes him so long to flip through his material that he panics and selects Derek Jeter. He spends the rest of the evening staring blankly into space, weeping.
Rule Guy: There’s always someone who delays the draft for 45 minutes by proposing intricate changes to how the league is run—or who takes advantage of an obscure loophole to somehow wind up with eight extra players and perpetual rights to all current and future Uptons. Rule Guy thinks everyone else at the table secretly respects his encyclopedic knowledge of the league’s written guidelines. Nope, they just hate his guts.
Takes Forever Guy: Sure, it’s been 38 minutes since the last time it was his turn to pick, but he’s still not ready. He’s never ready. He’s going to stare into that computer screen and he’s going to flip through those pages and he’s going to go over his allotted time like he always does. We keep hearing in the news about sinkholes, but they never seem to open up when we need one, like when this guy says, “Just one more minute, OK?” After eight or nine hours, you just want to see your family—but Takes Forever Guy knows no mercy. Takes Forever Guy is the worst. If you dive across the table to punch just one guy at your fantasy draft, make it him.
Scott Feschuk is a Sportsnet magazine columnist