Having abandoned the cares of the 2020 season, I found joy this weekend in plotting to be the first last-place team to win the last month of an EFL season. (I don’t KNOW this has never been done, but it seems improbable, so I am running with it.)
Oh what a freedom it was to lay my burdens down and wander the pathways of this garden of delights! I had new energy to pour into draft preparations. I could form a strategy, and implement it. I could say goodbye to Luis Robert (which I did in an earlier post – did you read it?) and enjoy the players I had, for one last month-long celebration with the rookie graduating class of 2020. Trea Turner finally turning into a superstar, with one month left in his rookiehood! Kyle Schwarber blasting homers by the pair – at last! Austin Hedges dazzling with the glove for one more month. Even poor Daniel Vogelbach, expelled from the country just before the end of his rookiehood – he had been spotted in Toronto (well, Buffalo). Maybe he could make one last hurrah!
But then the serpent slithered past. “Pssst!” it said. “Why not trade for Luis Robert! Eloy and Luis as Wolverine teammates for 4 years has gone a glimmer, but at least they could be partners for one memorable month.”
The worm’s words wormed their way into my brain. I became obsessed. plotting and scheming. I wrote a fevered late-night note to the Head Cheese, pleading for his help to figure this out…
In the morning I got his response. His cold, cold response:
“My first-round pick is not available – I love spending that money. And your pitchers are not really all that attractive to me.”
Ouch!
The Head Cheese then proposed to filch two of my class of 2024 hitting prospects for one month of Luis Robert. And here’s the worst part: I was tempted! Tempted to give up 8 years (and two months) of good-to-great performance for one month of pursuit of an objectively meaningless monthly championship.
I dithered!
After a while the Head Cheese warned me he was about to deal with another owner. How cruel! I begged for 5 minutes more. Please, just a little more time…
When my five minutes had almost run out, I wrote back, piteously. “I can’t do it” I said, or words to that effect. I had to give up the Luis Robert dream for the second day in a row. How pitiless is that old Head Cheese…
Sigh.
The Wolverines are still going to try to win September. We are going to do it with charity from none and malice toward… also none. We will do it with the resources we have and the ones we draft without fear or favor from anyone else.