"Aw, "the reach." Nothing quite signals universal disparage and humiliation in fantasy than the time-honored tendency of erroneous early attainment. The motives for this miscalculation are varied but chronic across the drafting landscape: a unique affinity by an owner for a particular player, or, as a corollary, coveting a hometown team's star; an overabundance of hype surrounding a rookie; simply overestimating an athlete's value. The intention behind the latter's fallacy usually stems from misjudging the market; in essence, deeming others will snatch the player in question if failing to acquire his services with the upcoming pick, only to ultimately realize the newly-acquired combatant was nowhere to be found on the league members' radars. Dejection, indeed.

This grasping-at-straws situation came to fruition during the FOXSports.com Experts' Fantasy Draft for the upcoming baseball season (click here for John Halpin's take on the results). Jeff Erickson, a founder of RotoWire and one of the fantasy industry's titans, triggered widespread bewilderment with his selection of Milwaukee outfielder and 2011 NL MVP Ryan Braun in the third round of the draft. Yes, that Braun, the one believed to be suspended the first 50 games of the 2012 campaign thanks to testing positive for raised levels of testosterone. Certainly Mr. Erickson knew of this mandated absence, leaving one to deduce that Jeff imagined Braun to be worthy of his early-round pick despite missing, at minimum, a third of the season. That, or Jeff wanted to flaunt his fantasy prowess by winning the league with a self-imposed degree of difficulty. Whatever the aspiration behind this endeavor, it was clear by the response that Braun failed to earn third-round status in many of the members' minds."