Tomorrow night the Celtics will complete one of the greatest road trips in memory, win or lose, but more on that some other time. For now, I must take issue with Patrick’s fantasy baseball expoundings.

For starters, I would like to clarify that I don’t take issue with any of his draft picks. Certainly in the last few rounds of the draft it is acceptable to take rookies who may or may not perform. In the case of Oliver Perez, I wish I had been able to snare him, and the reason why is that he has a history of dominance. He also has a history of miserable failure, but that’s a risk you can take by selecting him late in the draft.

I tend to be more cautious with rookies, especially guys who have never played in the majors. I have no problem at all drafting players like Loney, Butler and Theriot, who have all shown what they can do in the bigs. I do take issue, however, with people who get too excited about rookies that haven’t shown anything and draft them ridiculously high. A good example of this is Alex Gordon, who was supposedly a wunderkind from Kansas City last year and got drafted in the middle rounds in one of my leagues. One day he may be great, but last year’s performance was not worth that kind of investment. History tells us that it rarely is; hardly any rookie comes in to dominate, especially one with absolutely not major league experience. One could point to certain counter-examples, such as Ryan Braun, but the point is it is impossible to tell (case in point, Braun went largely undrafted last season and turned out being a great waiver pickup). There are far more examples of guys like Perez who have shown that they can dominate and returning to form than there are of phenomenal rookies.

You will do well in our league Patrick, because you were smart and saved your rookie picks to the end. There are certain other teams in the league, who I will spare the embarrassment of mentioning, who fell in to the trap of drafting over hyped rookies way too high. So readers, when you do your fantasy baseball drafts, take a deep breath and realize that even if you think a guy will far outperform his ADP, there is no reason to draft him too early. Even if he pans out you could have had him later, so no matter how good your baseball intuition, you’re still a moron for taking him too soon.

Check back tomorrow for my thoughts on the Celtics, and don’t forget to watch the game!