Back when I lived in New York City, I used to play in a weekly poker game every Sunday with a group of about seven or eight friends and at some point early on, one of us decided to play the old man at the table and, after losing a hand at the start of the night, coined the phrase, “It’s better to be down early than down late.” Obviously, he wasn’t the one who actually spoke those words at a poker table for the first time, but we all laughed and it caught on. Then we all started a fantasy baseball league together and that phrase became a staple in our daily conversations. Sounds a little silly and maybe slightly nerdy, but with regard to fantasy baseball, truer words have never been spoken.

At this time of year, last place doesn’t mean shit. I’m sorry if that kind of language upsets your little, baby ears, but it’s true and being blunt about it seems to be the only way to get the point across. No one likes sitting in last place in their league. I get it. After losing Ian Desmond, Jason Kipnis, Tom Murphy and Sonny Gray post-draft and then watching Masahiro Tanaka, Nate Karns and Mark Melancon get shelled while Byron Buxton, Jedd Gyorko, Andrew McCutchen and Freddie Freeman open the season with a can of suck-ass, I am not only in last place in the SiriusXM Host League, but I am out of 11th place by almost 20 points. It’s pretty tough to be worse off in any league than that.

But it doesn’t matter. Sure, it gives Lisa Ann and that bed-wetter Clay Link more fodder to goof on me, but deep down, they both know that the standings don’t mean diddly-squat after just one week of baseball. They have 25 weeks to try and stay ahead of me and they know it’s going to be one of the toughest things they try to do this year. I’ll take all the good-natured ribbing they want to dish out. In the end, I’ll be smiling down on them both from atop the final standings.

Now if you’re one of those ego-centric goons who can’t take the jokes at your expense, well….1. get over yourself and 2. Remember, we’re playing a game here. It’s supposed to be fun. If you still can’t get out of your own way with it, well, let’s talk about fixing your fantasy baseball problems. The rest of your issues need some deeper therapy.

Let’s start with the slow starts. Bottom line is there is nothing we can do about them. It happens every year. Sometimes it repeatedly happens to the same guys – Corey Kluber certainly comes to mind. You just have to learn to absorb some of the punches and give them more at-bats or innings to produce. Again, this game is based in the law of averages and what goes up, must come down, so while you’re waiting for your guys to heat up, the other teams’ hot starts are going to cool off. The trick is to not panic or give up too soon.

I’ve gotten a slew of emails about Byron Buxton already and people are losing their minds over his slow start. In my opinion, Twins manager Paul Molitor has made a mistake batting this kid third. I don’t care how good he looked last September and I don’t care what he looked like this spring. When the curtain goes up and he’s on center stage – and you don’t get more center stage than batting third – it’s a much different story. His nerves are on high alert, he’s amped up, he’s chasing pitches, he’s swinging through too many, all the while just trying to do a good job. He needs to relax. Molitor finally dropped him to seventh in the order yesterday and immediately got a hit out of him. Once he’s relaxed, things will start to flow better for him and before you know it, Buxton will be leading off for the Twins where he belongs.

You have to look at these players as human beings, not robots who just spit out numbers for you. Yes, they should be able to produce at a high level and earn those ridiculous salaries they’re paid, but they’re still real people with real feelings and real insecurities. They can come off as brash as they want, but it’s not going to change the fact that there’s some scared, little 13-year old inside hoping to God he doesn’t strike out in front of all those people. Just stay the course and understand that they will come around. You have to give them more than a week. If they still suck in a month, well, then we’ll have to re-address it then.

As for injuries, well, again, there’s nothing you can do. This is a nightmare time of the season as the weather screws with everyone. You’ve got the flu running around the Red Sox clubhouse, but that’s nothing compared to the groin and hamstring injuries we’re going to be seeing over the next few weeks. If you’re new to fantasy baseball, this is what always happens. If you’ve played for years, you just know.

Now some of these injuries are obviously more impactful than others. I may have told Jon Impemba to poke fun at the injuries to Trea Turner and Gary Sanchez in last night’s Daily Bender, but in all seriousness, it totally sucks. I get it. You never want to see your first-round guy leave with an injury, especially if it’s a leg injury and you’re counting on 60-plus steals from him. Same with Sanchez. You probably used up a third or fourth-round pick on him expecting 25-plus home runs. A biceps injury is not what you want to hear for a power hitter. Replacing their expected level of production is going to be difficult if you’re in a competitive league of 12 or more teams.

I say “expected” level of production because you drafted him with the belief you were going to get x-number of steals or y-number of homers. In these two cases, I still believe you were really reaching too high, but when you head to your waiver wire, you need to look based on who can contribute closest to those expectations, not just any player. You have to look at your waiver wire with the mind-set of replacing that category. You need the best-available power-hitting catcher. You need the second baseman who can provide you with the most steals. If you can’t do that, then you need to start looking at other specific categories and see if you can get a boost in one of them and maybe work out a trade if the guy you pick up has more value than just a random dude you’re plugging a hole with. No speed at second base? Find a guy who hits for power and then try to deal some power for speed.

Do yourself a favor and REALLY study the players on your waiver wire. Don’t just blindly look at what they’ve done during this first week of the season. Really look to see what their history is all about. Make sure you’re also looking at which players on waivers are off to slow starts themselves. If someone gave up on a guy like Byron Buxton 10 strikeouts into the season, grab him! He’ll heat up and provide serious value in the long run.

Most casual fantasy players simply look at the 2017 stats and spend their FAAB budget on Week 1 production. Be a smarter player than that. Take your time. Really dig through the names. Bid with purpose and be smart about in which players you invest. A little bit of extra work now will pay major dividends in the end.