Good morning fantasy baseballers! Well, good afternoon to most. As always, I appreciate your patience and understanding for the delay here, but let’s face it – those Player Rankings for May ain’t gonna post themselves. Well, maybe they will, but chances are they won’t be nearly as entertaining or potentially controversial. If you missed the post on the site, remember, there is a link to them under the Seasonal Playbook Pro header. Just go to MLB and find the Monthly Rankings.

My post lays out what I expect as far as debate and discussion, so no need to throw down here, right? I would love to hear your feedback and continue a worthwhile discussion over there. For this article’s sake, though, let’s get to the elephant in the room.

Noah Effin Syndergaard!

Now I’m not sure if that’s actually his given name, but so far, every person I’ve talked to this morning seems to think it is. The quote that immediately comes to mind comes from The Color of Money – “It’s like a nightmare, isn’t it? And it just keeps getting worse and worse.” From Day 1 it’s been a huge hassle for fantasy owners and while there probably is a light at the end of the tunnel, it’s nothing more than a faint glimmer at this point. From the blister to the nail issue to the biceps tendinitis to this partially torn lat muscle, you’re in the shit, my friends. It sounds harsh, but this is the bed you made by investing heavily in an ace and now you have to lie in it.

What’s worse is that this news all comes on the heels of the Madison Bumgarner injury and those owners have likely picked your waiver wire cleaner than a Thanksgiving turkey at my house. Add to that the owners of Jake Arrieta who are freaking out because he can’t stop bleeding runs and you’re in a serious bind. Not serious enough to panic, though, so please, if there’s one bit of advice I can lend you here, it’s this – making trades right after you lose a top guy is a mistake. I’m not saying don’t make trades, but when you lose a guy like Syndergaard, or Bumgarner for that matter, your fellow owners smell blood in the water and they’re going to try and start a feeding frenzy.

Understand that you are not going to replace the production you were expecting from Syndergaard. No matter how well someone like Dylan Bundy, Luis Severino or Taijuan Walker is pitching right now, getting 30-odd starts out of one of them with a sub-3.00 ERA and a double-digit K/9 is a near impossibility. Hell, you probably won’t see that kind of production from a Carlos Martinez or a Carlos Carrasco either. What you need to do is get yourself some stability on the hill and augment your team in other categories you can most easily move up in.

If you can land a second or third-tier starter in a deal, then great, but make sure that comes with either some offensive help or even a high-end closer. You just have to figure out who you can deal from your roster. Ideally, you dump Syndergaard for a pair of solid contributors, but the likelihood of getting a decent return is slim unless you’re the lone Phillies fan in a sea of Mets supporters. Unfortunately, given the way their medical staff has handled things, even they might be skeptical. You may have to deal a bigger piece from your roster.

But before you go dangling someone like Paul Goldschmidt or Bryce Harper, see if you can piecemeal a deal or two first. Maybe you have an extra closer to sell. Maybe you’re sitting with Eugenio Suarez and Jake Lamb on your roster. One of the biggest mistakes fantasy baseball owners make is they try to fill all their needs with one deal. You may be looking to obtain a decent starting pitcher, but suddenly the deal becomes this outlandish 4-for-4 trade and in the end, you’re just spinning your wheels and not accomplishing anything. Be specific with your needs and don’t be afraid to just do a 1-for-1 trade with one team and maybe a 2-for-1 with another. You could deal Lamb for a decent starting pitcher and then turn around and flip an elite closer like Aroldis Chapman for a lesser closer and Travis Shaw.

You need to take your time and you need to study every single roster in your league. Maybe someone has a surplus of starting pitching and is looking for a high end bat you don’t have. But who’s to say you don’t have other working parts to get that big bat from someone else? Maybe you have a surplus at second base or the outfield? I could literally go through thousands of scenarios to help guide you through the trade process, but only you know your league and how everyone views and values players.

Losing a major player like Syndergaard is a tough task to overcome, but certainly not an insurmountable one. It’s going to take some work. A lot of work, really. But if winning that championship is important enough, you won’t mind. If you do, well, Fantasy Alarm will be launching its first installment of the Living Fantasy Football Draft Guide on June 1 and Dom Murtha’s offseason coverage has been phenomenal.

If you need some encouragement though, you’ve got all of #FANation behind you and we won’t rest until that trophy is in your hands!