I have this theory about the various modes of fantasy ball. Actually, I have several theories, but the one I am focusing on right now is this: Over the course of a season, one can afford roughly 4-5 bad weeks of play.

I never tried to corollate this with play on the field, but I know, for example, every bad team has a hot streak, and every good team has a bad run. I mean, if you look no further than the Tigers, who are picking it up right now, or think about the  Rockies and how they ran the table last year, you should see what I mean.

Conversely, both the Royals and Giants have had some hot spells early this season and that for some reason made their fanbase overly optimistic.

Back to the Tigers, my STATS fantasy team has been just struggling all over the place, largely because of their #1 starter, Justin Verlander.

Verlander, who was my first choice right handed starter in the STATS draft, as you well know if you have him in any format, has blown chunks this season. In the STATS game, where a good starter commands 12-15 points a game (and a great starter even more), Justin was worth -2 through April, and a paltry 2 through May. 

By comparison, Adam Wainright has 15.5 points a start, Dana Eveland, 10.3, and Jair Jurrjens 11.9. Even George Sherrill, my closer has averaged 7.1 points and he not only gets knocked around from time to time, he only pitches one inning. 

Finally, he has picked it up moving to nearly eight points a start right now, but, you can clearly see how much it hurts in this format for your top pick to tank.

The result was after 12 weeks, my Lawr of Averages were six games under .500, struggling to keep pace, almost 600 points away from the first place club, the Hartford Whalers.

For the most part the Averages have kept pace with the league average points for the week, save four weeks when guys like Verlander and Ted Lilly just got pounded beyond belief, and hitters like Mark Teixeira and Michael Cuddyer decided to leave their hitting sticks in the woods.

But, over the last couple of weeks, my team has kicked it into gear. Along with Verlander, I picked up Justin Patterson (16.5 points a game) and last Sunday, Teixeira had a three-homer game, something that gets me 30 bonus points which is a shot in the arm of major proportions.

The results were the best week of the league in points, and the Averages picked it up to three games under .500 and four games out of first. Nothing to print playoff tickets about, but,well, a ray of hope is there because though I cannot expect much of a repeat of Teixeira's day, the guys are playing like they are supposed.

Which basically means if I have a couple of  more hot weeks, and can simply play average ball the rest of the year, with maybe one or two bad weeks sandwiched in, I can catch up and make the post season.

To a large degree, that is why it is a mistake to blow off a team that gets off to a slow start. In fact part of my lessons over the years developing that 4-6 bad week theory was learning  to be patient, and vigilant, and neither over- nor under-manage irrespective of where my team is in the standings.

For as tough as it is to work out of last place, it is equally difficult to maintain first place. First place, as fun as it is, has a tendency to let us get compacent. We tend to not fix things that are not broken, and in this game that means letting prospects go because we have our spots filled with productive players, who are hot.

But, when they get cold, and a slide begins, all the good reserve players have been picked off, and it then becomes increasingly difficult to stop the slide. And that precipitates moves of desparation.

Am I rationalizing? To a degree. I want my teams to peform well, of course, but, well, without some work and hope, they will do nothing but flounder. That and more than five or six really bad weeks.