As we approach the mid season "classic," it's fair to ask if your fantasy team is doomed. Now, assuming everybody is bunched within 10 points of each other, obviously everyone is still in it. Not every league is so close. If you're way, way out of it, maybe you can satisfy yourself by playing for the money. Don't forget that as managers give up, simply by monitoring your team and fielding an active roster you're going to start gobbling up garbage points. Let's go category by category and talk about what you can do to help yourself out this season. (I think we all know what to do in keeper leagues. Trade for the future).

Runs: Trade for players with good batting averages and OBPs. They're going to get on base, and they're going to score more runs. Don't necessarily trade for players with high run totals if they're a result of a fluke first half. This is a big time "garbage stat" category, meaning that you're going to pick up points just by playing hard all year.

Home Runs: If there is a scarce category on the waiver wire by the halfway point, it's home runs. Ty Wigginton might be a sneaky pick-up if he's SS eligible in your league, and Jake Fox is starting to light things up. But if you're bottom feeding in this category you're probably fucked. It's why people focus on homers so much during the draft, it's a category you basically can't do shit with if you were relying on Aramis Ramirez, Josh Hamilton, and Geovany Soto to be your main sources of power. If the waiver wire is bereft (almost a certainty in deep leagues), and people are scorning your trade offers, maybe think about trading away your last legitimate sources of power to try to be competitive in other categories. This is a desperate, last ditch effort, as abandoning home runs is almost a surefire way of destroying your overall offensive competitiveness (home runs, after all, drive your RBI and run totals, as well).

RBI: Basically, see the home run discussion, above. Try trading for second-half RBI machines, guys like Aubrey Huff, Mark Teixeria (*gulp*), Adam LaRoche, etc. Trading for second half players, in general, is a good idea, but definitely look for guys who suddenly have more playing time or have historically great second half splits. In terms of more playing time, maybe try gambling that Hank Blalock stays healthy and plays every game now that Chris Davis has FINALLY been sent down. Blalock owners have been frustrated all year by one of the most maddening platoon situations in baseball. Maybe they'll be willing to move him?

Stolen Bases: Guys are always willing to part with stolen bases, and typically there's one or two nuggets on the waiver wire. Guys like Nyjer Morgan or Juan Pierre (play him when he gets a random start -- he's motivated) or typically available. If you want to trade and are bottom feeding, maybe take a chance on a piece of shit like Jose Reyes or hope that Jimmy Rollins ends up being of some fucking use this year.

Batting Average: You are screwed. Trying to right this ship is like saving the Titanic. Typically, if you're in the bottom three of batting average, you're having a top-to-bottom problem with the team you drafted. See if you can move the most obvious cancers and do your best to salvage a point or two, because in the vast majority of circumstances you aren't going to suddenly turn your .269 hitting team of free swingers into batting average positives.

Wins: Ummm....get luckier? Seriously, what can you do? Getting good pitchers on good team would probably require you to trade away one of your children, and even bad pitchers on good teams are probably owned. Target guys with high K-rates and hope for the best. Trade low for Cole Hamels. See if Ricky Nolasco is still floating around out there. This one takes some luck.

ERA/WHIP: These two are so intertwined, might as well discuss them together. Much like batting average, by this point, you may be screwed. Think about spot starting guys -- going with a 4 or 4.5 man rotation -- and have a solid middle reliever playing as your #5 guy instead. If there's one pool of players that always has a bunch of waiver-wire studs, it's middle relievers. You need to use 30 to 50 of those awesome innings in an attempt to mitigate the damage that Chien Ming Wang or Johnny Cueto's last start have wrought. Also, stop starting bad pitchers! It's time to give up on guys you thought would have break out years. Anybody still thinking Sanchez or Maholm are going to turn it around? Don't. If a guy has a low WHIP and a high ERA, grab him. If he has a low ERA but a high WHIP, trade or dump him.

Strikeouts: Another category which is usually picked pretty clean, maybe Jorge De La Rose is available in your league? Other than him, the best K-per inning candidates are going to be middle relievers. See the ERA/WHIP discussion, above. Trading for high strikeout pitchers is like trading for home run sluggers: probably not going to happen.

Saves: The easiest category to make up ground in, just pay attention every ... single ... day. In the last month alone I've picked up Jason Frasor and Leo Nunez in multiple leagues, and there will be other opportunities just as good. We're also going to see trades coming down the pipe (Qualls?), so monitor the league situation. By the way, while it didn't look good early, my prediction that Fuentes would have a better year than Francisco Rodriguez at a fraction of the draft-day, or real-life, price still has a shot. The ERAs may look wide apart, but look at all the other numbers. Fairly similar. I think K-Rod's BAA is unsustainable.

One last bit of unpalatable advice. Look at your team of underperformers or craptacular busts. Find the two or three shining jewels. Guys like Torii Hunter, Raul Ibanez, or Brandon Inge who came out of nowhere. Now look at your place in the standings. Trade those guys. Try to trade your biggest surprises for other team's biggest disappointments (but, who have a track record of not being disappointments). It's very hard. But it may be your best shot to turn things around, because guys with no track record of dominance are probably not going to keep it up. Go big or go home.

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