This is a little bit off the topic, but I guess I’ll never understand ‘pitch or ditch’. Usually, each time I get bold … or desperate … enough to try it, I get last Friday’s performance by Claudio Vargas.

In case you missed it, Vargas threw up an ugly and devastating six base runners and six earned runs in a whopping two-thirds of an inning performance that was nothing more than a fantasy value-destroying disaster.

Well. On a recent episode of the Wire Tap, our talented censor, Mr. Evan Dickens, falsely accused me of having my ‘head in the clouds’ … er, on soccer and my beloved Manchester United. I can assure you, my mind is still completely focused on baseball. Nonetheless, how did I let the Vargas nightmare happen?

We have to go back a few weeks to the All-Star break when we drafted teams in the Mafia Mid-Season League. My first pick? For the first time ever, I took a starting pitcher in the 1st round. Yes. At least it was Johan Santana, but immediately remorseful, this pick threw my entire draft strategy off kilter. I spent the rest of the draft chasing offense and de-prioritizing my pitching.

Honestly, although I felt that I ended up with an acceptable amount of offensive depth, I didn’t think I landed near enough really trustworthy bats … outside of David Wright and Victor Martinez, that is. At the same time, my pitching staff, although anchored by Johan and Billy Wagner, ended up in somewhat questionable shape with Mark Buehrle, El Duque, Shaun Marcum and Bob Wickman pretty much rounding out the group. I didn’t think I had a prayer of being respectable in this league.

So, where am I weeks later? Somehow, my cast of misfits have me lurking around the top of the standings. I guess the first lesson to learn, here, is that post-draft impressions aren’t always right. In fact, the pitching staff that I deemed a tragedy is hovering around the top of the standings in Wins, ERA and WHIP. Who would’ve guessed?

Anyway, with a legitimate chance to compete, I decided to start looking at trade opportunities. Confirming my initial feelings that my offense needed a boost, a study of the standings suggested that the place where I could help myself the most was at both power and speed. Great. How do I do that? How about Hanley Ramirez?

I have a philosophy. If you’re going to ask me for 1st round caliber talent in a trade, you better be offering 1st round caliber talent in return. Although Han-Ram was taken in the 2nd round of the Mid-Season draft, general consensus is that he’s locked up 1st round value for next year. Therefore, I didn’t feel too bad in honoring my philosophy in reverse and offering my 1st round pick, Mr. Santana, in return for Ramirez.

On top of that, needing to strengthen my, now Wickman-less, bullpen, I sent Carlos Guillen away, in the same trade, in return for Jeremy Accardo.

All of this to come back to my original point … ‘pitch or ditch’. Losing Johan put me into the position of, I thought, needing to engage in a campaign of pitching and ditching. Where did I start?

I ran through the probable pitchers for last Thursday’s games, and I initially settled on hometown hurler, Jake Westbrook, pitching in Detroit against the Tigers … then I looked at his splits. He’s awful on the road … and against the Tigers? Forget it. That sounded like reasonable logic, so I went to my second choice … the “other Santana” … Big Erv, Ervin Santana, at home against the Blue Jays. He was coming off a very solid start … ON THE ROAD … against the Red Sox. Now, comfortably at home, I thought he was a reasonable gamble. What did I get? Nine base runners and five earned runs in six innings. Not exactly an added value performance. How did Westbrook throw? Seven base runners and no earned runs in eight innings. Idiot! Chalk one up for ‘ditch’.

Imagine how I felt, then, after I scoured through Friday’s list of probable and settled on Claudio Vargas. At least I felt a little bit better about that selection when our friend, Cory Schwartz, confidently pronounced “pitch” during the ‘pitch or ditch’ segment of Thursday’s episode of the Fantasy 411. Surely, this one will be a ‘winner’, I thought. Not! What a mess.