Fantasy baseball: Don’t shift strategy at end of season

The fantasy baseball season is coming to a close, and everyone is looking to make that one last push to reach the top of the mountain.

Coming this far is no easy feat, unless you have a fantasy sherpa like Shohei Ohtani leading you to the promised land.

So though we are not in the business of handing out participation trophies, some accolades can be given for making it this far.

But it’s not over.

There is still more work to be done.

The real question is: Now that you’ve made it this far, can you finish the job?

We can sit here and use all the classic end-of-season clichés.

We can go to Dan Fouts in “The Waterboy” and tell you, “It’s the last game of the season, can’t hold anything back.”

We can give you Cliff Murdoch’s famed speech from Rookie of the Year when he says, “This is it, folks.

This is what it’s all about.

There is no tomorrow.

This is for the whole Magila, the whole ball of wax, the whole kit and kaboodle, for the whole enchilada!”

We can even just go simple and quote Adrian who told Rocky to just go out there and, “Win!”

We don’t even need Mickey to ask us what we’re waiting for.

You know what you have to do.

And that’s what brings us here today.

There are no more hidden gems to unearth.

The MLB rosters are set.

The playoff contenders are playing their best guys and the eliminated teams are auditioning their youngsters.

There is very little chance you’re going to read a fantasy baseball article and see a name you had no idea was worthy of your roster.

Let’s face facts, if you don’t know the key names at this point, how in the world did you even get this far?

Ohtani?

I suppose that’s as good an answer as any.

The best advice someone can give you right now is to just do what you’ve been doing for the past six months.

You didn’t get here without hard work, reading up on the news, crunching numbers and being very specific with your waiver wire moves.

For you to do anything different at this point would be silly.

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Maybe if you’re in third place in your rotisserie league and you want to overload your final week’s roster with players who focus on your most-needed and most-movable categories, but that’s about it.

It is about finishing strong.

It is about putting forth your best effort no matter the results.

You’ve come this far after a long and arduous grind.

If you can’t keep up the same level of intensity at this point, then maybe you don’t deserve to win.

What should they do, Adrian?

Tell them!

Howard Bender is the head of content at FantasyAlarm.com. Follow him on X @rotobuzzguy and catch him on the award-winning “Fantasy Alarm Radio Show” on the SiriusXM fantasy sports channel weekdays from 6-8 p.m. Go to FantasyAlarm.com for all your fantasy baseball news and advice.