Maybe my favorite part of Harlan's column was this:

Of course, the spring creation of optimism is baseball's greatest annual gift. Maybe it's illusory, but who cares. The optimism, though, is dependent on narrowed perspective. Only on Opening Day does everything change: Then, unlike in spring, quantifying a team's ability becomes comparative. All of a sudden, you're not just looking at what the Washington Nationals have, but what they have in relation to what the opponents have. For me, the oh-goodness moment came when I looked at the Cincinnati Reds' pitching rotation this year.

Edinson Volquez.
Aaron Harang.
Bronson Arroyo.
Johnny Cueto.
Micah Owings.

That's the rotation from a decent team in a decent division, and they have one of the brightest young pitchers in the game (Volquez), a guy who's won 16 games in two of the last three years (Harang), an innings-eating former all-star (Arroyo), a second-year strikeout pitcher who went 9-14 as a 22-year-old (Cueto), and a 26-year-old who didn't pitch well last year, but is absolutely a worth No. 5 (Owings). And yes, I'm aware that each of these guys is getting a best-brush description, but hey, each is easier to brush up than Daniel Cabrera

Harlan's theory of "proximate optimism" is something fantasy owners, and even us Rotowire writers, have to watch out for as well. It's very easy to fall in love with a specific player, especially in dynasty leagues where you may have watched the kid come up through the minors, and very easy to excuse such a player's failures and overvalue their successes. Learning to wean yourself off those emotionally-skewed evaluations is part of the process of becoming a better fantasy player.

Which is not to say you have to stop being a fan. Just because you recognize that Ken Griffey is no longer worth bidding that extra dollar on doesn't mean you can't cheer for his late-career return to Seattle (unless, as a Mariners fan, you also realize his signing probably cost a young potential star like Jeff Clement a roster spot.) The old establishment canard about fantasy baseball (or sabermetrics, for that matter) taking the "joy" out of the game by reducing it to a bunch of numbers has never made any sense to me.

You can be a fan, and be objective. You just have to be objective about your fandom too when the situtaion calls for it.