Players I love to hate

For whatever reason, every fantasy player has a list of players that they really can't stand to own. It makes little sense, and usually stems from owning them once and the player having the worst year of his career, or it could be totally irrational and a gut instinct. Of course, I also have one of these lists, and I'll try to explain my reasoning behind ruthlessly avoiding these players.

Red Sox - Since owning Jacoby Ellsbury in a 2008 mid-season league and having a bad taste in my mouth, I vowed to never own another member of this evil organization. Most of you already know this, but I'm a die-hard Yankee fan, and being forced to root for an enemy is really annoying. If the Yankees and Sox are playing in the last week of the year and I have a Red Sox starter, I wouldn't be able to root for my guys. Because of this, I avoid them altogether. This rule kind of sucked this year since I had a great chance to get both Jon Lester and Josh Beckett in the auction and was forced to pass. However, I'm sure I won't regret it because Beckett sucks and Lester will probably get cancer again or something. Also, I try to avoid giving credence to a blatantly racist organization such as the Red Sox. Okay, rant over.

Troy Tulowitzki - This opinion is looking dumber by the day, but I just can't stomach owning him. Maybe it's that he doesn't pass my eye test and when I see him at the plate he looks like he's not a top-10 player. This year the experts would beg to differ with me, as Yahoo! ranks him as the game's seventh-best player. Seventh! Ahead of guys like Mauer, Teixeira, Howard, Fielder and Ian Kinsler. It makes no sense to me. More than the eye-test, it's that after Tulo's breakout rookie campaign, he followed it up with a 100 game, .263, 8-homer, 46-RBI nightmare season in just 2008. That recently, and that crappy of a year? I'm passing for at least next year to make sure he's not one of those guys.

Young Blue Jays - I had no problem with Halladay, no problem with Vernon Wells (until the last few years) and no problem with Carlos Delgado when he was still on the team. However, the Blue Jays always have a few guys pegged as the next great ones, and they never pan out. Ever. So that's why I'm not buying into Aaron Hill and Adam Lind just yet, despite their stellar campaigns last year. They seem very fluke-y to me, especially Hill, who never hit more than 20 homers in any season in the minors and hit 36 bombs last year. Something doesn't add up (maybe he's roided up, who knows).

Jose Reyes - I've been waiting for this one. I had him on my team in 2008. He was healthy. He was ranked 4th overall preseason. People were wondering who you should take, Hanley Ramirez or Jose Reyes. How stupid does that look now? However, I owned him when his hamstrings were intact, and he didn't do poorly for me (.297-16-68-113-56). He had just come off back-to-back-to-back 60-steal years (he had 78 the previous year), and was totally healthy, and just started stealing less. Mind-blowing, and unendingly frustrating as I was counting on 70-plus for my strategy. Couple that with the fact that my league used OBP instead of AVG (his was a completely average .358) and he turned in a very disappointing year. I was pissed. And I will never own him again. Give me a cheap shortstop and I'll spend my money elsewhere.

Josh Beckett - I'm aware I already covered him in the Red Sox section, but he's a special case. He's one of the most inconsistent pitchers of our time. He has actually never followed a good year with a year anywhere near as good. Go ahead, check my facts. He slightly improved last year over 2008, but that only means one thing to me: 2010 owners are going to be quite disappointed with him.

Who are the players you always avoid and why?