In his first 33 games this season, Indians slugger Travis Hafner has struggled mightily, hitting a mere .215 with only 3 home runs and 17 RBIs.

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By Matthew Greber, RotoExperts.com, Special to SI.com

As we reach the middle of May, I know I've been thinking a lot about whether my draft strategies were as brilliant as they seemed a few short months ago. You see, my teams are simply not doing as well as I expected them to -- and I would guess that many of you have teams that you could say the same about. In some cases, I took a leap of faith that a given player was due for a bounce back -- and yes, Travis Hafner, I'm talking to you.

In fact, let's focus on the man they call Pronk for a little while. He really stinks right now. He's been so bad that last week, when Victor Martinez didn't feel up to catching, they sat Pronk in order to let V-Mart DH. Yes, that means they'd rather play the .239 hitting Ryan Garko than the guy who hit 42 homeruns in 2006.

And this worries me over here in The Thinking Chair. Because I'd penciled Hafner in for an easy 30-35 HR. And now? He hasn't swatted a ding-dong in almost a month. But there's not much you can do with a guy like Hafner. A good friend of mine, and one that is a fantasy baseball veteran, asked me if he should accept an offer to give up Hafner for Joey Votto. That's the deal, straight up. And yes, this trade was proposed the day after Votto crushed 3 HR (Hafner's entire season total) and swiped a base in the process.

Now, let's be clear -- Votto is the real deal and if that were a keeper league, it would be a totally legitimate deal. But if there is a better example of selling high and buying low, I don't know it. (So, give kudos to my friend's league-mate for having the stones to propose it.) In my mind, Hafner has a better lineup to hit in, a history you can lean back on (even if it seems mirage-like at this point), and a manager who is decidedly less crazy than Dusty Baker. So, I'm sticking with Pronk.

Since we just finished Mother's Day weekend, I suppose I could turn this column into a theme about Mom, and the importance of parents in helping kids play sports and encouraging all that -- but I'm not going to. (And, as it happens, my wife is about to become a mother for the first time -- and yes, me a father -- so I could really pull on your heartstrings were I so inclined. But I'm not.)

Instead, I'll just say this -- this season of Survivor might have been as good a season as they've ever had. If you watched, you know that Erik, the Leif Garrett looking ice cream scooper, made the single most idiotic move in the history of the game. He got talked into giving up his immunity idol when he was clearly the target -- and got voted out unanimously. That was awesome stuff right there.

(Bet you didn't see that last paragraph coming, did you? I started out on a Mother's Day theme and just swerved right into reality TV. Well, it's a bumpy road here at The Thinking Chair. I just drive where the road takes me.)

Did you know that Josh Willingham's nickname is "The Hammer"? I definitely appreciate that, and I get that it's a play on the ending of is last name, but ... that is sort of already taken. By a legend. There's a whole bit on the much revered but defunct show Sports Night about how you can't use a nickname that's already taken. (Memo to LaDanian Tomlinson -- this is why you should go by LDT instead of LT.) If someone else turns out to be nicknamed "The Babe," or "The Splendid Splinter," there's going to be hell to pay. (And what's wrong with J-Will? Or just "The Ham" or "The Hamster"? Heck, what about "Spiraled Ham"?

Mmm ... spiraled ham.

So, what do you think the preseason hype on Cedric Benson is going to be? Driving drunk is no joke, even on a boat, but resisting arrest? Coming up with a shady story about the event? All I can ever remember about Benson is him fighting off tears on draft day because he'd fallen all the way to No. 4, and talking about how hard it had been, how roughly he'd been treated, etc. And I just thought -- this guy was not in any kind of mental shape to play NFL football. So far, that's been spot on.

Do you think Mike Vick watched the draft from the hoosegow? If so, has he created a Matt Ryan voodoo doll out of his bed sheets and pine straw yet? For a team in as much trouble as the Falcons have been in of late, this was definitely the right move. Adding Ryan, and Michael Turner, should really help. Now, if they could get a single decent wide receiver, they'd possibly have an offense.

Back to baseball -- in the span of a few short days, Jason Isringhausen and Eric Gagne lost their roles as closers without getting hurt. There's an axiom of what you should do with saves on draft day -- that is, don't pay for them -- and this is why. Because now? Guillermo Mota, Salomon Torres, Ryan Franklin and Russ Springer all have better chances of racking up those elusive saves than Izzy or Gagne.

As for those ‘mortal locks' in the closer role? No one probably locks that down more than Trevor Hoffman, who has just six saves this season. The aforementioned Isringhausen, who just lost his job, has 11. I'm just saying -- it's a weird stat.

That's going to wrap it up for this week's The Thinking Chair. All kidding aside, hopefully you did well by all the mothers in your life. They deserve it.

When not waxing rhapsodic about reality TV, the days when the San Francisco sports teams were actually competitive and why Megan Fox seems uninterested in a future nanny position at the Greber household, Matthew Greber loves hearing from folks just like you. Give him a holler at greebs@rotoexperts.com.