Yeah, it’s been a while. Sorry about that. Life comes at you fast, right? Anyway—we’re about two weeks away from the start of the MLB regular season, and that means Fantasy Baseball is in full swing. I figured there was no better way to jump back into the blogosphere than hitting up the Fantasy Sport that bore all fantasy sports.

I have always been a HUGE fan of fantasy baseball—going all the way back to live drafts at my Uncle Gerald’s house in Tewksbury, Massachusetts. My uncle ran the league and put all the stats together himself. Every week when we would see each other at my grandfather’s house, he would have print outs with all the standings and player stats from the previous week. Now, when you’re 9 years old, it’s all about picking up your favorite players so that you can root for them all year long. It was always cool to win and have the best team, but in the end for a kid it was all about the players. I remember visiting Cooperstown one summer almost immediately following my Uncle’s draft; I was so excited about my team that I had to go to the card shop and buy the card of every player I had drafted. That’s what it was all about, but as you get older it’s all about smoking everyone. Don’t lie—I know all the fantasy freaks out there are nodding their heads. You want to beat up on your friends, your family, or the complete strangers that you draft with in some random league—that’s just the way it is.

But, why the change? I, personally, think it’s about the growth of the competitive spirit. When you’re 7 years old, you don’t compete with your fellow 3rd graders to see who color best inside the lines, but as soon as you hit middle and high school you’ve surely become a cog in the competitive machine. You want to be tops in your class, you want the best role in the school play, you want to make the football team or cheerleading squad—everything revolves around competition, so why shouldn’t the same ring true in Fantasy sports?

Fantasy sports have exploded over the past decade, and the technology behind them has also improved greatly. Gone are the days of the paper print out—bring on the draft kits, scouting reports, insiders, and mock drafts, the last of which will be today’s topic. There is tons of info out there, in tons of different formats, but I think the most helpful is the mock draft. It provides you an opportunity to see how the average baseball fan is drafting. It also provides you an opportunity to see how your own drafting strategy will play out. I ran a mock draft for myself on ESPN.com this afternoon, and I’d like to share a couple of general observations. First though, because it will come up later, take a look at my team:

C Matt Wieters
1B Justin Morneau
2B Rickie Weeks
3B Adrian Beltre
SS Hanley Ramirez
2B/SS Casey McGehee
1B/3B Alex Gordon
OF Andre Ethier
OF Shin-Soo Choo
OF Chris Coghlan
OF Chris Young
OF Kyle Blanks
UTIL Conor Jackson
SP Zack Grienke
SP Wandy Rodriguez
SP Tim Hudon
SP Rich Harden
SP Ted Lilly
SP Ben Sheets
RP Jonathan Papelbon
RP Andrew Bailey
RP Carlos Marmol
BE Magglio Ordonez
BE Orlando Cabrera
BE Phil Hughes

Not bad huh? What’s even cooler is the new feature added to ESPN drafts if you’re an “insider” like myself. They will calculate the league’s finish, based on projected numbers for each player drafted on each fantasy team in real-time. And the collection of guys you see listed above was good enough for second place with 78 points. Of course projections are often wrong in some way or another, and I guarantee you that none of the players will perform exactly as “expected.”

While projections are nice, the real reason you do a mock draft is to see where players are taken. Every fantasy owner comes into his or her draft with a strategy; most likely this strategy is based on gut feelings with a little statistical research mixed in. My strategy in most years is to draft high on potential, take a couple of injury risks and make sure you nail down at least 3 sure things. But we’ll get more into that later. Let’s look at some of the surprises:

• Johan Santana fell to the 5th round – A year ago, this would have been a complete joke. He has a ton of value, but is taken late because he falls into the injury risk category. If you are nervous to take him early, make sure that you snag him if he falls to you after round five. Imagine taking Halladay in the first round and having Santana come to you in round 6. That’s a hell of a 1-2 punch.

• There were no relief pitchers taken until round 6 – Except for Jonathan Papelbon by me in the third round. But that’s the thing! I never would have known that relievers were going to be late round pick-ups unless I had done the mock. I took Paps early because I believe the Red Sox are going to have some trouble scoring runs this year, and therefore will win a lot of close games. In my delusional Red Sox crazed head, he has a chance to lead the league in saves.

• By the end of round 4, all of the elite catchers were off the board – Joe Mauer, Victor Martinez, and Brian McCann were gone by round 5. Lesson learned? If you want any of those guys, you have take ‘em WAAAAY early. I chose to use one of my high ceiling guys for the C position and landed Wieters in the 8th round. The Orioles catcher could end up being a steal, if he can produce the way he’s expected to.

• People are scared of injuries – Aside from Johan Santana—Jake Peavy (10th Rnd.), Juan Rivera (17th Rnd.), Ryan Doumit (17th Rnd.) and a host of others were taken well later than normal, because they’re coming off a year in which they were injured for a majority of the season. You should make a list of guys that were injured in the previous year that you might have some interest in, and then refuse to take any of them….kidding of course, but be careful. I wouldn’t take a player coming off a major injury before the 10th round.

I’ve clearly learned a lot. But there is a ton more; you could analyze the hell out of a fantasy draft. But what I think is most important is to stick with your strategy. So how’d I do? Well, as I said, it’s all about my strategy. The high ceiling young guys? Check. See Weiters (8th Rnd.), Casey McGehee (22nd Rnd.), Alex Gordon (19th Rnd.), Kyle Blanks (18th Rnd.), Wandy Rodriguez (9th Rnd.), and Phil Hughes (25th Rnd.). The sure things? Oh yeah, got ‘em. Hanley Ramirez (1st Rnd.), Zack Grienke (2nd Rnd.), and Justin Morneau (4th Rnd.). Now, I know that Morneau could also be considered an “injury risk”, but for the sake of this argument roll with me. The injury guys? Picked them up—Icy Hot and all. Rickie Weeks (10th Rnd.), Tim Hudson (12th Rnd.), and Ben Sheets (21st Rnd.). And what’s great about my team is that the “experts” probably sold the young and injured guys short. Meaning, of course, that my team totes would’ve finished first…if it hadn’t been a mock.  But alas, it was.  That is what mocks are good for.  Use them as an outline, get online, stick to your guns and by the end of the regular season, you’ll surely be hoisting that fake (sometimes imaginary), golden trophy.