My first draft is Sunday. I have pick #4 and I'm not even sure who I would pick there. Ryan Howard is having a great spring, but #4 may be tooe arly to spend on him.

Also I am not falling into that trap and doing what everyone always says by drafting hitters and forgetting pitchers until late. The past two years I ended up with too bad of pitching staffs and nothing I did could save me.

I am probably going to just draft 3 big name starters though and then patch together the final 1 or 2 and then add weekly or something.

Many stars are hurt. Good thing I waited this long to get started. I need to wait this long every year. Although it's annoying the same guy is in every league with me. I wish there was more variety of owners!

So far I think I am pretty high on johan santana, sabathia, webb as starters. Not going to chance zambrano anymore. Oh Carpenter is having a great spring, by the way. He hasn't given up a single earned run in about 19 innings pitched!

edit: I read up on some cbs analysis and I disagree with much of what was said. He contradicts his own strategies in some places. And he says the same thing they say every year... forget about starting pitchers and forget about closers. He also said do NOT try to draft wins, runs, or rbis. ok NEWS FLASH I do bad every year inw ins, runs, rbis, and my bad positions are catcher and pitchers which he says to avoid drafting top ones for!

I think I may agree with them that Milton Bradley could be the guy to explode though. Also I am considering drafting Sizemore with my first pick because not only is he great but he is 27!

I may use different strategies in every league since some people are in all of my leagues. I don't want to tip off strategies for them to know ahead of time in other drafts.

And byt he way CBS changed their draft software and it uses flash and it is kind of annoying at first glance as it seems slow.

It's tough to know what I want to do because if you draft balanced then you have no excess to trade off. But if you draft excess then you could get stuck with uan unbalanced team.

My first draft is in less than 12 hours. This is tough. I feel more prepared than other eyars, but at the same time I am going to have to get balance and yet still have something to offer in deals. If you go for total balance then what if a big part of the team gets hurt or underperforms? Then you have nobody tod eal to help it.

Although this year I am going to trade more and stop trying to get PERFECT deals because I bet I cost myself a couple leagues by waiting too long to pull triggers on deals. For the first 4 months I ened to not worry if trading will ruin me in some category. I have the rest of the season to get it fixed back.

Team #1

C- Molina

C- Navarro

1B- Huff

2B- Cano

3B- Aramis

SS- Theriot

CI- Loney

MI- K. Johnson

OF- Sizemore

OF- Beltran

OF- Quentin

OF- Burrell

OF- Ankiel

U- Drew

P- J. Santana

P- Chamberlain

P- Harden

P- Verlander

P- Burnett

P- F. Rodriguez

P- Lidge

P- Wood

P- B. Wilson

BEMCH- Giambi

BENCH- Headley

BENCH- Gardner

BENCH- Chris R. Young

BENCH- Penny

BENCH- Bonderman

I have enough speed and great outfielders. I have 4 good closers. Otherwise I have some issues. And my starting pitching COULD end up being great, but most of them are high risk, high upside guys. But with so many bench slots I just need half of them do be good.

Now that I know the rules, next draft I am going to be more prepared for who I will be using for those bench slots and also I will hopefully end up going in a better direction with my team. I hope to get McCann and good infielders on my next team.

Check this out. Now that Arod is hurt this year I am getting high picks. I got the #4 pick in that other draft and now I get the #2 pick in a draft that is later tonight.

I guess I will have to take Reyes at that point. I'm not so sure if getting the #2 spot uis a good thing or bad. Maybe I will trade him because he doesn't have the power that everyone else has in the top 10 picks.

I'm not liking so much how my teams are going so far...

C- Shoppach

C- Varitek

1B- Fielder

2B- Cano

3B- Huff

SS- H. Ramirez

CI- Cantu

MI- Theriot

OF- Bay

OF- Manny

OF- Victorino

OF- Ankiel

OF- Chris B. Young

U- Hafner

P- Peavy

P- King Felix

P- Harden

P- Kazmir

P- Kershaw

P- Chris R. Young

P- Jenks (second time in my career I have accidentally drafted him via auto pick and I think Aaron did it also)

P- Wood

P- B. Wilson

BEMCH- Butler

BENCH- Byrnes

BENCH- Hoffman

BENCH- Jurrjens

BENCH- Owings

BENCH- Padilla

I keep getting the draft slots I want though. I decided I wanted a late one for next draft where I could maybe get Howard and not be overpaying for him and now I see I have the #9 pick so I should be able to get him or Utley down there. Or Cabrera maybe. I apparently overpaid for Sizemore in my first draft. I chose him at #4 and in my second draft he went at #10.

Final team:

C- McCann

C- Molina

1B- Huff

2B- Utley

3B- Figgens

SS- Drew

CI- Cantu

MI- K. Johnson

OF- Sizemore

OF- Manny

OF- Bradley

OF- Ankiel

OF- Gomez (got him in a 20's round for speed)

U- D. Ortiz

P- Beckett

P- C. Zambrano

P- Myers

P- Harang

P- Oliver

P- Pettitte

P- F. ROdriguez

P- Wood

P- B. Wilson

BEMCH- Francoeur

BENCH- Pierre

BENCH- Carmona

BENCH- Millwood

BENCH- Owings

BENCH- Padilla

I am not too thrilled with my job on any of these.

Love them.

Doubt it. As far as my opinion I have mixed feelings. I like parts of them, but a lot of work to do. And now I just realized I think I kept all 4 closers active on that first team which is not good since I only have 5 starters in.

ok. I finally got a chance to really look at them now that I have done my drafts.

We dont have that many similar players so I'm not to into them. I'm not saying they are bad but they are much different then the way I drafted. At this point we really dont know who has a good team or not so please dont take it personal. I just guys ranked differently guys and in typical fashion, i draft the same players on every team. Adam Jones and Jayson Werth are perfect examples.

I decided to try and balance pitching with hitting a bit more this year and went with all high K guys. I really am high on Javier Vazquez,Josh Johnson and Max Scherzer this year.

Either way, Good Luck this year. I'm sure you will win a few.

Thanks. Good luck to you too. And if I win a few then I would win all because I am only doing a few. lol

I usually draft similar players on all teams too and it's a high risk, high reward situation. If you draft a few duds, it doesn't just mess up one team, it messes up all. So this year I decided to take chances on more players. However Ia do have a few similar on each team.

I am at or near the top everywhere so far, but obviously a week isn't a big deal. I have the same issue in all three leagues... lack of speed. I picked up Taveras off waivers with a #6 in one league, picked up Bourn as a FA and someone waived him in another league now. I don't know much else to do there.

I usually am good at finding good starters throughout the season. I miss out on the closers usually. But this year I have two teams with 4 closers.

Week 1 ends with me winning 2 of my 3 leagues and only 3 and 1/2 out in the other. Tough decisions this week. Risking Padilla in one elague, but benched him in a league where I already have the 10 in wins and k's. A lot of shifting in and out which I hate doing since bench players could have good games.

All three teams have fallen apart. I know it's only the second week, but I am getting so far behind and having such horrible days it's not a good sign. I'm doing good at nothing at all so I don't even have anything I can deal off.

I think me passing up Lowell in all of my leagues cheaply was a big mistake. He is on fire and I got him nowhere and I knew to try thim.

Also I shouldn't have listened to Aaron about the angels' Wood being worth more than Crisp. Wood is not even getting to start.

I have 8 points offensively in a league. EIGHT. POINTS. And in another 11 and 1/2. My offense is so horrible it's hopeless in those two leagues which leaves me with only one shot at winning.