What's your fantasy?

The sports scene is starting to heat up. We just finished the NFL combine and are getting into NFL free agency and college pro days. The NBA is starting to make the playoff push, college basketball is in the conference championships and oh so close to march madness and major league baseball spring training is just getting started. So that means that one of my favorite pastime is also getting started. That's right fantasy baseball.

Being the nice guy that I am I'm going provide you with some draft day wisdom because I just repeated as champion in my main league last year and even though half the guys quit in the middle of the season and one guy didn't bother to show up at the draft at all, it doesn't matter. As I've said before winning is winning and so here are a collection of tips.

1) Go with safe picks in the early rounds. You really want to gamble on Howard over Ortiz. They basically put up the same numbers last year only Ortiz has been doing this for the past three years. Same thing with Beltran over Manny. Manny is the biggest lock in the draft just pencil in 300, 30, and 100. Beltran just seems a little too precious and fragile plus last year was by far his biggest year in the bigs. On that same line of thinking I'd be weary of Reyes and Cano as well.

2) Watch out for injuries. Pitching is brutal on the arm we just aren't went to throw like that for prolonged periods of time. It's just a matter of time before Santana blows out his elbow. Think about that before you pull the trigger with the second overall pick.

3) Watch out for guys who just had career years. There's lots of stats that measure this sort of thing like your batting average compared to your contact rate or something like that but just be aware it's unlikely that Morneau is going to continue on the tear he hit last year and that was probably Jeter's best year not the start of a new stage in his career.

4) If you think a guy is juicing then ignore that last point. Then Morneau is going to hit on the tear he hit last year and this is the start of a new stage in Jeter's career.

5) Closers are overrated. They just don't get enough innings to make that big of an impact.

6) In Roto leagues you have to avoid guys that only bring one stat to the table like Podsednik. In head to head you can get away with it. You can load up on certain categories so you'll definitely win them and suck in others while the rest of the league tries to get a balanced team. A good reason why guys like Crawford are more valuable Roto guys than head to head guys.

7) Don't be that guy who takes too long drafting players. I hate that guy.

8) Don't be that guy who drafts Prior or Wood.

9) Be that guy that drafts Bonds. There's lots of high comedy plus you get to have him on your team when he breaks the record. Which means absolutely nothing but still.

10) Pick a cool team name

11) Don't fall in love with certain players. This is my biggest flaw in fantasy football. I know the guys so well and over prepare for the draft that when I get my team I always think that guys who aren't producing will turn it around next thing you know it's December and I've been riding Kevin Jones for four months.

12) Catchers are overrated. Even guys like Martinez and Mauer don't produce up to their draft positions.

13) Always trash talk. Always.

With that being said here's my top ten players for the upcoming 2007 season
Pujols
Soriano
Ortiz
Rodriguez
Ramirez
Cabrera
Guerrero
Howard
Beltran
Berkman