Like many of you, I have a March Madness bracket that has been blown up beyond recovery.  But just when you thought the glory that is the month of March was over as a result, Fantasy Baseball is here to the rescue!  I had my NL only auction draft yesterday and am here to give you some sound advice for your draft as I'm sure most of you have your Fantasy Baseball drafts this week.  In giving you my sound advice, you should know that last year was the first year in my fantasy career that I finished in the money in both of my keeper leagues.  I have won a couple of mixed leagues in my time, but my NL only league has been my mainstay with this being my 7th season. 

This preview will be assuming that you are in a league with an auction draft.  Auctions are so much more fun than regular drafts.  I'm in a mixed auction keeper league and the aforementioned NL only one.  Way too much fun.  That being said, here are some words of wisdom:

(I'm assuming a Rotisserie-style league for the preview)

Rule #1

Do not come in attached to any one player.  Coming in needing to get a player in an auction draft is like taking a girl to Vegas.  It seems like a great idea at the time, but you end up spending way more money than you had anticipated and have just a mediocre time. 

To illustrate, when Shawn Green was on the Dodgers my entire league knew that I would be buying him.  The only question was who'd be willing to take the risk of my not overbidding.  So let's say that Green was worth about $18, I'd spend about $24 to get him because the guys would bid him up.  What they didn't know was that I would have spent $34 before letting him go.  A Jewish Dodger who was good?  How could I not have him?  If Manny converted to Judaism before the draft yesterday, I would have bid about $60 on him. 

The lesson is this:  Don't get attached to individual players.  It costs way too much money.  Your team will not be as good.  And, you don't get to participate in the bidding on other, better guys.  I really wanted James McDonald this year and was dumb enough to bid all the way up to $7.  Thankfully, someone else was equally attached and when he bid $8 I realized that it was about $6 too many.  He may end up being a solid pitcher, but at the auction there were far better options with that money.

Rule #2

You have to follow spring training battles, but don't put too much emphasis on spring training numbers for well-established guys.  For instance, Brandon Webb and Dan Haren are having very shoddy Springs.  Does this mean that it will translate into poor performances this summer?  Absolutely not.  These guys aren't in a regular season mind frame and are just trying to get their arms into playing shape.  Don't read into a 5.00 ERA in the Spring if you're talking about a perennial Cy Young award candidate.

Rule #3

Be active.  There are two ways to be active.  You can be the guy who yells "$10" for Albert Pujols, or you can be the guy who waits and bids $38 and higher.  Let me explain.  Yes, auction drafts need people willing to get the bidding up to the appropriate salary, but, I'm not that guy.  While other people are bidding $15 and $16 and $20 for Pujols, I'm getting the rest of my materials in order.  I'm doing that necessary research and crossing off on lists that you need to do during the draft.  However, I'm mindful of the period during which the bidding is winding down.  And this is where I usually have my drafts made for me.  I bid at the end on a good 40-60% of the guys early on depending on how many I win.  And I usually don't win too many.  But, the point is, I'm active in looking for good deals.

Let me give you an example.  Say that you value Albert Pujols at $45.  If the bidding is slowing down at around $36, then you should be bidding at $37-$41.  Saving 10% on a guy like Pujols is huge for your team's value.  Unless you really think the guy is overrated, you should be bidding on good deals.  For instance, at my draft yesterday, I thought that Geovany Soto was a $26 guy, especially with McCann and a couple of other decent catchers frozen in an NL only league.  So the bidding slowed as it was getting to $20 and I ended up bidding $21.  Sold.  Did I plan on getting Soto when the day started?  Nope.  But, at a 20% discount, I'll take him.  And it's picks like Soto at $21 that get the room nodding in approval.  I can promise you that if I had signed James McDonald at $7 that nobody would have nodded in approval.  You want to get the best players possible at the cheapest price possible.  Remember that.  An auction draft is all about value.  If you get Hanley Ramirez at $56, yeah, you got the best guy in your draft, but the rest of your team will be sorry and you'll be stuck with a horrific corner, pitching staff, outfield, etc.  I'd much rather have Geovany Soto at $21 than Hanley Ramirez at $56.

Rule #4

Don't punt a category.  You could have the best team in your league in HR, RBI, Runs and BA, but if you don't have anyone who can steal a base, you're losing 20% of the possible hitting points that your league hands out.  And, odds are, that if you have the best team in your league in the aforementioned categories, you're not going to have the best pitching staff around either.  So while you'll be raking in points in four categories, you'll be last in another and mediocre at best in the remaining categories.  Not a good strategy.  You need to have a well-rounded team.

Rule #5

While keeping Rule #4 in mind, be wary of overspending on steals or saves.  Do you know what the easiest categories to gain in around the trade deadline are?  Steals and saves.  Because the person giving those people up is probably way ahead and in far more desperate need of general pitching or hitting.  This is the guy you want to take advantage of.  You don't want to be the guy taken advantage of.  I fear I may have fallen into the latter category in my NL only league this year.  I went for good bargains, but unfortunately I now find myself predicting that I'll win stolen bases by about 100 bases.  I'll probably end up having to trade a guy like Jose Reyes for 75 cents on the dollar to make up for my team's deficiencies in HR and RBI.  That's not the way to go.  I did fine on the saves end.  I got Jose Valverde at a reasonable price and drafted two middle relievers, which is always a low-risk, high reward opportunity that few take advantage of.  What happens if K-Rod gets hurt?  You could have J.J. Putz at $3 or $5 and end up getting a month of the Mets closer for little to no cost.  If he ends up in middle relief the whole season, you'll probably still get your value with random wins and the help in WHIP and ERA.  In addition, there are always 5 or 6 guys who end up closing that won't be on anybody's team to start the season.  Therefore, I repeat, please do not go closer crazy at your draft.  Going steals crazy isn't good either, but not as bad as going closer crazy.

Rule #6

Don't sign Noah Lowry.  That comes from personal experience.  I don't know who fabricates his numbers in these magazines, but his lifetime ERA in my head is about 156.37.  I once traded Jake Peavy for Johnny Damon and Noah Lowry.  The salary benefit was in my favor, but this was in Peavy's Cy Young season and during a season in which Johnny Damon's oblique and whatever else old centerfielders who can't throw got messed up, well, went and got messed up.  My league still brings this trade up.  I hate Noah Lowry. 

Rule #7

If you take a flyer on someone who used to be good and now goes for about $2, don't put him in your lineup until he has proven himself.  For example, last season I got Barry Zito for $3.  Everyone laughed and said I overpaid by about $20.  Well, at $3 it wasn't the end of the world.  However, I kept him in my starting lineup during that atrocious start he had.  You'd think that after 0-6 I would have wisened up, but it's like when Red comes up 8 times in a row at the Roulette table.  Even though the previous 8 rolls had nothing to do with the next one, I was still sure that the next one would be Black and didn't want to miss out on when the tide turned.  The lesson here:  If a guy stunk last year, people say that his contract is the worst ever, and he starts the year out 0-6 with an ERA in double-digits, he shouldn't be in your lineup and probably shouldn't have been in the first place.  I may have gotten Jason Schmidt this year in the reserve round, but he'll have to show me something before I start him.

Rule #8

Just because a guy is Jewish doesn't automatically mean he'll be good for your fantasy team.  This is a rule I just need in writing for myself.  I have a bad feeling I'll end up siging Jason Marquis and having him in there for a 4 IP, 8 H, 7 ER, 6 BB, 1 K game.

Rule #9

Know how your league values guys.  I can't stress the importance of this one enough.  Everyone will walk in with a fantasy magazine of some sort that will have assigned values to the guys.  And said magazine may assign values for a league with the exact same specs as yours.  However, that doesn't mean that the values will correlate.  You need to pay attention to the first few guys and chart how much above or below the magazine value that a guy is going for on average.  Every year the trend differs in my league.  One year everybody blew money early and there were insane values late.  I was one of those blown wad people so the next year I was hell-bent on saving money.  One other team shared my strategy.  You know what happened?  All of the good outfielders and hitters in general were gone and the two of us who waited around with money ended up bidding Jacque Jones all the way up to $22.  This was when Jacque Jones was a FOURTH OUTFIELDER for the Cubs.  I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad that I ended up winning that bidding war.  Moral of the story:  You need to have a firm grip within the first 5-10 picks on how your league's auction is going.  If you think guys are going for cheap early, jump on it.  Don't wait around until people realize that they have too much money to spend and there aren't a lot of guys left.  What good is it to have money left over if you're bidding on Kosuke Fukudome's sloppy seconds?  On the other hand, if guys are going for $48 when they should be going for $42, hold off and wait for the values late.

Rule #10

Pay careful attention to injuries and spring battles.  Our league's commish bid $16 on Carlos Marmol.  At the time it was a decent gamble.  However, almost comically, about 8 minutes later rotoworld announced that Kevin Gregg would be the closer, not Marmol.  I'm not saying that our commish should have turned his ESP button on, but if your draft is tomorrow, you should know that Gregg is the closer, or that Lackey is going to miss the first month of the season, or that Hamels is going to miss opening day.  You don't want to overbid on a guy by 30% because you were unaware of a situation.

A-Rod Rule

A lot of people are letting A-Rod slip to the 45th or 50th pick in their drafts and he's going for way less than I anticipated in auctions.  A-Rod will be a Top-3 guy when he returns.  I actually think he picked this timing to take the focus off of the drama he otherwise was facing.  Remember, when A-Rod's out, you're still getting another guys' stats who you put in there.  If you take 1 month of say, Edwin Encarnacion, and 4 months of A-Rod, I think you still have a second or third round guy.  Evaluate the guy you're replacing an injured starter with before you downgrade too much.

I have more rules, but I don't want to bore you anymore.  Instead, here are my Top-5 lists.  I'm not assigning dollar values.  If you skipped some rules and went striaght to this section, read Rule #9 for the rationale.

Catcher

Brian McCann - cream of the crop.
Russel Martin - 15 HR, 75 RBI, and a .285 BA from the C position sounds good to me.
Geovany Soto - I like him.  No sophomore slump here.
Joe Mauer - Nice to have a catcher that improves your average.
Ryan Doumit - Breakout year last season.  Don't expect another .320 avg, but 20 HR is a possibility.

First Base

Albert Pujols - Best non-steroids hitter of our generation when it's all said and done.
Miguel Cabrera - Interesting to see where he ends up after Detroit has no money left to pay him.
Ryan Howard - Unless your league for whatever reason counts K's, he's well worth the money you'll have to spend.
Lance Berkman - Provided that hammy's ok, I'm always high on Berkman.  Don't expect another 18 SB though.
Mark Teixeira - I'm not as high on him as others.  He'll have added pressure sans A-Rod early and he's a slow starter.  Bad combo.

Second Base

Ian Kinsler - Holding Utley's spot until Chase is proven healthy.  Kinsler is no slouch though.
Chase Utley - First round potential if healthy.
Dustin Pedroia - I love that new commercial.
Brandon Phillips - Won't help your average, but Votto and Bruce make his job easier this season.
Brian Roberts - Gotta love .290 and 40 SB's at 2B.

Shortstop

Hanley Ramirez - The new standard.
Jose Reyes - Still a Top-5 pick.
Jimmy Rollins - Great commercial a la Billy Madison.
Alexi Ramirez - A very quiet breakout year.  Even without improvement I still have him here.
Rafael Furcal - Bad spring.  Hasn't been stealing any bases either.  I like him, but he's a Dodger, I like all of them.

Third Base

David Wright - Injury isn't serious from what I've read.  Almost killed the World Baseball Classic's charter though.
Alex Rodriguez - See A-Rod Rule above.
Evan Longoria - Good enough for Team USA.
Aramis Ramirez - Don't overpay for homers that may not come like they used to.
Kevin Youkilis - Kind of looks like the guy who broke both his thumbs in a Seinfeld episode. 

Outfield

Grady Sizemore - Not even the Jewish edge could put Braun here.  Tough to argue with 35/35 potential.
Ryan Braun - Much better than Lloyd Braun.
Josh Hamilton - Whoever snagged him up last year is a happy camper.  You'll be the same if you do so this year.
Carlos Beltran - He'll flourish again in that lineup.
B.J. Upton - I'd like a better BA, but best not to ask for too much and be happy with what you've got.

Starting Pitcher

Tim Lincecum - I LOVED having him last year, and that's saying something because I HATE the Giants.
Johan Santana - An off year from him and he's still Cy Young worthy.  Almost won the Division by himself down the stretch.
Brandon Webb - Mr. Consistent.  Don't let those Spring numbers scare you.
Dan Haren - The NL West is not good.  This may be a tad high, but you can't go too wrong if you draft him.
C.C. Sabathia - I downgraded him due to the high pressure atmosphere plus having to face AL East teams all year.

Relief Pitcher

Jonathan Papelbon - Crazy genius in the 9th.
Joe Nathan - Mr. Consistent Part II.
Brad Lidge - If he did that in the Playoffs, imagine what he'll do in the lax regular season (unless Pujols is involved).
Mariano Rivera - Cut fastball.  Most unhittable pitch I've seen when on.
Francisco Rodriguez - Looked good for Venezuela.  We'll see how things go in the land of the collapse. 

Prospects

David Price - Only in the Minors for $$$ reasons.
Matt Wieters - Future all-star at catcher.
Cameron Maybin - 5-tool potential
Alcides Escobar - Stuck behind J.J. Hardy and didn't help himself in the Spring.
Madison Bumgarner - Ace.

There you have it.  Have fun at your drafts and as long as you don't get Noah Lowry, I'm sure you'll do fine.