I'm the guy who reached for Todd Jones (at your draft)

It's not hard to make me feel like I know absolutely nothing about a subject. It's pretty much how I spend my time, going from area to area of human life, realizing I know next to nothing about any of it.

I bring this up because I'm joining my first fantasy baseball league since my senior year of high school. I stopped in college because every summer I was moving around constantly; spending time at school, my parents place, vacation and any number of places with or without Internet or phone access. With two younger brothers addicted to AIM and MySpace, finding time every week to check Steve Traschel's WHIP was not an easy task.

My main concern was ending up managing one of hose teams that would go unchecked for weeks on end. I hate those guys and I didn't want to become one. So instead of taking a chance every year of possible starting a dead end team I left it out.

Instead I played OOTP in an online league. Even that I had to quit after three seasons because I started working at my college paper and time became a much more precious commodity.

Not that I don't enjoy fantasy games. I play fantasy football every year. I love making rosters; I used to do I with my baseball cards in elementary school. I even held drafts and kept stats in m own made up system. It just felt like there were too man obstacles to me being a productive league member.

But now I'm out of school, have a job and a permanent high-speed all to myself and I felt ready to take the plunge.

So about a month ago I started to delve into the intricacies of the fantasy baseball world. My first concern was drafting strategies. I know the players, I know the stats, but how do I turn that knowledge into fantasy whoop ass?

I had to stop thinking about the players I would want on a real team (Miguel Cabrera is young, cheap and has great OBP numbers) to what would help me in fantasy (look at how many steals Juan Pierre has!!!). That was difficult. I sill want Miguel Cabrera over Juan Pierre, but coming to grips with the fact that I might actually want Juan Pierre was a challenge.

I started to look into the "Tier" draft strategy, which meant I had to look harder at the things I knew to be true (Roy Oswalt is better than Aaron Harang) and put rigid, unforgiving barriers between them (Roy Oswalt is worth exactly $9 more than Aaron Harang). Then there were the questions of when to draft pitchers, go for steals or hits, saves or strikeouts, etc ...

The other night I did a mock draft and got lost around the third round. I panicked and picked Chris Carpenter. I ended up without a first baseman until the 10th round when I grabbed Adrian Gonzalez. Corey Patterson was my starting center fielder.

So maybe I'm not ready. I plan to have a few more cram sessions, Identify backups to my backups and sleepers for those guys. And after 15 or 20 more mock drafts I'll get into a league around August.

I've more or less resigned my self to being cannon fodder for the more experienced players out there. I will go out, compete and be destroyed. Once I reattach my head to my body I will learn why I was so terrible.

So look out fantasy world of 2008. I'll be older. I'll be wiser. Do not mess with me (In the future).