Finally...

It's fantasy baseball season. Well, almost. But I consider it so whenever Yahoo! lets me sign up. I'm questionable when it comes to fantasy football and basketball, I'll admit, but baseball is different. I'll take on anybody.

This year I'll get to see how good I really am. I'm joining a keeper league that has 10 teams and drafts from an NL only pool. I'm taking over a team ... one that's completely awful:

Inside Out
Player	MLB	Salary	Contract
Schneider, Brian C NYM	A	1	A
Snyder, Chris C ARI	A	1	A
Belliard, Ronnie 2B WAS	A	1	A
Durham, Ray 2B SF	A	10	A
Ensberg, Morgan 3B NYY	M	26	B
Furcal, Rafael SS LA	A	30	B
Rollins, Jimmy SS PHI	A	26	A
Tracy, Chad 3B ARI	A	13	A
Berkman, Lance 1B HOU	A	21	C
Branyan, Russell 3B STL	U	1	A
Conine, Jeff 1B NYM	U	1	A
McLouth, Nate CF PIT	A	7	A
Mench, Kevin RF TEX	M	1	A
Spilborghs, Ryan CF COL	A	10	A
Bell, Heath RP SD	A	10	A
Davis, Doug SP ARI	A	13	A
Hernandez, Orlando SP NYM	A	8	A
Isringhausen, Jason RP STL	A	26	C
Johnson, Randy SP ARI	A	21	A
Looper, Braden SP STL	A	10	A
Patton, Troy SP BAL	A	7	A
Stults, Eric SP LA	A	7	A
Williams, Woody SP HOU	A	1	B
Willis, Dontrelle SP DET	A	30	B
TOTALS	Active: 24, Active Salary: 282, Total Salary: 282

All of the contracts are current as of the end of last year, so each has advanced to the year beyone what you see. In Lehman's terms, everyone you see with a C contract is gone. I have to keep a minimum of seven players and a max of 15. Needless to say, I'm going with the former.

My keepers are: Jimmy Rollins, Orlando Hernandez, Ray Durham, Brian Schneider, Chris Snyder, Braden Looper and Nate McLouth.

That gives me $217 of cap space to fill the extremely large amount of holes that I have. First on the list of potential acquisitions is, of course, Johan Santana. Looks like he's gonna go $40+, though, so nabbing him is far from a guarantee. As of now, my alternative is Marlins LHP Andrew Miller, whom I watched lead the North Carolina Tar Heels to a runner-up finish in the College World Series in 2006. Of course, the talent of the two is hardly comparable at this point, but Miller is sure to get a spot in the rotation and sure to be a heckuva lot cheaper than Santana. If he pans out, then I should have about a $15 lefty for three years.

Some of the big name free agents are as follows:

Carlos Lee
Aaron Harang
Jason Isringhausen
Brian McCann
Ryan Howard
Matt Holliday
Willy Taveras
Jeff Francoeur
David Wright
Ken Griffey
Ryan Dempster
Brad Penny
Andruw Jones
John Smoltz
Chad Cordero

As you can see, there are only 15 notable players that are guaranteed to be available. Drop lists are due about two weeks before the draft, which is March 29, so that is sure to add to the pool, but I'm gonna need some serious help on the mound. That will pretty much force my hand on either Santana or Miller depending on how my money looks. Hopefully people won't be to giddy and bring up Santana's name first, though that's highly unlikely.

Either way, I'm guaranteeing a finish of sixth or better. Considering the wretched team I've inherited, I don't think that's half bad.