Easter Sunday was perhaps the most beautiful day of 2008 thus far in Southern California. Rather than spend the day outdoors playing in the sun, I was happily entrenched on the computer and in the books, studying for my upcoming fantasy baseball draft.

Although I got a late start on my study sesh, I pride myself in getting the most out of my resources and using them all efficiently. Standard draft advice aside, here are some strategies I use that have been successful for me:

1. Choose a good fantasy baseball draft magazine

This one is fairly simple. Magazines can definitely help steer you in the right direction, giving you some nice sleeper lists, bust lists, mock drafts (and analysis for the picks), stat projections, and player rankings.

There are tons of different magazines out there, so make sure you find one that has all of these components. Some mags tend to skip on extraneous analysis on say a mock draft, but you can’t go wrong with having more information and another voice pleading their case.

Make sure you select a magazine that is as updated as possible and has reasonable projections. Normally, I select a few players that I already feel strongly about and see how they stack up against the mag’s projections. To gauge how updated the magazine is, be up the offseason moves and see whether or not the involved players are on their respective new teams.

2. Use Baseball Prospectus

Deciphering the stats within Baseball Prospectus can be a fairly daunting task. Luckily for you, I already wrote a blog outlining the most important things for us fantasy nerds to know, and how to use them to your advantage. BP is scary good and tends to be right about a lot of things. Right before the draft, I like to make a list of names I already picked out as potential studs and breakouts out of BP and write their relevant stats as to why I deemed them as such. Just another reference tool to check as I draft.

3. Show up to the draft early

This applies more to online drafts. If you arrive to an in-person draft early, you’re just forced to make awkward small talk and will most likely get suckered into helping the host set up shop. Online however, you can go through the pre-ranked player lists and add all of your sleepers to your draft queue, as well as names you are going for in general. This saves you time during the draft as you don’t have to go through list after list looking for a particular name. Furthermore, if the system happens to lag or you get booted off, you won’t be too adversely affected if the computer has to pick in your absence, as you will at least be getting a player you wanted anyways.

4. Don’t get caught in pre-ranked hype

Every website or magazine you read has their own pre-rankings for players. Many of the rankings are fairly accurate and can more or less gauge when a player should be selected based on popular consensus. However, these pre-rankings can get outdated and fail to account for promotions, demotions, injuries, etc…

Furthermore, its necessary to take matters into your own hands and have your own thoughts about players. When I draft, I already have set prejudices and feelings about certain players. If you do enough of your own research and are convinced that, say, Michael Bourn is gonna break out and steal 50 bases, then dig a little deeper down the pre-ranked list and bump him up. Don’t be afraid to pick players out of the pre-ranked order. Be confident and value players yourself, using pre-rankings only as a gauge.

5. Know and diversify your internet resources

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket by relying solely on the projections of one website where you draft or one magazine that you bought. Look into various sources (ESPN, Yahoo, CBS Sportsline, magazines, etc…) and compare players across the board. Sticking to only one or two sources gets you too caught up in those authors’ thinking. Opening up a new tab in your web browser and loading up another website for a fresh perspective is always a good thing.

Hopefully some of that was helpful to whoever read it. Obviously there are countless other things to keep in mind that magazines and websites devote entire sections to, but those are 5 strategies I use to fine tune and give myself that extra edge. Tune in tomorrow (or hell, maybe later tonight if I’m bored) to see what this draft results this magic yields for yours truly!

This just caught my eye on ESPN amidst all of the March Madness hoopla. This is likely the first and last time I’m writing a post relating to Swimming, but it sparked something inside me and I felt it warranted mentioning.

Apparently, they swim in Europe this time of year. Beyond this, swimming competitions are even organized. In the Netherlands. Oh, I’m just receiving word that this is done indoors and is thus more feasible. Scratch that… I once swam as well. I should know this.

So the stage is set: the European Swimming Championships are set. A dapper young Milorad Cavic of Serbia steps up on the podium to receive the gold for the 50 meter butterfly. He unveils a t-shirt that reads: “Kosovo is Serbia”

Hmmm…. touchy…

For those of you with your heads up your philistine asses, shit is going down again in the Balkans. Seeing as how they are terribly nationalistic and have a proclivity for killing each other, this public display is slightly problematic.

I’m not trying to take one side over another on this. I recognize Balkan relations are fragile and whatnot, but this incident really is a bit silly.

With the unveiling of his t-shirt, Cavic was banned from further competition at the event. The Serbian Swimming Federation was also fined $10,800.

I don’t get it.

It’s not like the kid was a shady looking character carrying some rocks while walking up and down the Kosovo border adorned in this garb. He’s a swimmer. In the Netherlands. Hell, he was born in ANAHEIM.

Cavic said that he was “devastated” by the outcome and was merely trying to send “positive energy” to his country.  Fair enough, no?

Call off the hounds and reinstate the kid. This is totally harmless and they definitely made it a bigger deal than need be by taking such actions. Just let it go.

Happened to score some nice tickets to the Los Angeles Clippers v. Golden State Warriors game tonight. To be honest, I had no desire whatsoever to go to a Clipper game. However, I figured it would be a good bit of fun to see Golden State and cheer on former UCLA Bruins such as Baron Davis and Matt Barnes.

Prior to the game, my buddy Devin made the prediction of a 121-96 Golden State victory. The final score of 116-100 was eerily not too far off. Not bad, kid!

The game itself wasn’t bad either and was fairly entertaining to watch.

Only Clipper Darrell came close to rivaling Baron in applause. Also a large contingent of Bay Area folk on hand to cheer their team on.

The Warriors are a fast-paced, fun team to watch. They came out exactly as such, hitting 3 after 3 and building a lead that pretty much everyone saw coming.

However, as dejected as Clippers fans seemed all game, the beast that is Al Thornton still managed to bring them to their feet. Most notably, the kid threw down a monster put-back slam that got Staples Center cheering despite the home team being down by around a dozen. He had another equally if not more impressive move in the lane when he got fouled and seemingly floated while palming the ball forever, eventually finger rolling it in a la Arvydas Sabonis. Thornton ended up with 24 and 13. Couple that with the returns of Elton Brand and Shawn Livingston, and Clippers fans may soon have something more to cheer about.

Minimal Clipper highlights aside, Golden State dominated this one. They barely even needed to try, as Stephen Jackson was seemingly strafing up and down the court instead of running en route to his 29 points. Monta Ellis showed us once again why he’s one of the biggest bargains in the NBA at under $800,000 a year by putting up 28 points by essentially just running the free throw warm-up drill. Seriously though… dude picked apart the defense, moved without the ball, and ran plays to perfection.

All in all, good times were had by all. I even scored a free t-shirt by sinking 3 shots on a mini-hoop at the ESPN Radio booth outside the arena.

I can definitely see why Bill Simmons is a Clippers season ticket holder. On a Wednesday night, watching an arbitrary basketball game to see some talent is just the thing.