First of all, I would like to thank Pat for the invite to contribute to this site. After many years of head-to-head combat in Roto it is nice to be on the same side for once. It’s like Sylar and Peter Petrelli teaming up for a smackdown. And yes, that will be first of many pop culture references that I hope you get. If not…well, perhaps you should rotate an Entertainment Weekly in there with Baseball America every once in a while. Just a thought.

My first topic is one close to my heart as it is a dilemma that I am facing for the first time in Roto. How can you be a competitive Roto player when you have an active one-year-old at home? More to the point - what do you do when your schedule cuts into your research time? Fantasy Baseball is a time consuming pastime - as any reader here knows, it is rivaled in online searches only with the never-ending search for naked Scarlett Johanssen pictures. And both can be quite satisfying and awfully frustrating at the same time. While you can rationalize ignoring your employment responsibilities and you can just about get away with shunning your wife as you scan Rotoworld.com for the fourth time in that last hour, it is REAL difficult to pull away from that innocent face wanting to show you how he just learned how to clap.

In the last two years I have watched more Elmo’s World than A-Rod’s World – although A-Rod seems to have quite a bit more strippers in his cast – so it becomes tough to watch my team from day to day. Althought I do have a great memory of holding the baby in the hospital while my wife slept while watching a Reds-Brewers game on ESPN and telling him that this is baseball and he ought to start getting used to it.

So what is a Roto player to do? I look at it in a different way - how do I win with this new challenge put before me. As I will with most posts I will try to answer as I would in a regular year-to-year shallow league that most players are in and again in a deep carryover league of which I am a longtime player.
1 - Shallow - Essentially, your draft needs to be as good as it ever was because you cannot be certain of making solid, timely trades or of being quick to the available free agent. You need to conduct your draft as if you were the anti-Miami Dolphins. To paraphrase Winston Zeddemore, “When someone tells you Brady Quinn is available, you say YES!!” Sorry, I need to find a good Miami Dolphin fan support group and drag my Marino-jersey clad butt over there, pronto.

But anyway - load your draft with sure-fire veterans and take only a couple of chances on hotshot rookies and reclamation projects. Go for everyday players instead of platoon guys wherever possible, even if it is a really good platoon player. Your time to mix and match and to be creative with the team is not there any longer so you have to make sure that you have guys that you know are going to be good by the time the season ends just in case you can’t check in for a while.

Make sure that you spend at least a couple of minutes a day checking the injury report. You cannot do too much more, but you can at least make sure you aren’t still carrying Carl Pavano on your roster. In fact, if you are drafting Carl Pavano at all then we aren’t speaking any longer. Seriously Carl, I’ve seen your now ex-girlfriend Gia Allemand….maybe with all of your free time during the endless rehab you should have actually rehabbed your injuries and not Little Carl. But I digress.

Lastly, realize that your kid could care less that Mariano Rivera can’t get any save opportunities because the Yankee bullpen is worse than Bill Richardson’s debate skills. So just enjoy fatherhood and hope that Joe Torre stops throwing Scott Proctor every day.

2 - Carryover - You can use the advice above if you wish, but I like two other plans. The first is to reverse the plan and take tons of risks. Most of the great players are already on teams so you have little to lose in gambling on Mike Lowell’s comeback or Fausto Carmona’s potential. Use my method of cooking spaghetti - no, I’m not referring to asking the Mrs. when the pasta will be ready, I’m talking about those four times a year when I torture her with my cooking - toss against the wall and see what sticks. Get a couple of Top 100 prospect lists and grab up the MLB-ready ones. Most folks know who Phil Hughes is going into the season, but how many average Roto players know Travis Buck? Or Eric Hurley? Guys like us know them, but then again we have spent more hours of our lives reading minor league scouting reports than we spent on our Master’s Thesis. Or was that just me?

The other idea is to look into the future and aim to win in 2009. If the league isn’t too expensive or if you have Trump-like money, then you can do this and have a little fun in the process. Deal off the Randy Johnsons of the world for Hunter Pence, Andrew Miller and others. Totally get thumped this year but be loaded for down-the-road. My plan for this is to load up on arms. If you can get a couple of aces then you can compete for years. Bats are always there, but #1 starters are not.

Anyway - I have to go, the baby is chasing the cat across the room. That can only end badly. Until next time…