Round 1

The first round traditionally sets the tone for the rest of the draft.  Whether you draft first, second, or tenth, your strategy, or lack of strategy, is determined by your first couple of picks.  Some people will go with the bombers, some with 5-tool players, some pitching, but the one thing in common is your best player should be picked here.  I, like many, used Yahoo!'s player rankings as well as ESPN, SI, and peeked at a couple others in the later rounds to try and find that breakthrough player in the later rounds.  I wouldn't call anyone taken here a risk or breakthrough.  A few in this round had their breakthroughs within the last few years.

The Turtles pick - Wow, Cabrera still available at 6.  I don't know if this league is avoiding him because of taking a grounder in the face or what, but according to all I've seen this guy is a top 3 pick.  I was originally planning on taking either the stud pitcher (Verlander or Kershaw) here or Cano.  I usually don't take a 2B this early, or a Yankee for that matter, but I was counting on plenty of depth at the other power positions.  As far as a pitcher, last year I drafted to pwn the pitching categories.  Even though I ended up winning the title, my strongest categories were 3/5 offense and only 2/5 pitching...go figure.  If I could have had my choice of a pick here, it would have been Kemp, of course I might be a bit biased because I had him last year and love those 5-tool players.

Stretch pick(s) - Hard to say there's a stretch pick in this round.  Pretty much the top 10 preseason fantasy players were picked but in a different order than the average draft position (ADP) indicates.  Based purely on ADP, Braun and Verlander were taken perhaps too early?  But how can you possible argue that the reigning MVP's are taken early?  To each his own, hopefully Braun will not be distracted by the "Ster - roids" chants away from home.

Other pick(s) - No surprises here.  Consensus top 10 picks.

Best pick(s) - Another hard one to pick.  Of course I feel I got a great player who will also be 3B eligible at #6 with Cabrera.  I really think Kershaw at #10 will replace Lincecum as "the freak" and be the best pitcher for the year.  If Cabrera wasn't there, he was first in my Q.  Bautista at #7 could end up being a steal, being a top 5 stat earner in 4 categories and 3B is not particularly deep this year.