Today's Fantasy Rx

If you missed yesterday's column discussing what materials to bring to a draft, please read it when you have time as today's discussion expands on those topics.

We've discussed valuation and draft strategy elsewhere at length, and we'll continue to review those topics thoroughly in the future. However, you also can gain a competitive advantage over many owners by spending a little extra time on both pre-draft and post-draft activities.

Once you have all your draft sheets compiled, we strongly recommend two initial steps:

1. Place all your draft sheets in a manila folder labeled with the year and league name i.e. 2004 FSICNL.
2. Find a draft buddy.

We'll return to the draft sheets later, but considering the vast majority of teams we've faced only have one owner, finding a partner gives you a significant advantage over most opponents. You substantially reduce your workload as long as you allocate tasks properly. Two people are more likely to notice draft trends and the strategies of other teams than a single owner who bears responsibility for drafting, keeping track of available players, and tracking other teams' rosters. Most importantly, at least one of you always can stay at the draft table even during breaks to monitor general conversation, make sure you've recorded all the drafted players on the right teams, etc.

The best choice for a buddy generally is a significant other. I say "a significant other" rather than "your significant other" since we recognize that many spouses and prospective spouses don't share hobbies. While you certainly can enlist your significant other, we see no problem drafting with a friend, sibling, child, other relative, or even the annoying neighbor downstairs who plays music too loud on Friday nights. Well, perhaps the last option isn't a great idea, but the others all appear quite viable. We're not necessarily suggesting that this person be involved in any of your in-season team management or even that they serve much more than a secretarial role at the draft. If you don't ask them to contribute to the entry fee, then splitting your winnings shouldn't be an issue, though you might want to pick up the tab for food during or after the draft as a thank you for helping out.

After a few years of trial-and-error, the best method we've found to divide the labor is for one person to keep track of the league depth chart and draft value sheet discussed yesterday, conducting the bidding while monitoring what players remain available and your targeted prices for those players.

Your partner should track every team's roster, as well as how much money each team has left to spend in auction leagues. If you want a record of the order that players were auctioned, your partner also should keep that list. While the spelling on those sheets never will be perfect, tracking other teams takes significant time that you can better spend formulating strategy for your team.

Do not switch tasks during the draft. If you're working a full partnership rather than just teaming up for the draft, you should discuss strategy before hand. There's normally ample opportunity for the other person to offer their input on player selection and/or bidding, but a unified voice for the team helps keep things clear for the other owners in the league and assures continuity in your record keeping.

Always plan to arrive at the draft with your partner at least fifteen minutes before the official meeting time. While you might need to stand around discussing baseball for a short while, arriving late at a draft can ruin an entire season, not to mention royally irritate your leaguemates.

Wear comfortable clothing and layer. Particularly when drafting at an unfamiliar location, you simply will not know the temperature of the room where you will conduct the draft. Either wearing a sweatshirt or sweater or bringing one with you will insure that no physical discomfort distracts from your focus on the draft.

Bring a water bottle. While most drafts occur at locations with available food and drink, keeping water and even a snack bar of some sort handy insures you maintain your energy even if the kitchen burns down during your draft.

Before you leave for the draft, place the folder with your draft sheets on a clipboard. Usually our drafts occur at long tables in a public location, however we've also drafted from couches multiple times, creating the need for a hard surface on which to write. Make duplicates of every draft sheet just in case you spill something on the originals, and if you find a partner to join you, two copies of all draft materials are essential. Attach a couple of pens and pencils.

Get at least a few hours of sleep prior to the draft. While we've drafted with little problem on occasion despite only sleeping for a few hours, we generally find that sleeping at least a few hours is a more important factor in our success than the extra time spent on draft prep.

Following the draft, unless you know you need to address a specific area of weakness on your team, you probably should ignore your team for a couple of weeks until the season begins developing. Watching actual regular season games is refreshing after four months of inactivity and a month of spring games, and we gain more by following "real baseball" than focusing on our fantasy teams over the first few weeks of the season. Of course, you shouldn't forget to submit lineups, target free agents, and keep track of transaction periods, but paying any significant attention to pre-May standings makes little sense.

Before you flip on the TV to watch Opening Night and a full slate of games on Opening Day a week from Monday, make sure your draft folder is complete. Aside from including all your draft sheets, place any draft handouts or notes you took into the folder, and then find an easily accessible drawer or other place to store the folder so you can refer to the materials at your leisure.

After the season, you can add printouts of your league's standings, the statistics and salaries of the players you owned, and if you wish, a list of your team's transactions, although we don't find the latter list particularly useful. We frequently refer to these league folders in future seasons to examine owner strategies and league developments, not to mention we appreciate the hardcopy record when we can't access the league webpage.

You certainly don't need to follow all these suggestions, however after many years of drafting, we believe they increase our likelihood of successful drafts without hindering that goal in any way.

Today's Fantasy Rx: Of all the advice listed above, we firmly believe the most beneficial recommendation is to draft with a buddy. Two heads almost always are better than one, especially when drafting a fantasy baseball team.