Team Name: Deacon Blues - (Fantasy Baseball HQ)
Owner Name: Robert Burghardt
Home State: Long Island, NY
Baseball Web Site: Fantasy Baseball Headquarters
Personal Bio
31-year old senior software engineer (i.e., computer geek) from Long Island with a passion for baseball. Somehow I have dragged my wife and two-year old son into being a family of huge Mets fans and we are lucky to be able to attend about a dozen games a year. I began playing Rotisserie Baseball in 1989 while a junior at Northwestern University and have been enjoying it ever since. I got started on the Internet craze and developed my own web site, the Fantasy Baseball Headquarters in 1995. This web site provides free fantasy information to thousands of folks each week. We have free player profiles, stats, a dollar value calculator and more. It is more than enough to keep my busy for 12 months out of the year.

Pre-Draft Strategy
I tend to go for the solid and consistent players with my first four or five draft choices. I always hate to get stuck with a second or third round catastrophe, so I'll play it conservative early, trying to draft from the weak positions first. Since I was fortunate enough to get the second pick in the draft, I will be selecting P. Martinez, Bos or R. Johnson, Ari, possibly leaving A. Rodriguez, Tex on the table for the lucky owner at #3. After that, maybe M. Piazza or I. Rodriguez, Tex will slip to us at the second round, if not C. Jones, Atl or T. Glaus, Ana will make a nice fit. Overall, I will be looking to build a well-balanced team, not a team with great speed, power or pitching, but solid across the board.
Unfortunately, since this is still early January, the sleeper list is really just a crapshoot. T. Hundley, ChiN could be a nice pick-up playing at Wrigley this year; C. Knoblauch, NYA could have a nice bounce-back season if he throws ok in spring training; Look for J.D. Drew, StL to have his bust-out season in 2001.
Busts this season will probably include J. Kent, SF after his career year in 2000, T. Glaus, Ana (batting average is a concern), M. McGwire, StL (more injuries), R. Clemens, NYA (just too old to throw that heat anymore) and K. Griffey, Jr., Cin (again). J. Damon, KC could end up on this list as well depending on where he gets traded.
Overall, the draft is pretty solid at first base and in the outfield. I will try not to pick a first baseman or outfielder in the first few rounds, unless a really big name is left on the board for just too long. Third base, catcher and starting pitching are the weakest, so I will try to fill those slots early.
There are always a few runs in the draft and closers tend to be right in the middle of it. If you can start the run (instead of end it), you are much better off. It's always tricky to know when the run will begin and every draft is different, so I'll be playing this one by ear.
In past seasons, I haven't concentrated as much on the weak positions as I will this year. There are always a few stud outfielders left at the end of the draft and I would like to have some of those slots open on my roster to take advantage of the situation.

Post-Draft Analysis
Overall, we are very pleased with the team put together here over the past couple of weeks. For the most part, we stuck to our strategy of taking the best players at weak positions as well as making sure our starting pitching staff is solid (R. Johnson, Ari; R. Dempster, Fla; El Duque, NYA; R. Person, Phil; and K. Appier, NYN).

Our best pick had to be R. Johnson, Ari early, but that was an absolute no-brainer. Later on, we were very pleased to snag R. Cedeno, Det in the 19th round and P. Wilson, Fla as our third outfielder. Other picks we like because of their upside potential this year include C. Biggio, Hou; J. Posada, NYA; J. Gonzalez, Clev; and G. Vaughn, TB.  S. Reynolds, Hou was a very nice find with our last pick. He won't help us the first two months of the year, but will provide a nice boost to our team by the time the dog days of summer roll around.

Who did you forget about?
We didn't really miss out on anyone in particular or forget about anyone. Overall, the draft was mostly predictable.

What were your worst picks?
The only bad pick I think we had was the D. Justice, NYA pick. We made a mistake thinking A. Belle, Bal was still on the board, but he had just been picked (duh!). So, we made a quick decision and went with Justice. After thinking about it, we realized that Justice probably won't be playing every day and decided to cover our tracks by taking R. Cedeno, Det.