Assuming you have heard all the standard lines on personalized draft sheets, Lima plans, and not being a homer, here is some ‘other’ advice that will impact your draft and season:

If you have a loved one or partner (and assuming they don’t share your affliction for non-sexual games that begin with the word ‘fantasy’), keep them far away from you on draft day. All day. Until the festivities are over. Start your departure from your mate early in the morning. Hell, send them away for the weekend if you can. At least slip them a wad of cash to go to breakfast and shopping and lunch and a movie and a nightclub. Because if you engage in conversation with them before your draft, when all you’re really thinking about is who’s better: Roy Oswalt or Carlos Zambrano, then you’re headed down a slippery slope of tension and drama. And to someone who doesn’t ‘play’ fantasy baseball, there are, really, very few topics that aren’t more important than pretend baseball scoring.  Create pleasant distance on this day. 

Act crazy during the draft. If you’re festivities are in-person, the possibilities are endless: fart with abandon, cuss when players you don’t want are taken, grab other people’s drinks and take a swig, pick or bring up a player out of order on a regular basis, sit in other people’s chairs whenever they get up, etc. If you’re engaged in an online draft, you’ll have to be a little more creative: alternately compliment and berate other owners’ picks, post random comments on non-baseball subjects, bombard owners with questions about why they made the picks they did, and so on. Yes the other owners will momentarily hate you and want you gone, but that also means they’ll be thinking about your bizarre behavior more than they should. At least a couple owners will let their guard down as they contemplate how to shut down your Randle McMurphy act and that will leave an opening for you to swoop in and nab players that shouldn’t be available to you.

Do no new research and don’t try to learn anything new about player performance. The time to ingest trends in PQS(Pure Quality Starts), VORP(Value over Replacement Player), or any other Shandlerian-type research is over. If you must engage in last-minute cramming, make it simple and familiar. Otherwise, new kinds of data will skew your read on ballplayers you already know and you may become fixated on finding the highest VORP player, thinking you’ve got a secret-path to the claim of baseball genius, when, in fact, you’re simply giving the other owners a head start in the draft. Do the research ahead of time and employ it to confirm certain players you like or dislike. But at the last minute, there will be no room for cross-referencing and gaining perspective on new data.   

And a review of some basic principles: avoid injury-plagued players (think: Larry Walker, Kevin Brown, Joe Mauer, any Cubs starter), unless everyone avoids them to the end. Then scoop ‘em up for a song; get solid middle infielders. Don’t reach too early for the top tier, but make sure the second tier doesn’t disappear without you; go for offense early because it’s more reliable. You can always grab a few 10 win/4 ERA pitchers later in the game; pay attention to BB/K rations for both hitters and pitchers. This is a good indicator of eye and control; consider your league’s scoring and how to manipulate ensuing imbalances. In a 4x4 or 5x5, for instance, stolen bases are rarer than home runs and therefore worth more. But power counts in multiple categories. Tailor your draft to the scoring system, not simply names you like.   

Lastly, expect to blow it. We all do in some way on draft day and it’s not that big of a deal. Everyone takes players too early or pays too much for them. You’ll survive this(unless you really, really blow it). The championship is usually won with close attention to free agents and waiver wire pick-ups over the first two months. That’s when this year’s surprise/breakout players identify themselves, and you’ll need to be ready to jump on them. Just be certain not to nab the flukes instead of the players who will keep up the surprise performance. And there’s the rub. Good luck.

Robert Stapleton has participated in dozens of fantasy drafts and never felt ‘good’ about his team afterward, though he has learned to minimize the tension at home surrounding draft day. He teaches writing in Indianapolis. His comments do not necessarily reflect the views of Rotochamps.com.