REASON #5 - FANTASY BASEBALL

Reasons To Look Forward to MLB 2009

I am not a great fantasy baseball player. I go with my heart too often rather than my head. But the first step to recovery is admitting there is a problem...and slowly but surely I'm improving at fantasy baseball.

So this year my first pick in 'East Coast Bias' (the fantasy baseball league I pay the most attention to, featuring only the AL and NL East players, trophy pictured at left) was Ryan Howard. Last year I drafted Chipper Jones, for example (on-base percentage is a huge factor). I am using my head...not letting my hatred of those teams get in the way.

Now, none of this has paid off yet. My best showing in East Coast Bias was tying the Southern Bureau for first place two seasons ago (after blowing a season-long lead). But it will this year. I feel like I have a very good team (which is my typical late-March feeling).

This year, I'm also involved in another league which uses all MLB players. And instead of a random draft, which we've done in past years, we did a live draft. And that was fun - and I feel I have a great team there, as well. Headlined by none other than Ryan Howard.

So I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to fantasy baseball this year. Also games like 'Beat the Streak' on mlb.com, and my 'New Baseball Pool'...all little extras that will help move the season along.

And at the very least, if I've put the kibosh on Ryan Howard by putting him on my fantasy teams....the Mets will benefit from that.

This idea was going to originally be "Reasons to Look Forward to the Mets in 2009", but I realized there are probably going to be some general baseball reasons as well as Mets reasons. So I've expanded it. Most will have to do with the Mets. Also, I'm counting up, rather than down, as we head towards the baseball season, because I'm just not sure how many items there will be in this feature. We'll go until we hit Opening Day.