I had the second pick in Mock Draft Central's 5th 2008 Expert Fantasy Football Mock Draft.  It was a 4 pt per TD, 3 WR, no Flex set-up that was standard beyond those settings.  With the second pick, I took Adrian Peterson of Minnesota.

I debated Brian Westbrook of Philadelphia but decided against him mostly because the format was not PPR (points per reception).  However, I cannot deny the influence Ryan Howard had on my thinking.

When Howard was still blocked by Jim Thome going into the 2005 season, he was passed over by five other teams in my NL-Only baseball league's minor league draft despite hitting 46 HRs the previous year.  He was the best talent available, but over-thinking caused him to drop to 6th overall after such non-ROY, non-MVP winning players such as...well all of them.

I couldn't forget that when the choice was Adrian Peterson or another RB.  Go with the crazy skills.

Next, I waited for the draft to come back and intended to take RB Maurice Jones-Drew (or someone close to him) and a top flight WR.  And here is where everything went awry.

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With the second week of exhibtion games in the books, some conclusions will be drawn heading into the most important game of the pre-season.  Who starts means something next week.

The first week of the exhibition season saw WR Dave Clowney of the New York Jets raise eyebrows the highest with a 169 yard/ 2 Td effort.  His follow-up effort was 4 receptions for 59 yards.  Both lead the team, but I'd feel even better if Brett Favre had completed one of those four passes.

In other notes from the 2nd week of regular-season-priced exhibition games: 

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Miami Dolphins RB Ronnie Brown left last night's exhibition game with an injured thumb.  While it is not his reconstructed knee, it still makes RB Ricky Williams look better as a real and fantasy option.  On Friday, Jeremy Green of ESPN.com said this about Ricky Williams:

Justin (Boca): What kind of impact do you think Ricky Williams will have this year?

 Jeremy Green: Not much. I know they have been raving about him, but I am not a big believer in him. He is fairly injury prone, I do not think he likes football, and he is basicall a violation away from being out of the NFL. They need him with Brown coming off injury, but I do not expect much out of him.

Do you agree?

This week's Prospect Hot Sheet by Baseball America (chat at 3:30) is led by Baltimore Orioles' AA RHP Chris Tillman.  His dominance at Double-A as a twenty-year-old has gone a long way to the current judgment that Bill Bavasi and the Seattle Mariners were the big losers in last winter's Erik Bedard trade.  The fact that Bedard remains on the D.L. with an arm issue further buttresses that assertion.

If the Baltimore Orioles do not give back some of the gains in performance from 2008, Tillman will be a part of a 2009 team that may force the Blue Jays and Yankees further from October baseball.  Tillman won't be alone as a rookie though.  At #4 is 2007 1st round pick, C Matt Wieters, who continues to destroy Double-A pitching.

To pile more "ifs" on to the Orioles 2009 expectations, if Wieters takes to major league baseball the same way 2008 NL ROY candidate geovanny Soto has with the Chicago Cubs and if Chris Tillman can successfully transition to the major league rotation the way Greg Smith of Oakland or Jair Jurrjens of Atlanta has, then J.P. Ricciardi in Toronto won't make it past 2009 employed and the New York Yankees will see 2008 as the beginning of a new dark days era.

Related to the Hot Sheet is this week's BA Top Tools podcast which highlighted those minor leaguers deemed to have the best tools at their level.  While Matt Wieters was cleaning up in High A awards the way Michael Phelps is doing at this summer's Olympics, he was not named the best power prospect in Double-A this year.  That honor went to the newest Syracuse Chief, Travis Snider.  With that accolade and a birthdate that has him as just 20 year-old, and without the controversy surrounding his age that surrounds the Chinese women gymnastics team, he will be one of the top handful of relevant 2009 fantasy rookies.

Yesterday, I posted the pre-ranks for an autodraft that would result in me aquiring top players at the main positions.  Here is the link to the post and pre-ranking.

The results of that effort are in.  I ended-up with the 10th pick in the 10-team league, and here are the results (click to enlarge).  I have not made any changes to this team yet.

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A couple days ago, I signed-up for an autodraft league at Yahoo!.  I wanted to see what my roster would look like if I played a lot of hunches and set-up the first 35 selections to get me a couple RBs, a QB, Wrs and a TE.  In order for this to work, I would need to rank players at the various positions much higher than thier Yahoo! rankings.

What the autodraft does is fills each active position with the top-rated player on the rankings list at that position.  With a standard set-up, each team gets a QB, 2 RBs and WRs, and a TE.

Here are my pre-draft rankings that reflect this strategy.  What do you think?

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Am I the only baseball fan who doesn't think the Tampa bay Rays' AL East lead of four games is big enough to withstand the loss of Carl Crawford and Evan Longoria and that the team's inability to add a big bat at the trade deadline looks even worse?

From the St. Petersburg Times, this is how the Rays intend to patch these line-up holes:

"Justin Ruggiano was recalled from Triple-A Durham to join a left- and rightfield mix-and-match ensemble that includes Eric Hinske, Greg Gross and, on an occasional basis, Rocco Baldelli. Willy Aybar and Ben Zobrist will man third base."

Whether one believes that cast of characters can hold down the fort for the Rays' 1st pennant chase is likely dependent on your rooting interests, real life or fantasy. 

Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus leads Under The Knife with Evan Longoria's injury situation.  Non-subscriber's should be able to read most of it.  What stood out to me was the timeframe.  Here is what Will wrote (bold mine):

With rumblings of a waiver-wire deal, the Rays have to hope that when Longoria returns in mid-September he'll look more like the RotY candidate he's been all year than post-injury David Ortiz.

More to worry about in Tampa/ St. Pete than just a couple week D.L. stint?

The Arizona Diamondbacks picked-up NL HR leader Adam Dunn for three minor leaguers.  He will play RF for now.  When Justin Upton returns from the D.L., there will be a shift that will involve someone losing regular ABs whether it is current 1B Chad Tracey or LF Conor Jackson.  Both can be kept in the line-up if the NL West-leading Diamondbacks decide the defensive risk of moving 3B Mark Reynolds to 2B and Chad Tracy back to 3B is something the team can withstand over the play-off push.

In Cincinnati, who gets Adam Dunn's ABs is less clear.  Corey Patterson and Jay Bruce appear to be safe with Jerry Hariston, Jr seeing as much time as his body will allow. Cincinnati's Great American Ballpark favors HRs so any player who can receive regular ABs should be a player-of-interest.  Watch the boxscores over the next week for a more definitive answer.