The Large Board is a weekly-ish countdown of the game's top fifty players, a concept in no way borrowed from Brandon Funston, proprietor of Yahoo's Big Board. It's designed to assess trade and draft value, as well as spark debate, or, as I said in the original incarnation: spare me no slander!

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Where does Pujols land? Should you take Hanley Ramirez or Jose Reyes? Where should the first catcher go? This and more in the season's first edition of the Large Board.

Jose Reyes, Hanley Ramirez and Jimmy Rollins have all proven themselves to be first round material. Which should you take first?

First, an aside and FYI: about a third of the votes for Cole Hamels in the Hamels vs. Verlander poll are mine. King Cole, baby! I don't care if he has a pipe cleaner in his arm, he's going to be my ace for the next ten years, 200 IP or 20. Oh, and I'm drafting Rich Harden again. So much upside! Who cares what Ron Shandler says about health being a skill. Shandler Shmandler. Harden is so dirty! Of course, I won't take him until round 20, but still…

So - the top half of the 2008 RP draft class. There are a lot of tasty morsels in here - Joakim Soria and Huston Street, to name two. Street was a man possessed in August '07, as I mention below. I advise against taking any of the top 5 before 60th overall, or the beginning of the sixth round in a 12-team mixed league. According to Mock Draft Central (www.mockdraftcentral.com), Jonathan Papelbon's average draft position (ADP) is 43rd overall. No thanks! Not that I don't love Papelbon, but I'd much rather get a Joakim Soria (ADP: 157) or Matt Capps (ADP: 152) type much later - two players that will likely offer similar ratios with a bit of a drop off in K/9 and a loss of about 10 SV.

Look at some of the hitters going around Papelbon: Travis Hafner (ADP: 41), Adam Dunn (ADP: 42), and Bobby Abreu (ADP: 44). Now look at some of the hitters going around Soria and Capps: Ken Griffey Jr. (ADP: 143), Pat Burrell (ADP: 148), and Kosuke Fukodome (ADP: 159). Of course, these are just the drafts done on one site, and each ADP is heavily weighted by Mock Draft Central's own default rankings, but this seems crazy; Hafner was a borderline first-round pick last year! Are you really going to trade him for 15-20 K, 5-15 SV, and Pat "The Bat" Burrell? Come on!

The 2008 RP draft class, 1-15, right now:

A look at the top pitchers in fantasy, highlighted, of course, by Johan Santana. But who follows him?

We all thought we'd have to wait a little longer to see Lincecum in the big leagues, but after he started 2007 in AAA going 4-0 while striking out 46 and allowing only one run in 31 innings, the Giants (and everyone else) realized he was ready.

And ready he was. From May on, the little guy from Washington struck out more than a batter per inning, sporting a 3.39 post-break ERA and limiting his opponents to a .226 BAA. Thankfully, the Giants had the sense to shut him down in September before he broke off one too many of his nasty curves.

But when talking about how good his stuff his, there's no reason to consult a fantasy pundit for advice. Ask somebody who has faced him, like Rockies prospect Ian Stewart, who called Lincecum "the toughest pitcher [he] ever faced," adding "Guys on our club who have been in the big leagues said he's the toughest guy they ever faced too … I'm not really sure why he's down here, but for a guy who was drafted last year … that guy is filthy." Or you can ask Ryan Theriot, who said Lincecum's was the "best stuff he had seen all year."

Read more at Seamless Baseball

Erik Bedard is headed to Seattle for Adam Jones and a package of other players. Visit Seamless Baseball for the trade coverage and for the fantasy spin.

Check out fantasy forecasts for Joba Chamberlain, Jeremy Bonderman, Ian Snell, James Shields, Chien-Ming Wang, Brett Myers, and more!

Check out the previews on Andy Pettitte, Shaun Marcum, Matt Garza, Greg Maddux, Oliver Perez, Curt Schilling, Rich Harden, Randy Johnson, and new import Hiroki Kuroda.

Fantasy owners are keen to the fact that starting pitchers, more readily than any other position, can be stockpiled via the waiver wire. Every fantasy league has at least one thrifty bastard that "streams" starting pitchers â€" a topic and draft strategy for another day â€" or is a proponent of Ron Shandler's much-followed LIMA (Low Investment Mound Aces) method. Players like these stockpile hitters in the early rounds of the draft, believing that using a high pick on a starting pitcher is, in essence, a waste. Many such bastards win their leagues.

It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a fallacy that great starting pitching can be found as your draft is waning to a close. It is not even a stretch to say that some of the best value in the position can be found on the waiver wire during the course of the season.

Continue reading at http://www.mvn.com/mlb-fantasy

I think an extremely interesting thing that Yahoo! provides us with is a list of "Keys to Success," or the five players "who appear most often on the top 500 Public League teams in Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Baseball."

It's a beneficial way to look at how leagues are won. Let's see if there are any lessons to learn for 2008 by looking at this year's list.

[ Read SeamlessBaseball.com for more. ]

Tonight, while surfing the internet and nursing a beast of a headache, I was exposed to the Crazy Hot Dog Vendor, and my life hasn't been the same since.The man in question is the mascot for the Reading Phillies, previous home to players like Ryan Howard and Chase Utley. I found him via the tremendous writeup on him over at Baseball America.

Basically, he rides an ostrich named Rodrigo while slinging hot dogs into the stands at dangerous rates of speed — you know, that old gag. I've always found something captivating about ostriches, and I'm glad to see them finally being channeled for their true comedic value.

Click the link for the video.

Ryan Braun homered twice last night to bring his season total to 30, sending two misguided pitches into the seats in the first two innings, just like he had done 28 times previously in his brief major league career, just like he has been doing all season long.

He's a pull hitter who doesn't need to pull everything. He's a power hitter who can can hit for average. He's a burly guy who can steal bases.

His name is Ryan Braun, he's 23 years old, and on his off days, he flies around Milwaukee, protecting the city from crime.

Come this time of the season, few seem to opine on the returns of our injury-plagued starlets, instead focusing on trade rumors, divisional races, and prospect callups.

The madness ends here, dear readers.

I present you with a collection of ten stars, has-beens, will-bes, and never-weres, many of them still very attainable, who are making their returns to the diamond in the not-so-distant future. They're all fantasy-relevant, in one way or another. I figure they're worth a look.

Read SeamlessBaseball.com for the rest of the article.

Many are privy to the wonders of buying low each day. From a fantasy baseball perspective, for example: after the first week of the season, I was offered Chase Utley and Alex Rios for my Ian Kinsler and Jason Bay. Such an offer seems ludicrous now, yet I thought about it for a couple hours, leaned towards accepting it, before the owner who originally proposed it canceled it. Had I possessed a quicker trigger finger, I would surely not still be in the middle of the pack in that league, and could feasibly be leading it.

But it happens all the time. The Pistons bought low on Rasheed Wallace. The Reds bought low on Josh Hamilton. David Spade bought low on Heather Locklear. And in which of these scenarios did success side with the purchaser?

With that in mind, here's a tidy list of the top 16 hitters who currently carry a value that is lower than it will be come October.

(Article includes Andruw Jones, Joe Mauer, Albert Pujols, Mark Teixeira, Vernon Wells, Ramon Hernandez, Manny Ramirez, and more).

In a story every bit as surprising as Alex Sanchez doing steroids or Marcus Giles being heterosexual, word just broke that Ne!fi Perez has been suspended for testing positive for stimulants. From the AP story:

"The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball announced on Friday that infielder Neifi Perez of the Detroit Tigers has been suspended 25 games, effective immediately, for testing positive for a banned Stimulant in violation of Major League Baseball's Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program."

So that's how he got the exclamation point in his name. Drugs.

You see what drugs get you, kids? A .172 batting average, that's what.

If you're looking for fantasy advice based on the news because Perez is your starting shortstop, congratulations: your name is Dusty Baker.