Nice piece Mike. One other thing I would add (for those of us with full-time jobs outside of fantasy baseball and a couple kids) is to find a couple websites / podcasts you really like and follow them religiously. Daily reading of BP and weekly downloading of Jason Collette and Paul Sporers podcast for example. I have found them always quick to respond to questions as well. There is a ton of info out there but most of us can't read it all. That's also why Twitter is so good.

Love the Scouts Views being back!

Nice ending to the piece (and a good article as well). As a Twitter follower of many of the BP and other fantasy/sabermetric baseball it was great to see how most everyone handled yesterday's tragic events.

In my 15-team NFBC league I have Jose Reyes and Rickie Weeks at SS and 2B, but ended up with Tyler Greene as my middle infielder. I do have Stephen Drew on my bench, but with Tyler Greene headed to AAA, I am looking at putting in a bid on another MIF. How would you rank these great choices: Mark Ellis, Ruben Tejada, Brandon Crawford, Pete Kozma, Jamey Carroll, Brian Dozier and Ryan Roberts? It's $1000 FAAb, so any thoughts on how much to bid would be appreciated as well -- first time NFBC player. Thanks!

Great article. I would guess that this is also the explanation behind the Indians substantially reducing some of their concession prices this year. For a smlal market team like the Indians, it is great to see them using this type of analysis to (a) be more competitive from a revenue perspective and (b) provide a better experience for the fans.

Where do you guys see Francisco Lindor? Is his defense such a big part of his potential that you don't see him as as good of a fantasy player? He hit fairly well last year in his first full season.

We just had our auction draft and Zobrist went for too much money for me, but I targetted and got Prado, who is eligible at 2B, SS, 3B and OF in our league. As for roster construction, he let me wait until the end of the draft to fill either 2B or 3B becuase I knew I could plug him in at either one. He saved my season last year when I could plug him in for Longoria while he was out.

This is great to hear. I am hoping I can make the quick drive down from Columbus. Not that all of the BP personalities wouldn't be great to meet, but any thoughts on when you may know who may be there and when everything will start? I need to figure out if (a) I want to sell this to my wife as a day and night for us in Cincinnati away from the kids or (b) something she would find so boring that I should just figure out how to tell her I am going by myself to a baseball game with a bunch of other people who like talking about baseball stats, numbers and strategy for hours on end.

Great piece - I love the stories of what spring training is like and hope to get to head out to see the Indians one of these days when my kids get a little older. Stories like this get me to start thinking about how I will sell it to my wife in a couple of years. Like a couple of others said -- I can do without the thinly veiled political commentary though. We can find plenty of political commentary elsewhere.

Great first piece. I have been listening to a lot of experts in preparing for my drafts (particularly my 15-team NFBC draft since Trout will be kept in my other 2 leagues) and trying to figure out where I would be comfortable drafting him. I still probably think I will have him 3rd overall, but in a 15-team NFBC snake draft, I think I would much rather pick in the 7-10 range than in the top 3 anyways.

Great. Thank you. I will watch for (hopefully) an announcement about Cincinnati later this spring or summer.

I'd love to see you guys come to Cleveland (as a huge Indians fan), but would head to Cincinnati from Columbus if you will be there. Any plans on being in Cleveland or Cincinnati this summer???

Great piece. These are the types of pieces that make my BP subscription a no-brainer every year (and Kevin Goldstein and PECOTA as well). Looking forward to the next column.

This is the first article at BP I read everyday during lunch -- I think it has been a very good addition to my daily BP reading

As a diehard Indians fan for the last 30 years, I tried very hard to ignore BP's predictions (as well as those of my non-Indians fan friends) about the inevitable fall of my Tribe at this time last year. I am hoping the injury bug stays away and they can hold on all year as PECOTA predicts.

HAs anybody who has played this also played Hardball Dyneasty by Whatifsports? I have been playing that for several years and wonder how they compare.

Nice piece Dash. As an Indians fan, I have always been a fan of Charlie Manuel since his days as the hitting coach in Cleveland. He's a class act and I am happy for his success. He should have never been fired in Cleveland.

Glad to see the Ten Pack back! It is an every day read for the occassional news and opinion on Indians prospects and a huge help for my deep keeper league where we keep minor leaguers. Unfortunately for me, several of my league mates are also regular readers.

My 16-team mixed roto 5x5 (OBP) team has Longoria, Pena, Boesch, Moreland, Yunel Escobar and Dempster so I am hoping those guys have good seasons for you (and for me). I loved getting Pena and escobar when I did in my draft given its an OBP league.

Super Joe Charboneau - 1980 AL ROokie of the Year for the Indians

This is a really dumb question, but we are going to an auction format in 2013 and I am wondering how you calculate a player's $ value from the previous year, as you frequently do in these writeups - which are very helpful.

How would you compare Kipnis to Ackley from a fantasy perspective and a real world perspective? My take is that Ackley will probably be better from an OBP perspective and they should be similar in SBs, but Kipnis may hit a few more HRs, drive in a few more runs and score a few more runs playing on a better offense?

Pieces like this are why I love BP. Great piece.

How about Kendrys Morales?

I believe one difference between the 15 and 60-day DLs is that a player on the 60-day DL does not count against the team's 40-man roster, whereas a player on the 15-day DL does.

Growing up as an Indians fan in the late 70s and 80s, I can't help but think of Andre Thornton, Rick Manning and Duane Kuiper. Those teams were generally horrible, but Thornton was a steady 1B/Dh and a great guy in the community and I will never forget my brother and I sitting in our living room watching Rick Manning catch a flyball to CF for the 27th out of Len Barker's perfect game in 1981 against the Blue Jays.

When I sat down to read BP at lunch at work today I never imagined I would be reading as impactful of a piece as this. There are a lot of great writers at BP who write a lot of great articles about baseball that guys like me love to read, but as a a father of 2 young boys this really hit me. Great job Steve.

I hope you are right R.J. As a diehard Tribe fan I am looking forward to watching Chisenhall and Kipnis and some of the young pitchers here in AAA Columbus this year. As a small market team, if some of the guys they got for CC and Cliff Lee turn into solid ML players, we could have a competitive team in the AL Central for several years.

Is there a way to use PFM to rank my players based on particular categories, but also download all of the player info? For example, I want to rank my pitchers on W, Saves, ERA, WHIP and Ks, but would also like to download to excel IP info so I can do a Ks/9 IPs calculation as well. Any thoughts? Thanks.

Thanks. I will give both a try. Ignoring SBs in PFM makes sense.

Our 16-team roto league weights OBP, HR and R more than RBI and SB. For example, the top team in HRs gets 32 points, while the top team in RBI only gets 16, etc. So, a high OBP/HR guy like Kevin Youkilis is very valuable in our league. Same idea on the pitching side. Is there any way or does anybody have any suggestions for how to model this in PFM. Thanks.

Thanks guys - that's very helpful. I am in a 16-team roto league (OBP instead of AVG) and we get 5 keepers (3 vets and 2 young keepers - defined by ABs or IPs). I have Longoria and Greinke as my other 2 vets and Kendry Morales and Buckholz as my young keepers). So, the 3B eligibility isn't a huge deal for me with Youkilis since I have Longoria. We get 2 utility guys so the more power/OBP guys the better. I could trade a 3rd round pick (about equal to a 7th rounder in a non-keeper league I guess) for Youk or a 2nd rounder for Fielder and then throw Morneau back in the draft. Leaning towards the 3rd rounder for Youkilis. Morneau just seems a little risky to me. Any idea on timing for PECOTA? It is what I use for projections for my draft prep and I am ready to get started!

I would love to see hwat you think of Justin Morneau and how you project him coming back from his concussion. I can't decide if I want to use him as one of my keepers or trade a draft pick for Fielder or Youkilis. Any comparison of these guys would be much appreciated!

I too love the scout's thoughts on players - more is better! I agree with the idea of more minor league reports as well. I have found the minor league / prospect info to be some of my favorite material on BP.

As a longtime, diehard Indians fan, I really enjoyed your first column on Brantley and Marte. I thought the comments from Manny Acta were very interesting and I think say a lot about where each of these guys is heading. I am looking forward to reading your upcomig articles.