The calm before the storm: Preparing for your fantasy baseball draft

We are now just three weeks away from the SFRRC Fantasy Baseball League March draft. It's the game within the game and the most important thing you'll do to build your 2012 fantasy team. Are you ready? What should you be doing to prepare?

At this point, you should take five minutes to look at your current roster and determine which positions you need to fill in March. Are you going to focus on pitching, hitting or do you want to try to build a balanced team? Remember, to be competitive in the 12 statistical categories used in our league, the players on your team need to combine to hit these marks (divide these totals by 23 to figure out what you'll need on a weekly basis):

Hitting Statistics

• 580+ RBI
• 600+ Runs Scored
• 140+ Home Runs
• .345 On Base Percentage
• 90+ Stolen Bases
• 750 (or fewer) Strikeouts

Pitching Statistics

•  110 Quality Starts
• 3.60 (or less) ERA
• 1.26 (or less) WHIP
• 60+ Holds
• 60+ Saves
• 1,200+ Strikeouts

Luckily, there are plenty of experts available to help you predict which players will put up the best statistical numbers in 2012. People write their doctoral thesis on statistical projections for baseball players. The folks at FantasyRundown.com have a web page with links to all of this year's projections. Don't drown swimming through the numbers but I encourage you to paddle around a little.

Because this is a beginner's league, I'll make it easy for you in another 7 to 10 days when I begin ranking players available in our draft by position, complete with statistical projections tailored to our league. They'll be posted on this blog. In my opinion, it's a little early to begin projecting statistics for the upcoming season when the first spring training game hasn't been played.

If you want to get a jump on the competition, look through this blog's archive and you'll find the CBS Sports statistical projections for players at each position. Remember, some of these players have already been drafted and won't be available on March 19.

Take 15 minutes and write down the names of some of the players you would like to draft early. Then keep an eye on them during spring training. MLB.com does a great job of providing daily player updates. Also, MLBDepthCharts.com is updated daily and it shows you which players are expected to start for each team. You want to draft starters because they'll have more opportunities to accumulate stats.

Remember, this is the calm before the storm.