Yes, my friends, it is once again fantasy baseball season. And as anyone who read my column in early December regarding fantasy football knows, just the mention of dropped passes or missed field goals is enough to send my blood pressure through the roof. However, what only a few of my close, personal friends, and now you, the reader, knows is that I’m the same way with any sport.

I tend to stick to football, basketball and baseball, because in all honesty, the thought of obsessing over hockey, with its ridiculous point totals and countless players of Baltic origins, is not something I’m prepared to spend my time on. This is not to say that I don’t like hockey. I love it in fact, but I can’t bring myself to care about analyzing who has a better plus/minus, Evgeni Malkin or Alexander Ovechkin.

But now, the fantasy basketball season is winding down and I find myself as the No. 1 seed in the playoffs. As I wait out my bye week this week to figure out which one of my friends will have the great misfortune of going head to head with me in the second round, I find myself looking right past that and instead focusing on the crown jewel that has eluded me in my years of fantasy sports play.

A fantasy baseball championship.

The past two years I have been struggling to come up with the requisite sacrifices to the imaginary baseball league gods, and have finished 10th out of 14 teams (2007) and third out of eight (2008).

Last year was especially heartbreaking, as I took a chance on the perennially underachieving Ryan Dempster and watched him win 17 games. I also took a chance early in the season on Cleveland’s Cliff Floyd, who promptly won 22 games and won the Cy Young Award. In fact, Lee was one of a pair of 22-game winners on my squad, as I also was able to boast that I had Arizona’s Brandon Webb in my rotation. Rounded out by Colorado’s Aaron Cook (16 wins) and Phillies ace Cole Hamels (14), I had the All-Star rotation that fantasy owners the world around would possibly sell their firstborn child to have.

So I should have had the league easily wrapped up, right?

Well, no.

Unfortunately, I went with a power lineup over one that was great in other categories, and was easily killed in the second round of the playoffs.

So here’s my advice to you, the prospective fantasy baseball manager: A lineup with Dan Uggla, Vladimir Guerrero and Casey Blake might look pretty good in the power categories, but stolen bases, batting average and low numbers of strikeouts are what make a championship-caliber offense.

Sure, a guy with a .279 batting average, 27 home runs, 88 RBIs, four stolen bases and 123 strikeouts doesn’t seem bad (which are the averages of Uggla, Vlad and Blake’s 2008 stats). However, one only needs to look at the .276 batting average, 23 dingers, 89 RBIs, three SBs and 126 strikeouts put forth by Cleveland’s Jhonny Peralta last season as a comparison. Who the hell wants Jhonny Peralta on their fantasy team?

Well, maybe me … I’ll have to scrutinize those stats a little bit more. My draft is very soon.

So what is my advice to conquering your draft?

I say, sit back and relax. But seeing as how I won’t heed my own advice here, I guess you should just do whatever you want.