A new baseball season means, of course, a new fantasy baseball season. Our league this year fell from seven teams to only four, meaning every team is overloaded with all-stars. Our league does an autodraft instead of a live draft, and I ended up getting a few players back from last season: Victor Martinez, Alfonso Soriano, Alex Rodriguez, and Jake Peavy. My team is top-heavy with corner infielders, including: Mark Teixeira, David Wright, Carlos Delgado, Ryan Howard, Troy Glaus, Miguel Cabrera (also outfield eligible), Lance Berkman (also outfield eligible), and A-Rod. On the other hand, just like last year, I received no cover in the draft at second base or shortstop. My second baseman is Soriano (who will, of course, be outfield eligible shortly), and my shortstop is Jose Reyes. And our teams are so overloaded that I haven't even mentioned my other two outfielders yet: Manny Ramirez and Grady Sizemore. Oh, and I picked up Barry Bonds off waivers today as well, so he'll be available for me tomorrow.

As for pitchers, we're all pretty loaded there as well. In addition to the aforementioned Jake Peavy, my other starters include Rich Harden, Felix Rodriguez, Mark Buehrle, and Mark Prior. (Prior is on the DL, so it was his open spot on the roster that I utilized to snag Bonds.) I also have Brandon Webb, who is getting the start tonight for Arizona, but he gets dropped tomorrow in favor of Jason Schmidt. I'm a little worried about my closers BJ Ryan and Eric Gagne. I'm convinced that Ryan was a one-year wonder, and I'm going to get burned by him just like I did with Keith Foulke last year. As for Gagne, I'm not convinced that he's fully recovered from elbow surgery, and he could turn out to be a liability as well. I'm not too worried, since my closers sucked last year as well, and that didn't stop me from doing well in the league.

So, the season starts today. Other than the moves I already made (acquiring Bonds and Schmidt, putting Prior on the DL, and dropping Webb), I'll probably be sitting tight at the moment, because I don't want to make a mistake like last year when I dropped Chris Carpenter.

My fantasy team hit a combined 1/30 (.033) on Friday. The only hit was a single by Alex Rodriguez. They scored no runs, drove in no runs, and stole no bases. The players on the bench were no better, hitting 0/8. This isn't the only bad day I've had this week. Let's hope they don't all slump like this come playoff time.

I have a bit of a conundrum: I need new starting pitching. My fantasy team is loaded with pitchers, having just recently made Barry Zito the eighth starting pitcher on my team, but several of them are struggling of late. Now, it should be noted that there are good starters still available in our league, so that's not the problem. The problem is in deciding which of my current starters to send packing to open up roster space.

I had been leaning toward waiving Brett Myers about a month ago, but ever since he has been my best pitcher, so it's a good thing I didn't offload him.

Livan Hernandez has only one win since July 1, but his lack of wins stems from lack of run support, not from poor pitching. Although he's not racking up wins, he is racking up innings and keeping the ERA down, so it's hard to part with him.

Bartolo Colon is allowing a lot baserunners and a lot of runs, but he tends to be streaky, and with Oakland putting pressure on the Angels, he's going to have to step up if they're to still win the division.

Jeremy Bonderman is another inconsistent one. He got smacked around again on Saturday by Cleveland, but overall he's been one of my best on the season. Do I risk letting him go and having him get hot again?

Jake Peavy, Dontrelle Willis, and Jason Schmidt are definitely going nowhere. Peavy and Willis are on the "Can't Cut List", so I couldn't offload them if I wanted to, while Jason Schmidt seems to have rediscovered his form as of late. Smitty would have won 4 of his last 5, but he had two no-decisions because his bullpen blew leads.

So, basically it's down to Hernandez, Colon, and Bonderman. One of those three is likely to get the axe in the next few days. On top of it, Todd Helton is set to return possibly the end of the week from the DL, and I may have to offload another of them to open up a roster spot for Helton. It's not like I really need 8 starters anyway, because the team with the second-most in the league has only 6, and after Sunday I'm unlikely to meet that team again until the championship game (assuming, of course, we both make it that far).