I realize that it's technically Fantasy Football season here in about five days, but I'm still an eager baseball enthusiast and want to think about the keepers in my dynasty league (I'm in 7th place, so I've been in "next year mode" for some time). Is anyone else feeling the "blah-Football, I love it and all, but when are the winter meetings?" sensation that I am right now.

I'm in a league where we keep five legacy styled keepers, guys we drafted as minor league players. These guys can stay on your roster without a RANK penalty (I'll describe that later).

My legacy keepers are Carlos Santana, Mike Stanton, Drew Storen, Tommy Hanson and Aroydis Vizcaino.

My real dilemma comes with my established players and who I could keep. The draft position for the next season is determined in inverse order to the total RANK of the players kept (not O-RANK). You have to keep two position players with a rank totaling 75 and two pitchers with a rank totaling 150. This keeps the talent pool deep enough to make the draft a big factor. Last year someone hung onto Webb and got the #1 pick because his rank was huge and allowed them to drop and redraft Mauer. Only problem is that anyone you keep has to stay on your roster, off the DL, until the All-Star Break before you can drop them so duds lead to wasted roster spots.

I have Josh Hamilton, Josh Johnson who I feel pretty good in keeping. Here are the real questions:

Do I keep a player like Asdrubal Cabrera (position at a premium) banking a bounce back year and on his over 1000 rank getting me the first draft pick? Or do I keep Prince Fielder's steady if not exciting too exciting stats, count on a contract year boom and take the bottom, sandwich picks to fill my roster?

I also have a similar challenge with pitching. I've got Niemann that I could pair with Johnson, hope for a bounce back season banking on the rank or I could keep someone like Johnny Venters who has a medium rank with huge closer upside (Storen and Venters could make me impervious to "reaching" for a closer until the 10th Round).

The safe(r) choice is James Shields, Rafael Santana or Roy Oswalt who again would be a nice safe pick, but would doom me in the race for draft position.

Advice? Thoughts? Debate?