Fantasy Focus: Reflections of a Big Draft Weekend Sixteen of my 17 drafts are in the books - just my home league remains, all the way on April 9. Saturday was the National Fantasy Baseball Championship Main Event live in Las Vegas, and as always, I gained solid insight into the drafting trends heading into the season. Here are a few. The consensus is that Hanley Ramirez is back - all the way back. I went into the draft resolving to take him in the first round at 13 over all, but I didn't come anywhere close to getting him. In five of the six drafts held in Vegas, he went well before that, including fifth over all in my league. In the only Vegas league where he slipped, the defending champion drafted 14th and got him (and then still got Justin Upton 17th!). Sometimes life is good. Apparently Ramirez went first over all in one New York league. Eric Hosmer continues to rise in drafts, too. In many leagues he's going around 25 or 30, as those who get locked out of the top 20 hitters and the top three starting pitchers (Clayton Kershaw, Roy Halladay and Justin Verlander) have looked to find someone to elevate into that next tier of hitters. Of course, it doesn't hurt that he's had roughly eleventy-billion hits this spring. While he's going well above my ranks, it's a defensible choice to go with him there. As we've discussed ad infinitum on the show and the site, the perception of the drop-off after 20 is pretty strong, to the point where the next 20 hitters or so could go up in a lot of different orders. If there's a player you like there, take him - chances are he's not coming back to you in 10 picks anyhow. Adrian Beltre is the other player I frequently saw getting boosted up to that spot. Conversely, a number of injured players are dropping precipitously. Among those not out for the season who are dropping are Logan Morrison (who at this writing isn't even slated for the disabled list to start the season, but missed most of spring training with a knee injury), who dropped some 100 spots to No. 247 over all in my league; Chase Utley (No. 360); and Michael Pineda (No. Obviously I passed on these players a number of times, but even as I did, I wondered whether I was too conservative in my approach on these injuries. We're afraid of taking the zero, or we've been burned by hoping for a return to former glory by the Grady Sizemores of the world, so we pass on the potential upside. The cost on Utley seemed especially cheap. When you participate in the N.F.B.C., the runs on closers are breathtaking. The strategy of waiting on the closers works pretty well in our other leagues, where we can trade for saves later in the season, but it doesn't apply here. The N.F.B.C. doesn't allow for trades, and you're not just participating in just your 15-team league, but in the overall national contest. It's theoretically possible to take the one point in your league in saves and still win your league and the overall contest, but it's not easy. To do so, you have to use the extra two to four picks optimally. Typically we try to shoot for being in the top three or four spots in each category to do well in this contest. If you give up saves here, you have to go for the top two or three spots. In my particular N.F.B.C. league, 19 closers were drafted by the first break, after the end of the 10th round (150 picks). Ten more closers went in the next two rounds. The only team that didn't have a reliever selected in the first 12 rounds was the Royals, who haven't yet named their closer in the wake of Joakim Soria's season-ending elbow injury. Given that we typically see at least a third of the teams changing their closers during the season, it's frustrating to have to chase one category like this for the cost, but that's the nature of the beast of this format. It demonstrates the value in the strategy of those who opt to invest in the safer elite closers early on in the draft, rather than having to overspend on the more marginal closers just slightly later. Jeff Erickson is the senior editor of RotoWire.com.