It is time yet again for me to ramble about things that I have been noticing or reading in the Fantasy Baseball realm. For those of your who are new to the site, this is one of my favorite things to do.

Don’t forget to send in your questions for Mailbag Monday. Send your questions to the Winabango e-mail address that is on the right side bar. Make sure that you put “Mailbag Monday” in your subject line. So here are my thoughts on…

• John Lackey is now injured and will miss the first month of the season. I have never bought into Lackey, and was very successful in not drafting him this year.

• Magglio Ordonez should have another solid year. I am looking for him to hit around .310 with 30 home runs and 110 runs batted in. That is the same production that Lance Berkman will give you, but Maggs can be selected a round or two later. Do not doubt his abilities, because Maggs has always been a pure hitter.

• Manny Parra is really, really good. Baseball Prospectus has him rated as a five star prospect, and is doing everything in his power to earn a spot in the Brewers rotation. How about these for numbers: 0.64 ERA with 15 strikeouts over 14 innings. i have him in two leagues and used a 26th round and a 27th round pick on him. Parra is rated as well as Gallardo was last year at this time.

• Edison Volquez is a young rookie pitcher that should be watched very closely. He may not make the Red’s rotation out of spring training, but his K/9 of over 9.5 the past few years is enough to put a blip on my radar. Who knows, maybe Votto and Bruce start the year in Triple-A, and Volquez is the rookie we should have been drafting this year.

• Cameron Maybin may have played his way into the Marlins starting lineup. He is displaying the power recently that everyone said that he possessed. The most important part of his stats in Spring Training revolve around him bringing his strikeout rate down to 25%. That is a huge improvement over last year. However, do not get too excited. His .286 OBP is nothing to wright home about. Especially when you realize that his batting average is also .286. Cameron, please learn how to draw a walk.

• Alex Gordon will remind everyone why he was drafted so high last year. He has a great combination of speed and power, which is awesome at third base. Dare I say that he will be a top 5 fantasy player at third base this year? Ok… I will.

• Jack Cust is a very cheap 25 home run hitter. He and Chris Duncan are the best sources of power deep in the draft. They may not help your batting average, but they should not kill it either.

• Bartolo Colon reached 93 mph on the gun today. Big fat deal. I am not buying it. He was only hitting mid to upper 80s in winter ball. If he could really hit 93, don’t you think that he would have had offers from all the teams that traveled to see him pitch this winter. The only way Big Fat Bartolo Colon lasts the whole year is if he eats the entire Boston rotation

• Kyle Kendrick is nothing more then a minor league pitcher. So why have I seen him getting drafted this year? I even saw him get drafted in an 8-team H2H league. Come on guys! He strikes no one out, and gets hit around a lot. His defense and offense gave him the double digit wins last year. This is a perfect example of why you do not chase wins.

• New York Mets do not have an elite pitching staff. They have two solid starters with question marks, a very solid John Maine, and some guy named Johan. OK, so Santana is good enough to make an entire staff look good. That is all fine and dandy, but their fifth spot in the rotation is unfilled. Never mind that the bullpen is crappy at best. When talking about a pitching staff, the bullpen needs to be included in the discussion.