A few quick bullet points to start the week off right. I’ll apologize in advance for the fact that they are almost all meta-bullets…I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately and this seemed like as good a place as any to unclog some of my jammed up thoughts. Sorry again, that’s a gross metaphor. Here’s what I came up with so far…

• I’ve gotten to as many comments as I can, but there are still a few left that I’m looking forward to responding to. I make it a point to respond to every comment I get, so if you have been eagerly anticipating a response then most of you will be pleasantly surprised that I’ve finally caught up. If you could care less about me responding, well…carry on. If you want reach me via email instead of through the comment section, that’s fine by me. Get in touch at thebaseballdraftreport @ gmail.com (no spaces though).
• My confession: This site wasn’t designed with 2009 in mind. I’m a long-range planner, believe it or not, so when I first decided to get in on this I knew deep down that there wouldn’t be enough time between my start up in February and the draft in June to sit down and publish all of the information I’ve been collecting. In fact, that’s the problem that is killing me right now – information overload. I’ve got lots of information, information that I think is good and worth sharing, but not enough time to sift through it, organize it into a string of cohesive thoughts, and then pretty it up so that it’s ready to be published for the masses to tear it apart (I do love that last part). On top of that, I want to evolve past being primarily a hunter-gatherer of information and settle into a website with roots – we’re talking more firsthand accounts, guest pieces from people way smarter than I’ll ever be, interviews and analysis from inside sources, and more in-depth scouting reports. In the meantime, I’m faced with the dilemma of picking and choosing what is most important to get out in front of the ’09 Draft. I still think positional lists are useful, so that’s something I want to cover. Mocks aplenty, of course. I want to bust out my own personal big board (with the accompanying lists of my own personal favorites), plus a consensus big board that hopefully will reflect how the first 100 picks or so will go down. There may be more of a post-draft focus this year because it’ll be easier for me to deal with less time sensitive material – I can digest each team’s picks and do that instant-grading thing that so many columnists tear apart every year (I still love it and I always will – who doesn’t enjoy reading post-NFL Draft report cards?). Any other definite features that I should add but am forgetting? I don’t want the site to get bogged town into solely worrying about who will go where in the first round, but I get easily frustrated when I realize there isn’t enough time for me to report on every draft eligible player that I have info on. That’s when I fall back on just worrying about the first round, something I know I don’t want to do. But if I begin talking about my favorite high school third basemen from Utah, then I know I’ll eventually get mad at myself for not having enough time to talk about my favorite (insert position) from (insert state) from (insert age grouping). It’s hard to run a website when you are crazy, you know? I need a plan…
• I seriously have a little black book chock full of…wait for it…brief scouting reports of players from the draft. Give me a second to reflect on how cool that makes me. It would be one thing if the book wasn’t literally little and black, but it is. Oh, it is. If it was a normal sized notebook with Hannah Montana or someone on the cover, that would be alright. But, no, it had to be little and black. I am that suave, sophisticated, charming ladies man that you see out and about hitting up the local nightlife. Me and my little black book. I value it quite highly, even though on more than one occasion I have been stopped by a stranger who wanted to know if I always carried a bible around with me. Do kids today still have little black books? I guess they probably have evolved into little BlackBerries, right? Man, now I sound like Andy Rooney. I’m too young to sound this old. Did kids ever actually use little black books? That always seemed like more of a TV/movie device than anything else, but maybe I was just never big time enough to know any differently. Anyway, yes, I do have a little black book full of draft notes. That has all of my positional rankings in it. I think it’s about time I just get into those – no more messing around with other things, no more getting distracted with my job or my moving into a new place, none of that. So, if you made it this far in this rambly disjointed mess of a post, get ready for a week or so of rapid fire position-by-position lists of the top draft prospects for 2009. This is the short-term plan, but it is, like so much of what I do here, subject to change at a moment’s notice.
• Lastly, Strasburg/Ackley as the first two picks? Is this something we can all agree on? Strasburg is a slam dunk, we know that much, but is Ackley such a clear front runner for the second spot that we can finally begin to pencil him in with confidence?