So, when we last left, I had a STATS team drafted, and the season was beginning. In fact, I had even made a trade, swapping Brett Myers for Melky Cabrera and Oliver Perez.

And, well, when one drafts in the STATS league, you get a roster of 26 players, of which 20 should be active at any given time. You must have at least one player at each position spot, and you must have at least three pitchers who are not starters active, meaning some combination of middle relievers and closers that equal to three.

Furthermore, if you demote/promote within your active roster and reserve squad, a pitcher must remain inactive for ten days, and a position player for three, meaning you have to plan your moves somewhat carefully, especially if you are tweaking starters to avoid pitchers going at say Coors or in Arlington.

But, one of the fun aspects of the STATS format is once the initial draft is complete, after the first week of play, there is an expansion draft whereby among the leftover--that is initially undrafted players--each team can add two more guys to complete a full roster of 28. And, let me tell you, those two extra guys can  make a difference (as the owner of the injured Michael Cuddyer and Jeremy Hermida, I can make such a strong case for this).

Well, I can tell you there were a number of good acquisitions out there for the 12 teams to nab, including JD Drew, Kosuke Fukudome, Rick Ankiel, Jay Bruce, and hot young hurler Johnny Cueto, to name a few.

In my experience playing this game, offense is good, but well, as in regular baseball, you can never have enough pitchers. And, one of the fun tricks in the game is finding a starter who is listed as a reliever, and locking that player. What this does is help satisfy the league requirement of having three relievers active, while hiding a starting pitcher, who ostensibly would gain more points than a reliever, on the active rotation.

In fact I took a bit of a hit when I swapped Myers because he is now a starter, and was listed as a closer. But, I was able to offset that problem by moving Kevin Correia into a middle reliever spot, noting that Correia is actually in the Giants rotation.

Despite, however, the fact that I like Correia, I don't know how many games he will win on such an offensively anemic squad, so, as part of my free agent wish list, I noted a couple of pitchers I thought would help. And, I got one in Dana Eveland, who indeed is listed as a middle man.

I also grabbed wunderkind Jair Jurrjens, now on the Braves to augment my staff, and then as part of the normal, if there is one, process, dropped Jose Buatista and replaced him with Joe Crede.

While there are other players I would have been happy to get, I feel that this troika will certainly help my team and even give me a couple of fun prospects to watch and root for.

And, if this turns out to be a keeper league, as my old STATS league was, the worst problem I am going to have is trying to figure out which seven, among my good, young, and up-and-coming team I will freeze.

It is kind of like having a quarterback controversy in that it is only problematic to teams without a QB. The rest of us will survive just fine.