Whether he’s a Willing Ham, a Compliant Pig, or just The Pork, outfielder Josh Willingham will be making his bacon in the Twins outfield for the the foreseeable future.*

Jeff Zimmerman has already looked into batted ball profile and found that he became more pull-happy in 2011. That could bode well for his power in the coming year, but let’s look at the contextual clues in order to determine what else we can say about Willingham’s 2012.

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We got the RotoGraphs team together for a mock dynasty draft, the results of which I believe you can see here. (Just remember that Brandon Wood is a placeholder for Nolan Arenado, Anthony Vasquez = Danny Hultzen, Hector Gomez = Jurickson Profar, and Anthony Slama = Trevor Bauer.)

My team seems strong and young, at least to me. My core infield is Dustin Pedroia, Mike Morse, Brett Lawrie and Elvis Andrus, and I love starting the draft with the infield at the premium positions. Got some love in the outfield for my Jay Bruce pick earlier today, and even though I waited longer than anyone not named Podhorzer for starting pitchers, I ended up with Michael Pineda, Dan Hudson and Ricky Romero. Maybe I’ll write about all this in the future.

But maybe the most interesting thing, at least today, is that I took Ryan Braun with my second-round pick in this dynasty league mock.

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Let’s talk winter meetings, and the impact thereof on leagues fantasy and real. I’ll be here at 12:30, but you can leave a question in the queue if you want to get a jump on it.

The first domino has fallen in Miami. Jose Reyes will be the shortstop, for the next couple of years at least, and Hanley Ramirez will play third base. That second domino has pushed the Marlins’ remaining position battle into centerfield. Who will emerge from the three-headed beast at that position in 2012? Crockett got the occasional urge for stability in his life, but it’s chaos that produces fantasy value picks. Let’s break down the three candidates.

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Lance Berkman came out nowhere last year. 35 years old and coming off a career-low in home runs, he looked like toast. When the Cardinals signed the player some call “Fat Elvis” to play in the outfield for the first time since 2007, it seemed like a bust. Some of us even said so.

But then the magic happened. Could lightning hit twice? Could this happen again?

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Justin Verlander had himself a fine season, you may have heard. The first pitcher to win both the MVP and the Cy in about a quarter-century, he combined superlative peripherals with just a little bit of luck and the backing of a strong team to produce a season for the ages. He probably won his owners many a fantasy league. From personal experience, each team of mine that featured the Tigers’ ace won its’ league this year.

That’s all fine and good, but you shouldn’t draft Verlander next year. Focus instead on finding the next Verlander.

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Two National League outfielders didn’t quite make the final keeper tier, and they’re likely to be strong bounce-back players next year with statistics that would put them in the fourth or fifth tier. Why didn’t I put Andre Ethier and Jayson Werth in those keeper tiers if that’s the case?

It has more to do with perception and relative value, or the ins and outs of keeper leagues, than it does with those actual players.

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We’ve looked at four tiers worth of National League Outfield Keepers. That’s 13 dudes, or at least one keeper per team in a 12-team NL-only. If you’re in a traditional keeper league — one in which you keep fewer than eight players — then we’ve probably come to the end of your more attractive keepers. So many of the remaining options are buy-low guys better acquired at a draft or auction, or they are solid performers with real flaws that don’t figure to go away. Or they are older players that you are just keeping because nobody will buy them from you.

But let’s look at the best of the rest, shan’t we?

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The Astros are moving to the American League in 2013. We’ll be breaking this down in many different ways in order to help NL- and AL-only owners prepare for the moment in the best possible manner, but… for many leagues this won’t matter much. The Astros are just that bad.

For example, mixed-league re-drafters pretty much won’t care at all. Even in 2013, are there any current Astros that will see their draft status change much with the move? Okay, Wandy Rodriguez will be in his final year of his contract and he would be a 34-year-old starter moving to the more difficult league. There’s a player that would see his draft stock drop that year. But will he even be on the Astros roster by then? He seems like a trade candidate.

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It’s the early offseason. Very few free agents have signed, and no trades have been completed. The GMs are in Milwaukee without internet and with wintry mix. The winter meetings are still a week or two away. Perfect time for a mock draft, or at least so thought Derek Van Riper at RotoWire. So he got us all together for a 15-team 30-round NFBC-style colossus of a mock draft last week — here are the results for your own perusal.

There are a million ways to break down a draft, so if you want more on this, let me know. to keep it simple at first, let’s just highlight some picks that seemed like the steals and reaches of the draft.

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