With the signing of Prince Fielder, the vast majority of free agents are locked up, so most of us can start devoting time to finalizing our keeper decisions, or in some cases, intensifying trade talks in advance of our keeper deadline. Many of you are probably well ahead in this process, especially if you don't play fantasy football.

I play in a handful of keeper leagues of various formats. I'll be writing a series of articles discussing my decisions for the 2012 season and beyond, and we'll start with the RotoWire Staff Keeper League.

The Staff League is an 18-team mixed auction league, standard 5x5 roto stats. We have the traditional 23-man active rosters (14 hitters, 9 pitchers), 7-man reserves (no DL slots), 10-man minor league rosters. The auction budget is $260, and we have an in-season salary cap of $360. Each team has a $100 FAAB budget - whenever a player is picked up, he immediately becomes an "A" (first-year) player at the price he was acquired, either in the draft or as a free agent. Reserve players are $0 for the current season, then if kept they become $5A players. Minor leaguers are $0 for the current season; if they get activated during the season, or acquire 21+ games of major league service time, they become $3A players to keep the following season. The third, or "C" year, is the player's option year. I can either keep him at that price for one more year or long-term the player, at a cost of $5 more per season added. We can keep up-to-15 active players and 10 minor leaguers. The reserves and unfilled minor league slots are selected in a post-auction draft - usually we do it the day after the auction, though we've also done it in slow-draft fashion. So there can be up to 17 rounds of reserves/minors drafted, though almost every team keeps at least 3-4 minor leaguers, many up to 8 or 9.

Enough background on the league - let's talk about me. I was a rebuilding team last year, after going for it in 2010. I enter this year with no long-term contracts and no expensive keepers. There's usually enough turnover that having a lot of money at the auction is a significant advantage - I don't have many stars, but I can acquire some readily enough without having to fill my roster spots with flotsam and jetsam, with a little auction discipline.

I try to keep a running spreadsheet for each of my teams, to help manage my various rosters, though I'm better about maintaining it during the offseason. I try to classify the players as sure keepers (usually cornerstone players, but not always, if the bargain is high enough), possible keepers, definite minor league keepers, and trade-able/dump-able parts. The tricky part usually is in the margins, though the decision when to extend and how much is pretty important, too. Here's how I break down my Staff League roster:

Definite Keepers:

- Both Kipnis and Trout are graduated prospects, having played more than 20 games in the majors last year.

- I opted against extending Aybar beyond this season. Typically I err against extending a guy too long, instead preferring to take more of the short-term profit. I think it's a good policy in roto, and it's a good policy in real life, though in the latter case it's a little harder to pull off because the replacement cost is so much higher and the available free agent pool isn't nearly as good - let alone each team doesn't have an equal starting budget.

- Domonic Brown illustrates the risks of investing in prospects, even when they are of the elite variety. Brown is already in his second year at that $3 bargain price, without a job and a possible long stint at Triple-A looming. Now I believe that talent will win the day in the long run, and I'm willing to bite the short-term bullet, but with a lesser-pedigreed prospect the potential for missing out on his breakout, or having to pay a fuller price while betting on the come is pretty daunting. It also demonstrates why the pendulum should always swing in favor of going for it in keeper leagues if you have a chance. Mike Trout has that issue facing him a little bit this year, too, with the Angels' OF/DH logjam.

Minor League Keepers

- There's a couple of post-hype guys here, but I never considered not keeping Tate or Perez - not in a universe where 180 minor league-eligible guys are rostered. I do have two borderline minor leaguers, though, in Alex Torres and Jonathan Galvez. Galvez didn't make the Padres' cut for their 40-man roster this winter but went ignored in the Rule 5 draft. Yet I still like his bat and speed from a middle infield spot. I might still keep both, but it's hard not to keep more spots open to go after last year's fantastic draft class, plus all the other late-bloomers that went under our collective radar last year.

Borderline Keepers

- I can keep up to six more of these players, though chances are more likely that I'll just keep 2-to-4 of these players.

- In some cases, whether I'll keep one of these players hinges upon whether I want to try to contend in 2012 or 2013. Given that I'm already keeping Brown and Trout in my outfield, it's pretty difficult to keep Martin without training my focus on 2013. The same probably holds true with Lavarnway and the three young pitchers. Sure, they could all break out at the same time, this year, but that seems a little unlikely.

- The opposite is true with Encarnacion - I have always liked him - maybe not as much as colleagues Cory Schwarz and Jason Collette, but he's typically on a few of my teams. It finally paid off in the second half of 2011 - a full season of that would bring a profit on my $9. But there's not much growth potential with him, especially because he's unlikely to qualify at third base beyond this season.

- As a Reds fan, I was happy with the Ryan Ludwick signing. But as a Chris Heisey owner, not-so-much. I'd really love to see him get a full season of at-bats - there's 30-homer potential there.

Trade/Scuttle Bait

I'm under no delusion that I'll fetch much, if anything from these players. But if I can finagle a draft-pick upgrade or something of that ilk, so much the better. I think there's some positive things to say about a handful of these players, though - Casilla could easily earn that with a full healthy season. If Petersen ever got a full run with the Marlins, I think he'd bring better results than most think. Parra could have earned that before the Diamondbacks signed Jason Kubel, but not now that he's a fourth-outfielder.

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Now that it's all laid out, where would you differ from me on my approach with this team? Which players would you opt to keep among my borderline keepers, if any? And, of course, if you're a fellow competitor in the league, I'm open for business. Let the lowball offers flow!