free websites that I like:
Hardball Times
Rotoworld

Rotoworld has a fantasy tilt but their playernews is second to none in keeping up to date with the league, imho

Re: Baseball America: They're like the weatherman, sometimes they're close, sometimes they're wrong but they are rarely dead-on.  Occasionally they will put out just blatant inaccuracies and then defend those ad nauseum.  They have their favorites and dogs and a team/player reeeeaaaaalllllly has to demonstrate to them (long after everyone else has realized it) that their original opinion was wrong.  Their scouting reports are generally accurate though still hit or miss sometimes and minor league coverage unrivaled, but aside from those I think you need to take their coverage and moreso their opinions with a fully loaded salt shaker.  

The argument on trading draft picks is that they are trying to prevent cheap teams from being cheaper and big markets from dominating.  The Royals would've dealt their first rounder for peanuts almost every year before the '05 draft because they really just didn't want to pay anyone.  It's pretty dumb considering more times than not the best talent ends up falling due to the sixth tool "signability" anyway but that's the way it is.  

Unfortunately, the financial big-timers are steadily ramping up their draft spending anyway (which is actually very smart, I don't know why big-teams don't just blow their load on the draft now...you are getting players for probably 70% of what their actual value is to you even if you overpay).  There's no real way of stopping this due to the MLB's monopoly status meaning they can't slot the draft bonuses.  Commish can wag his finger and that's about it.

I appreciate it.  Looks like I will probably go for BP and check it out for awhile.

As for trading draft picks, I just don't see how it could hurt.  Even if you were the Royals trading a #1 overall pick for a #27, #38, and #60 and some other player I am not sure you are in a worse position than if you would have drafted Brian Bullington based on signability at #1 overall...

My guess on the reason it hasn't happened is the inherent hazards related to trading for draft picks.  For instance, say you are the Royals and you trade Odalis Perez to the Orioles for their #1 pick in the 2008 draft, the issue with MLB vs. all other sports is that #1 pick probably won't participate for the Royals until 2011 at the earliest.  So you are essentially trading a player in 2007 for a 50% chance at a player in 2011.

Different for sure, but I don't see why it shouldn't be a possibility.