You think you’re ready for your fantasy baseball draft. You’ve prepared impeccably, scouring the internet and the latest fantasy sports publications for in-depth analysis on sleepers, rookies and busts. You’ve meticulously pre-ranked 300 players and developed and printed out a position-by-position spreadsheets which you’ll be able to refer to during the proceedings. Once you learned your draft position you even played out the first five rounds in your head.

Then it starts. And things start moving quickly. You have the seventh pick and you’ve targeted Robinson Cano but the guy right in front of you snags the Mariners second baseman. You value Cano and wanted him for your first pick because second base is a thin position. Yet you’re not sure if another second baseman, such as Dustin Pedroia, is worth a first round selection. Should you pick an outfielder like Andrew McCutchen instead? Or maybe a pitcher. The clock is ticking. Suddenly you don’t have any time to make the decision. McCutchen it is.

But was that the right choice? You’re not sure. He doesn’t seem to be stealing as many bases as he did in the past. And that begins to eat at you. So much so that you’re not even paying proper attention to who the other competitors are picking. Will you even be ready to make your second pick?

A fantasy baseball draft can be a harrowing experience and, really, the best way to prepare for it is having done it many times before.

But there is another way to get ready for the speed of a snake draft that doesn’t require you to risk dealing with a crappy fantasy team for a season. (Or to be that negligent fantasy owner who abandons his team and ruins everybody else’s fun.) You can participate in a mock draft, which mimics a real draft but comes with none of the consequences.

Just about every major fantasy baseball portal, including Yahoo!, CBSSports, ESPN and Fox Sports, offers up a mock draft and you should be able to sign up for one and start drafting in a matter of minutes.

There tends to be chat features on the draft so you can consult with the other participants on strategy. Remember, this is a learning experience, not a competition. You can enter as many fantasy baseball mock drafts as you want, and the more mock drafts you take in the better prepared you will be in your real draft when Robinson Cano gets picked be the right before it’s your turn to select.

There are, however, limits to how effective a fantasy baseball mock draft will be in preparing you for the real thing. The biggest drawback is that with no stakes many of the participants will drop out well before the end. Although the computer then auto-picks for them, this denies the authentic human-brain-vs.-human-brain draft experience you seek. Still, a fantasy mock draft should always be a pretty good teaching tool for at least its first few rounds.

Additionally, fantasy portals often do “expert” fantasy baseball mock drafts and then publish the results on their site. These articles are good to study.  You can see how people who make a living in fantasy sports make their selections and pick up some tips from their strategy that you can use in your upcoming draft.