Fantasy Baseball Advice

Matt Holliday hits the 15-day DL with a strained hamstring. I wouldn’t be surprised if he just sat for a few days and pushed through it if the Rockies were in a better position team-wise. Well, ain’t that a kick in the pants? In one NL-Only league I have Holliday, I’m pretty much screwed. Some people who are out there in some leagues (this is the order I’d pick them up, but, as always, it depends on needs): Mike Cameron, Bill Hall, David Murphy, Jose Guillen, Gary Matthews Jr. or Joey Gathright. Then there’s Seth Smith, another stopgap replacement for Matt Holliday, is the rookie call-up that should be replacing him (at least against righties) while Holliday’s on the DL. Is he worth a flier? Sure, but he’s got two strikes against him. 1) The Rockies seem convinced he’s nothing more than a pinch-hitter and 2) The Rockies have options in the outfield. Hopefully you have some maneuverability so you can just pickup a hot hitter and not have to worry if he’s an outfielder. Holliday swears he’ll be back in two weeks on June 8th; he better not pull a Kotchman. Anyway, here’s what I saw yesterday:

Clayton Kershaw – The most hyped non-Mexican, non-Jew Dodgers lefty of all-time. He has the kind of stuff that can battle back from being behind on hitters. Pretty impressive debut. Of course, his ownership is contingent on the farkakteh Yahoo waiver process. I know they are reading this, because they’ve linked here before, so I’m going to explain something to them. Everyone else can skip ahead. Rudy covered this already in one post; I’m adding my two cents. Yahoo, take everyone that is sent down to the minors and pull them from waivers until they are called back up. So if they are not currently rostered and they are in the minors, then they are unavailable. Rich Hill? Yup. Homer Bailey? Yup. Sidney Pollack? Well, he’s a film director, so he should be unavailable too. I prefer everyone is available, but obviously you can’t figure out how to do that. CBS Sportsline and ESPN are doing a lot better job than you, so I’m assuming it’s a financial decision on your part. Well, financially it can’t take much programming (I’m pretty computer-stupid, so I’m not sure about this) for you to simply make everyone in the minors unavailable. This way at least there’s an even playing field. Right now, some minor leaguers are available and others are not. It feels completely willy-nilly and it causes unnecessary confusion. Why would Jay Bruce be available and Clayton Kershaw not be? There’s no reason other than a complete lack of regard for your customers. If this is not rectified by next year, I will do everything in my power to direct people to any site other than Yahoo. Okay, carry on. And thanks for reading!

Kevin Kouzmanoff - A Padres hitter besides A-Gonz that is hot. Weird! Kouzmanoff was a preseason favorite of mine because I figured he’d build on his strong ’07 second half. Well, it didn’t work out fully like that early on, but he is getting hot now. Here’s hoping he stays hot.

Aaron Cook – Sure, he averages four Ks a game if you count the front and back of his jersey, but he can be useful.

John Maine – If I have a pitcher facing another pitcher on my team or pitching at Coors, I almost always start him. I figure there’s no reason to have a guy if you’re not going to start him. Maine went against Cook today on my ten team mixed league and it worked out fine.

Jon Lester – Make-A-Wish sends Lester back out to do battle on his own.

Ryan Zimmerman – Being outslugged by Aaron Boone. Awesome!

Corey Hart – Last year he didn’t get hot until June. Hopefully that doesn’t mean he’s going to get cold a month earlier this year.

Manny Parra – I think a minor league stint might be in his future. As he’s been pretty, um, sub-Parra.

Cole Hamels – I hate to the bearer of bad news, but knowing Hamels, a bad outing means he’s injured. I sure hope I’m wrong. In his defense, he had a ten minute delay because Carlos Lee bonked the ump with his bat.

John Smoltz – Experienced tightness in his shoulder. The Braves don’t consider it setback. Nah, why would tightness in a shoulder be a problem for a pitcher over the age of forty? I told you two weeks ago to try and trade him if you don’t need saves. At this point, I’m thinking I’d trade him for another closer if you do need saves.

Daniel Cabrera – If you have high blood pressure, you may want to consult with a doctor or Leo Mazzone before adding Daniel Cabrera to your fantasy baseball team.

Nomar Garciaparra/Andruw Jones/Rafael Furcal – When Torre was asked how he felt about the injuries hitting Garciaparra, Jones and Furcal, Torre said, “Two out of three ain’t bad.”

Justin Verlander/C.C. Sabathia – Both pitched well, neither got the win. It’s like their poor Aprils pissed off their teams and now they’re not speaking. Maybe in their next start they can get makeup sex.

Josh Hamilton – He was ejected yesterday. Let’s hope it doesn’t send him on misbehavior spiral. Hopefully he just gets another tattoo and calls it a day.

Fausto Carmona – He’s expected to miss about four weeks with a strain in his left hip. Carmona was seen muttering, “Why can’t I have hips like C.C.? He’s got them good girthing hips.” For his owners, don’t worry, get Laffey. Actually, worry.

J.J. Putz – He blew a save to give the Yanks a three-game sweep. The Mariners management is contemplating whether to outsource the team to Asia.

Jorge Cantu – He hit two more home runs yesterday. What does Florida have to do to suck? Their owner must feel like the female owner in Major League.

Evan Longoria – He gets another big late inning hit. If it weren’t for all those early and mid innings, he’d be hitting higher than .246. Longoria is going to be great. Odds are it won’t be this year. There are more Gordons than Brauns.

Carlos Quentin – While Carlos Quentin may have 14 HRs, Eric Byrnes still has better hair.

Aaron Harang – 9 Ks in 4IP. How hard do you think Dusty had to twist his arm to enter a game facing the Padres at Petco?

Corey Patterson – After going 0 for his first 8 ABs, Corey was successful in sacrificing a player to second. It’s fitting because when Red fans think of sacrificing a player, they think of Corey.

Jay Bruce – Red fans are calling for Bruce so much they sound like they’re from Jersey.

Edinson Volquez – He got Dustied today. No idea how Dusty throws a rookie pitcher out there two days after he threw more than 90 pitches. Somewhere, Mark Prior sheds a tear like a commercial Native American crying at environmental abuse.

Direct TV – I love how I watch a game for six hours and then it cuts out three minutes before Adrian Gonzalez hits a game-winning home run. Maybe Direct TV’s the mastermind behind Yahoo’s waiver process.

Ok, every season there’s some flat-out surprises, but one I haven’t heard too much about this year is Johan Santana’s fairly subpar performance. This was a guy that everyone and their drunk, Irish mother-in-law told you to draft because Johan Santana was headed for a ’68 Bob Gibsonian season. He’s headed to the Mets; Johan’s going to get a .65 ERA! Yesterday, Santana gave up three runs on twelve hits with one K through seven innings, which was a quality start according to Major League Baseball and Kyle Kendrick. No one else considers that quality, maybe quantity. I don’t think you should necessarily trade Johan, but he’s not exactly carrying fantasy teams with his pitching. Wasn’t that the point of drafting him in the first round? He’s sitting at 5-2/3.36/1.18/58 through ten games. You know what those numbers do to me? They yawnstipate me. Not quite yawn-inducing, but pretty close. The thing is… Wait for it… Here it comes… Everyone thinks he’s the number one pitcher. Every. One. Imagine your brain is a dirty alley with a bum urinating in the corner and there’s graffiti on the walls. Written in giant, spraypainted bubble letters, it says “Johan is the best pitcher.” (And it’s tagged by Señor Razz.) So if you have Johan Santana, Marcum and Billingsley on your staff, you’re stacked like Dolly Parton lying on a bed of pancakes. I say move Johan for a first round hitter. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday:

Corey Hart – I was adding Corey Hart into Friday afternoon’s Buy and Sell post as a Buy, but he beat me to the punch. I doubt any of his owners are looking to sell him now. Sometimes time sensitive material spoils. C’est la vie.

Chris Young – To the 15-DL, hopefully he’s fine when he returns. I hate to see things like that… Oh, who am I kidding? I watched the replay seventeen times. It was wonderful! (BTW, when I was watching the Padres game the night it happened, they would not show the replay. They were making like it was the part of Faces of Death II when the guy eats the live monkey brain then vomits on a corpse.)

Victor Martinez – Left the game with an index finger injury. Hey, Victor, I’ve got a middle finger for ya.

Miguel Olivo – Looks like he’s not missing those Miguel Cabrera’s hugs as much as I hoped when I picked him up on my Razzball team. He has 6 home runs and I’m moving my crazy Dioner Navarro love to Olivo. I know, I’m flaky when it comes to catchers, but they’re a dime a dozen and sometimes you gotta rotate your junk. Um, so to speak.

Joe Borowski – Headline: He’s set to return as the closer. Sub-headline: Indians’ opponents just need to keep it close.

Roy Oswalt – Obviously, when Kyle Kendrick out pitches you, there’s problems. Oswalt strikes me as a guy who wouldn’t want anesthesia during a visit to the dentist cause he likes to feel the drill. He could be playing with a serious injury to his hip that is affecting his push off. I wouldn’t be surprised if the ‘Stros push him to a DL stint pretty soon.

Aaron Harang – Are you kidding me? He should’ve thrown a shutout against the Padres. Away I say thou artless dizzy-eyed, maggot-pie. Fetch me some drool, it would be an improvement on ye crapeth soul! (Oops, I thought it said harangue.)

Khalil Greene – Hit two home runs yesterday, ya gotta have some Bahá’í Faith. (I’ve never heard of the Bahá’í Faith, but I think it might have something to do with all of the accents and apostrophes. I think if Christianity or Judiasm or Islam or the Others had that many accents and apostrophes there wouldn’t be half as many participants. I think if Bahá’í Faith were to hire a savvy marketing team, the first thing they’d do is drop the extra punctuation. Or maybe throw a “Forever” at the end of it so people could abbreviate it BFF. Now I could totally see people embracing BFF, there would probably be a castmate on next season’s Real World who was a devout BFFer, and she would cheat on her boyfriend of six years after one episode of the show. Not to say a BFFer would be prone to that sorta thing, but Real World castmates are. But I digress.)

Mike Lowell – Hit a home run yesterday. He’s still got it.

Jacques Jones – He’s getting the call and should start against righties. Best thing I can say is he made for a fun ancillary character in Fantasyland.

Clayton Kershaw – He was pulled from his Double-A start and it’s rumored he’ll make the Dodgers start in place of Penny on Saturday. Add him immediately! Unless of course you play in Yahoo leagues, where he’ll be found sitting between Harvey the Rabbit and Sammy Sosa’s pre-steroids, home run power.