Fantasy Baseball Advice

Stephen Strasburg returned yesterday in case you’re living under a rock that doesn’t get the MLB package.  Reminds me of a line Selig uses on his wife, “Hey, baby, wanna see the MLB package?”  What can I say about Strasburg that hasn’t been said before?  That he stinks.  That hasn’t been said before.  It’s also not true; probably why it hasn’t been said before.  He can translate Pig Latin into Ancient Sumerian.  That’s never been said before.  Also, not true, but whatevs.  If Strasburg is available in your league, I’m guessing you’re in a ten team league where it’s you vs. nine alias you made up.  Hey, whatever it takes to win, right?  But if he’s available, grab him.  I imagine he’ll be fine this year if a bit more hype than is actually warranted.  I mean, in roto leagues, is he really changing your ratios that are from 1300 innings with twenty of his own innings?  No, probably not.  Oh, and he threw five shutout innings in last night’s game.  Yeah, he’s good.  Well, that’s been said before.  Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Psyche!  Before we jump into the roundup, just wanted to say our fantasy football site has been getting updated, but sometimes when you switch servers (as we did last week), it takes a bit for your browser to clear cache or cookies or something that I don’t fully understand.  The site should be up to date now.  If it’s not showing a post newer than last week, please tell me in the comments.  Thanks, friend.  Anyway II, the roundup:

Jason Kipnis – 1-for-3 in his return.  Before his hammy/oblique injuries, he was knocking seeds all over the field like an Amish farmer after a 12-pack of Red Bull.

Kosuke Fukudome – When he gets hot, he gets scorching and he now has homers in two consecutive games.  Roll out the red carpet!  And I’m not referring to Joan from Mad Men.

Carlos Carrasco – Will miss all of 2012 with Tommy John surgery.  A representative of the Mayans said, “You ain’t gonna miss anything.”

Shin-Soo Choo – Said he will return on September 13th.  I don’t care.  I mean, I care enough to not care, if that makes sense.  Choo’s hurt me this year!  My wounds are fresh!  I’m thinking of taking him to small claims court where this Indians middle reliever, who came in after Hagadone, will be presiding.

Fausto Carmona – 1 1/3 IP, 7 ER.  Seems odd to make a deal with the devil and tell him you don’t need his help after September 5th.

Drew Pomeranz – Will make his MLB debut on Sunday vs. the Reds.  So why do you care?  I’m not sure.  Maybe you’re related to Pomeranz.  Hey, Stew Pomeranz, thanks for reading!  Pomeranz was a first round pick in 2010 and has a 1.78 ERA in his first 20 pro starts with a big time K-rate.  But, and unless you’re an alien there’s always a but, he’s very young and will start his home games in Coors.  In deep keepers, sure, take a flyer with him for your bench.  Everyone else, I’d let the schmohawk in your league who wears a jersey of a team he doesn’t like to the draft to throw everyone off take the risk.  You know, the guy too smart for his own good.

Rickie Weeks – Could return this weekend.  Or The Weeknd, if you’re into R&B.

Rick Porcello – 6 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 4 baserunners, 1 K.  You know what Porcello is good for?  Inconsistency and no Ks.  Sorry, sometimes the truth hurts, Rakim.

Brett Myers – 7 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 4 Hits, 6 Ks.  Last time Myers had a four-hitter he ended up with a restraining order.

Jeff Niemann – 4 2/3 IP, 7 ER.  Fellow -mann’s, Jordan and Horace, are none too impressed and neither am I.  Frank Herrmann, “Don’t forget me!”  Who are you?

C.J. Wilson – 9 IP, 0 ER, 8 baserunners, 6 Ks.  Remind me to never doubt a reliever turned starter.  Seriously, make Kevin Gregg a starter and he’ll have a 2.00 ERA.

David Murphy – 4-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 9th homer.  The other day I said something like Murphy goes through stretches where he should be owned in all leagues.  And that’s me paraphrasing me!

Jon Lester – 7 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 11 Ks.  Now has an ERA of 2.93 on the year and a 1.19 WHIP.  Seems like he’s gotten so good that he’s taken for granted and forgotten when the best pitchers in baseball are talked about.  Then again, I try not to watch ESPN, where they probably have 30 minute segments during each Sportscenter about Sawx pitchers.

Josh Beckett – Turns out he had an ankle sprain, then he didn’t have an ankle sprain and now he has one again.  One thing he definitely doesn’t have is a decisive doctor.   Beckett will miss one start and he’s downgrading Al Bumbry’s mint rookie card to a nickel in his baseball card magazine.

Dustin Pedroia – The Sawx scored 14 runs and the Sparky Anklebiter went 0-for-5.  Ticker tease!

Marco Scutaro – 4-for-5, 4 RBIs, 2 runs.  Now 7 for his last 12.  Marco…Scutaro…Just pops up in the most unlikely places (when you close your eyes in a pool).

Mike Leake – 9 IP, 2 ER, 3 baserunners, 6 Ks.  He was one out from a one-hitter shutout when LaHair moussed him.

Bobby Parnell – Gave up 2 runs as he blew the save, but the Mets went on to win the game.  Doesn’t it seem that when a team rallies after a blown save that the team is less inclined to worry about the closer blowing the game originally?  Maybe it’s just confirmation bias.  (<–Thanks, Psych 101!)

Jorge Posada – 1-for-3 with his 13th homer as Jesus sat, which is nowhere near as hip as Jesus walks.

Brett Gardner – 1-for-3 with his 7th homer and 43rd steal for the slam & legs.  He’s obviously nowhere as valuable as Ellsbury this year, but I still have my delusions that he can be one of these years.

Jake Peavy – 6 1/3 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 9 Ks.  That looks like the Peavy of old… Oh, I know.  He was facing the Twins in the Hubert H. Homerfree Retrodome.

Alex Rios – 1-for-4 with a homer and he’s batting .455 in the last week.  If he got hot for the final three weeks it wouldn’t shock me.  Whatever he can do to pull the wool over people’s eyes for next year he’ll do it.  I can see it now.  Random Commenter in March, “Hey, Grey, what do you think of Rios?  While he was one of the worst players and human beings for five months, he was good last September.”

Jason Motte – Salas pitched in the 7th inning and Motte got the save.  The closer role has been clinched!…Then Motte gave up a run.  So I’d look at Motte first, but there’s no way of knowing which way the wind’s going to blow La Russa’s feathered locks.

Ramon Ramirez – Speaking of closers, everyone’s pointing at Sergio Romo and he pitched the 8th inning while Ram-Ram got the save.  This is an obviously fluid situation that needs plastic bed sheets.

Dee Gordon – 3-for-5 with his 16th steal.  I guess you don’t need steals.  Must be nice being like the little Monopoly man with steals hanging out of your tuxedo.  Ooh, look at me, I have Boardwalk and Park Place and steals.

Vance Worley – 6 IP, 2 ER, 10 baserunners, 6 Ks.  ERA is now 2.86 on the year and his record is 11-1.  Good enough to make a Philly fan puke on someone.  In a good way.

Brad Lincoln – 6 IP, 2 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks.  Back in June when he was first called up, I made him a Buy.  You can look it up!  Since then, haven’t really talked about him.  He now has a 3.53 ERA in 35 2/3 innings with a 1.18 WHIP and he’s been much better as a starter than a long reliever as the Pirates used him for a bit.  His Ks are a bit pedestrian and he grew his beard because some letter written by an 11-year-old.  You are your own boss, Lincoln!  I could see streaming him for the reminder of the season with the right matchups.

Ryan Doumit – 1-for-4 with a homer.  On Monday, he went 3-for-4.  Ryan Without-Mitt usually can hit; he can’t usually stay healthy.  That’s his caveat for our Latin American readers.

Jose Tabata – Has a fracture in his hand.  Or as they say in Brad Hand’s household, a fractured last name.

The extended/new week is a pain in the you know what. It seems as though everyone knows who is pitching but have no idea of when. So I apologize in advance for the 3 comments that I will get that say “so and so isn’t pitching then and he isn’t a 2 start guy.”  So sit back relax, take the 6 minutes it takes to read this and if you have an extra 30 seconds drop me a comment.  Enjoy the week to come and good luck. (Please keep in mind that pitrchers and matchups change.)

ONE START OPTIONS:

7/19
Rubby De La Rosa @ SF – Bumgarner
Mike Leake @ Pit – Morton

7/20
Derek Holland @ Ana – Haren
Andrew Miller @ Bal – Arrieta
Joe Saunders vs. Mil – Narveson
Vance Worley @ CHC – Dempster

7/21
Doug Fister @ Tor – Morrow
Javier Vazquez vs. SD – Moseley

7/22
Ervin Santana @ Bal – Simon
Barry Zito vs. Mil – Marcum
Chris Volstad vs. NYM – Pelfrey

TWO START OPTIONS:

Tim Wakefield (@Bal vs. Guthrie, Sea vs. Pineda) Baltimore’s ERA is horrible — start your grandma’s bingo partner versus them. If you’re chasing wins, Wake’s an easy grab.

James McDonald (@Cin vs. Willis, STL vs. Lohse) Remember preseason when he was the only Pirates starter getting any juice in the drafts. Easily there #5 guy now. Battle for first place this week, let’s go Buccos!

Brett Cecil (Sea vs. Pineda, @Tex vs. Ogando) Needs quality innings under his belt, pitching is all about confidence. It’s either that or he wears really cool glasses. I can’t decide.

Chris Capuano (Fla vs. Hensley, @Fla vs. Hensley) So nice he gets Hensley twice. Hensley hasn’t started a game since ’08. I kind of like the odds that he doesn’t go more than 5 in both starts.

Tyler Chatwood (Tex vs. Ogando, Bal vs. Guthrie) Struggles against lefties. Doesn’t K enough to be a true fantasy contributor. Walking the same amount as you K doesn’t help his case any either. So basically I hate him.

Tim Stauffer (@Fla vs. Sanchez, @Phi vs. Halladay) A Padre out of the pet store. One of only a handful of starters with ERA under 3 and a losing record.

Dillon Gee (STL vs. Lohse, @Fla vs. Sanchez) ERA is significantly lower at home, duh. Starting to hit that innings wall and lose momentum. Rest for 3-4 starts then jump back on the G-wagon.

Jason Marquis (@Hou vs. Lyles, @Lad vs. Billingsley) ERA jump on the road. Gives up too many hits to have constant fantasy attention, league hits .295 against him. But, come on, it’s a start vs. the Astros.

Rick Porcello (Oak vs. Moscoso, @Min vs. Liriano) Rough sledding lately. Don’t lose faith, he is from the dirty Jerz. I will now listen to house music and sob quietly while I look for my Affliction t-shirt.

Fausto Carmona (@Min vs. Swarzak, CHW vs. Humber) When you watch him pitch, you completely understand the ERA and WHIP. Then you look closer, and stat heads say those numbers are inflated. Watch a real game, not everything is dictated by numbers.

Recently, I had the pleasure of doing karaoke with Johnny Cueto.  He decided to go with Landslide by Fleetwood Mac.  Here’s what he sang, “I took my ERA and I took it down….  I climbed a mountain and I turned around…  And I saw my xFIP in the snow covered hills… Well, I’ve been afraid of changing… ‘Cause I’ve kicked the life out of Jason LaRue… Awh, take this ERA, and TAKE IT DOWN!…”  Then I joined him on stage for Islands in the Stream.  Cueto was pitch perfect with Stevie Nicks even if he did skip lines here and there to keep it related to fantasy baseball.  Right now, his ERA is 1.63.  Oh, c’mon.  Seriously, come on.  Come on, come on, come on Chameleon!  His xFIP is 3.52.  His K-rate is 6.23 which isn’t good and below previous season marks.  He’s leaving 83% men on and has a .216 BABIP.  There’s not one category he’s excelling in right now except ERA.  The mouth on the left side says, “S.” The mouth on the right side says, “ell.”  Anyway, here’s some more players to buy or sell this week in fantasy baseball:

BUY

Jonathan Broxton – ‘So much junk, so much junk inside that trunk’ could be lyrics about the Dodgers bullpen or specifically about Broxton.

Mark Melancon – He doesn’t make the cut off of 50% owned in ESPN for this post, but that’s my own self-imposed rule, so screw you, homes!  Kidding.  (Or am I?!)  I’m listing Melancon because his ownership is actually going down.  Um, he’s the closer, what gives?

Chris Carter – I just went over my Chris Carter fantasy.  I wrote it while waiting for a studio light to fall on Carson Daly’s head.

Ty Wigginton – I just got a Lane Bryant spring collection catalog in the mail so that could only mean one thing… I accidentally got my neighbor’s mail.  Oh, and Ty Wigginton’s hitting.

Jeff Baker – While the Purple Evolutionist is off mending and writing in his journal about the dodo bird, Baker is seeing starts in his stead.  “Yo, get out of my stead!”  That was a farmer in the 1860′s.

Jemile Weeks – Just went over him this morning, shut all your porn windows and pay attention to Razzball!

Tsuyoshi Nishioka – This will be the last mention of Nishioka in a Buy column.  Won’t mean I like him more or less, but shizz is getting repetitive.

Chris Getz – Has stolen a decent amount of bases this season (12 — well, I did modify with ‘decent’), but he’s strictly a poor man’s everyman.

David Freese – Over the course of a full season, he’s capable of 20 homers and a solid average.  He won’t be playing a whole season. Don’t quibble, Random Italicized Voice.  But I’m hungry. That’s not what quibble means.  Riiiight. I’d grab Freese and expect some power and a good average.

Dayan Viciedo – I think we’re finally affecting change.  Last week I told you to pick up Viciedo and this week he’s gone up 0.1% in ownership at ESPN.  Woo-hoo!  Razzball, we’re the tenth-percenters!

Roger Bernadina – I told you to grab him about a month ago.  In that time, he’s been better than Victorino, Ethier, Beltran, Bautista (eat it!), Bossman Upton, Abreu, Ichiro, etc. etc. etc.  How is he owned in only 24% of ESPN leagues?  Oh, as we just learned, he’d only be owned in 23.9% of ESPN leagues without us.  Yay me!

Jason Bay – Haven’t been a big fan of his for years and I’m not suddenly flipping sides like Anakin.  I told you to grab him the other day after his 3-for-3, home run game.  Then he went back to old Bay without the delicious fish, meat or chicken seasoning.  If he’s available, I’d take a flyer that he might get hot.

Wily Mo Pena – Probably only a very short term add for power.  On the bright side, his strikeouts generate electricity.

Jonny Gomes – It’s Jonny cat!  Frisky!  I love this short term add for power, but you must be able to switch him in and out of your lineup when he’s not playing.

Desmond Jennings – I’m guessing he’s up in the next week to ten days.  If someone wants to Gillooly Fuld and Ruggiano, that time can be bumped up.

Jon Jay – Four score and one month ago, I told you Juan Hay would get value when Holliday went to the DL.  He did a’ight, but didn’t really shamwow my fantasy teams.  Well, he’s getting another opportunity with Pujols carrying the burden of one million fantasy teams ruined.

Jordan Schafer – The Braves announced that even with the return of McLousy, Schafer will be the starter.  Now when Prado returns something’s gotta give, old lady movie.  Until then, I’d grab Schafer for some speed.

Brandon Beachy – I’ve talked about him so much that he should be on everyone’s team that reads this site.  There’s really no excuse.  And that’s me just being real with you.

Cory Luebke – If he were on any other team, I’d tell you to hold, but in Petco very little can go wrong (damn, if that’s not a jinx I don’t know what is).

Carlos Carrasco – His name sounds like an upscale Mexican restaurant and he’s throwing some good stuff at the plate.  It’s a mashup of puns!  I’m like Girl Talk of fantasy baseball bloggers.  (If you don’t know Girl Talk, shame on you.  Download All Day.  Here’s your preemptive you’re welcome.)

Doug Fister – Fister?  But he hardly knew her!  Sorry, so hard to resist that.  He’s at a 3.34 ERA and 1.21 WHIP on the season.  Yeah, that’s better than that other schmohawk you own.  And him too.

SELL

Rick Porcello – Of course you should drop him.  I’m only listing him to make a point.  We get some comments in the Buy/Sell that there are so many more Buy’s than Sell’s.  Well, yeah, dur.  I’m not going to list 35 names of players to drop.  Plus, people have players that are injured and need short term replacements so that’s what the Buy does.  Gives you some names for fill-in’s.  Now back to the Sell…

Ryan Vogelsong – He’s up to about 97% owned which means there’s been some Johnny-come-lately’s who have gone to the waiver wire in your league to find Vogelsong gone.  After that, they’re like, “Damn, you so-and-so always get the hot waiver wire adds.”  At that point, you sell Vogelsong to them.

Michael Morse – Sorry, you knew it was coming though, right?  I mean, he hit .400+ in May and around .330 so far in June.  If he hit .270 the rest of the way, it wouldn’t completely surprise me.  He has 13 home runs now, he might hit ten the rest of the way.  That would give him around 25 homers and .280 for the whole season.  That’s great, wonderful, superlative.  Now I’m not trading him for a Bed, Bath and Beyond 20% off coupon, but I would explore options.

Can we stop talking about how running into the catcher is “not” part of baseball? It’s getting really old and stupidity is bleeding from every multimedia channel. If Matt Treanor, or Misty May for that matter, got run over and injured this would be a blip on the radar for baseball. All I can say is I can’t wait until the Marlins and Giants play again and settle their differences with a good ol’ donnybrook. Baseball settles its differences between the lines, and all this talk about how one of the prodigal sons of baseball got hurt is a snooze fest. I am old school when watching this game.  If you don’t want to get hit, don’t stand on the tracks when the train is coming through. Okay, rant over. There seems to be lots of speculation going on in the game right now. Who will be buyers and who will be sellers. This has some rippling effects on fantasy as guys switch leagues and make AL/NL only leagues scramble for FAAB bucks. Should be a fun next month of real baseball and hope that it relates well to fake baseball. Good luck on this week’s fantasy endeavors. (Please keep in mind that match-ups and pitchers may change.)

ONE START OPTIONS:

6/8
Danny Duffy vs. TOR – Villanueva
Paul Maholm vs. ARI – Duke
Josh Outman @BAL- Britton

6/9
Josh Collmenter @Pit – Karstens
Jonathon Niese @ Mil – Gallardo
Derek Holland @ Min – Blackburn

6/10
Dillon Gee @ PIT – Morton
Jason Marquis @ SD – Latos
Ryan Vogelsong vs. CIN – Wood

Rick Porcello (@Tex vs. Harrison, Sea vs. Hernandez) Has gotten numbers to look healthier against bad hitting teams, now re-read who he is playing this week. Strugglin’ against LH, but away ERA is a cozy 2.39.

Joel Pineiro (TB vs. Price, KC vs. O’Sullivan) Still gunning for that milestone win. K’s are nonexistent basically. Nothing cures offensive ills better than a good ol’ swig of O’Sullivans.

Freddy Garcia (Bos vs. Lester, Cle vs. Tomlin) Anyone remember Freddy from the old Yankee stadium who used to bang on his pot and have funny limericks on a sign? Yeah, this isn’t him. WHIP is still bad, but lineup chases all evil flying monkeys away.

Mike Leake (CHC vs. Lopez, @SF vs. Sanchez) Not for nothing, but wasn’t he Kelly Leake’s dad in the Bad News Bears? Cincy’s lineup makes him look better. Going to win a lot of 8-6 type ballgames.

Clayton Richard (Col vs. Mortensen, Was vs. Lannan) Low end 2 starts for the front man of the new “Petco Shop Boys.“ ERA at home is far superior. Rinse and repeat for next guy.

Tim Stauffer (Col vs. Jimenez, Was vs. Zimmermann) East end boys and west end girls. Sorry have that song stuck in my head now. Run support is awful. I like Richard’s 2 opposing pitchers better.

Javier Vazquez (Mil vs. Greinke, Ari vs. Kennedy) He is about as good at fantasy as Wilt Chamberlain was at monogamy. K potential is there….somewhere. Look closer it’s wearing a red striped wool hat, oh my bad I lost track of where we were.

Matt Harrison (Det vs. Porcello, @Min vs. Swarzak) Blisters be gone. Was good to start year, then had to change the sheets. Last 4 starts are back on the Matt Foley path. Away ERA at 2.53. Hope the medication he got from Washington isn’t habit forming.

Jon Garland (@Phi vs. Oswalt, @Col vs. Jimenez) Ugh and Yikes. Nice to see ya, Jon. See you in a week when you’re actually semi-rosterable. Bottom of barrel, bars closing, grab any girl situation here.

Felipe Paulino (Tor vs. Morrow, @Ana vs. Santana) My odd ball of the week. I had some preseason love for him in Colorado, fail. Change of scenery has so far has been mmm-ok. If your digging this deep you prolly need a shovel and some lime.

Chase Utley will make his first start of the year on Monday in the Phillies’ 47th game of the season.  If only the Yanks would lend out Suzyn Waldman for the occasion…Oh my goodness gracious!…Of all the dramatic things I’ve ever seen!  For those of you who carried Utley on your DL since Opening Day, congratulations.  The word is that Utley’s knee feels okay.  I’ll put the over/under at 90 games for the rest of the regular season.  I wouldn’t expect classic Utley this year (as in .300/30/110/15).  I think he’s going to look a lot more like last year’s Utley (511/75/16/65/13) for the rest of his career – minus a couple of SBs.  Second basemen don’t age gracefully and he’s 33 with a bad knee.  If someone will trade a top 50 player for him, take it.

Other fantasy baseball news…..

Asdrubal Cabrera – 5 for 5 with 2 HRs and 5 RBIs.  He’s now at .302/32/9/32/6.  He managed only 9 HRs over 900 ABs in 2009-2010.  Where’d all this power come from?  Is he that mad the Indians picked up another Cabrera and he had to add an “A.” to his jersey?  If that’s the case, the Indians will win the World Series if they could just find an Orlando-Soo Choo and Orlando Santana to add to the roster.

Felix Hernandez – F-Her has been just so-so this year – paling in comparison to other AL starters who have the luxury of facing the Mariners.  Luckily, the schedule rewarded him with a start at Petco against a Padres offense that fell back to reality (5 runs in last 5 games).  Given all that, it’s not so surprising that F-Her went 8 IP, 1 ER, and 13 Ks.   The surprising part is that the Mariners supported him enough to give the win.

James Shields – A 3-hit shutout over the Marlins with 13 Ks.  He’s now K’d 7 or more in 6 of his last 7 starts and is second to F-Her for the K lead in the AL.  He’s got a bright future ahead of him.  And when it doesn’t look bright anymore, I’m sure the Rays will just trade him to the Angels.

Rick Porcello – One hit the Pirates over 8 scoreless innings.  He’s rocking a 3.08 ERA now over almost 50 IP.  I have a feeling that ERA is going to mushroom over the next 50 IP unless he starts K-ing more people (5.5 K/9).

Marlon Byrd – On the 15-day DL after an Alfredo Aceves  pitch broke his face.  Lucky this game wasn’t in Toronto or Aceves would’ve been arrested for hitting a Byrd.  In all seriousness, hope Marlon is doing okay.  Some players don’t come back the same or have subsequent sight issues from an injury like this (see Dickie Thon and Tony Conigliaro).  Two uplifting cases are Ron Santo who came back from a broken cheekbone in 1966 to resume his HOF-quality career and Willie McGee whom I presume took multiple pitches to the face yet persevered and had over 2,000 hits in his career.

Fernando Salas – He’s gotten the last 4 saves for the Cardinals.  When asked by the press if he’d named Salas the closer, LaRussa replied, “Why does he need another name?  Fernando is a great name.  It’s my favorite ABBA song.”  The beat writers laughed because they thought it was Kyle Lohse performing another LaRussa impression.  Little did they know that LaRussa has already swapped in 4 relief pitchers as his stand-in over the last week.

Jason Heyward – Off to the DL with a sore shoulder.  He’ll be replaced by Eric Hinske and Joe Mather.  That’s like replacing Hank Aaron with Hank Azaria.

Nate McLouth – Left Sunday’s game early with an oblique injury.  No word yet if he’s going on the DL but….really, when does someone injure their oblique and not go on the DL?  Really, Nate McLouth, do you have some sort of oxygen chamber that can heal obliques?  In any case, McLouth has cooled off (4 for last 32) after showing some signs of life in early May.  I’d McLose him from just about any team outside of super deep leagues.

Edinson Volquez – 2.2 IP, 6 ER, 11 baserunners against the Indians.  Guess he knows how Custer felt.  A real letdown for all those (including me) who got excited by his previous start (6 IP, 3 ER, 9 Ks).  In 10 starts this year, he’s failed to pitch more than 6 innings and has only two games where he’s given up either less than 3 walks or less than 3 ER.  We don’t even start him in our NL-only league – if you’ve got him in a 12-team mixed league, Ay Dios Mio, drop him already.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia – HR’d both Friday and Sunday.  He’s hitting over .300 in his past 10 games.  Who’s ready to jump on the Salty bandwagon?  Yeah, me neither.  I’m as confident in him as I’m confident in David Ortiz being able to spell his last name.

Albert Pujols – He’s now gone 100 ABs since his last HR.  I may be off by a couple but I think Jose Bautista has hit 700 HRs during that time.

Juan Miranda – 1 HR and 4 RBIs over the weekend and Russell Branyan got DFA’d.  Those are two Miranda rights.  But he got hit on the wrist with a pitch in the 8th.  That’s the type of wrong that can ans will be used against him in the court of fantasy baseball.  If the injury is minor, Miranda suffices as CI or UTIL filler as he should start most of the time (with Nady getting a couple starts a week).  If he’s hurt, maybe we see Brandon Allen!

Gio Gonzalez – What’s the difference between Gia and Gio?  Both are sexy but Gio is a lot more predictable.  In his last 4 starts, he’s pitched between 6 2/3 to 7 innings, 0-2 ERs, and 6-8 Ks.  Now if he could only control pitches (over 4 BB/9) as well as he could control the weather.

Brian Fuentes – Lost his 6th (!) game of the year on Sunday when he gave up a run in extra innings.  Yet he only has 2 blown saves.  He might have a shot at 20 losses if they let him focus on Kazaams when Bailey comes back.

Javier Vazquez – Grey and I drafted this schmohawk on 3 teams this year – including our 13-team NL LABR team.  In that league, you cannot bench a player that you drafted unless they are sent to the minors or the DL.  So we had to suffer through 8 horrible starts, one more awful than the next.  If our ERA/WHIP was in a Lifetime movie, it would be huddled in the back corner of a shower.  We’re praying that the Marlins just put him on the Disgraceful List just like the Red Sox did with Dice-K and Lackey.  Nope.  The Marlins believe in him and he’s supposedly healthy.  Next start against Tampa.  Jeez, we think, if the NL is crushing him – imagine an AL East team?  Since we can’t bench him, we have no recourse but to drop him.  So what does the bastard do?  Goes 7 shutout innings and strikes out 7.  The bastard hadn’t topped 6 IP, 5 Ks, or less than 3 ERs all year!  Our only solace will be if someone else in the league picks him up this week because of this start and he starts turding all over their ERA/WHIP.