One Month of Fantasy Baseball

As you can see from the chart, both of my fantasy baseball teams are bad this year. But, numbers lie. Actually, I like both teams quite a bit. The Yahoo team was in first place in a super-competitive league, two days ago. (Johan Santana giving up 10 runs yesterday cost five points, but I will keep him.) The CBS League team is shaping up very nicely.

Rotoworld is my primary source for baseball news and strategy ideas, but they are a little slow to report some news.

Jake Fox, who did a fine job of filling in for Derrek Lee when the Cubs first baseman was injured, seems to be starting regularly for Oakland. Jake started the season as backup catcher, then gained catcher eligibility quickly when Kurt Suzuki was injured. Now, Jake is platooning at DH in addition to being the backup catcher to Josh Donaldson. I am excited by his 12 homeruns in 278 major league at bats and his career minor league OPS of .885. He certainly brings more potential to the second catcher position than John Buck, even though Buck did have a three homerun game last week. Fox's .208 average this year is probably why Rotoworld has not tooted his horn so much lately. But, one good game corrects the average.

Koji Uehara should be activated by the Orioles in a day or two. Yahoo sees him as a closer. Rotoworld points out his closing experience in Japan. CBS seems unaware that he may be in line for saves.

Madison Bumgarner, a highly touted prospect, was in line to be the Giants fifth starter but was terrible in Spring Training. He went to the minors, was still terrible and reports indicated he lost 3-4 mph velocity on his fastball. The Giants GM claimed he was not focusing on baseball during an off-season when he got married and had developed bad mechanics. Then everything changed back, and now he has won three in a row with three strong performances and a reported 93 mph fastball.

Eric Young is now leading off for the Rockies most of the time. He was called up when Brad Hawpe was injured, but typically replaces Clint Barmes in the field. So far, he has three stolen bases. Now age 25, he stole 306 bases in the minors, and is considered the fastest in the game.

Though the CBS team lacks power, it has speed to burn. Also, it has a fine collection of dollar players, who will be building blocks for next year and trade bait for this year:
James Loney, Jason Heyward, Eric Young, Clay Buchholz, Brandon Morrow, Mike Adams, Todd Helton, Desmond Jennings, Madison Bumgarner.

I added Jaime Garcia to pitch for both teams, since he is off to a hot start for the Cardinals. Aside from Jose Reyes and Rick Porcello (just added to the Yahoo team), players I selected for both the Yahoo and CBS teams have done well lately. They are David Wright, Jason Heyward and Jay Bruce. I claim Jason Heyward is the top rookie since Albert Pujols at 37 HR, .321 (2001) and Mark McGwire, 49 HR (1987). Though, Justin Upton had me almost as excited in 2008. Pujols, as a rookie, was on my first fantasy team and having Heyward feels the same.