Fantasy Baseball

Here’s a look at some unheralded players who played well yesterday.

Brett Cecil, Toronto Blue Jays

Cecil, my pick for a streaming option yesterday, chewed up the Indians, going eight innings and allowing one run on one hit with 10 Ks. He improved to 2-1 with a 2.61 ERA.

David Freese, St. Louis Cardinals (pictured with Albert Pujols)

Game number 20 of 162 in the Fantasy Baseball Insiders Tonight summer-long journey featured a game that provided a whopping 25 runs on 32 hits between two struggling A.L. powerhouses.

Game No. 20 — Anaheim Angels vs. Boston Red Sox

Baseball season's fourth week came and went with several surprises and some solid performances. Here are the fantasy studs, the players who have me concerned, and the potential pickups from the week of April 26th – May 2nd.

Fantasy Studs

Paul Konerko: .389/4/8/.538.  Konerko quietly leads the majors in home runs. Konerko, usually forgotten on draft day, is good for 20 plus home runs every year.

Every year it seems, a 30-something-year-old player inexplicably locates the fountain of youth. Last year it was Kevin Millwood , though he appears unwilling to revert back to his old ways this season.

We will be closing in on the thirty game mark in the 2010 Major League Baseball season, and we still have players continuing to surprise, and star players that are struggling. This weekly list does not take the top five best statistical players, because it would virtually be the same people every week. This list focuses on some stars, but also on the underdogs who are having a good week.

Robinson Cano

We have nearly a month of baseball in the books and many hairs have turned gray (if they haven't been pulled out) on fantasy owners of these 10.

These 10 are causing you to bite the bullet because they are undroppable, currently untradeable for the value they deserve, and yet simply incredibly bad at the moment.

The list does not include players who are hurting your team because of injury. Although I'm sure Ian Kinsler, Jimmy Rollins, Curtis Granderson, and Jacoby Ellsbury are hurting you on the DL, they weren't bad when playing.

That is just plain bad luck.

With the first month of the season in the books, let’s take a look at which pitchers have benefited most from a lucky BABIP.  Who is most likely to fail?  Who will continue to thrive?  (All stats through Saturday).

1. Livan Hernandez —Washington Nationals — .180

Here’s a look at the two-start pitchers for week five.

Five Stars
Ubaldo Jimenez: @SD, @LAD (pictured)
James Shields: @SEA, @OAK

With a number of key players getting off to slow starts this season (like half of my NFBC squad), we need to stay alert and active. It is still early, so you have lots of time to make your team better.

One option is to try to buy the slow-starting players at a low price from their owners if they get impatient, but you can also get some for nothing. By keeping one eye on the waiver wire, you can get some quality guys who will turn it around.

Yesterday, I took a look at 10 thus-far successful pitchers whose impressive starts I attributed to luck and declared that they would be unable to maintain their good fortunes for the rest of the season (click here for that article).

While I admittedly got some schadenfreude out of it, it was kind of depressing; as one commenter observed, the list was "almost every breakout pitcher this season."

In the interest of fairness (and not seeming like a complete rain