Fantasy Sports

This article originally appeared on Fantasyfootballmaniaxs.com.

It has been an exciting past week in baseball, to say the least.  We have seen the bust of Manny Ramirez, as the Los Angeles star will be suspended for 50 games.  Also, Alex Rodriguez returned to the Yankees’ lineup and knocked a three-run bomb against the Birds of Baltimore. 

Matt Holliday showed signs of life.  Billy Butler continued to rake. Matt Garza had the performance of the night.  Let’s look at these stories and all the rest from yesterday’s games.

Oakland vs. Texas

Here are some players whose nice starts could continue.

Grant Balfour, RP, Tampa Bay Rays

Four reasons Balfour can get saves this year:

1)  Balfour’s 2008 season: 58 innings, 82 strikeouts, 1.54 ERA, 0.89 WHIP.  

Before being faced with a serious elbow injury, Chris Ray was locked in as the O's closer, and deservedly so. At age 24, Chris went on to post a 2.73 ERA and record 33 saves. 

It wasn't until the following season in 2007 that something peculiar began happening. 

Chris lost his dominance, but being the warrior that he is, kept on insisting nothing was wrong. Despite having discomfort in his elbow, even taking drugs to ease the swelling and null the pain, Chris still insisted he felt fine.

I've been playing around in several draft lobbies lately and watching box scores. What's nice about this time of year is that it allows us to really take a look at recovering players and learn about injuries before we start drafting.  

So what have we seen this spring that would impact drafting and the season in general? More than you might think for a typical spring. Here are some notes taken over the past weeks that may help when setting up your drafts. 

Draft Late 

There's no doubt that we're all getting excited for the actual baseball season to get under way. Fantasy leagues are forming, box scores are being watched, and performances are being analyzed about every different way possible.

The problem in doing this work during the spring is that often times there is very little correlation between spring observations and regular season behavior.