Fantasy

Our Top 75 Starting Pitcher rankings return, and it couldn’t come at a better time.  Many of the top pitchers in baseball are lined up for two-starts this week. 

Of course, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of attractive one-start options as well.  Let’s take a look at how things fall (two-start options are in bold):

Before the season began I wrote the "Fantasy Baseball: Top Value Picks at Each Position"

The players I calculated as solid value picks were as follows:

SP- Ryan Dempster

RP- Mike Gonzalez

C- Chris Iannetta

1B- Garrett Jones

2B- Kelly Johnson

3B- Jorge Cantu

SS- Alcides Escobar

LF- Josh Willingham

CF- Nate McLouth

RF- Jason Kubel

Here is an update on how all of these players are doing. Some are absolutely killing the ball and some have had very rough starts to the season, to say the least. Let's take a look.

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

Is the old Barry Zito back?  Will Clayton Kershaw ever learn to limit his pitch count?  Jayson Werth erupted.  Let’s take a look at these stories and all the rest from yesterday’s games:

Pitchers:

Baltimore’s Adam Jones has homered for the second straight game, and if this kid gets hot, he could really put up some good numbers. Jones has the capability to hit 30 home runs if all goes well. He got off to a pretty rough start, but stay patient with the young man and he will pay dividends, I promise.

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

Five Stars
Chris Carpenter: ATL, CIN
Yovani Gallardo: PIT, @SD
Roy Halladay: @SF, NYM
Josh Johnson: SD , WAS
Jered Weaver: CLE, @DET

Adam Dunn finally made a splash.  The Mets finally tried Jose Reyes hitting third.  Tim Lincecum proved again why he’s the best pitcher in the game. 

Let’s look at these stories and all the rest from yesterday’s games:

Hitters:

Always afraid to release your drafted stars whose weak performances are killing your fantasy squad, you risk missing out on some early-season hot up-and-comers that could make or break your team.

Remember this: in fantasy, you need to play it week by week, and you need to take advantage of the fact that your players aren’t “real.”

In the real world players demand and possess no-trade clauses, so Theo Epstein and Brian Cashman can’t run around signing free agents and immediately packaging them for positional or rotational upgrades.

In fantasy, you can, and you must.

Let’s kick off our Prospect Tracker by looking at the early production of a dozen prospects.  Have they excelled?  Will they soon be pushing for a roster spot?  Let’s take a look (remember, who we look at will rotate on a weekly basis, so check back every Friday for the latest):

Carlos Santana - Cleveland Indians - Catcher