Rankings/List

In more ways than one, waiting for the 2011 regular season to begin was especially taxing for guys like myself.

After the Philadelphia Phillies nabbed Cliff Lee from the clutches of the Texas Rangers and New York Yankees, the flurry of headlines began to develop. That echoed throughout the offseason, and Lee joined a rotation filled with Cy Young winners, backed by a lineup filled with All-Stars.

As a Bleacher Report columnist, I get a lot of comments tossed my way, and can never be quite sure what to expect.

It’s always nice to get the “WOW what a great read, please do me the honor of ghostwriting my biography” notes at the bottom of articles. Or, at the very least, a “good job, keep it up”.

As the MLB season creeps toward the end of April, all 30 teams have now played approximately 20 games each, and while there were certainly some surprises at the start, the expected cream is starting to rise to the top, while the expected bottom feeders, with some exceptions, are trending toward the bottom of the pack.

The Philadelphia Phillies have suffered some early blows to start the 2011 season. Even without Chase Utley and Brad Lidge, though, the Phillies are in first place and are tied for the best record in baseball.

Here are six reasons why the Phillies can still win the title without Utley and Lidge.

If one thing is certain, it's that the San Francisco Giants will need good starting pitching throughout the entire 2011 season if they have any hope of repeating as world champions.

Barry Zito, who was the team's fourth starter, has been below average to say the least for the past few years, and he didn't get off to a great start again this season.

In 13 innings, Zito has allowed nine earned runs while only striking out six and has a record of 0-1.

Going into each season we wonder. We wonder what rookies will step up and make a name for themselves. We wonder which teams will fall flat on their faces and even which teams will shock the world.

We rarely wonder which of the players on our team is going to take a nosedive in terms of production. We try not to wonder which of our favorite players may just be entering "stiffdom". That's why I'm here.

NOTE: team records updated through Monday morning, April 25.

Through the first month of the baseball season, there have been a few pleasant surprises.

These are the type of surprises that fantasy baseball gurus have already jumped on.

However, depending on the nature of the league, there may still be time to grab one of the following April fantasy sleepers.

While there’s no guarantee that these players will continue their hot starts, the production they’ve shown in just a short time could be a precursor to a breakout year.

As the old saying goes, “Strike while the iron’s hot.”

With the first full month of the season just about behind us, we've seen a number of players step into the spotlight and make their names known.

To the same token a number of players that we've grown to love, and in the case of fantasy baseball players that we've grown to count on, have let us down in comparison to their true potential.

Some fantasy owners are quick to rush to judgment and drop players to avoid an early decline in the standings.

At the same time, baseball is a marathon that takes us all the way through the dog days of summer into the fall.

Score more runs than the other team; it's just that simple. The team that scores more than they give up will win games and vice versa. Even at this early juncture, the teams scoring more runs - regardless of their record right now - are better off. 

I won't bore you with the geeky math details, but using the Pythagorean theorem one can estimate how many games a team should win or lose based off of the runs it has scored and given up. Doing this can give a better view of how a team is playing than its current win-loss record.