Ervin Santana: After two decent starts off the DL, Ervin Santana figured to be a nice two-start option for this week with favorable matchups against the White Sox and Mariners (two teams that rank 23rd and 28th respectively in OPS)....

Mark Reynolds - Reynolds continued his hot hitting with a pair of doubles yesterday against the Braves, continuing a hot streak that has seen his AVG climb to a respectable .263. His BABIP is a good 70 points higher than...

Gordon Beckham (SS – White Sox) Gordon Beckham started at 3B in his first game at Triple-A on Thursday. This is significant due to the fact that Josh Fields and Chris Getz are both reeling at the moment. Beckham has...

Will Ohman: The Dodgers placed Ohman on the 15-day-DL with a sore left shoulder. After having a solid season with the Braves last year, 3.68 ERA, 8.1 K/9, and a 3.4 BB/9, Ohman has been a disaster this year, 5.84...

Ricky Nolasco: One of the more puzzling cases for fantasy owners this season has been Ricky Nolasco’s rapid demise. Despite showing solid skills (.85 K Rate, .30 BB Rate), Nolasco’s been crushed to the tune of a 26.3% LD Rate,...

Jorge Posada: Posada, who has been on the DL with a hamstring injury, could return as early as today. His nagging injuries will prevent him from catching on a regular basis, but his bat is still strong enough, 5/20/.312 in...

David Huff- CLE- Rookie- Huff is getting a third start after all. His first two were disasters, as he lasted no longer than 3-2/3 IP in either and gave up at least 6 runs in both. Huff has had uncharacteristic...

With nearly two months behind us, this is about the time where prospects who started the season in the big leagues no longer can be classified as prospects. This week, Colby Rasmus, Elvis Andrus, and Trevor Cahill dropped off the...

Kevin Millwood (SP - Rangers) - It was easily Millwood's least effective start of the year on a rainy, damp Tuesday night in Texas. After a LONG rain delay, Millwood took the mound against the Yankees and last 5.2 IP...

Jorge De La Rosa (SP – Rockies) On Tuesday, Rockies manager Clint Hurdle attributed Jorge De La Rosa’s recent poor performances to problems while pitching from the stretch. The numbers confirm Hurdle’s assertion. With men on base, De La Rosa...

Andrew Miller- FLA- Caution- Miller is making his first start since throwing a quality start on his 24th birthday. He matched his major league career high of 9 strikeouts in the game, so things are definitely looking up. On the...

Nelson Cruz - People want to lump (at least before the season) players like Nelson Cruz and Chris Davis into the same low contact, high power group, but I wasn't buying it then and I'm not buying it now. Davis...

Homer Bailey (SP-CIN) – Bailey was optioned back to Triple-A Louisville on Sunday and at this point, you have to wonder whether the Reds are running out of patience with one of baseball’s best pitching prospects circa 2006/2007. Bailey allowed...

Ben Zobrist: The Iwamura injury opens the door for Ben Zobrist to get full time AB’s. Zobrist is showing incredible power for the 2nd consecutive season in limited AB’s, posting a .614 Slugging % and a HR every 12.6 AB’s....

Jesus Guzman - First Base, San Francisco Giants The Giants purchased the contract of Jesus Guzman from AAA Fresno on May 21st. As they begin their tour of AL parks in this year's interleague play they will likely want to...

Nick Masset: The Reds placed Masset on the 15-day DL on May 19th because of a strain on his side, but it is retroactive to May 11th and he should be able to return as soon as he is eligible....

Jordan Zimmermann (SP - Nationals) - Typically, no quality starts in 5 straight outings wouldn't warrant much of a write-up on a Saturday morning. But one of the Nationals' top pitching prospects, Jordan Zimmermann, deserves a blurb after pitching...

Casey Janssen (SP – Blue Jays) Casey Janssen was called up from the minors on Friday and is scheduled to start on Saturday. Janssen had an effective, but not eye-catching ’07 season pitching out of the Blue Jays pen (2.35...

Jimmy Rollins: Rollins had his best day of the year on Thursday with a 4-6 effort with 2 Runs and a SB. Unfortunately even in Rollins best day we saw some of the reasons for pessimism. Rollins 4 hits were...

Rafael Betancourt: Betancourt earned a rare save yesterday, giving him 17 for his career against an astounding 23 blown saves. For the season, his 4.57 ERA and 4.6 BB/9 are on the high side, but his 9.7 K/9 is impressive....

Kevin Millwood- TEX- Hot- Millwood takes the mound this afternoon in Detroit having thrown quality starts 6 times in his first 8 outings of the year. He has gone at least 7 innings in every one except his last, when...

American League 24 Ben Revere MIN OF B+ Typical Revere - .410 in last 10 G. 14 SB but just 67% success rate. LH hitter .444 vs. LHP. 28 Chris Carter OAK 1B B+ Just .243 so far in May....

Raul Ibanez – Ibanez hit his 14th HR of the season last night. He’s on pace to shatter his previous career high of 33 – the only time he’s hit 30+ HR in a season. In fact, it’s the only...

Alexei Ramirez (SS - White Sox) - Maybe I'm just stubborn. Or maybe I have a hard time "letting go." But Alexei Ramirez continues to hold the SS slot in my 12-team mixed league and I plan on going down...

Gary Sheffield (OF – Mets) Following Carlos Delgado’s surgery, Gary Sheffield appears to be in line to occupy the clean-up spot on most nights for the next 10 weeks. Sheffield has started and hit 4th in the past 6 games,...

Andy Pettitte - I'm getting a little worried about one of my favorite players of all time. Career worsts in K rate, velocity, and contact% against are hampering Pettitte this season and causing him to nibble a bit more than...

Shairon Martis- WAS- FYI- Martis followed up a 110 pitch outing on May 2nd by allowing 9 hits and walking 2 in 5-1/3 IP the next time out. In his last start, Martis threw 109 pitches, perilously close to the...

Clayton Kershaw (SP-LAD) - Kershaw was spectacular Sunday, taking a no-hitter into the eighth inning against the Marlins before being pulled when the leadoff man, Cody Ross, laced a double to left. Kershaw had entered the inning having thrown 108...

Russell Branyan: The streaky Branyan is back at it again. Branyan launched his 9th HR of the season in a 1-4 efforts and is now 8-19 over his last 5 games with 4 extra base hits. Branyan’s an all-or-nothing free...

Laynce Nix - Nix doubled, homered, and walked in last night's marathon against the Padres, and appears well on his way to securing more time in the Cincy OF. Nix's development has come off the radar for the most part...

Nolan Reimold - Outfielder Baltimore Orioles Adam Jones' hamstring injury and a hot and fast start to the season in AAA conspired to land Nolan Reimold in the majors for his MLB debut on May 14th. A 2nd round pick...

Joe Mauer (C - TWINS) - In the past 4 seasons, Mauer has averaged just under 10 HR per year (in an average of 488 at bats). Yet, this season, after going long yesterday, he now has 6 HR in...

Rich Hill (SP – Orioles) Rich Hill is scheduled to make his ’09 debut against the Royals on Saturday. I feel it is necessary to remind everyone that Hill was an above average starting pitcher as recently as ’07 (3.92...

Wandy Rodriguez SP-HOU: I think it’s safe to say the light-bulb is officially on. It seems like Andrew and I have been alternating opportunities to praise Wandy and let you all know that this finally appeared to be the season...

Brian Bannister: Bannister pulled himself from Wednesday game after 5.2 innings due to shoulder discomfort, although he expects to make his next start. He has been very effective, 3-1 with a 1.80 ERA in 5 starts, despite having very average...

In our continuing series on player recommendations, today we take a look at the pitchers who are deviating from their projected production. I want to start this year's Pitcher segment by saying: historically pitchers have a much more difficult...

CC Sabathia- NYA- FYI- Sabathia has thrown more than 110 pitches in 4 of his first 7 starts. He has a track record of being able to handle heavy workloads, even early in the season. The high pitch counts should...

Russ Ohlendorf – The Pirates continue to get strong starting pitching. This time it came in the form of Russ Ohlendorf, who over 6 IP allowed just 2 hits, 1 ER, 0 BB, and struck out 5. His ERA is...

American League 1 Matt Wieters BAL C A .303 in last 10 games but just 1 HR in 91 at-bats overall. Still looking at a June ETA though. 8 Matt LaPorta CLE OF A- CLE taking the Brandon Wood approach...

Chien-Ming Wang (SP – Yankees) - Chien-Ming Wang had a very nice outing in Triple-A Scranton Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday night, going 6.0 shutout innings with 6 K's and 3 Hits. He threw a total of 82 pitches in the outing...

Robinzon Diaz (C – Pirates) The Pirates seem to be willing to ride the hot-hand at catcher, since neither Jason Jaramillo nor Robinzon Diaz has significantly out-played the other thus far. Diaz is currently the hotter of the two, as...

Carl Pavano – Pavano was strong early in last night’s game, but his final line ended up not being that pretty as he pitched 6 and 1/3rds innings allowing 10 hits and 4 ER. He didn’t walk anyone, but then...

Casey Kotchman- ATL- Hot- Kotchman continued his tear, going 2-for-4 with 2 RBI and a run scored. He is now 11-for-26 over the past week with 4 doubles and his first 2 homers of 2009. One concern is that he...

Jordan Schafer (OF-ATL) – Schafer was 0-for-3 Sunday, leaving him just 5-for-36 for the month of May. Sure, everybody slumps, but he’s also struck out 19 times in those 36 at-bats and 42 times in 31 games this season. In...

Brett Cecil SP-TOR: After getting off to an atrocious start at AAA this season, it appears all Brett Cecil needed to get going was to face some stiffer competition. Cecil shut out the A’s for 8 innings on Sunday in...

Luke Hochevar - SP Kansas City Royals Well, well, well .. Looks whose back .. in a big way. The Royals' 6-5, 205 righty Luke Hochevar has pushed his 2009 record to 5-0 with 8 shutout innings in AAA this...

John Danks – Danks showed his ability to dominate last night. Despite receiving a no decision, he pitched 6 strong innings, striking out 10 while only allowing 1 walk and 1 ER. Last year, Danks broke out, sporting an impressive...

Jeff Weaver: Based on his recent history, 6.07 ERA with the Indians Triple-A team and a 6.22 ERA with the Brewers Triple-A team last year, it is hard to believe that Weaver will last very long in the Dodgers starting...

Coco Crisp (OF – Royals) Coco Crisp swiped 2 more bags on Friday night to give him 5 in his last 3 games. The fact that Coco had only attempted 4 SB in the first month of the season was...

Jon Niese SP-NYM Niese made his case for a rotation spot on Friday night by limiting the Pirates to just 2 ER’s in 6 strong innings. He allowed 7 hits, struck out 5, but most importantly didn’t walk a batter...

Josh Whitesell 1B- ARZ Josh Whitesell was promoted on Wednesday and immediately inserted into the middle of the struggling DBacks lineup. Whitesell is sort of the Diamondbacks version of Micah Hoffpauir, a career minor leaguer who has been mashing AAA...

Brian Bruney: Bruney, who is out with a sore elbow is not expected to return until June. He has been very productive in the 8th inning role, 1.83 ERA in 34.1 innings in 2008 and 12 K’s in just 8...

The bombshell came in a text message to my cell phone at 12:09 EDT today. "Manny Ramirez will be suspended 50 games for use of a perfromance-enhancing substance, the league office confirmed on MLB.com." You could have knocked me over...

Roy Halladay- TOR- Great Player- Seeing a pitch count of 117 instinctively makes me flinch, but Halladay has a track record of not suffering from heavy workloads. It is the 4th time in 7 starts and third time consecutively that...

Ryan Braun – For me, one of the biggest surprises on this young season is the quick development of Ryan Braun’s plate discipline. He posted EYE’s of .26 and .33 in his first two big league seasons. So far, this...

American League 1 Matt Wieters BAL C A 7-for-19 in last five games and no, we're not worried about him having just one HR. 9 Matt LaPorta CLE OF A- We'll see how much playing time he get and how...

Alex Rodriguez (3B - Yankees) - While A-Rod continues to dominate the headlines, he's almost ready to actually play baseball. He played a full seven innings in an extended spring training game on Tuesday and hit two HR. With Jorge...

J.J. Hardy (SS – Brewers) J.J. Hardy had by far his best game of the season on Tuesday night, as he went 3 for 3 with 2 walks and 4 RBI. This line was very much necessary for Hardy owners...

Carlos Lee- HOU- Hot- Lee is riding a mini-hitting streak of 4 games in which he has hit an even .500. He has added 42 points to his batting average sine the end of April. This is an early example...

Michael Young - Young singled and homered again last night, but I remain on record as forecasting a decline. Fully one-third of the flyballs he has hit have left the park this year, and his BABIP of .355 is a...

The first 4 weeks of the 2009 Baseball Season are history and as typical there are quite a few players who are struggling and a quite a few who are posting MVP type numbers...but who deserves to be where?  Welcome...

Homer Bailey (SP-CIN) – Bailey’s pounding on the promo door continues to get louder by the start. Saturday, Bailey tossed a complete-game shutout for Triple-A Louisville. This after fanning 15 in his last start. Bailey is 3-0 with a 1.86...

Scott Baker: Just when things looked like they were turning around for Scott Baker, one bad inning erased 6 great innings of work. Baker started his outing on Sunday with 6 no-hit innings, yielding just 1 BB and striking out...

Jason Heyward - OF Atlanta Braves The Braves boast one of baseball's top prospect in 19-year-old Jason Heyward. Already 6-4, 220 Jason won't be 20 until August 9th but the 14th overall pick in the 2007 draft entered the 2009...

Magglio Ordonez - Ordonez continues to be ice cold at the plate. He went 1 for 4 last night, which actually slightly raised his average to .241. So, is age catching up the 35 YO outfielder or is he simply...

Hanley Ramirez: Ramirez, who has been nursing a bruised wrist, returned to the starting lineup yesterday against the Cubs, which is very good news for the Marlins and his fantasy owners. At 25 years of age, he has still not...

Ubaldo Jimenez (SP - Rockies) - Jimenez hurled his second quality start of the season last night, going 7.0 IP on 5 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, and 5 K's. He was still handed the loss as the Rockies couldn't...

Brett Cecil (SP – Blue Jays) Brett Cecil could be the best prospect of which you’ve never heard. He was called up yesterday and is slated to get the start on Tuesday. Cecil, a converted closer, plowed through 3 different...

Rickie Weeks (2B - Brewers) - I can feel the excitement coming from fantasy owners thinking this is the year Rickie Weeks puts it together. He's hitting a respectable .281 with a 0.59 FPI, 17.8 HR/AB with 5 HR under...