"April 2007" Monthly Archives - Page 2

Tim Hudson Many pundits called for a bounce back year from Tim Hudson and so far the early results look good for Hudson and his owners. After allowing only 1 earned run in 7 more innings of work on Sunday,...

Prospect Central Week #3 Welcome to Prospect Central for Week #3. Today we will look at some players doing it … or not doing it … or sort of doing it, on the MLB level. Today it is a...

Chris Snelling Snelling appears to have taken the LF job from Kory Casto, at least until Nook Logan returns. Snelling made his third straight start on Saturday, going 1-for-3 with a walk, his first homer of the year, and three...

John Danks Thanks to MLB's wonderful blackout system on Saturday afternoon's I was left switching between blacked out channels until I found the White Sox-Indians game on WGN. Fortunately this gave me the opportunity to take a deeper look at...

There are not many things that are for sure in the game of baseball, but Dontrelle Willis winning in the month of April is becoming pretty close. Over the course of his career Willis is 12-1 in April. Almost the...

Hi everybody. Just wanted to let you all know that the updated Park Factor reference files have been posted in the Fantistics Reference Toolbox.   Data for all major league ballparks is included, and is presented in two different...

Joakim Soria: It didn't take Buddy Bell long to figure out that David Riske is not a closer. It looks like he is leaning towards using Soria, the rookie, Rule 5 pick, as the closer. It doesn't make much sense...

Lefty/Righty Match-Ups We all know about the advantage a pitcher has over a batter when the handedness is the same. It's usually tougher for a lefty hitter to hit off a lefty pitcher. The same thing goes for righties. But...

Mark Prior As a Cubs fan, I can't possibly explain to you what writing this blurb feels like. I'll briefly try to describe it... imagine being the fan of a team that had 3 prized pitching prospects under the age...

A Closer Look - Week #2 If you had Brad Lidge in your Closer Death Pool you cashed a check this week but you may have been only days ahead of Jorge Julio in Florida. Manager Fredi Gonzalez has blown...

Mark Buehrle- CHA- Idea- If any of you are A's fans, maybe you want to give Bob Geren a gift subscription to Fantistics. We noted after his last start that Buehrle has problems when hitters jump on his first pitches....

Tom Gordon finally earned his first save of the season (of course, it wasn't entirely his fault that the Phillies have been so bad early this season). The 39-year-old closer has certainly had his ups and downs, but has been...

Park Factor For my initial First Pitch of the year I thought it would be a good idea to revisit the Park Factor statistic. This should provide you with a handy reference that you can use to determine which ballparks...

The new and improved Josh Beckett made his second start for the Red Sox in their home opener in Tuesday pitching very effectively against the Ms. Beckett held Seattle to 1 run in 7 IP on just two hits without...

Andre Ethier: Manager Grady Little said that Ethier and Matt Kemp are in competition for the starting right field position. That comment is surprising because so far he has played them in a strict platoon. With Kemp going on the...

We talk about numbers all the time here ...   They are important to what we do. The key to this whole game we play is to determine which numbers more accurately indicate performance and which numbers more accurately...

Ian Snell- PIT- Hot- Snell owns a WHIP of 0.92, an ERA of 2.08 and has struck out 14 in 13 IP in 2 starts this season. So, what's his record? 0-1. It just goes to show you can't have...

This just in from the "Team-To-Beat" Department: My very own Phightin' Phils today spoiled a fine outing by Cole Hamels (again) and lost to the Mets by allowing 8 unanswered runs after Hamels left the game with a 5 -...

Felipe Lopez One of the less talked about fantasy impacts this season has been the injury to Christian Guzman at SS for the Nationals. Normally this wouldn't mean much, but the injury has moved Lopez back over to SS before...

Its been frustrating to be a Mark Teixeira owner over the last couple of years and the first fantasy week of the season is no exception. He had another 0-for-4 night last night and is just 4-for-19 (.211) in 2007....

Sammy Sosa: Sosa hit his first homer of the year yesterday and has started in all five of the Rangers' games this year. Before he took a year sabbatical from baseball, Sosa's power was in a steep decline, 2002/2003/2004/2005 home...

Welcome to Prospect Central for Week #2! Today we look at a few prospects who earned a spot on the major league team's Opening Day roster and some that could have, and probably will before the summer is out....

I spent Thursday afternoon at the Great American Ballpark watching the Cincinnati Reds host my beloved Chicago Cubs. While I play Baseball Analyst for all of you by night, during the day I'm an Investment Analyst for an Institutional Investment...

Justin Verlander- DET- Hot- Verlander is doing his best to quiet concerns from a shaky start to spring training. In his last exhibition outing, he tossed five scoreless innings. In his first start since the games started to count, he...

Aside from collecting their first win of the season on Friday night there was another good sign for the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday. Adam Wainwright made his first Major League start and looked very good. Wainwright collected the win...

Elijah Dukes: Rocco Baldelli sat last night with the cold weather in New York. It looks like if the weather is cold or if the field is wet, the Rays will not let Baldelli play the field. That will help...

Jason Marquis who led the NL in losses in 2006 had a solid debut for the Cubs on Thursday limiting the Reds to 1 run on 4 hits and 2 walks over 6 IP. He only fanned one but...

If you play in head-to-head leagues with the option for daily transactions, you may already be thinking about the "pitch-and-ditch"strategy for the upcoming fantasy weekend. If you have the incredibly unfortunate luck of having all of the following players on...

Francisco Rodriguez- LAA- Inj- K-Rod's uncharacteristically shaky performance (1 run on 2 hits and a walk in the 9th inning) was attributed to sinus trouble resulting from the change of climate from dry Arizona to more humid southern California. "I'm...

John Maine made Met fans forget about the strength of their rotation (well, at least for now). He was masterful against the Cardinals last night, giving up just 1 hit in 7.0 IP with 6 K's. Maine is not the...

There may be trouble brewing in Anaheim. Derek Zumsteg (www.zumsteg.net) has done a Zappruder-esque breakdown of some footage from Monday's game that seems to show K-Rod working with a foreign substance planted under the bill of his cap. The Rangers were on it too and have contacted the Commissioner's Office.

Like Curt Schilling before him on Monday, today's start for Josh Beckett allegedly unveils a revamped and revised edition of the pitcher for 2007.

Matt Kemp/Andre Ethier/Luis Gonzalez: Kemp started on Tuesday facing left-hander Chris Capuano and should play in the bad half of a platoon going forward. Andre Ethier was the one who sat, but that doesn't make much sense. Although the sample...

Before we get to today's First Pitch I wanted to say thank you to the readers that took the time out to respond to my AL and NL Predictions blog earlier this week. I enjoy hearing the responses and while...

We spend a lot of time fretting about how well a pitcher is going to adjust to a change in leagues. We treat the AL and the NL like two separate animals when we consider such a switch, and with good reason. The two leagues are two separate animals. In the age of the unbalanced schedule however, doesn't it make as much sense to pay attention to the difference in divisions as well?

Alberto Callaspo-ARI- Idea- All of the cool kids have a "super utility"player nowadays and Callaspo is slated to be the Diamondbacks version of Chone Figgins (that would be the "play a lot of positions"Figgins and not the "fractured two fingers"Figgins)....