FanHouse CesarIzturis

OAKLAND -- Orioles shortstop Cesar Izturis was set to undergo an appendectomy on Friday night. He will obviously be placed on the disabled list before Saturday's game.

Before Orioles manager Dave Trembley knew the extent of Izturis' condition, he said his loss would be a big one.

"It goes without saying that if we lose a guy like Izturis for any length of time, it would be a major blow to this team," Trembley said.

Robert Andino started at shortstop on Friday night.

Trembley said Izturis began feeling uncomfortable during the off day on Thursday. He was taken to the hospital for tests shortly after arriving at the ballpark on Friday afternoon.

Fantasy baseball draft season is coming, so you best be prepared by delving through every major player on each team. Fantasy FanHouse is here to help with a quick once-over.

Meet the ...
Team who just can't buy a break. They can't get any big names to sign with them (Mark Teixeira, A.J. Burnett), they are getting majorly outspent by the two big boys in the division, and the Rays skyrocketed past them last season due to an impressive franchise turnaround. I've seen people tout these guys as the "2009 version of the Rays." My reply? You have got to be kidding me. There's not near enough here for a run at .500, much less the World Series.

The Orioles announced the signing of Cesar Izturis to a two-year, $6 million contract today, formalizing an agreement reached last week during the Winter Meetings. Izturis is a Gold-Glove-caliber fielder who often struggles to get on base (he's a career .260 hitter with a .299 OBP), but fortunately for him, the bar hasn't been set very high.

The Orioles had five different players start at least 25 games at shortstop in 2008. What's even worse, the position was a complete black hole -- collectively speaking, Baltimore's shortstops hit just .218 with a pathetic .259 OBP and .276 SLG last year.

Izturis definitely has his faults (namely, the inability to draw walks) but he puts the ball in play, rarely strikes out and can steal a few bases. Given what Baltimore is used to from the position, he'll look like a Silver Slugger, all while providing a nice upgrade in the field. For the price and the relatively short commitment, this was an absolute no-brainer for Baltimore. It won't make them relevant in the AL East, but at least they're no longer going backward.

Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2009.

Meet the new Rays. Tampa Bay's ascent to the top of the American League has robbed the Eastern division of its perennial doormat, but there's someone new on the block to push around -- the Orioles. It's now been 11 seasons since Baltimore qualified for the playoffs or even had a winning record, and that dubious run will likely be extended in 2009.

But it's not all doom and gloom in the Charm City. In fact, in a little more than a year Andy MacPhail -- seemingly free from the tinkering and meddling of owner Peter Angelos -- finally has the Orioles pointed in the right direction. In any other division, you know one that doesn't have four teams with 80-plus wins already in it, the O's might have even been within shouting distance of the .500 mark this year.

There is little hope of contending in the immediate future in Baltimore, but the organization's recent mistakes have almost all been caused by thinking that there was a quick fix somewhere out there. The Orioles have a rapidly improving farm system and they're not that far from being a real factor, but in order to get there, they're going to need to stay on the track MacPhail has started them down.

This is getting ridiculous. Tell me if you've heard this story at all recently: the Brewers entered the ninth inning today with a one run lead. To close the game out, they turned to "closer" Eric Gagne. A walk, a hit batter, and a fielder's choice later, the game was tied and headed to extra innings, where the Brewers bailed Gagne out in the 12th.

Today's scene took place in St. Louis against the Cardinals, but it's the fourth blown save by Gagne this year and the third time the Brewers bailed him out and still managed to win. It's nice for the Brew Crew that they've been able to overcome Gagne thus far, but it's not something I'd be counting on happening again and again.

I want to say it's hard to read Gagne's performance thus far this year (12 strikeouts in 8 and 2/3 innings is impressive), but man, he hit Cesar Izturis today and Izturis turned into the tying run. That dude's a worse hitter than like half the pitchers in the National League. When you're beaning Cesar Izturis, it's a pretty good indication that you have no idea where the ball is going when it's leaving your hands. It's time to give someone, Salomon Torres, David Riske, Brian Shouse, no, anyone else a shot at nailing down the end of these games.

It was a little puzzling this winter when the Cardinals signed Cesar Izturis. Free of David Eckstein, most people expected them to attempt to upgrade their team at the crucial position. Instead, the Cardinals went out and signed Izturis, who sat on two benches in NL Central last year (with the Cubs and Pirates). Why they did that is beyond me, but Brendan Ryan's giving them an out this spring with his .366 OBP while Izturis has racked up five hits and six errors. Tony La Russa, however, insists on sticking with Izturis:

"What bothers you most the errors or the hits?" La Russa asked the media this morning. "He's playing very well defensively. So, the errors - I don't have any problems with. If you're going to evaluate people on the number of errors in spring training, over time you're going to make a lot of mistakes. There's some guys who can't play, but not him. Hitting, I think he's getting better."

I'm certainly not one to quibble with ignoring spring stats, but you don't need spring stats to tell you that Izturis isn't much of a player anymore. He is quite literally one of the worst offensive players in the game and his defense has started to slip in the past few years. Really, there's no excuse for him to be in a starting lineup anywhere in the league. The fact that he's found a starting job is mind boggling.

As divisions in baseball go, the NL Central was about as bad as it gets in 2007. It was a two team race all year and those two teams (the Cubs and Brewers) struggled with .500 until September. Still, we're only a year removed from the time when the Cardinals and Astros dominated not just the division. This week, they both had chances to improve on major weak spots this year. The Astros managed to excise the shell of Craig Biggio from their roster while the Cardinals watched David Eckstein (who's as overrated as he is gritty) file for free agency.

The Astros used their opportunity to sign Kaz Matsui. Despite all of the talk about Matsui's improvement since his move to Colorado, his OPS+ was only a little better than the numbers he put up in New York. He's not a bad second baseman, per se, but he's a little better than average with a glove and he'll probably only hit at home. So he's like Biggio last year, only better with the glove. Not a huge improvement for $5 million a year.

At least the Astros made themselves better. The Cardinals actually found a way to go out and pick up a shorstop that's an even worse hitter than Eckstein when they signed Cesar Izturis today. Izturis started out 2007 with the Cubs and lost his job to Ecksteinian Ryan Theriot, then got traded to the Pirates in July for a player to be named later that hasn't been named yet! So unless they're planning another move, they just signed a guy to play shortstop that couldn't start for anyone else in the division.

Oh boy, we've got a trade today! Well, that's if you count Cesar Izturis to the Pirates for a player to be named later and some cash a trade. But Izturis going to the Pirates isn't really what's interesting. I mean, it's interesting if you're curious why Dave Littlefield acquired yet another all-field, no-hit utility guy for the team with the worst on-base percentage in baseball, but I was thinking beyond that.

It's interesting because it means that the Pirates may be close to dealing the longest tenured Pirate, Jack Wilson. Wilson is in the first year of an ill-advised 3 year/$20.2 million contract that is back-loaded with over $15 million of the contract coming in 2008 and 2009. That's pricey for anyone, but especially so for the small-market Pirates. Since Wilson has only slugged over .400 once in his career, people have been guessing all year that the Pirates will try to drop Wilson off on a contender with a big hole at short that wouldn't mind paying a premium for good defense.

Does anyone fit that bill? The name that comes up most among Pirate fans is the Red Sox, who have just about had it with the Julio Lugo experience and might take Wilson's .660 OPS and usually stellar defense over Lugo's .606 OPS and mostly average defense. It's a steep price to pay for what seems like a pretty minor upgrade though, not to mention what he might cost them in terms of personnel

But, for what it's worth, today marked the first time that Alfonso Soriano played against the Washington Nationals after departing as a free agent. Soriano was emotional and misty eyed at the prospect of facing his former teammates and the organization he spent so much time with burned the team that he spent just one season with by going two for five and driving in the tying run in a 6-4 Nationals loss.

But yes, there was some reflection and reminiscing between Soriano and some of his former National teammates.

"I had a good time with those guys when I played for Washington," said Soriano, who got together with some of his ex-teammates. "We talked last night. I went to the hotel and we went to dinner. We had a good time."

Austin Kearns got the Nats off to a flying start by blasting a three run HR in the first off of the all of a sudden very hittable Carlos Zambrano to give the Nats a 4-0 lead. But for the team that used to struggle scoring early, that would be it for the game. It could have been enough as Jason Bergmann was hoping his fourth straight good start in a row (and his first that actually resulted in a notch in his "W" column). But Soriano burned them by beating out an infield single which gave Derrek Lee an extra at-bat. That resulted in a two run home run. Soriano then doubled in Cesar Izturis to tie the game, then came home on a Cliff Floyd single to give the Cubs the lead for good.