FanHouse Chad Durbin

2008 may have been the dream season to end all dream seasons for Brad Lidge, but 2009 is rapidly developing into a nightmare of epic proportions. Lidge blew two more saves, he's got six overall, in Los Angeles over the weekend, which brought his ERA to an unsightly 7.27 for the season.

It will stay put for a while because Lidge was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a sprained right knee on Tuesday.

So, you're in the waning rounds of your fantasy baseball draft and you have two bench spots to fill. You could go the route of a late round starting pitcher and another reserve outfielder, but let's look at some of the names you'll see. You'll be looking at drafting guys like Joe Blanton, Bronson Arroyo, Jeff Francoeur and Michael Cuddyer. These guys are serviceable bench players, but what if you had a better option for those last two picks?

What if I told you that taking two middle relievers would be a better option for your fantasy team? Let's first look at Blanton's 5x5 stats from last season. He had nine wins, 111 strikeouts, a 4.69 ERA and a 1.40 WHIP.

Now, let's look at a few middle relievers who should also be available in those late rounds. J.P. Howell and Matt Thornton both have average draft positions well above 300. If you were to use your final two selections on them and combine their stats here's what you'd get. You have a pitcher with 11 wins, 169 strikeouts, a 2.41 ERA and a 1.07 WHIP in 156.2 innings of work.

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 ...
Defending World Series champions. I know, right? Repeating it doesn't make it any less bizarre. But that's what the Phillies are, at least for this year. For fantasy folks, though, they might be a little less than "championship" material. That's meant with all due respect, of course, because the Phillies play in a fantastic hitters' park and they do have a number of elite fantasy options.

The World Champions -- I write that in every Phillies post just to pander to the Philly Phanatics, is it working? -- have gone about their business this offseason without really altering their payroll. Sure, they signed Raul Ibanez, but that was teamed with the departure of Pat Burrell. Ibanez is going to make less per season than Burrell was making. They also re-upped with Jamie Moyer for two years in a moderate, at most, deal.

With arbitration season beginning today, they are about to take on a significant payroll increase. Players can now file for arbitration, and I'm guessing Cole Hamels -- who only made $400,000 last season -- will be filing. You know Ryan Howard, again, will. All told, the Phillies are likely to have eight players file.

Whether they decide to sign the players before arbitration hearings or not, the World Champs' front office better get that checkbook out, because they are going to pay for these guys. Let's look at each, briefly.

In the Playoff Pulse series, our MLB editor takes on a hot October topic.

On the precipice of their first World Series title in 28 years, the Phillies deserve a world of credit for the way they have executed in October. They have played to their strengths all month long, and as it turns out, those strengths are enough to win a title.

They have a dominant ace in Cole Hamels who may very well close the Fall Classic out Monday night. He's 4-0 in October and he gives the opposing pitcher very little room for error. The rest of their rotation has flown under the radar in part because of Hamels' excellence and in part because of a ballpark that inflates ERAs, but it's proven to be very capable, too, behind the southpaw ace.

They have a lights-out bullpen that finishes with Brad Lidge, but also features top-notch flame-thrower Ryan Madson as the bridge to Lidge and a number of useful situational guys like Scott Eyre and Chad Durbin.

And they have a power-laden offense that has much more balance than the Rays -- one that is capable of putting crooked numbers up on the board as it did in Game 4, but also capable of staying in the game even when it struggles with runners in scoring position because of the home run ball.

If Monday is a coronation, it will have been well earned indeed.

Every four years, Major League Baseball's postseason intersects with a presidential election. This is one of those years. In the spirit of the season, we here at MLB FanHouse have divided the playoff teams up for a series of debates. Here Pat Lackey and Mullet discuss the NLDS between the Brewers and Phillies.

Mullet: This series may turn out to be the least competitive of all the four first-round matchups out there. There are a lot of reasons the Phillies should take care of the Brewers in three or four games, so I'll start with this one: Brad Lidge is 41-for-41 in save opportunites this season. The Brewers bullpen, meanwhile, has Eric Gagne and Guillermo Mota. You've seen it as much as I have, bullpens win in the playoffs.

Pat Lackey: It makes me vaguely sick to my stomach to point this out, but since mid-July Eric Gagne has a 3.52 ERA and a 1.00 WHIP. He's not the Gagne of old, as his strikeouts are way down (17 in 23 innings over that span), but he's at least done a good job of keeping guys off of the bases for the home runs he inevitably gives up. The Brewers will likely turn to Salomon Torres in a pinch before either of the guys you named and until a couple hiccups down the stretch, he was very good this year.

It seems like the FanHouse has become the one place where Kyle Lohse can find some support. We've chronicled his search for gainful employment in painstaking detail over the last month. There were some hopeful signs for Lohse at Phillie camp this weekend.

Kyle Kendrick got lit up by the Blue Jays yesterday. His line of two innings, seven hits, six runs and two walks leaves him with an ERA of 16.43 thus far. While there's no reason to panic just yet, plenty of pitchers have struggled in March and sparkled later on, the Phillies can't be too complacent. They already have deep problems at the fifth spot in the rotation and can't afford similar trouble in Kendrick's four-hole.

The nominal fifth starter, Adam Eaton, had a MRI yesterday which revealed a herniated disk in his back. The good news is that he should still be able to pitch, the bad news is the same. If his back gets worse, the Phillies will be banking on Chad Durbin or J.D. Durbin or a return to health from Kris Benson. That should work out well.

All of these issues have done nothing to change the team's mind about Lohse, however. Assistant GM Ruben Amaro threw more water in his direction.

"We don't have any interest in him. The fact of the matter is we may not have the dollars and cents to do something like that at this time."

We're still pulling for you, big guy. If Sidney Ponson can find work, so can you.

Late last month, (Fake) Kyle Lohse took to these pages to plead for a little affection from the 30 teams that make up Major League Baseball. Sure, his initial request for five years at $10 million per were delusional, but he seems like a nice enough guy and, let's face it, league average pitchers don't exactly grow on trees.

Surely, as teams saw what they had in Spring Training there would be a club that decided a better fifth starter wouldn't kill them. Someone like the Phillies, perhaps. After all, they're paying Adam Eaton $8 million to be worse than Lohse. He helped them to the playoffs last season and has dropped his asking price to a level much more representative of his abilities. But they aren't biting.

"I will say at those numbers we're probably not interested," assistant GM Mike Arbuckle said, referring to the one-year, $4 million possibility. "Let me change that. At those numbers, I know we're not interested."

Eaton and Chad Durbin fill you with so much confidence that you just reject Lohse out of hand? It doesn't make much sense. It's not just the Phillies, either. A slew of teams could use a pitcher like Lohse, either to help on the back end of the rotation or eat innings while youngsters mature. Is it because he's a Scott Boras guy? Is there a deep, dark secret in his past that he didn't share in his heartfelt missive? The world's smallest violin plays on for you, Kyle.

This week, Major League Baseball decided to step up background checks for umpires. The union representing the umpires, the World Umpire Association (famous for such great matches as Kerry Von Erich vs. Umpires), has complied with the checks. But then!

The Biz of Baseball reported that the WUA issued a press release concerning questions being asked during the league's investigations. Among the standard questions to the neighbors (what do you think of barry bonds, how many years of prison should barry bonds get, et al.) was this: do you know if the umpire is a member of the Ku Klux Klan?

hahaha whaaaat

The Dugout asks the serious questions about the Neo Nazi skinheads at Citizens Bank Park, after the jump.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

New York Mets (82-61) vs. Atlanta Braves (73-71)-7:05PM Est.

It wasn't too long ago that the Mets were barely holding on in the NL East. They'd just been swept by the Phillies, and it looked as if everything was falling apart around them. Now? Now they've won 9 of their last 10 games, they finally have a healthy starting rotation, and they're about ready to drive the final nails into Atlanta and Philly's coffins. With the start of a three game series tonight against Atlanta, the Mets have a chance to knock them out of the race for good. Orlando Hernandez will start for the Mets tonight after skipping his last start with a sore foot. That's good for the Mets because Hernandez is 6-1 since June 29th, and the Mets are 10-2 in his starts. The Braves counter with Buddy Carlyle. Carlyle has struggled lately, losing three of his last four starts. He only lasted 1.1 innings in his last start against Philadelphia, and has been giving up home runs at an alarming rate lately. All of which is only sure to get worse against the Mets lineup.