FanHouse Chris Ray

It's always nice to know how secure a closer's job is and who's next in line if somebody loses their 9th inning job. Each week The Closer Report will give you that information. And if that wasn't good enough we'll rank the closers from top to bottom.

Here's an interesting statistic. Somewhere between 30 percent and 40 percent of the closers who are listed as the the team's official closer will not be in that role by the end of the season. It's the case every year. Whether a closer loses his job due to injury or just plain can't get the job done, you're going to learn that you can find saves on the waiver wire throughout the season. You just have to know where to look.

Apparently, the reason the Padres have won all these games the first two weeks of the season is that they needed the postgame handshakes.

To introduce themselves to one another.

Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.

There were a bunch of eye-opening performances scattered throughout Thursday's games, but none bigger than the seven one-hit innings hurled by Chris Carpenter. The 33-year-old hadn't won a game for the Cardinals since the 2006 World Series, yet there he was, striking out seven Pirates and needing just 92 pitches to get through his day of work. Is Carpenter already back to fantasy ace status, or was this just the stinkin' Bucs making him look good?

Dan Haren has been awful this spring. Adam Jones is raking, as is Chris Shelton. Michael Bourn has been a completely worthless hitter. Of the above players, two have stat-lines that matter, and two have ones that don't.

You see, judging spring training stat-lines in fantasy baseball can be helpful, but you don't want to get too caught up in it. After all, the games are meaningless. Most established veterans are just going through the motions in attempt to get their body ready for the real season. For them, the stat-lines are meaningless. Thus, I don't care that Haren has sucked thus far. I'd still draft him with confidence.

Let's take a deeper look at a when they matter, when they don't, and why.

From now until the regular season begins, Fantasy Flings is where you'll find interesting story lines about your favorite teams from Spring Training. If there is a position battle, a nagging injury, a comeback story or a youngster making a surge for the "big club" we'll let you know the fantasy implications.

Boston Red Sox
The Red Sox rotation is still in flux. The four givens are Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Jon Lester and Tim Wakefield. The race for the fifth spot has pretty much been narrowed down to two; Brad Penny and Justin Masterson. Most feel the job will be Penny's, but Masterson is still being kept on a starter's schedule until Penny comes out and proves that he can pitch well enough to hold the spot down. Penny pitches today, and Masterson goes in a minor league game on Thursday. Both starts are crucial to these two pitchers and whoever wins this job will see his fantasy value rise.

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.

When drafting in fantasy baseball, I often find rankings are a lot less useful than using the tier system. Simply group guys together with others who will perform similarly, and you won't focus on single players. Being frazzled when that single player is taken immediately before your pick is a good way to ruin your draft.

We're definitely not proponents of drafting closers high, but getting the last member of a tier at good value could work in the right situations.

Chris Ray, who has served as closer for the O's for the past year and underwent Tommy John surgery last August, has begun rehabbing his elbow but most likely won't be pitching at all this season (hey, sounds like Carl Pavano!). Fortunately for the Orioles, they are currently in a rebuilding phase -- a wise move, I might add, one that more teams should make -- taking measures to work towards a brighter future rather than mortgaging their livelihood in a futile attempt to compete with the rest of the AL East. Because of this, they need not be too concerned about little things that trouble teams that are aiming to make a run at a championship, like saving games.

Unlike Pavano, Ray has been actively working to rehab his arm so that he can be back in action as soon as possible. During the six months after the surgery that he was not allowed to do any throwing of any sort, he kept in shape with cardio and weightlifting, then showed up to Spring Training camp with the rest of the team, and now he's moved down to the O's minor league complex in Sarasota to continue his workouts. Thus far he's been throwing from 60 feet from the plate, but he will soon work his way up to a full 90 feet and eventually be able to throw from the mound, though that is still a ways off.

As I said, the O's are in rebuild mode, so Ray's absence actually isn't coming at a particularly poor time. Obviously no team wants to lose their closer for any amount of time, but with any luck, Chris will be back in full force next season, and the O's will have a shot at a playoff run in a few years. Well ... they might need more than just a little luck for the latter ... but the former sounds good!

I'd be nervous to be a Baltimore pitcher these days. Injuries have ravaged the staff all season, and even with the light at the end of the tunnel (ie, the end of the season) almost within reach, yet another guy went down -- and hard. Danys Baez, who hasn't pitched in two weeks because of what was originally termed a "strained elbow," is now slated for Tommy John surgery. From the Baltimore Sun:

Baez, who started the season as the Orioles' top setup man but struggled mightily after a solid April, still hasn't set a date or chosen a doctor for the surgery, but it will force him to miss next season, joining closer Chris Ray on the sideline. Ray had the same procedure ... last month and is expected to miss most if not all of next season.

Not many teams can survive the loss of their closer and top setup man, but the silver lining is that the team knows exactly what the situation is before heading into the winter. Considering Ray is probably still regarded as their closer of the future, don't be surprised if the O's go after an older veteran free agent as a one-year stopgap. If I were Bob Wickman, Troy Percival or even LaTroy Hawkins, I'd send a resume over.

Everyone outside of Houston has gotten a chuckle out of Brad Lidge's demise over the past few years, but what of the poor fantasy owners? Many may have had to choose between Lidge, Jason "Thank God Blown Saves Don't Count In My League" Isringhausen, and Eric Gagne, who's making a very solid bid at having some sort of surgery named after him this season. Bad news for those who chose Lidge (tisk tisk) as his inability to get through an already forfeited 9th inning last night was the final straw, forcing the Astros to make Dan Wheeler their new closer.

Brad's downward spiral into the 6th/7th inning came as no surprise, but he may have some unexpected company at the bar where I assume all failed closers go to sulk and exchange crappy excuses.

We all saw A-Rod's first ever clutch performance Saturday, but it was a lot uglier than the final clip showed. With two outs in the bottom of the 9th Chris Ray gave up a single to Robinson Cano, walked Derek Jeter, and hit Bobby Abreu with a pitch. He tried to elevate a fastball against A-Rod and it ended up being a lot more elevated than he had originally hoped. Such a terrible performance by a guy who recorded 33 saves last year led me to investigate his numbers a little further.