FanHouse CoreyHart

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

When you think of Chicago Cubs starting pitchers, you first think of Carlos Zambrano. Next is probably Rich Harden, especially in terms of sheer talent -- plus, the injury woes probably keep him fresh in your mind. After last season, Ryan Dempster should be hanging out in your baseball-knowledge-filled brain as well. The best Cubs' starter of 2009, though, has been Ted Lilly. After yet another quality start Sunday, the Cubs' left-hander is 7-4 with a 2.94 ERA and 1.06 WHIP.

MLB Power Rankings: Where MLB FanHouse's editors, writers and bloggers team up to break down the who's who and the what's what in the baseball world.

We had to break the trend. Sure, the Dodgers might have a better record than everyone else -- but competition has to count for something, doesn't it? The Dodgers have mutilated the mediocre-at-best NL West to the tune of 26-9. This means they are 14-11 against everyone else. Is that a top-two team in baseball? Hardly, I'll take the heated-rivals: Yankees (who have overcome a slow start to go 19-7 since May 12) and Red Sox (18-8 against the best division in baseball) as the top two.

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

Max Scherzer, the 24-year-old fireballer for the Diamondbacks, has worlds of talent. He also takes a step back every time you think he's finally hitting his groove. This past week, he was a two-start pitcher in the fantasy baseball world. His first start was pure gold (that's gold, Jerry!). He threw 7 shutout innings and struck out 10 before getting chased in the eighth inning -- after allowing a few earned runs. He followed that up with an absolute catastrophe on Sunday. The light-hitting Braves touched him up for 10 hits and 8 earned runs in only 3 2/3 innings.

So, what gives?

For those of you who keep up with minor league prospects, you'll know the significance of the Brewers promotion of Mat Gamel yesterday. If his name is unfamiliar to you, familiarize yourself with one of the top 100 prospects (Baseball America #34, MLB #23 & Baseball Prospectus #58) in all of baseball.

Through 33 games (119 at-bats) Gamel is batting .336/.428/.647 for the Triple-A Nashville Sounds. He also has 11 doubles and eight home runs. This kid can really mash the ball and he's been doing it his whole career.

Since being selected in the fourth round of the 2005 First-Year Player Draft, Gamel has never hit below .288 for a season and has a career minor league batting average of .308. Last season he hit 20 home runs and 35 doubles while driving in 99. So, as you can see, Mat Gamel can hit the ball.

The Brewers reached the postseason for the first time in 26 seasons last year and looking at how they've started the 2009 campaign, it seems they are hell-bent on waiting another 26 years to get back. They're 4-8 after their first 12 games and are combining for a .224 team average with a 5.14 ERA. In other words, they're slumping.

Well as baseball players are wont to do when they're in a funk, J.J. Hardy and Corey Hart are looking for something to do that can change their luck. That's why after losing their first two games against Mets this weekend in New York they headed to a salon to get their hair dyed jet black.

Fanhouse's own Matt Snyder has already discussed Spring Training stats and when they matter. Today I want to talk about a few players who are tearing it up this spring. The big question remains; will they be able to keep up the pace once the season begins?

Derek Lowe, Braves - Lowe has been given the honor of starting in the season opener for the Braves. In fact, he'll start both that game and the home opener. A lot of that has to do with his seniority, but his 2-0 spring with a 3.27 ERA didn't hurt either. What's been really special about Lowe this spring is his strikeout to walk ratio. In 22 innings he's struck out 24 batters and only walked two. That's a phenomenal ratio. It's a certainty that he won't keep that rate up all season, but what this shows is that Lowe is dominating hitters this spring and has close to pinpoint accuracy (read: control). Lowe's Opening Day history isn't great (he's 0-3 with 8.44 ERA in Opening Day starts) but fantasy GM's can feel good about owning this ground ball specialist. He's not known (most ground ball pitchers aren't) for a high strikeout rate. If his spring numbers translate into more strikeouts per innings pitched and Lowe keeps the ground ball magic going, he could prove to have great value.

FanHouse continues it 2009 MLB Preview with a look at the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Brewers are a really interesting team. Last March, everyone expected them to make a run at the playoffs, and they expected them to do so without any knowledge of the CC Sabathia trade and with the assumption that Ben Sheets would spend some time on the disabled list. In the end, they did make the playoffs, but they did it with half of a season of Sabathia and almost 200 innings from Sheets. Now those two are gone, and everyone expects the Brewers to take a step back this year.

If you haven't been keeping up with statistics from Spring Training games, Corey Hart would like you to start. Well, at least he'd like you to look at most of them.

Prior to Monday's games, Hart leads all spring hitters with 41 total bases. He's blasted five home runs, seven doubles and is 19-45 for a .422 batting average in 16 games. Add to that his three stolen bases and Hart would seem to be cruising on all cylinders as he gets ready to burn in 2009.

Before we anoint Hart with unprecedented accolades, let's take a look at a few of the problems he faced last year.

Sure, Corey Hart is a 20/20 outfielder, and that's valuable. But Hart hurt his team by not getting on base as much as he should. He finished the season with a very low .300 on-base percentage, mainly due to a high strike out rate of 17.8% and a low walk rate of 4.2%. Hart is a free swinger. He swings at 54.7% of the pitches he sees. Worse than that is that 31.7% of the pitches he swings at are outside of the strike zone.

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.

Chicago Cubs
Sean Marshall is the favorite to win the job as the Cubs 5th starter in the rotation, but he's going to have to fight off a slew of others including Chad Gaudin, Ken Kadokura and Jeff Samardzija. Marshall went a long way towards proving he's the right choice on Tuesday as he threw three perfect innings. In five spring innings he's given up one run, four hits, struck out two and walked none. With the addition of Milton Bradley, Kosuke Fukudome only has one option in the outfield; center field. He'll be competing with Reed Johnson for that job. Johnson is the only one in camp as Fukudome is participating in the World Baseball Classic.

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.

Atlanta Braves
There are a number of story lines buzzing in Braves camp. You have a battle between Jordan Schafer and Josh Anderson for the right to patrol center field. You also have five of Baseball America's top 100 prospects in camp, including the fifth ranked prospect who's been turning heads, Jason Heyward. But the king of the hill in to this point for the Braves is the fourth ranked prospect on that Baseball America list, Tommy Hanson. Hanson is fighting for a chance to grab the final rotation spot after he tore up the Arizona Fall League. In his first start he struck out two in two innings of work, walked one and allowed two runs. More buzzworthy was the fact that he touched 99 MPH on the radar gun and plunked Astros shortstop Miguel Tejada in retaliation to his shortstop Yunel Escobar being plunked earlier. Hanson pitches again today in an exhibition against the WBC team from Panama.