FanHouse Danys Baez

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

Apologies for the lack of R.R. yesterday, but we're hitting you with a special extended trade edition today to make up for it. There's been a lot of activity over the past few days, especially with top pitching commodities like Cliff Lee, Jarrod Washburn and George Sherrill. We've also seen a pair of Pittsburgh starters head outta town and two prized minor-league prospects change locations. Time to break it all down from a fantasy perspective.

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Every Sunday, MLB FanHouse empties out its notebook in Baseball Brunch.

The most remarkable thing about this season as we hit the not-halfway halfway point of the All-Star break isn't Albert Pujols' RBI total. Or Zack Greinke's ERA. Or the PED suspension of one of the game's biggest stars.

It's the standings. And they not only reflect the season so far, they give us a clue as to the weeks head leading up to the non-waiver trade deadline.

The Phillies and Dodgers are the only first-place team with a lead of more than 2 1/2 games. And 21 of the 30 teams are within 7 1/2 games of a playoff spot: nine of 14 in the AL and 12 of 16 in the NL.

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.

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.

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.

Let me see if I have this right: we stink, we don't spend money, we make terrible player personnel decisions, and we're stuck in a division with two perennial World Series contenders. Oh yeah, and we've lost eight in a row, darn. What should we do about this? I know, let's fire the manager!

Maybe the situation in Baltimore didn't strike you as such, but that's how it came across to me. How can you fire Sam Perlozzo and blame him for the team's failures? Baseball is a game of ups-and-downs. The same club that went 2-13 in June also had separate four-game and six-game winning streaks in May.

Even with the hideous recent play by the O's, Baltimore was still only 29-40 at the time of Perlozzo's firing, not 26-43 like Texas or something. I'm not saying that losing is acceptable, but what did Baltimore's management group really have in mind for this year's team? A playoff berth? A division title? A World Series run? Honestly, look yourself in the mirror for a second before you run your manager out of town.