Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2010.
After an awful start to 2009, the Rockies fired Clint Hurdle, promoted Jim Tracy and proceeded to play like the best team in the National League for the rest of the regular season. They lost an exciting playoff series to the eventual NL champion Phillies, but there is no reason to think the Rockies are going away with all their young talent.
In fact, the Rockies are in position to make themselves a candidate to be a dynasty. Seriously. They can move forward with a starting lineup of Todd Helton, Clint Barmes and six proven guys who are 27 or younger. The pitching staff and minor-league talent are equally as impressive. Now it's simply a matter of cultivating their young talent while making sure they don't halt any momentum.
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.
In 2005, Tom Gorzelanny pitched in the majors for the first time. He was just 22. Two years later, he went 14-10 with a 3.88 ERA -- logging more than 200 innings in 32 starts for the hapless Pittsburgh Pirates. He did allow too many hits, but he was only 25 years old, so it appeared he would settle in as an anchor for the ever-rebuilding Pirates.
Instead, he had a disastrous past two seasons and had been relegated to the minors. Last week, Gorzelanny was traded to the Cubs, and Tuesday night he passed his Cubs debut with flying colors.
We're coming up on the All-Star Game and a day off on Wednesday before Major League Baseball gets back to business. If you squint really hard, you can see the finish line. For those without great eyesight, you've got approximately 74 games until the 2009 season is over. That's about 12 weeks of games, two-and-a-half months of baseball to make that last-ditch effort to push your fantasy baseball team towards the top of the standings.
Do you have what it takes?
Maybe you do, maybe you don't. No matter the answer, everyone could use a little bit of help, right? Here are a few hitters to target in the second half that could really help you on your quest for the championship.
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.
It's time for another Fantasy Baseball Cram Session, this time I joined up with Tom Herrera for my first career cram session. (Fingers crossed). We discussed a handful of guys with huge first halves and which ones were real and which were not. Among the names involved were Mark Reynolds, Adam Lind, Aaron Hill and Juan Rivera.
We also discussed some injury troubles, including ones to very important fantasy contributors like Torii Hunter and Geovany Soto. Is Vladimir Guerrero completely breaking down? What happens to Roy Halladay's fantasy value if he gets traded? Join us for these topics and more in the latest cram session.
From the Windup is Matt Snyder's extended look at some aspect of America's pastime each Thursday.
This coming weekend, Major League Baseball will reveal its 2009 All-Star teams. So what better opportunity than this to run through a list of this season's "Anti-All-Stars." Anti-All-Stars is far too bland a name, though, so we decided to name the team in honor of Andruw Jones. After all, he was the poster child for guys not earning the lucrative contracts bestowed on them last season. We'll sort through each position and find the player who is least helping his team in comparison to expectations -- whether monetary or from management.
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.
It's a funny thing, sometimes, to see how Power Rankings shape up over the course of the season. Just like when we started the year, there are a number of teams from one particular division sitting atop the rankings. Of course, there are plenty of surprises -- WHERE DID THE FREAKING GIANTS AND ROCKIES COME FROM?? -- and some other interesting stuff, like the fact that the Mets and Cubs just haven't been that good, which we discussed on the inaugural BaseCast recently.
In this week's Fantasy Baseball Cram Session Tom Herrera and I spent some time talking about pitchers on most waiver wires. Jordan Zimmerman and Kevin Correia are two of the better options that we mention. We also spent some time on the Pain Train talking injuries to players like Jake Peavy, Jose Reyes and Grady Sizemore. And finally in Fantasy Felony we give a few of our picks to help you out in baseball's second half.
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.
No one said recovering from a torn pectoral muscle would be easy. And for Vladimir Guerrero's fantasy owners, many of his 130-plus at-bats were pretty painful to watch. But on Wednesday night, Vlad came back to life in a big way.
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.
I learned how to play fantasy sports 10 years ago from my stepdad, who's been playing it since the days when rotisserie baseball didn't even exist. Back when he was a teenager, it was called Strat-O-Matic, a simulation board game that seemed more laborious than fun to me. Then again, they also had fun flipping baseball cards instead of preserving them.
One of the first things he ever taught me about veteran players was the basic tenet of: "Look on the back of the baseball card." Sure, there are outliers, but seeing career statistics is comforting, and can often tell you a lot about a batter's peak performance.
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2010.
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the 
We're coming up on the All-Star Game and a day off on Wednesday before Major League Baseball gets back to business. If you squint really hard, you can see the finish line. For those without great eyesight, you've got approximately 74 games until the 2009 season is over. That's about 12 weeks of games, two-and-a-half months of baseball to make that last-ditch effort to push your fantasy baseball team towards the top of the standings.
It's time for another Fantasy Baseball Cram Session, this time I joined up with Tom Herrera for my first career cram session. (Fingers crossed). We discussed a handful of guys with huge first halves and which ones were real and which were not. Among the names involved were 
In this week's Fantasy Baseball Cram Session 
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the 
