FanHouse Jamey Carroll

For a number of major league teams Mondays and Thursdays are travel days. Every Wednesday and Sunday, Fantasy Fill-Ins finds guys who should be widely available on the waiver wire and can step in for the day, helping you gain ground or hold off the pack.

On Monday, there are 11 games on the schedule in Major League Baseball. There are 22 teams playing -- which means eight teams have the day off to travel or rest. Here are five really good fill-in options for those players on your fantasy baseball roster who will be sleeping late on Monday.

Kazuo Matsui, Astros - Not only is Matsui batting .360 with four stolen bases over the last week, but he's 5-for-11 (.455) lifetime against Bronson Arroyo. Matsui is only owned in 22% of fantasy leagues.

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

"This concludes our test of the emergency attendance enhancement system. We now return to the regularly scheduled season."

Yes, the 13th season of interleague play wraps up Sunday, except for a Cubs-White Sox makeup game. We have survived six San Diego-Seattle games (that's more zeroes than an A-Rod paycheck).

We didn't learn much we didn't already know: the system has inherent flaws and the American League rules.

For the sixth straight year, the AL has had** the better record in interleague play – 129-108 going into today.

Take out Cleveland and Oakland, and the AL is 119-84.

"It probably is" as big a gap between leagues as in past years, one AL team official said, "until you get to the World Series. Then it doesn't matter."

Seeing as how CC (no more periods!) Sabathia grew up in California, when he becomes a free agent at the end of this season, odds are he's going to head out to the west coast to pitch somewhere. With that in mind, the Los Angeles Dodgers were interested in trading for Sabathia because they feel they'd have a good shot at re-signing him to a long term deal after the 2008 season.

They nearly had him too, but apparently team owner Frank McCourt just wasn't willing to pull the trigger on the move.

Shortly after the Milwaukee Brewers finalized a trade for reigning American League Cy Young Award winner CC Sabathia on Monday, the Daily News learned that sometime in the days leading up to that deal, Dodgers owner Frank McCourt nixed a trade that would have brought Sabathia to Los Angeles, along with Indians third baseman Casey Blake and utility man Jamey Carroll.

McCourt's reason was financial, according to multiple industry sources. But that is a charge McCourt flatly denied.

"It's just totally false," he said. "The players didn't match up, and that's just the way it was.

"Trades are complicated, and (the Indians) weren't just going to give us three players. They were asking for something in return. The point being that in this deal, the give and the get just didn't match up."

So now that the Cleveland Indians have shipped C.C. Sabathia off to Milwaukee, we can officially say that the Indians are done trying to win in 2008. The focus has now been moved to preparing this team for the 2009 season and trying to figure out which pieces fit into that picture, and which ones don't.

While none of us can see the future, there is something about this Indians team that most of us have known for quite a while, and that is the fact that Grady Sizemore will not be a lead-off hitter his entire career. When Grady first came up with the Indians, everybody knew he was destined to be a middle of the order type guy, but with the Indians monster lineup the last few seasons, there was no need to do it.

Well, it's time now. Grady has grown up and he's ready to be the guy the Indians build their lineup around. Travis Hafner's power and ability to make contact with the ball have magically* disappeared and there's no guarantee they'll ever come back, so there is an opening.

Eric Wedge is currently batting Ben Francisco third, and Jhonny Peralta in the clean-up spot (where Jhonny's been raking). Meanwhile, Sizemore has an OPS of .914 and leads the American League with 22 home runs, yet he only has 50 RBI. How can that be? Well, since Grady hits lead-off, 16 of his 22 taters have come with nobody on base.

The man who drove in the run which sent the Rockies to the playoffs is gone.

The Colorado Rockies are shipping utility infielder Jamey Carroll to the Cleveland Indians for a player to be named, freeing up money to pursue Tadahito Iguchi.

Carroll, who turns 34 in February, and his $2.15 million salary were deemed expendable even though the Rockies lost starting second baseman Kaz Matsui to the Houston Astros. (...)

Carroll told The Denver Post from his Florida home that he was comfortable in Denver and didn't seek a trade: "I never asked for that. I want that on the record. That's not the type of player or person I am. I know my role. There's nothing negative I will take from my time in Colorado. I was part of a historic run to get a team into the World Series. Those are memories that are going to last forever."

It's hardly the trade that's going to put the Indians back on top of the Tigers in the division, but it's something. The Rockies meanwhile are now squarely in the Iguchi hunt, reportedly having offered a two-year deal. If they can land Iguchi at a cheaper price than what the Astros paid for former Rockie Kaz Matsui (three years at $16.5 million), they will have come out looking pretty good, as Iguchi's hitting numbers are comparable to Matsui's without the stolen bases.

Your answers are probably no, and no for the Rockies, but yes for baseball. In Monday's live blog of the game, Mullet noted that Matt Holliday said post-game he had no idea if he touched home upon scoring the game-winning run on a Jamey Carroll RBI sac fly in the 13th. Ever the Rockie hater, Mark Kiszla led his column saying Holliday still hadn't touched home. He also offered this quote from Holliday:

"The umpire called me safe, that's all I know," Holliday said in a Rockies clubhouse drenched in champagne. "I don't even know what happened on the play, to tell the truth."

Padre manager Bud Black said he thought Holliday did touch the plate, but Black was probably still in shock that Trevor Hoffman, the all-time saves leader, had blown consecutive playoff berth-clinching opportunities. With so much riding on one call, I say instant replay was necessary to make the proper judgment.

Tim Kurkjian on ESPN argued after the game that instant replay would have ruined the great reaction and celebration in Denver. True. But the Padres got jobbed in a game they never lost. If Holliday's called out, that's a double play, and Hoffman just needs to get Hawpe out to send it to the 14th. It's also ironic that none other than Rockies manager Clint Hurdle was calling for instant replay earlier in the year. Were instant replay in effect, Garrett Atkins would have been awarded a home run in the 7th, and the Rox would have had the game-winning run taken away in the 13th.