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.
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead. You Oughta Know ... That the Rays seem to be putting it all together. The reigning American League champions left New York with a series victory over the Mets thanks to a big Sunday afternoon from B.J. Upton, who homered and had four hits. Tampa Bay is now 12-6 in the month of June and two games back of the Yankees in the AL wild-card race.
Upton has played a big part in the surge after slumping for the first two months of the season. The center fielder came into June hitting .204, but he's hitting .329 this month.
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.
Well, that took freaking forever ... but the Blue Jays finally started to stink the joint up. I swear to you, you can't stay long atop the MLB Power Rankings -- our failure by osmosis jinxing ability is just too strong, son. At any rate, it was a weird week for ranking baseball: the Cubs continued to skid, the Padres went on a tear and Toronto fell off the face of the planet. So, yeah, spiciness ensued, and you may take the jump to see how badly your team fared. Unless you're a Rangers or a Braves fan, in which case they couldn't have done that poorly.
From the Windup is Matt Snyder's extended look at some aspect of America's pastime each Thursday.
I think we can all agree that it's far too early to start voting upon who the best 2009 players are when it's only the middle of May. That being said, there are certainly some shining stars at this point who deserve some props. Plus, Major League Baseball recently released their All-Star ballots for our voting pleasure -- we vote on who will start the All-Star Game. If that's not important, I don't know what is. Let's take a gander.
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead. You Oughta Know... That Ryan Zimmerman just keeps getting hits. It's easy to forget about Zimmerman because the Nationals have been playing so poorly this year, but Zimmerman extended his streak to 27 games on Saturday.
Zimmerman was hitless until his eighth-inning solo homer, which turned out to be the deciding run in the Nats' 2-1 victory over the Diamondbacks, their third win in a row.
Zimmerman's streak is getting to the point that it's worth paying close attention. This doesn't hapen every day. The last player to have a hitting streak of at least 27 games was Moises Alou, who hit in 30 consecutive games for the Mets in 2007. The franchise record is 31 games, set by Vladimir Guerrero in 1999.
Zimmerman will face Arizona's Max Scherzer today. Zimmerman has never faced Scherzer. Starting on Monday, the Nats will be in San Francisco for a three-game series in which they'll face Randy Johnson, Matt Cain and Barry Zito.
MLB Power Rankings:Where we care what you've done for us lately when we break down the who's who and the what's what in the baseball world each week.
It's been a while since a week of baseball was this sad -- we saw the tragic passings of Nick Adenhart, Harry Kalas and Mark Fidrych. And without waxing too sentimentally, it's the loss of these men that remind us exactly just how little sports matter in the grand scheme of things. RIP, gentlemen. Power rankings (that feel just a tad inconsequential, to be honest) after the jump.
Here is everything you need to know about Minnesota: they have the biggest mall on Earth, it is negative thirty-eight degrees in the middle of July, nobody would ever want to go there, and their baseball team is next up for the AL Central leg of our The Dugout Spring Training Event.
We started it off yesterday with the Detroit Tigers, so give that a read if you haven't yet. And check back tomorrow when we cover the Royals and the White Sox, and it's all really biased because I am an Indians fan, and the closest I will come to "winning" is insulting people anonymously on the Internet.
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...
Absolute best team in baseball that you've never heard of. The Twins don't spend a lot of money nor do they make a lot of headlines. What they are good at, however, is winning. The Twins won the American League Central Division every year from 2002 to 2004 and again in 2006. In 2007 they finished third in the division and in 2008 they lost a one-game playoff to just miss the post season. This team wins with a small-ball, almost National League feel or approach.
FanHouse continues its 2009 MLB Preview with a look at the Minnesota Twins.
Last year was supposed to be the season in which the Minnesota Twins finally had to deal with reality. They traded Johan Santana to the Mets because they couldn't afford him any longer, and the heart and soul of the team, Torii Hunter, left for the glitz and glamor of Los Angeles. Then the Twins went out and won 88 games and were one run shy of making the playoffs after losing to the White Sox in a one-game playoff for the Central title. This is just what the Twins do. They defy everyone's expectations but their own, and odds are they're going to do it again this season.
Thursday we took a look at undervalued catchers. It seems like a logical progression to take a look at first basemen today.
When it comes to finding value when drafting this position, a few interesting names pop up. Believe it or not, I think Mark Teixeira is undervalued with an ADP of 12.60. Grabbing him with the 13th pick in a fantasy draft would make most people happy, and I'm not sure that he won't outperform Miguel Cabrera, who's a solid first-rounder with an ADP of 7.26. But, the swing from Teixeira to Cabrera isn't enough to "officially" place Teixeira on this list. Just know that if you walk up to me and tell me you got "Big Teix" in the second round, I'm going to pat you on the back.
Starting Five
Here is everything you need to know about Minnesota: they have the biggest mall on Earth, it is negative thirty-eight degrees in the middle of July, nobody would ever want to go there, and their baseball team is next up for the AL Central leg of our The Dugout Spring Training Event. 
Fantasy baseball draft season is coming, so you best be prepared by delving through 
