FanHouse KyleDavies

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

While the majority of the American workforce got a day off on Labor Day, some major league hitters were getting their power stroke on in a big way. With only 11 games on the docket, four players left the yard twice in one game: Derrek Lee, Billy Butler, Mark Teixeira and Juan Uribe. The fantasy fallout isn't huge, save for one; Lee's having a resurgence, Butler a breakout campaign and Teixeira an MVP-caliber season. Uribe, though ... that's news.

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

After a terrible first week, Texas first baseman Chris Davis was one of the hot topics of concern in fantasy baseball circles. My colleague Matt Snyder recently tried to put those fears to rest in Slump or Suck, and right on cue, Davis went ahead and smashed them with his bat.

One of the trendy picks this season has been the Kansas City Royals. It seems that for the last few years there have been people who were saying that the Royals were finally ready for primetime, but then inevitably June would come around and it was pretty obvious that Kansas City was going to have to wait another year. The reason for this has been that while the Royals have developed some nice young talent in their organization they've never had the pitching that's needed to be competitive for an entire season.

It looks like that may have changed in 2009. Anybody who watched the Royals take two out of three against the White Sox this week saw why people think this year's squad has a legitimate shot at winning a wide open AL Central division. Through three games Royals pitching made a White Sox offense that's always near the top of the AL in offense look foolish, and there's no reason to think it won't continue.

The first few days of the season are a great time for fantasy owners. We can enjoy a hot start for our team -- which obviously means a championship is on the way -- or we're stuck scouring the waiver wire for guys who have already shown they are going to be a stud all season long. Then, we remember Chris Shelton. In 2006, Shelton had 9 home runs and 17 RBI with a .471 average through 13 games. Thus, he is our namesake for Stud or Shelton.

Today, we'll check out a bevy of unheralded and/or maligned starting pitchers who have shown their true studly colors in their first start. Or have they? The lightning round of judgment follows the jump (because we heart lightning rounds).

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There have been plenty of people, players and fans alike, who have expressed their displeasure with the World Baseball Classic this spring. Some people saw it as a distraction that only put their team's players at risk to injury, while some of the players in the WBC just thought it was a bit too boring for their taste. I'm guessing one player with no complaints about it is Sidney Ponson.

Ponson made two solid starts against the Dominican Republic while playing for the Netherlands and landed a minor-league deal with the Kansas City Royals. Now, after only a few weeks with the team and the recent demotion of Luke Hochevar, it looks as though Ponson has earned a job in the Royals rotation.

PHOENIX -- Luke Hochevar might eventually find the big league stardom that is expected of a player drafted No. 1 overall, but it's not going to be now.

The Royals sent Hochevar to Triple-A Omaha Tuesday morning, leaving the starting rotation picture clearer, but still unsettled. It's going to be Zack Greinke, Gil Meche, Kyle Davies in the first three spots, with Sidney Ponson, Horacio Ramirez and Brian Bannister still in the mix for the others. Word around camp is that Bannister is going to be the odd man out (which seems like a pretty steep drop for a guy who not too long ago was pretty good).

Anyway, what's the deal with Hochevar?

FanHouse breaks down the who's who and the what's what of the baseball world each week with our MLB Power Rankings.

Spring Training is always a time of year when false hopes or false assumptions are built based on performance. It might Jeff Francoeur lacing the ball, for instance. Or Yovani Gallardo stinking the joint up. But it is also a time of year when season-altering injuries are revealed. For instance, Alex Rodriguez will miss the first 10 weeks of the season because of surgery. Chipper Jones is dealing with an oblique injury. Oh, and this Manny Ramirez guy signed with the Dodgers. So even though it might seem premature to react in a knee-jerk fashion, it's not.

Hence, we have our second installment of preseason MLB Power Rankings, just to keep your jones going for America's pastime.

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 ...
Team who finished above the hype-machine Tigers last season. In fact, finishing only 12 games below .500 in a division that was expected to be very strong had to have exceeded expectations in the first year of Trey Hillman's managerial stint. After all, it was the first year since '03 the Royals didn't finish in last. They still have holes, but they also have a good group of young, talented players.

FanHouse continues its 2009 MLB Preview with a look at the Kansas City Royals.

The 2008 season was a lot like every other season for the Kansas City Royals lately, with one major exception. They didn't finish in last place of the AL Central. No, that honor went to the Detroit Tigers instead. Still, while fourth place isn't really anything to get excited about in any baseball city other than Pittsburgh, in Kansas City it has bred hope for better things in 2009.

Back in the early part of the 20th century, before free agency and television helped make professional sports home of some of the country's highest paying jobs, players weren't very well compensated. It was the norm for a player to finish the baseball season in October, and then spend the months from November to March working a bunch of side jobs. It wasn't to relieve themselves from boredom, or to stay in shape for the season, it was to put food on the table for their families.

Well, obviously times have changed, and now that players make millions of dollars, they don't have to take that part-time job as a greeter at the local Wal-Mart. Still, that doesn't mean all players just sit around getting fat during the winter, as Kansas City's Kyle Davies has found a great way to stay in shape during the offseason, and get some extra spending cash.

"I'm a laborer, man," he says into his cell phone.

"I work as a contractor," he says. "A little of everything. I pour concrete, dig ditches, lay pipe, get on the machines, pick up garbage. Whatever they need me to do."

Now Kyle isn't doing this as some sort of panicked reaction to the recession or anything, he's been working for his father's company as a laborer since he was 12, and has just found it's a good way to stay physically sound before spring training starts. In fact, Kyle was actually working on repairing a McDonald's parking lot with his father when he found out he was drafted by the Braves back in 2001.

So I guess if Kyle can't cut it behind Gil Meche and Zack Greinke in the Royals rotation next season, he'll always have his construction gig as a Plan B.