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.
On the day Milton Bradley began serving a team-mandated, season-ending suspension, former Cubs fan favorite Mark DeRosa suited up for the Cubs rival. He's been doing so since coming over in a trade from Cleveland. This past offseason, the Cubs moved DeRosa to the Indians as part of a concerted effort to free up payroll. The target: Bradley.
Thus, it was only fitting the chain of decisions were further cemented as awful when DeRosa hit two home runs and drove in four runs Monday night.
From the Windup is Matt Snyder's weekly, extended look at some aspect of America's pastime.
As I look ahead to the MLB playoffs, I'm faced with the fact that my beloved Cubbies aren't going to be competing. Being a devout baseball fan, though, there's no way I'm not watching the postseason. Without a horse in the race, I'm forced to focus instead on individuals, and there are always plenty of reasons to watch certain players. Thus, I'm going to list 10 players I'm looking forward to watching and five players I wish I could come October.
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.
For about five months of the season, Diamondbacks outfielder Chris Young was a draft disaster. Those who picked him in fantasy leagues suffered through the nausea of a sub-.200 batting average and anemic power numbers. Where was the dude who hit 32 homers in 2007 and 22 in 2008? Absolutely nonexistent ... at least until the last four games.
From the Windup is Matt Snyder's extended look at some aspect of America's pastime each Thursday.
Every Hot Stove season, each team reshapes its roster in an attempt to better themselves. After each transaction, whether a free agent acquisition, trade or something else, writers and bloggers everywhere provide knee-jerk reactions on each particular move. Though the majority of the analysis is educated, it's still just conjecture. Today, we'll take the long view and look back at some of the maneuvering this past offseason and see how it played out on the field.
Troy Glaus has been trying to come back from injury all season, and the timetable just keeps getting pushed back. The latest news is that he has left his minor-league rehab assignment and is shut down indefinitely. With around two months left in the season, we are nearing the writing-on-the-wall portion of Glaus' 2009 campaign.
It's easy to say his season is in jeopardy, but we already knew that. The Cardinals already knew it, otherwise they wouldn't have pushed all their chips to the middle of the table in acquiring Mark DeRosa and Matt Holliday (DeRosa can play second, third or outfield, but with Holliday around they don't have a place in the outfield for him).
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.
Adam Kennedy: 5-for-7. Mark Ellis: 4-for-6. Orlando Cabrera, Kevin Youkilis, and J.D. Drew: 3-for-5 each. Six other players with two hits. Five more with a single hit. 35 in all, and nary a home run to be found. Boston's Clay Buchholz and Oakland's Vin Mazzaro each gave up nine hits in the game, and Boston was able to piece together five runs in the third to end up with a 6-2 lead after six innings. But as they say, that's when things got interesting.
L.A. is the last team in the majors to have a losing streak longer than two, and by not doing so until games 98-100, it set a franchise record.
And while the Dodgers' lead in the NL West is still eight games, there are causes for concern. In two losses at St. Louis, Los Angeles has had 20 hits -- but scored just one run. The Dodgers went 2-for-16 with runners in scoring position in those games and had only three extra-base hits, all doubles.
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.
Nationals outfielder Josh Willingham accomplished a feat that had been done just twice in National League history before yesterday, smacking two grand slams in the same game. Check this out -- the first National Leaguer to do this was Tony Cloninger, a pitcher, and the second was Fernando Tatis, who you may remember hit both his grand salamis in the same inning. By comparison, Willingham's slams look mundane. Ten American League players have also hit two grand slams in the same game, with the trick last being accomplished in 2003 by Bill Mueller.
Matt Holliday will not be signing a contract extension in St. Louis. If he returns to the Cardinals in 2010, it will almost certainly be via the open market and at top dollar value. Hey, his agent is Scott Boras. What did you expect?
We've known all that for awhile. We knew that when Holliday was with the A's, just like we did when he was a Rockie.
Holliday alone is not what is so interesting about the deal that sent him from Oakland to St. Louis Friday afternoon. Rather it is Holliday's addition viewed through the prism of the first-place Cardinals.
The Cards are 53-46, 1 1/2 games clear of the rival Cubs in the NL Central, but only three up on the fourth-place Brewers. They added Mark DeRosa at the end of last month and now have the best hitter known to be available at the deadline in their lineup protecting the game's best player -- Albert Pujols.
Mark DeRosa helped the Chicago Cubs to two consecutive division championships in his only two seasons on the North Side of Chicago. During that time, he became popular with the fans for his good nature in winning and accountability in losing -- in addition to good offensive production and ability to play solid defense nearly anywhere on the field. He became even more popular, to almost mythical proportions, this season when the Cubs struggled in his absence. He himself even proclaimed if he ever became a Cub again he'd be a disappointment, due to the fans' excessive adulation.
Thus, when he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals just over a week ago, it seemed to be a slap in the face of Cubbie nation. Fortunately, the Baseball Gods have intervened. DeRosa started 0-for-9 from the plate and fell injured. He's now been placed on the 15-day disabled list with a wrist injury.
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.
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the 
Starting Five
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the 
