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 definitely won't be clogging up the bases. That joke never gets old, but, seriously, this is a team who has the potential to make some noise. Their lineup and rotation are both good, and there are several solid fantasy players here. If you want stars, though, keep on moving. There are lots of really good players here, just no great ones.
One of the most regular complaints from readers of classic G1 The Dugout is our portrayal of Dusty Baker. As the manager of the long-suffering Chicago Cubs, Dusty would often play the straight man, standing by and going "uh oh" while space shuttles fell on Kerry Wood. Cubs fans demanded we show the real Dusty, the one who is coo-coo for some sort of space coco puff, but the running gag of getting trapped in wells and being hurled into hay-balers or whatever was just too great to splinter.
Enter 2008, and Dusty Baker is the manager of the Cincinnati Reds. While there are key differences between G1 and G2 The Dugout, G2 is birthed FROM G1, so consider it fully canon and a fulfillment of your years of wishing as we continue our NL Central Spring Training Dugouts with a look at Dusty Baker without the Cubbies. What you find may shock you.
Oh who am I kidding, Dusty couldn't manage a Yu-Gi-Oh deck without burning his house down. /clicks to read more
Ahh, the one thing that can derail a potentially special season- injuries. For the second time this year, Josh Hamilton is going on the disabled list, this time with an injured wrist. The first time he went on (for gastroenteritis) it kind of seemed like it was the Reds' way of getting him some downtime and a rehab stint in AAA since they can't remove him from their roster (remember, he's a Rule 5 player). This time, the injury is a little more serious and he's going back to Cincy to get an MRI and have everything checked out.
"I want Hopper to play. (Hopper's) got something. I don't know what it is, but he's got something," Reds manager Pete Mackanin said. "Ever since I saw him in spring training last year, I've liked him. I saw him pinch hit and he's pretty aggressive for a little (guy). From what I've seen, games I've watched, he's done good things. He's a good player, somewhat limited, but I'd like to see him out there."
On the year, Hopper is hitting .270/.323/.339. You don't need me to tell you this, but that's much worse than Hamilton's .279/.371/.543. I don't know what Hopper's got either.
"I've been antsy," said Freel, who noted he is now free of the headaches and dizziness that had been plaguing him.
Indeed, the 31-year-old Freel was a different man Friday than he was a week ago when he admitted to being uneasy about his baseball future, given that he wasn't getting better physically.
"I was always optimistic - I never tried to think about my career being ended by (another) concussion - but I was a little nervous at first because of the lingering effects," he said. "Now, I feel like it's all coming back together. ... The doctors and trainers have told me I have to be smart about (taking time getting back baseball). I'm not worried about it."
Freel does have quite a concussion history, but it dates back to his time before the Majors. Still, he's not out of the woods yet. Jim Edmonds missed a lot of time last year with post-concussion syndrome and it can be something that he doesn't know is still bothering him until he tries to take the field again. Still, given how scary that collision was to anyone that saw it, this can only be good news.
So, remember on Monday when Ryan Freel collided with Norris Hopper at full speed making a fantastic catch in the outfield? Well, turns out that it was faked. Not the collision. The catch. Norris Hopper finally came clean today in the Dayton Daily News:
With evidence mounting, Norris Hopper confessed that he put the baseball in Freel's glove after they collided and Freel was knocked out and taken to a hospital.
Freel stayed at Cincinnati Good Samaritan Hospital overnight and was released Tuesday afternoon. He has an appointment today to see head and spine specialist Dr. John Brannan.
[...]
OK, how about Hopper shoving the baseball into Freel's glove while Freel lay still on the grass?
"I didn't have to touch Freel," said Hopper. "The ball was right there, inches from his open glove, and I just had to roll it in quickly."
If you watch the video below, between the 15 and 20 second mark you can see Hopper get straight up, run towards Freel, and while he's checking him out it looks like he reaches his left hand out and does something that Freel's body obscures from the camera. Talk about a heads up play. As a Pirate fan, I know I should be mad about Hopper stealing a run from my favorite team, but I think the whole thing is kinda cool.
After signing a contract extension six weeks ago, Ryan Freel joked that it meant he could afford to be even crazier than normal on the baseball field. Everyone laughed it off then, but Freel created quite a scary moment on the field in Cincy today when he collided with Norris Hopper and stayed down on the field for like fifteen minutes because being taken off on a stretcher and out of Great American Ballpark in an ambulance.
Anytime a player has to leave the field on a stretcher is a scary thing, but reports now say that Freel is going to be alright after suffering only contusions to his head and neck. Yeah, I said "only" head and neck contusions. After seeing replays, yeah, Freel is lucky things weren't worse. He ran into Hopper at full speed with his head twisting at a funny angle, then fell unbroken onto the warning track.
Oh yeah, and Freel made the catch. After colliding with Norris Hopper at full speed and hitting him so hard that he lost feeling in his extremities (which he's since regained) and may have actually knocked himself unconscious (he laid motionless on the field for quite some time after the play), he still held on an made the catch. This is why everyone loves Ryan Freel.
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. 
Nice Gallagher hat, Roc. 
Ahh, the one thing that can derail a potentially special season- injuries. For the second time this year, 
It's been more than two weeks since 
After signing a contract extension six weeks ago, 
