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 full of question marks and limited fantasy options. Some nights you might find yourself wondering what packs more punch: the first six batters in the Nationals lineup or a six-pack of Natty Lites. Right before Spring Training, the Nationals secured a legitimate power hitter in Adam Dunn, acquired Scott Olsen and Josh Willingham from the Marlins and took a shot on the ever-enigmatic Daniel Cabrera. But even with the arrivals, this is a ragtag group when it comes to fantasy value, but at least it all comes at a very cheap price.
Speedy Angels infielder Erick Aybar has made quite a name for himself in the Dominican Winter League thus far. He's rocking a .358 batting average and has hit for the cycle.
Of course, the biggest news came in ugly fashion recently, as he was involved in a brawl. This wasn't just your garden variety baseball brawl, where the player charges the mound and everyone gets separated before any real damage is done. Apparently Aybar was dotted with a pitch and charged the mound. What ensued was quite the fracas:
Aybar answered by charging pitcher Julio de Paula with his bat, and the fans responded by pelting players with expletives as well as cups, bottles and a huge plastic trash can. Video of the incident is of poor quality, but it shows several players who cannot be readily identified repeatedly throwing things into the stands.
Also of note, Timo Perez and Ronnie Belliard are being investigated along with Aybar by the league. The Angels have been advised that there is little evidence connecting Aybar to the object-throwing.
We don't post many highlights on this site, but I think you'll agree this calls for an exception. Spotted on every highlight show in existence last night (as well as the new and improved MisterIrrelevant.com -- now featuring 100% less ugly! ), this is definitely a highlight that demands all fans to watch it at least seven times in a row.
George Edwards, 49, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry to one year and one day in prison. It was less than the recommended range of 21 to 27 months, based on Edwards' past criminal convictions. Perry said she considered the case's unusual circumstances.
Prosecutors argued that Edwards sought $150,000 from the athlete in exchange for keeping quiet about the athlete supposedly getting Edwards' daughter pregnant after the pair met last fall at a local nightclub.
"This public figure, this celebrity had, for lack of a better term, a one-night stand with Mr. Edwards' daughter," Edwards' lawyer, public defender Kevin Curran, said, adding that the player never spoke to the young woman again.
OK, so maybe Rollie and Ronnie aren't so similar after all. One evaded federal and state tax enforcement for years and finally had himself removed from the list; the other (allegedly) knocked some random guy's daughter up and nearly spent $150,000 trying to cover it up. There are complicated legal and ethical differences between their two situations, differences that, as my head still hurts from last night's festivities, I'd rather not try to parse.
It is said about good teams that they find ways to win when their go to guys have an off night. The Nationals are becoming the exact opposite. They're starting to find ways to lose when their achilles heel is a strong point.
Their starting pitching was not the problem in their 8-0 loss to the Braves on Tuesday night. Rookie Matt Chico had given up only a home run to Andruw Jones through the first four innings. He should have been out of the fifth as well. But Ronnie Belliard dropped a pop-up much like the one caught in this picture, and the Braves scored three unearned runs with two outs to knock Chico out of the game. With the Nats bats asleep, the rest of the game was pretty much academic.
It's becoming increasingly evident that this is going to be an ugly, ugly season for the Washington Nationals. Here's a nugget for you: The Nationals, after eight games, have not yet sent a batter to the plate with the team in the lead. With a statistic like that, it's amazing the Nationals have a win.
Meanwhile for the Braves, Tim Hudson looks gosh darn good. His sinker was darting nicely, and he threw a back-up slider that fooled Brian McCann to the point he almost didn't catch the ball (you know you're going well when you fool your catcher with a pitch he called). Jeff Francoeur drove in five runs including the two that knocked Chico out of the game. As for Andruw Jones, he puts himself in the conversation as to who will top Hank Aaron'sBarry Bonds' Alex Rodriguez's home run record. Jones is now at 343 career before the age of 30, which was more than Aaron's 342 at the same point. Of course at the rate Alex is hitting them this season, Andruw is going to have to consider a free agent deal at Coors Field to have a shot at catching him.
Or does he just have realistic expectations? Bowden explains the mindset regarding the trade deadline in his Washington Examiner column:
Although the trade deadline is four months away, we must start preparing now. We target clubs we think will contend and we commence scouting their top prospects in April and will continue through the deadline. We focus on starting pitching prospects as well as all of their top young players. We are blessed with a deep staff and because of that we have professional scouts whose only responsibility is covering the minor and major leagues. We have added several top pitching evaluators, including former major league pitchers Bill Singer and Bart Johnson. When you are rebuilding, you must consider all trade proposals. You're always looking for the deal where you trade one established player for three young players.
The Nationals farm system could have used some grade A prospects in exchange for Alfonso Soriano last season. Don't totally blame Bowden, as the offers he was getting for Soriano wasn't what he had hoped. But unfortunately, the offers that the Nats will get for anybody other than Ryan Zimmerman (and good luck prying him loose) will be meager at best.
Bowden's obvious best bet to get good value would probably be to deal Chad Cordero, who has had rumors follow him around for the past few months. Teams may be more willing to overpay for a closer nowadays that more teams are putting emphasis on the bullpen. Also, with Cordero not eligible for free agency until '09, teams would pay more for him than for Soriano, who was a free agent this past winter and would have been a slam dunk to move on no matter where he was traded.
Ronnie Belliard, John Patterson, or even Ryan Church could be other players used to rebuild the farm system come July.
No, I'm not going to completely write off the Nationals after two games.
Five? Ten? Maybe. Not two ... that would just be silly.
But not only is the Nationals' starting rotation threatening to mathematically eliminate them by June (Shawn Hill was barely better than John Patterson in a 9-3 loss to the Marlins tonight), but at this rate they may not have enough to field a team by July. First, Cristian Guzman and Nook Logan get hurt on Opening Day (both were placed on the disabled list), but Ronnie Belliard came perilously close to joining them. You wouldn't believe how:
He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, standing in foul territory near the batting cage. Belliard never saw the wayward, 100-foot throw from rookie catcher Jesus Flores that was intended for Brian Schneider. It was several feet off the mark and caught Belliard flush on the left temple He immediately fell to the ground. Manager Manny Acta yelled out, "Trainer! Trainer!" and all eyes turned toward Belliard, fearing something serious had happened. Fortunately, he was all right. Woozy, but all right.
Good news for a team that could use all the good news it could get. But back to the starting pitching, it's one thing to give up thousands of hits to Miguel Cabrera (who's hitting .714) and Josh Willingham (three hits on Tuesday), but when the pitcher gets a couple of hits and an RBI, there's problems. Scott Olsen got the job done with the bat, and pitched relatively well despite five walks, taking a shutout into the sixth.
Speedy Angels infielder 
Much like his predecessor in sketchy MLB monetary issues 
It is said about good teams that they find ways to win when their go to guys have an off night. The Nationals are becoming the exact opposite. They're starting to find ways to lose when their achilles heel is a strong point.
Or does he just have realistic expectations? Bowden explains the mindset regarding the trade deadline in his 
No, I'm not going to completely write off the Nationals after two games.
