FanHouse RyanGarko

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

A few weeks ago we discussed the possibility of the Padres promoting 21-year-old phenom Mat Latos. Well, he now has four major league starts under his belt, and, needless to say, he's doing just fine. After a solid outing Monday night, Latos is 3-1 with a 2.66 ERA and a sparkling 0.89 WHIP. He's struck out 16 while only walking 6 in 23 2/3 innings. He's also pitching in one of the best pitcher's parks in baseball.

So, he should be owned in all fantasy leagues, right?

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 that should have more doctors on staff. Lofty expectations turned sour when major keys to the Indians lineup went down with injury in 2008. Victor Martinez, Travis Hafner, Fausto Carmona, and Jake Westbrook all lost significant time to various maladies. The health and or hasty return of these guys, and the continued health of Kerry Wood are crucial to the Indians having any success in 2009.

Once we stumble into the first few weeks of fantasy draft season, we have the luxury of trolling through some average draft position charts (ADP, henceforth). One of the problems is that most of the early-to-mid February drafting is being done by hypothetical fantasy fanatics, so there aren't a ton of skewed averages.

Of course, recently-retired Jeff Kent has found a way to get drafted in 1.6 percent of the leagues on Mock Draft Central (MDC, henceforth), so they're worth a look. We'll use the ADP per position* on MDC for the rest of our analysis here. Most of the guys listed are not to be targeted in shallow to medium-sized leagues, as they are later-round steals for the deepest of fantasy leagues.

*positional ADP in parentheses

So now that the Cleveland Indians have shipped C.C. Sabathia off to Milwaukee, we can officially say that the Indians are done trying to win in 2008. The focus has now been moved to preparing this team for the 2009 season and trying to figure out which pieces fit into that picture, and which ones don't.

While none of us can see the future, there is something about this Indians team that most of us have known for quite a while, and that is the fact that Grady Sizemore will not be a lead-off hitter his entire career. When Grady first came up with the Indians, everybody knew he was destined to be a middle of the order type guy, but with the Indians monster lineup the last few seasons, there was no need to do it.

Well, it's time now. Grady has grown up and he's ready to be the guy the Indians build their lineup around. Travis Hafner's power and ability to make contact with the ball have magically* disappeared and there's no guarantee they'll ever come back, so there is an opening.

Eric Wedge is currently batting Ben Francisco third, and Jhonny Peralta in the clean-up spot (where Jhonny's been raking). Meanwhile, Sizemore has an OPS of .914 and leads the American League with 22 home runs, yet he only has 50 RBI. How can that be? Well, since Grady hits lead-off, 16 of his 22 taters have come with nobody on base.

Apparently the ghosts of deceased Native Americans finally decided to take matters into their own hands in regards to team names like "Braves" and "Indians" this baseball season. I'm not going to get into the whole discussion on the insensitivity of these names because that's neither my inclination nor my job.

Still, it's quite eerie they way these two franchises in particular have been plagued this year.

Both were expected to be contenders for the World Series, chock full of fantasy gems. Instead the disappointments and injuries are plentiful, and sometimes hand-in-hand.

The most recent casualty is Victor Martinez, and he already fit the bill as a bust. He's normally picked in the first five rounds (earlier many times). His owners have been treated with pathetic numbers this year relative to expectations (.277, 0 HR). And now he's on the DL with a bum wing (inflamed right elbow, if you must know ... but "bum wing" is so much more fun). The catcher could be out until the All-Star break, so this is a big blow to both the Tribe and your fantasy squad. Unfortunately, I believe you have to sit on him in fantasy, because he's liable to get hot when he does come back and no one will give you anything valuable for an injured bust in a trade.

More haunted individuals ...

The "news" (read: rumor/speculation) that Evan Longoria could land some time at shortstop for the Tampa Bay Rays got us Fantasy FanHouse people kind of excited. Nerdy? Perhaps. But it would still be freaking sweet. Especially when you consider how frustrating it is to see some of the game's best hitters underused at a certain position (sure it doesn't matter to real baseball, but whatever).

1. Alex Rodriguez, (3B to SS) -- Sadly, this is just logical and the Yankees should have done it when he came over and was a better offensive and defensive shortstop than Derek Jeter. Unfortunately, he just didn't possess the intangibles that Captain November True Yankee did, and we're left to wonder what might have been.

2. Alfonso Soriano, (OF to 2B) -- Sweet Lou actually played him at second once this year (right after I traded him), which was spicy, but the days of Fonsy challenging Chase Utley for top two bagger are long gone. Which is a shame, because it's not like a) he's great in the outfield or b) the Cubs can't just swap he and Mark DeRosa. Either way, Matt Murton gets jobbed. Good times!

3. Albert Pujols, (1B to 3B) -- Although he wouldn't surpass our fictional A-Rod (see above), he would be a stone cold lock at second overall if he played third base, as he has in the past. The defensive needs of the position would probably take more of a toll on his offense, so Pooey is probably better at first, but since we don't care about defense, it's nice to dream.

Curtis Granderson -- Warm-up time, apparently, is for suckers. So are allergies. Granderson got plugged right into a Tigers lineup that is heating up and picked up the pace himself. Over the last seven days, he's hitting .350/.500/1.050 with three homers, six walks and three RBI. No stolen bases. I know. Sad, right? You'll live.
Justin Upton -- A very, very, very strong buy. Upton came out gangbusters, but obviously it wasn't going to last all season long. And over the last week he's hitting .143/.208/.190. He's not going to get any cheaper than this all season.

There have been a lot of surprising revolutions at the first base position early in the 2008 season. Prince Fielder, when not eating meat, kind of stinks. Albert Pujols appears to be healthy. Carlos Pena? Not so much a fluke. Ryan Garko is just starting to heat up and should be all kinds of bought low on. Same goes for Mark Teixeira, who was mentioned last week.

Positional eligibility has been nice as well: Carlos Guillen, Alex Gordon, Kevin Youkilis (with Mike Lowell out) and Nick Swisher are some examples of guys that you can likely play at first base, hence their inclusion here.

Other surprises include Aubrey Huff, Mike Jacobs, James Loney and Conor Jackson. Not that the latter three (or even Huff) don't have talent, I just didn't expect to see them all come out so warm this year. I won't draft Huff for some reason, much less own him, but feel free to if you want to. Loney is legit and Jackson will be steady if not full of power. Jacobs just seems streaky, but injuries last year could have contributed to that. I'd start all of them this week.

Player	Team	MON	TUES	WED	THURS	FRI	SAT	SUN
Pujols	STL		MIL	MIL	MIL	SF	SF	SF
Berkman	HOU		at PHI	at PHI	at PHI	COL	COL	COL
Pena	TB	NYY	NYY	at MIN	at MIN	CHW	CHW	CHW
D. Lee	CHC		CIN	CIN	CIN	PIT	PIT	PIT
Howard	PHI		HOU	HOU	HOU	NYM	NYM	NYM

Kids Are Alright will examine some hot minor league prospects and their potential to be fantasy relevant towards both seasonal and keeper leagues. If you'd like to read more of Will Brinson's minor-league rantings, check out Greensboro Grassbloggers, his Single-A blog.

I can almost guarantee you that next week, this space will get filled by Evan Longoria descriptions. I'm headed to see him in Durham on Friday, so if you're around the area, holler. In the meantime though, we're staring down a pile of small sample sizes with which to judge our minor leaguers. In doing some quick sorts, a few interesting names popped up. Bear in mind, again, it's early.

Dallas McPherson
Once upon a not too long ago time, McPherson was considered a can't miss prospect at third base for the Halos, sure to team up with Brandon Wood and form a dominant left side of the infield for years to come. Obviously, that didn't pan out. A season's worth of DL time (back surgery) left him to float and the Marlins (or the Alburquerque Isotopes, if you will) to sign him. He's a Greensboro, NC, guy, so I gotta give him a little dap, although it's unlikely he'll be falling back to his hometown Grasshoppers with the way he's swinging the bat early.

Through three games and just 10 at bats (yes, I know, sample size), D has busted out with three homers and this line: .400/.455/1.300. Now yes, it's early. But it's the Marlins we're talking about. Jeremy Hermida is still DL-bound. Are Cody Ross and Luis Gonzalez so good to stop them from giving McPherson a run. And what if his back surgery fixed him up? Is he that horrible of a flier to try and backdoor in your really deep/NL-only league? I think not.

I was born an Orioles fan, but fate and contextually affordable housing in the Bedford, Ohio area has made me an Indians fan. Pictured to the right is me with Slider, the Indians mascot, post dimensional jump.

The Indians don't use the Official Chatroom of Major League Baseball, so we don't feature them a lot. If you're a longtime reader you know about what's coming after the jump. If you don't, get ready to watch as I spend about a day and a half trying to narrow down all the crazy stuff that's happened to the Indians this winter into one online conversation without resorting to movie parody or epic mythological magicks battles.

You'll be seeing a lot more of the Indians this season. O-H, I-O (or whatever) after the jump.