FanHouse YadierMolina

From the Windup is Matt Snyder's extended look at some aspect of America's pastime each Thursday.

I think we can all agree that it's far too early to start voting upon who the best 2009 players are when it's only the middle of May. That being said, there are certainly some shining stars at this point who deserve some props. Plus, Major League Baseball recently released their All-Star ballots for our voting pleasure -- we vote on who will start the All-Star Game. If that's not important, I don't know what is. Let's take a gander.

After a nearly seamless start to the season, the St. Louis Cardinals are all-of-a-sudden reeling. Tuesday night, they lost 7-1 to the hapless Pirates, but that likely wasn't the worst occurrence. A single game in a season of 162 isn't a really huge deal, after all. Losing your power-hitting protection for Albert Pujols, however, is.

Ryan Ludwick gave chase to a ball off the bat of Nyjer Morgan early in the game and came up lame with a strained right hamstring. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Tony LaRussa anticipates the Cardinals will have to put Ludwick on the disabled list -- where he'd join fellow starting outfielder Rick Ankiel.

We haven't even completed two full weeks of the Major League Baseball season yet, but the (arguably) best rivalry in the National League is already giving us a taste of what an exciting race the NL Central could be this year. With all due respect to the Reds, Astros, Brewers and Pirates, and with all due disclaimers about how long the baseball season is, it seems blatantly obvious the two best teams in the division are the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals.

For the past three days, the two teams have put on an entertaining show for anyone fortunate enough to be watching. Each game went down the wire, with both teams showing a flair for the dramatic.

Just as Knox posted his results from our recent FanHouse draft, I'll throw mine on here, too, for your critiques. Mr. Bardeen laid out the league format here. Year 101 is my team name, as you can see from the title to this piece, and it has a little something to do with my favorite baby bears.

Somehow, I ended up with the top pick in the draft. I haven't had this happen to me in years. Honestly, I can't remember the last time I picked first in fantasy baseball or football. Well, I'd been preaching -- since A-Rod fell injured -- what to do with the top choice. I had to put my money where my mouth was.

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

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 ...
Home of the best hitter in baseball. Yes, I'm proclaiming that Albert Pujols is the modern-day (and real-life) Roy Hobbs. Last year, people counted him as a huge injury-risk and he went out and won the NL MVP. I think we should have all learned by now that this man should never be drafted outside the top five overall picks.

When the New York Mets drafted Aaron Heilman out of Notre Dame in the first round of the 2001 amatuer draft, they did so with the hope that Aaron would one day be a starter for the team. That day came in 2003 when Aaron made his MLB debut, and over the next three seasons he started 25 games for the Mets, and went 5-13 during that span.

Then in 2006 the team moved him to the bullpen after toying with his arm angle, and suddenly Heilman became a valuable asset to the Mets. Well, until he gave up that home run to Yadier Molina in the 2007 NLCS because last season Aaron posted a 5.21 ERA and walked a career-high 46 hitters in 76 innings. So now Aaron has had enough of life in the bullpen, and would like to return to the starting rotation. Of course, the problem with that is that the Mets don't really want to move him, so now Aaron wants to be traded.

"The object the entire time has never been to get out of New York," Heilman's agent Mark Rodgers told the Daily News. "The object is to get out of the bullpen. The most success he's ever had as a pitcher has been as a starting pitcher. He was drafted by the Mets as a starting pitcher."

A source with knowledge of the Mets' internal discussions suggested there's an organizational split about Heilman - with chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon wanting him to remain and other key front-office personnel favoring a trade.

In 2007, Ted Lilly was surprisingly effective. In 2008, Lilly is a bit more what the Cubs expected when they signed him -- a pretty mediocre third-wheel lefty that can eat innings and occasionally throw a lights-out effort. The unexpected part happened last night, as you'll see below:


Yes, that was Ted Lilly. Yes, that was Yadier Molina. Yes, that was Ted Lilly sending Yadier Molina to la-la-land with the mere shrug of one much-stronger-than-it-looks left shoulder. Where has Lilly been hiding this athleticism? Or are we to assume that Yadier Molina is actually that weak?

The mind boggles.

(HT: The Sporting Blog)

We told you yesterday about the collision that hospitalized Yadier Molina, but now you can see for yourself just how bad it was -- the "best" angle of his vicious faceplant starts right around the 58-second mark.

Although he was carted off on a stretcher and hospitalized overnight, he seems to have escaped without too much damage. Despite suffering a mild concussion, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Molina "is not likely" to be placed on the 15-day disabled list.

Of course, take that with a grain of salt: concussions can be a mysterious ailment, and it's nearly impossible to predict how someone will react to one. Even if Molina seems to be fine in the short-term, it's possible the cobwebs will creep up a few weeks down the line, much like how they did for Ryan Church.

(Tip of the hat to Babes Love Baseball for the video)

There's some scary news out of St. Louis this afternoon as Yadier Molina left the field on a stretcher, wearing a neck brace after a home plate collision with Eric Bruntlett in the ninth inning of the Phillies/Cardinals game this afternoon in St. Louis. There's not much word on his condition besides the Cardinals saying that he never lost consciousness and that he's been taken to the hospital and more news will be coming shortly.

There is one more incredible aspect to the play. After taking the brunt of the collision with Bruntlett, Molina actually held on to the ball. He left the field in a neck brace on a stretcher, but managed to hold on to the ball and make the tag, a play that eventually allowed the Cardinals to win 7-6 in seven innings.

This is just more bad news for the Cardinals, who have had a slew of injuries in recent weeks. With Albert Pujols and Adam Wainwright on the DL and Mark Mulder and Chris Carpenter suffering set-backs on their comeback trail, the last thing the Cards need is for Jason LaRue to be their starting catcher for any significant stretch of time. That might not happen since there's no word on the seriousness of Molina's injury, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to think that Molina could be on the DL for at least a short period of time.