FanHouse Akinori Iwamura

In a surprising piece of mid-World Series news, the Tampa Bay Rays and Pittsburgh Pirates have agreed to a trade this afternoon. Tampa will send second baseman Akinori Iwamura to the Pirates in return for relief pitcher Jesse Chavez. According to the same report by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (who broke news of the Pirates' involvement in the trade after the St. Petersburg Times first reported an Iwamura trade this afternoon), no cash or other players are involved.

Iwamura, 30, is due $4.25 million in 2010 and the emergence of Ben Zobrist makes that a price the Rays clearly weren't eager to pay for a player who'd likely be a utility man for them in '10. The Pirates, however, are looking to add payroll after cleaning house last year and have a gaping hole at second base, so Iwamura is a logical addition for them.

When Akinori Iwamura was carried off the field after Florida's Chris Coghlan slid into him hard at second base in late May, it was feared the Rays would be without their second baseman for the remainder of the season. During Iwamura's surgery on Monday, however, doctors found only a partial tear of his left ACL.

That mean arthroscopic, rather than reconstructive, surgery, and the Rays are reporting that Iwamura could rejoin the team in six-to-eight weeks. That lines up nicely with a potential push for a return trip to the playoffs, although one wonders how much Iwamura would actually get into the lineup when and if he will get a clean bill of health then.

MLB Power Rankings: Where MLB FanHouse's editors, writers and bloggers team up to break down the who's who and the what's what in the baseball world.

Well, that took freaking forever ... but the Blue Jays finally started to stink the joint up. I swear to you, you can't stay long atop the MLB Power Rankings -- our failure by osmosis jinxing ability is just too strong, son. At any rate, it was a weird week for ranking baseball: the Cubs continued to skid, the Padres went on a tear and Toronto fell off the face of the planet. So, yeah, spiciness ensued, and you may take the jump to see how badly your team fared. Unless you're a Rangers or a Braves fan, in which case they couldn't have done that poorly.

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

Dare we say it? He's back. The man who won the 2005 Cy Young and finished third the following season is officially back in the Cardinals rotation. He made the Brewers -- one of the best hitting teams in the league -- look stupid for eight innings Monday, which means he's now thrown 23 innings of shutout ball this season. His staggering numbers thus far: 23 innings, 0 earned runs, 23 strikeouts, 10 hits, 4 walks.

We all know that chicks dig the long ball, but in today's day and age fantasy baseball owners want speed to go along with home run potential. It's crazy to think that you're going to find any hitters on the waiver wire with 20/20 potential for 2009. So, let's do Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine a favor and forget about the long ball and focus on five hitters who can help you rack up some stolen bases for your fantasy squad.

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

There were a bunch of eye-opening performances scattered throughout Thursday's games, but none bigger than the seven one-hit innings hurled by Chris Carpenter. The 33-year-old hadn't won a game for the Cardinals since the 2006 World Series, yet there he was, striking out seven Pirates and needing just 92 pitches to get through his day of work. Is Carpenter already back to fantasy ace status, or was this just the stinkin' Bucs making him look good?

LOS ANGELES -- Davey Johnson spent the past week eloquently explaining how desperately he wanted Team USA to win the World Baseball Classic, figuring a title would sooth America's sense of entitlement over the sport and silence some of the tournament's grumbling naysayers.

So how to explain Johnson's head-scratching managerial moves Sunday night, decisions that led to Japan beating the U.S., 9-4, in an elimination semifinal game? Why did Johnson keep starter Roy Oswalt in for a brutal pounding even after it became clear the Japanese had his number? Has the bumbling Adam Dunn mastered the vagaries of Dodger Stadium's right field yet? And any regrets over starting Captain America at shortstop, leaving Jimmy Rollins to DH?

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 ...
Best team in baseball. Yes, they are still better than the Yankees and Red Sox. Lost in all the joy of last season were the facts that two key players were injured down the stretch and another had an absolutely dreadful offensive season. Throw in the addition of Pat Burrell, and the continued growth of the young pitching staff, and you have a team who can take on the big-spending Yankees and venerable Red Sox.

Next Big Thing is MLB FanHouse's look at emerging teams, trends and stars in 2009.

Poor Billy Beane. He goes to all the trouble to find and exploit market inefficiencies only to have them become, well, efficient in a matter of a few seasons. It wasn't so long ago that he was building a 100-win juggernaut in Oakland by picking up every patient hitter off of the scrap heap, glovework be damned.

Then Moneyball came out, on-base percentage became en vogue and Beane had to move another step ahead of the competition.

In the Playoff Pulse series, our MLB editor takes on a hot October topic.

On the precipice of their first World Series title in 28 years, the Phillies deserve a world of credit for the way they have executed in October. They have played to their strengths all month long, and as it turns out, those strengths are enough to win a title.

They have a dominant ace in Cole Hamels who may very well close the Fall Classic out Monday night. He's 4-0 in October and he gives the opposing pitcher very little room for error. The rest of their rotation has flown under the radar in part because of Hamels' excellence and in part because of a ballpark that inflates ERAs, but it's proven to be very capable, too, behind the southpaw ace.

They have a lights-out bullpen that finishes with Brad Lidge, but also features top-notch flame-thrower Ryan Madson as the bridge to Lidge and a number of useful situational guys like Scott Eyre and Chad Durbin.

And they have a power-laden offense that has much more balance than the Rays -- one that is capable of putting crooked numbers up on the board as it did in Game 4, but also capable of staying in the game even when it struggles with runners in scoring position because of the home run ball.

If Monday is a coronation, it will have been well earned indeed.