FanHouse Luis Castillo

For a number of major league teams Mondays and Thursdays are travel days. Every Wednesday and Sunday, Fantasy Fill-Ins finds guys who should be widely available on the waiver wire and can step in for the day, helping you gain ground or hold off the pack.

There are only seven games on Thursday, meaning over half of the major-league teams are off. Finding five fill-in players wasn't easy, but if it was everyone would do it.

Chris Coghlan, Marlins - Whispers around baseball have Coghlan as a dark-horse candidate for the National League Rookie of the Year award. I'm not sure there's enough name recognition for him to take home the hardware, but there's no reason why he shouldn't be helping your fantasy baseball team. He's batting .359 over the last month and .379 during the last week. He's only owned in 41% of leagues so grab him to fill in on Thursday and keep him around afterward. He's just that good.

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

The team might not win a lot of games, but it sure is fun watching the Washington Nationals hit.

In yesterday's 8-3 win against Milwaukee, the Nationals received dingers from Christian Guzman, Adam Dunn, and Ryan Zimmerman. The round-tripper was Guzman's fifth of the year. Seeing Dunn and Zimmerman display some power is nothing new for Nationals fans; in fact, the pair has hit homers in the same game four times in August and the seventh time this season. The round-tripper was Guzman's fifth of the year.

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

Heading into the season, the signs were there that the Rockies' 25-year-old right-handed starter Ubaldo Jimenez was ready for a breakout campaign. The only question was his occasional lack of command, which reared its ugly head in April (he started the season 1-3 with a 7.58 ERA and 2.11 WHIP). Since then, though, Jimenez has actually been one of the best hurlers in baseball and he's been even hotter for the past month.

FORMER BASEBALL CAPITAL OF THE WORLD -- There is a Subway Series this weekend.

There is one again in two weeks.

There will not be one in October.

Friday night's game at Yankee Stadium, which both teams deserved to lose, showed us that.

It will be remembered forever, at least in the five boroughs and surrounding areas, as the Luis Castillo game. The Mets second baseman dropped Alex Rodriguez's popup with two outs in the ninth, allowing two runs to score and the Yankees to win 9-8.

New York Mets manager Jerry Manuel announced that he's making some lineup changes for Thursday's game. The biggest deal is the fact that he plans to move David Wright down two slots to bat fifth, while moving Beltran up to bat third.

A move from batting third in the batting order to batting fifth doesn't seem like much, but batting order studies have shown that the fantasy devaluation that Wright could take might be dramatic. If the switch is long term Wright could miss out on about 5% of the plate appearances he'd see in the third slot. He would also be subject to a 5% drop in RBI and a 10% drop in home runs. The biggest hit, however, could be in stolen bases, where he could possibly see a 40% drop-off. Does anyone want to see David Wright with these kinds of drop-offs in production?

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 ...
Chokers. Sorry, folks, but until they can actually close out a regular season, that's the label they're getting. Fortunately for us fantasy folks, we don't really care about total team performance in the regular season, provided it doesn't impend on individual players' abilities to post statistics. And in that sense, the New York Baseball Mets are quite the enjoyable team to watch. They have a slew of top-tier players on the squad and generally almost always provide a ton of fantasy value. Not much will change in terms of that this year, although you may be surprised as to where it will come from.

The Daily Jolt is a dose of baseball reality every weekday morning.

They have been almost inextricably linked for years now. The Mets' Jose Reyes and the Marlins' Hanley Ramirez are both shortstops, both 25 years old and both Dominican. Both play for NL East teams and both have taken the mantle at their position from the Jeter-A-Rod-Nomar troika that dominated the beginning of the decade.

The free agent market has been notoriously slow, but at least one player seems to be in high demand. Orlando Hudson informed the MLB Network Monday that no fewer than four teams are interested in him: the Yankees, Mets, Dodgers and Nationals.

Considering he's a Type A free agent who was offered arbitration, any team that signs him will owe the Diamondbacks a draft pick as compensation, which makes the cost of acquiring him a bit higher than his salary alone. But still, he's a three-time Gold Glove winner and one-time All-Star, and despite turning 31 years old in December, he's still in his prime.

From the Windup is FanHouse's extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.

Michael Young's time with the Texas Rangers has been punctuated by him making personal sacrifices to help better the team. After years as a good second baseman for the team with both the stick and the glove, he didn't have a problem when he was asked to move to shortstop in the wake of the Alex Rodriguez trade and the subsequent arrival of Alfonso Soriano. Sure, Young's offensive numbers didn't quite stand out at short quite like they did at second base, but it was about the team, not Michael Young

Since his move he's won a Gold Glove and has been named to the AL All-Star team five times. Well, now the Rangers would like him to make another sacrifice and move from shortstop to third base so they can make room for prospect Elvis Andrus. Only this time Young isn't down, and he's told the Rangers he's stood all he can stand and that he can't stand no more. He wants to be traded.

So where are the Rangers going to send him?

It seems yesterday's "Andruw Jones to the Mets!" rumor died as quickly as it was born. The Mets and Dodgers did in fact talk about bringing the overpaid and overweight center fielder back to the NL East, but talks fizzled once the Dodgers balked at taking back a bad contract in return.

According to Marty Noble of MLB.com, the Mets were hoping the Dodgers would take Luis Castillo, who has three years and $18 million left on a four-year deal he signed last winter. Considering Jones is still owed roughly half of the $36.2 million contract he signed last winter, it seems like an even deal, right?

Perhaps, but if the Dodgers are going to be tying up that much salary, they may as well get it over and done with in one year, especially with Rafael Furcal and Blake DeWitt occupying the middle infield for the foreseeable future.