FanHouse Matt Murton

A two-time draft selection at Georgia Tech, Luke Murton returned for his senior baseball season to enjoy the college experience and improve his draft status. The first has been accomplished and the second will be determined in next month's major-league amateur draft.

At the moment, however, Murton and teammates are not happy campers.

The Duke Blue Devils ruined the Yellow Jackets' extended stay in Durham, N.C., by winning two of three games and spoiling Georgia Tech's opportunity to win the Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season title and accompanying No. 1 tournament seed.

From now until the regular season begins, Fantasy Flings is where you'll find interesting story lines about your favorite teams from Spring Training. If there is a position battle, a nagging injury, a comeback story or a youngster making a surge for the "big club" we'll let you know the fantasy implications.

Arizona Diamondbacks
Chad Tracy missed a good chunk of the 2008 season due to knee surgery, which held him to only 273 at-bats. Tracy says he's been healthy since mid-way through the off-season and manager Bob Melvin expects big things from him in 2009 saying he can see it as Tracy drives the ball.

When I see him drive the ball to left-center field, for me, his legs are under him," Melvin said. "Those are the ones he was having a little trouble getting out there and extending on, probably trying to pull a little too much. And when he did he hit the ball the opposite way, it (was) not with the force he had before. Now it looks like to me he's hitting it hard the either way.

Tracy's average draft position right now is a very low 387.75. If he can return to 2005 form where he hit 27 home runs and batted .308 or anywhere close to that, he'll be a steal.

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 ...
Humidor! Seriously, didn't you hear that Colorado now stores their baseballs in a humidor and Coors Field is no longer a hitter's park? If someone in your league really believes that, just let them. You'll know the truth -- which is that Coors Field bore witness to the third most runs scored and third most home runs in baseball last year. In 2007? Third in runs, fifth in home runs. You can't just negate thin air with a cigar-housing device. It's a hitter's park, and it's consistently one of the most hitter-friendly.

July 31 is rapidly approaching. Buy or Sell lets each team know where they stand on the trade market with the deadline right around the corner.

Before you ask, using this picture of Erin Andrews interviewing Evan Longoria was in no way, shape, or form, an attempt to gather some cheap page hits. Rather, it's used to illustrate just how far the Tampa Bay Rays have come. How many ESPN sideline reporters have you seen at Tropicana Field in the ten years prior to this season? Not many.

Erin Andrews at the Trop is just one by-product of a season that finds Tampa at the top of the A.L. East standings on July 22nd. It also means that the Rays are solid candidates to be buyers and not sellers for the first time in their short history. But who's on the grocery list?

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups.

San Francisco Giants (39-54) at Chicago Cubs (56-37) - 1:05 PM ET

Here you go, boys and girls. The Cubs' answer to Brewer-mania is here. Sure CC Sabathia has made the Brewers about as popular as free gasoline or free beer. But the Cubs have been popular since William McKinley was president ... and as Rich Harden makes his Cubs debut today, I'm sure some of that free beer will be flowing up and down Addison. At first the beer will go down throats in celebration. But Cubs fans had better hope that Harden stays relatively healthy this season, or that beer will turn out to be nothing more than sorrowful suds.

By the way, Harden's career numbers against the Giants: Four starts, 2-0, 0.84 ERA, 0.61 WHIP, .074 BAA. Chew on that.

When I first found out yesterday that the Oakland Athletics had traded Rich Harden to the Cubs, my first reaction was "Why?" I didn't even know who Oakland had gotten in return from the Cubs, and already the deal didn't make that much sense to me. Then I heard who the A's got, and the deal made even less sense to me.

Don't get me wrong, I think Matt Murton has the potential to flourish in Oakland as he's finally found an organization that can appreciate what he's capable of (Matt has struggled this season, but does still have a career OPS of .810 without ever getting regular playing time), and Sean Gallagher could end up being a very effective pitcher for the Athletics. Eric Patterson is probably just an insurance plan should Mark Ellis not re-sign with the team after the season, as the A's are pretty thin at second base in the minors, and I don't know anything about John Donaldson.

But why now, Billy Beane? Why pull the trigger on this deal when your team is only five games out of first place in the AL West, and only 3.5 behind Boston for the wild card? There is no way that Beane can honestly think his team has a better shot at making the playoffs this season without Rich Harden.

Yet, while on the surface this deal makes absolutely no sense to me, I also realize that Beane knows what he's doing and I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he's just tired of being held hostage by Harden's injury history and is tired of having to build a team around a pitcher who may or may not be available at any given time. If you look at Beane's history of letting his pitchers go, he seems to have great timing, as Mark Mulder and Barry Zito have never been the same since leaving the bay area.

It's still way too early to tell if this was a mistake or not, but I have to say, at the moment I don't think this was one of Beane's finest moment.

As Watson noted earlier, there has been a fairly decent seismic shift in the National League Arms Race, what with the Cubs acquiring Rich Harden only 24 hours after the Brewers picked up CC Sabathia. And just like it affects real baseball, the trade does some things for fantasy owners as well. So, why not look at the four biggest names in the trade?

Rich Harden, SP -- I've said it once, and I'll say it again: sell high on Harden. Billy Beane rarely gets suckered and this deal kind of looks like one of those times, no? Which makes me think "ruh-roh" with regard to Harden's health. Especially when you remember that during his next to last start in an Oakland uni, he was barely topping 90 mph. But his move to one of the most offensively potent teams and a World Series contender should boost his value in theory, making him a prime sell.

Just days after the Brewers made a splash by trading for CC Sabathia, the Cubs countered by acquiring an ace of their own, picking up Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin from the A's in exchange for Sean Gallagher, Eric Patterson, Matt Murton, minor leaguer Josh Donaldson and ... wait, that's it? Whoa. Advantage: Cubs.

Harden is obviously a huge injury risk, but no one can dispute that he's one of the most dominant pitchers in the game when healthy. In 13 starts he's been one of the best in the AL this year, posting a 2.34 ERA (1.14 WHIP) while averaging better than 10.7 strikeouts per nine.

And while Gaudin is clearly an afterthought, he's not all that bad himself, capable of eating innings from the bullpen or starting rotation.

What did it cost Chicago? Some intriguing prospects, sure, but absolutely nothing in terms of players capable of helping the Cubs win today.

Literally three days ago, Alfonso Soriano went on the DL, the Cubs called up Eric Patterson, and I wondered why Patterson got the call instead of former Cubs' starter Matt Murton. Well, after only two games, Patterson was sent back to AAA and Murton was summoned to Wrigley to be the fourth outfielder for the remainder of Soriano's injury. Why are the Cubs making such manic roster moves? Lou Pinieilla tries to explain:

"We're going to be facing some left-handed pitchers, and the teams we're playing have some left-handers in the bullpen," Cubs manager Lou Piniella said. "At the same time, if I want to rest [Ryan] Theriot or [Kosuke] Fukudome a day, we have a right-handed bat here that can help out. Murton has experience and he's had success at the big league level. He can hit right-handed and left-handed pitchers."

That makes sense ... but why call up Patterson for two days? It has to be to send a message to Murton, but what message could they be sending that didn't get across by demoting him to AAA to start the year? Murton's been hoping for a trade out of Chicago since mid-March or so, but I doubt he'll get much playing time to improve his stock while he's with the Cubs. Murton's certainly no All-Star, but I honestly have no idea what the Cubs have against him.

Alternate title: Jim Hendry Hates Matt Murton

In what's not terribly surprising news, the Cubs just announced that they're putting Alfonso Soriano on the DL after he strained his calf in last night's game. General scuttlebutt has been that Mark DeRosa and Reed Johnson will get at-bats in left field with Felix Pie and Mark Fontenot will fill in for DeRosa and Johnson in their regular positions. The Cubbies are insisting that Soriano's not hurt that badly, but apparently they'd rather be cautious this early in the year. Accordingly, Soriano's going on the DL and Eric Patterson is coming up.

Wait, what? Not Matt Murton? Eric Patterson? They'd rather split time in left field between a middle infielder and a guy that got released three weeks ago instead of Murton, who's got some decent pop and the definite ability to get on base? And they'd rather have Patterson on the bench? Really? Either Jim Hendry wants Murton to stay in AAA and play every day to showcase him or he just really, really, really hates his guts.

As for the main issue here, I think the Cubs are probably making the right move with Soriano, even if he'll be ready to play again in a week. He wasn't all that durable last year, playing in only 135 games, and having him healthy at the end of the year is much more important than having him healthy now. Taking two weeks off in April and early May won't kill the team, and it may make Soriano that much stronger down the stretch.