Franklin Guetierrez
Fantasy Baseball SVU, April 7th Ed.
April 8, 2009 by kris · Leave a Comment
Law and Order SVU hit the spot tonight and Delroy Lindo of Gone In 60 Seconds fame, rocked the house. Delroy’s currently being represented by the Jamie Moyer of super hot chicks, Jeri Ryan. Ryan’s still a spring chicken compared to Moyer though, she’s only 41 to Moyer’s 46.
Onto Fantasy Baseball!
IF you’re going to be making moves, here are some eye-catchers for Tuesday:
- Josh Johnson – P – Florida Marlins
- Colby Rasmus – OF – St. Louis Cardinals
- Nick Johnson – 1B – Washington Nationals
- Franklin Guetierrez – OF – Seattle Mariners
- Erik Bedard – SP – Seattle Mariners (trade for?)
- Emmanuel Burris – 2B – San Francisco Giants
- Josh Fields & Chris Getz – IF – Chicago White Sox
- Converted OF Skip Schumaker / Mark Teahan – 2B – Cards/Royals
- Wandy Rodriguez – SP – Houston Astros
Marlins / Nats
Josh Johnson looked great against the Nationals tonight, striking out 8 batters over 6 and two-thirds innings. Johnson also avoided walking a batter, which is nice to see from the kid. With Johnson’s strike-out ability (~8K/9), he’ll be very valuable if he can limit his walks. He’s posted career BB/9 totals of between 3 and 4, so this is definitely a great start for the kid.
Keep an eye out for Johnson, if he can keep his walks down to under 3 per 9 — he’ll be a damn good investment in any league. You can do a lot worse than Johnson at this point.
This is the second straight game that Manny Acta has benched Elijah Dukes in favor of Austin Kearns. It’s obviously not punishment as there are no news stories, and Dukes has been pitch hitting. Maybe ownership wants to showcase Kearns? If they’re lucky, they’ll get a player to be named later for Kearns.
Nick Johnson is healthy and raking, and if the rest of the Nationals ever start getting on base — Johnson will have value. Unfortunately, Johnson will be hurt by that point.
Ronny Paulino and John Baker should form a nice little platoon down in Florida, neither will have value unless they get starter’s AB.
Pirates / Cards
Ian Snell of the Pirates had a rough day, surrendering 8 runs, 6 of which were earned, to the Cardinals. Lots of good stuff coming out of Cardinals camp: Skip Schumaker’s start at second base didn’t go overly well, as he went hitless and committed a throwing error. Khalil Greene continued hitting, and Colby Rasmus got the start in right-field. Rasmus managed two singles and a walk in 5 plate appearances, not quite Schafer-esque. Strangely enough, both Rasmus and Duncan played with Ludwick riding the pine. I still think this shapes up as Ludwick, Ankiel and Rasmsus as the starting outfielders.
M’s / Twins
A few line-up maneuvers that should peak your interest: Guetierrez is batting second for the M’s, a spot in which he should flourish — I’d roster him in deep leagues, especially when Ichiro returns. Denard Span is batting lead-off for the Twins with Gomez batting 7th. Alexi Casilla, a nice sleeper, is batting in the 2-hole. Erik Bedard only went 5 innings, but struck out 8 — Hope you drafted him! In that park, with his skills, there’s going to be some serious value….if only he wasn’t a huge injury risk.
Jays / Tigers
Toronto’s 2-0, and first place in the AL EAST, thanks to the Detroit Tigers. On behalf of all Torontonians, Thank you!
Starting Pitchers Edwin Jackson and David Purcey looked stellar; each went 7 innings and gave up 2 and 3 ER, respectively. Jackson struck out 4, while walking only a single batter. Purcey struck out one more batter, as he whiffed 5, but also walked 3. Purcey should have more K-value long-term, but Jackson could be primed for one of those “never-saw-dat-coming” seasons.
I’d be worried if I owned one of the closers in this game though. Lyon’s technically not the closer, but earned a blown save after allowing the game-winning run in a tie ball game. Ryan was also very hittable, and I’d be picking up Scottie Downs ASAP (if you’re in a league where closer speculating is required)
Braves / Phillies
The Braves handed it to Philly again, and Mike Gonzalez owners exhaled. Jurrjens didn’t allow a run, but wasn’t all that sharp. Schafer fell back down to earth, but even if he’s going hitless, so long as he’s taking walks — I’m buying it. Nothing terribly interesting…
Red Sox / Rays
Tampa and Boston finally got their seasons going, and I ended up watching a good chunk of this sucker on mlb’s gameday application. Beckett’s release point was noticeably different between his fastball/curveball, one-two punch — early season kinks, I’m sure.
Tampa’s 3-4-5-6 of Longoria, Pena, Burrell and Joyce is going to strike-out a lot. I’m actually quite worried about this team, but Maddon’s a bright guy and I’m sure he’ll find a way to split this up. Other than Iwamura, Bartlett and Gabe Gross each stealing a base, there’s not much of note in this game. James Shields was hittable, but I’d expect him to post stellar WHIP and K numbers for the rest of the year.
Giants / Brewers
Tim Lincecum is apparently a mortal, a very, very pale mortal that’s starting to look more and more like Kate Moss during the ‘addicted-to-heroin-and-cocaine-era’ or…. Skeletor.
Rickie Weeks is hitting the ball, and JJ Hardy isn’t — Welcome to Bizzaro World. Hardy left 7 men on base.
Burriss got the start at second base over Frandsen, and Travis Ishikawa is proving me wrong by looking like a big-leaguer.
The Brewers ran wild against Bengie Molina.
Royals / White Sox
Mark Teahan started at second base, and looked good. Trey Hillman has way too many guys hitting ahead of his two best hitters, Gordon and Butler. They’re both young, but they shouldn’t be batting 6th and 7th.
The White Sox’ Josh Fields is batting 9th, but I’m not sure where Ozzie Guillen moves him to even if he keeps up his hot hitting. You can flip the White Sox line-up backwards, and it’ll probably look just as good as it does now: Fields (9th), Ramirez (8th), Pierzynski (7th) and Konerko (6th) vs. Wise (1st), Getz (2nd), Quentin (3rd) and Thome (4th).
Cubbies / ‘Stros
Soriano struck out 3 times, but did manage to homer — I’m thinking there’s going to be a lot of these games for him, wadda leadoff hitter.
Wandy Rodriguez looked solid, and does have some pretty solid K potential. He’s probably one of the top players left in your waiver-wire so keep an eye out.
Not really much to report out of this game, but someone should inform the Astros that Ivan Rodriguez is no longer a viable number-2 hitter.
Rockies / D-Backs
Summary: Lots of Strikeouts.
Ubaldo Jiminez has a blistering fastball, but until he learns to pitch he’s going to have some issues in Coors. Dan Haren is still Dan Haren.
Justin Upton played, but hit 8th — not good for fantasy owners.
Games in Progress – Dodgers / Padres & Angels / A’s
I love Chris Young this year, and he hasn’t disappointed so far. I didn’t realize that Chase Headley had third base eligibility in your standard Yahoo! league and if third wasn’t so deep this year, he’d have some value. If he gets hot, snap him up — otherwise he’s going to be your league average third baseman (fantasy wise).
Kemp batting 7th lowers his value. I understand starting with Furcal and Hudson but…c’mon! Obviously, if Hudson sticks in the 2-hole, he’ll have value.
Top prospect, Trevor Cahill, went 5 but walked 5! He also gave up 5 hits! How did he only allow 2 ER? He has more strike-out potential than the 1 that he posted tonight.
…hopefully the Blue Jays game will be on basic cable tomorrow. It’s the second game of the year, and the game’s already been shifted into the 400′s on Rogers cable.
Luckily, I wasn’t fooled by Sportsnets’ trickery and promptly switched away from the Maple Leafs game.
Ted Rogers, if you’re reading this in Heaven? could you please magically allow our cable box to get MLB extra innings for free?
