Nothing personal against Milwaukee Brewers closer Eric Gagne, but his placement on the 15-day disabled list with right shoulder tendinitis Friday served as sweet, sweet relief for all parties involved. Manager Ned Yost, his teammates who can feel safer with ninth-inning leads, and fantasy owners, who have suffered through a 6.98 ERA, can turn the page on ugly chapters in their teams’ histories.

Maybe temporary replacement Salomon Torres takes control of the closer role in Gagne’s absence, or maybe Gagne immediately re-claims the job upon his return. Either way, we’ll get a better, healthier (physically and mentally) Brewers closer when Gagne is due back in two weeks. Of course, it couldn’t have gotten much worse with Gagne issuing walks and base hits to every Tom, Dick and Harry who grabbed a bat against him. Read more »

After a prolonged stint in the minors, former Cy Young winner Bartolo Colon made his return to the big leagues on May 21st.

Pitching for the Boston Red Sox in a night game against the Kansas City Royals, Colon fared well in allowing only two runs in five innings of work. He was the pitcher of record as his team notched a 6-3 victory.
While his first opponent was not a strong one, Colon demonstrated that he can still be a viable fantasy option for teams in need of starting pitching. Read more »

We don’t consider ourselves pessimists, but we found it intriguing to take a closer look at the number of high profile players off to slow starts in 2008. We’ll get around to the more upbeat All-Surprise Team eventually, but for now, take a look at some of the less fruitful preseason draft choices.

While injured players can make this list, players who have fallen short of expectation strictly because of a disabled list stint weren’t eligibile. Alex Rodriguez, J.J. Putz and Jimmy Rollins are a few examples of those types of players. With or without injury, a player had to have some sort of early expectations, then crashed, burned and fell well short of them. Read more »

A trade to the Florida Marlins took left-hander Andrew Miller off our fantasy radars, but he is pitching his way right back on it. With his seven shutout innings and career-high nine strikeouts against the Diamondbacks on Thursday, Miller improved to 4-1 in his last six starts and continued a streak of four straight outings allowing two earned runs or less.

The damage Miller did to his early earned run average and WHIP - he was 0-2 with an 11.37 ERA after three starts - still has a glaring effect on his bottom line. It took Thursday’s gem to lower those numbers to 5.33 and 1.66, respectively. Read more »

All signs are that the Los Angeles Dodgers will call up phenom Clayton Kershaw from the minor leagues in time for either a Saturday or Tuesday start, according to the Dodgers official site. See to it that you have enough roster flexibility to make the quick, speculative waiver wire addition.

While Kershaw is obviously not a slam dunk - no rookie is - a left-hander wise beyond his years and armed with two dominant pitches projects well. He could make strong contributions in strikeouts, ERA and WHIP immediately. Read more »

Nearly 50 games have been played in the Major League Baseball season and the defending World Series champion Boston Red Sox again sit atop our power rankings.

Teams such as the Pittsburgh Pirates and Kansas City Royals have flirted with the elusive .500 mark only to fall back, two surprising Florida contenders, the Tampa Bay Rays and Florida Marlins, have become fixtures in the top 10, while the New York Mets and New York Yankees have slipped into the mediocrity mudpit. Read more »