What's the Buzz? 8/3/06
So the big news today is the unofficial acquistion of Javy Lopez by the Red Sox. You have to figure it's going to end up a trade as I doubt the Orioles were going to just give him up without compensation. The teams will announce everything, officially, on Friday. Now in reality, this is a real nice, and somewhat expensive, stopgap for Boston. With Jason Varitek gone for probably six weeks, the team needed to add a little punch rather than sit with Doug Mirabelli and newly called up Ken Huckaby. Lopez and Mirabelli should form a nice tandem as the team waits for its captain to heal. Now in fantasy, this isn't really that monumental. With Lopez platooning with Mirabelli, he won't see enough at bats to do any serious boosting for your offense. Next, where does he go when Varitek comes back? He's not pushing David Ortiz for DH at bats and the team is pretty happy with Kevin Youkilis at first. You might get 6 weeks of better Lopez stats than you've probably had all season, but it's just not going to be enough to help you. We'll see on Friday if there's anything else involved that may have some sort of fantasy impact. Not likely, but you never know...
In other news today...
You can't quite call it a closing controversy just yet, but the Indians went with Jason Davis to close out against the heart of the Red Sox lineup tonight instead of using Fausto Carmona again. Carmona has been beaten up in his last 3 outings and Eric Wedge could easily throw out the "overworked the past few days, needs to rest" excuse. You'll have to watch this one closely if you picked up Carmona this year. He'll probably get another shot the next time there's asave chance. What he does with it is up to him.
Speaking of closer situations, keep your eyes on Tampa Bay again. The word is that they want to go with Seth McClung as their closer and it's just a matter of time before he takes over for Brian Meadows. This spot has been a relative disaster for the Devil Rays all year. For now, the job should be Meadows' to lose, but if you're looking for relief help (like I was in this ridiculous 7x7 league), McClung could be a good one to pick up. He's already paying dividends after vulturing a win tonight.
Speaking of the D-Rays, outfielder Rocco Baldelli missed tonight's game with his hamstring problem. He missed the first 2 months of the season with a pulled left hammy and now he seems to have tweaked his right one. He's being called day to day and the team will probably be verrrrrry cautious here.
It looks like there will be a delay on the return of Jeff Kent as he had a setback today during batting practice. He's still feeling that strained oblique and he won't come back until he can swing freely, without pain. No timetable was even issued.
Later than usual, but the annual Khalil Greene finger injury occurred today. He is being called day to day with a sprained middle finger. X-rays were taken and were negative, but they are going to run more tests. We'll know more in a day or two, but for now you're going to want to bench him in daily leagues.
The Yankees got a little good news and a little bad news today. The good news is that the timetable for 2B Robinson Cano's return has been set at a return on Tuesday. After playing in a rookie league game today, he was sent to AA-Trenton where he will play 3 rehab games beginning Friday. He looks like a good pick to activate for next week's scoring period. The bad news is that Hideki Matsui was not cleared to begin hitting drills and it looks like he won't be back until Sept. 1st at the earliest. Melky Cabrera owners can breathe a sigh of relief as there has been a stay of "execution".
Red flags going up around Diamondbacks starter Brandon Webb as it was announced that he will miss his Saturday start due to elbow soreness. The MRI revealed no damage and only showed a little bit of swelling, but the team will not take a chance with their ace. The team is actually downplaying the injury saying there's nothing to worry about and that this is just routine. We'll see about that. If it really is that he just needs some extra rest, maybe his start will just get pushed back a few days. If that's the case, he could end up a 2 start pitcher next week. We'll keep you posted when we get more info.
If you're lookign for some pitching help, you might be able to sneak in and grab Cardinals starter Mark Mulder. They are targeting an August 16 return if all goes well in his rehab starts. He's still a risk, but his track record is good enough to warrant a look.
And finally, if the news that I'm reporting here is supposed to have fantasy relevance, then I guess I don't have to tell you that the Cubs placed Glendon Rusch on the DL with tennis elbow, do I? Does anyone still use this guy on their fantasy teams? I hope not.
Catch you next time...
In other news today...
You can't quite call it a closing controversy just yet, but the Indians went with Jason Davis to close out against the heart of the Red Sox lineup tonight instead of using Fausto Carmona again. Carmona has been beaten up in his last 3 outings and Eric Wedge could easily throw out the "overworked the past few days, needs to rest" excuse. You'll have to watch this one closely if you picked up Carmona this year. He'll probably get another shot the next time there's asave chance. What he does with it is up to him.
Speaking of closer situations, keep your eyes on Tampa Bay again. The word is that they want to go with Seth McClung as their closer and it's just a matter of time before he takes over for Brian Meadows. This spot has been a relative disaster for the Devil Rays all year. For now, the job should be Meadows' to lose, but if you're looking for relief help (like I was in this ridiculous 7x7 league), McClung could be a good one to pick up. He's already paying dividends after vulturing a win tonight.
Speaking of the D-Rays, outfielder Rocco Baldelli missed tonight's game with his hamstring problem. He missed the first 2 months of the season with a pulled left hammy and now he seems to have tweaked his right one. He's being called day to day and the team will probably be verrrrrry cautious here.
It looks like there will be a delay on the return of Jeff Kent as he had a setback today during batting practice. He's still feeling that strained oblique and he won't come back until he can swing freely, without pain. No timetable was even issued.
Later than usual, but the annual Khalil Greene finger injury occurred today. He is being called day to day with a sprained middle finger. X-rays were taken and were negative, but they are going to run more tests. We'll know more in a day or two, but for now you're going to want to bench him in daily leagues.
The Yankees got a little good news and a little bad news today. The good news is that the timetable for 2B Robinson Cano's return has been set at a return on Tuesday. After playing in a rookie league game today, he was sent to AA-Trenton where he will play 3 rehab games beginning Friday. He looks like a good pick to activate for next week's scoring period. The bad news is that Hideki Matsui was not cleared to begin hitting drills and it looks like he won't be back until Sept. 1st at the earliest. Melky Cabrera owners can breathe a sigh of relief as there has been a stay of "execution".
Red flags going up around Diamondbacks starter Brandon Webb as it was announced that he will miss his Saturday start due to elbow soreness. The MRI revealed no damage and only showed a little bit of swelling, but the team will not take a chance with their ace. The team is actually downplaying the injury saying there's nothing to worry about and that this is just routine. We'll see about that. If it really is that he just needs some extra rest, maybe his start will just get pushed back a few days. If that's the case, he could end up a 2 start pitcher next week. We'll keep you posted when we get more info.
If you're lookign for some pitching help, you might be able to sneak in and grab Cardinals starter Mark Mulder. They are targeting an August 16 return if all goes well in his rehab starts. He's still a risk, but his track record is good enough to warrant a look.
And finally, if the news that I'm reporting here is supposed to have fantasy relevance, then I guess I don't have to tell you that the Cubs placed Glendon Rusch on the DL with tennis elbow, do I? Does anyone still use this guy on their fantasy teams? I hope not.
Catch you next time...
posted by Howard Bender at
10:39 PM
