Baseball Daily Digest Radio with @JoelHenard & Me (and two awesome guests) at 700 ET

Baseball Daily Digest Radio with Joel Henard and me at 7:00 ET: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/thefantasyinsiders/2012/04/30/baseball-daily-digest-radio-with-joel-henard-and-albert-lang. We’ll be joined by Jeff Mans from Fantasy Alarm/Sirius XM Fantasy and David Laurila of Fangraphs.

We’ll will talk Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Jake Peavy, Kenley Jansen, Javy Guerra, Matt Thornton, Jon Lester, Paul Konerko, David Phelps, Drew Smyly, Chad Billingsley, Anthony Bass, Chris Davis, Tim Lincecum, Frank Francisco, Ian Kennedy, Delmon Young, Andy Dirks, Edwin Encarnacion, Nelson Cruz, Brandon Morrow, Johnny Cueto, Brandon Allen, Brian Matusz, roto, fantasy baseball and much more!

The Hot N Cold Fantasy Baseball All-stars for @FP911

The Hot N Cold Fantasy Baseball All-stars for Fantasy Pros 911: http://fp911.com/the-hot-n-cold-fantasy-baseball-all-stars-3/. The All-stars include Adam Dunn, Matt Joyce, Cody Ross, Juan Francisco, Alcides Escobar, Jason Kubel, Alejandro de Aza, Nick Hundley, Mat Gamel, Brent Lillibridge, Darwin Barney, Eduardo Nunez, Phil Humber, Wandy Rodriguez, A.J. Burnett, Jeff Niemann, Anthony Bass, Albert Pujols, Matt Garza, Chad Billinglsey, Brandon Morrow, Austin Jackson, Jeff Francoeur, and Zack Cozart.

h2h Corner ~ Katy Perry (Hot ‘N’ Cold Fantasy Baseball) All-Stars

Players get hot and cold over a seven-day period, it’s as sure as the samples are small.

That is why Katy created the Hot ‘N’ Cold All-stars.

‘Cause you’re hot…you’re yes…you’re in…you’re up

Juan Rivera – Rivera has been the River of Dreams for my NL-only team with Gaby Sanchez batting like Gabrielle Reece. Over the last seven days, he is 9/25 with two homers and 10 RBIs. While he is batting an unimpressive .264 over his last 30 days, he has an impressive 25 RBIs. One’s place in the lineup usually isn’t important – however, with marginal guys like Rivera, batting clean-up can lead to a lot of RBIs he doesn’t really deserve. It’s a flawed stat, exploit it!

Jason Kipnis – In case you missed it, Kipnis came off the DL with a bang, pow! Over the last seven days, he is 9/26 with a homer and two steals. He is now 33/113 with seven homers and four steals in the majors. With Brett Lawrie going down, Kipnis is the premier young batsman to own down the stretch. Grab him!

Allen Craig – Craig’s season-long battle for playing time has finally been realized in the form of Matt Holliday’s untimely injury. Craig has taken the opportunity and beaten it: 8/29 with three homers over the last seven days. He is a must add in almost any format – certainly leagues that run 12 deep. He’s a great addition over most second basemen at this point.

Travis Hafner – A healthy Hafner is a good Hafner. Over the last seven days, he’s been a mashing heifer: 6/18 with two dingers. He has now hit safely in seven of the eight games he has appeared in since coming off the DL. If you were plugging holes with Mike Carp or Mark Trumbo, Hafner should be a better option.

h2h Corner ~ Katy Perry (Hot ‘N’ Cold Fantasy Baseball) All-Stars

Players get hot and cold over a seven-day period, it’s as sure as the samples are small.

That is why Katy created the Hot ‘N’ Cold All-stars.

‘Cause you’re hot…you’re yes…you’re in…you’re up

Jason Bay – Well, for a week at least, Jason Bay earned his contact with the Mets by going 10/27 with three homers and a steal. Bay now has 18 HRs for the Mets over the last two years – 1/6 came over the last seven days. I was hoping this was part of a longer trend with Bay, but he’s been hovering between.230s and the low .240s in average since early May really. The 12 HR, 11 SB campaign isn’t actually all that bad, but the atrocious average makes him less useful than someone like Will Venable. Bay has hit a gargantuan amount of ground balls this year (at the expensive of fly balls, which isn’t a horrible trade off given his home ball park). Unless he can turn some of those ground balls into well struck batted balls, his BABIP and average will continue to be only useful in NL-only leagues. I don’t know if he’s lost bat speed, but he is suddenly getting eaten alive by fast balls, a pitch he dominated in his heyday. Oh well, the week was nice.

Jon Jay – I kind of hate but kind of like Jon Jay. I like him because I’m a fan of the Federalist Papers, I dislike him because I get into a lot of e-arguments about his merits versus Colby Rasmus. Well Jay, the ballplayer, has been great lately, going 11/18 with two homers over the last seven days and has five straight multi-hit games. Jay’s .354 BABIP is eerily similar to last season’s .350 and he appears to be hitting the ball a tad sounder this season – his line drive rate is up. He doesn’t swing and miss a lot, so he’ll put a ton of balls in play. He seems like a decent average source going forward with light power/steals – someone like Placido Polanco.

Brent Morel – Watch out for the Morel morsel! Or something like that. Morel was filthy over the last seven days: 9/25 with three bombs. Of course, he now has five homers on the year. He is by no means an option in anything outside of AL-only leagues. This time of year it makes sense to grab the hot hand, but Morel will never do anything like this last seven day stretch.

Marco Scutaro – As someone who was high on Jed Lowrie in the preseason and most of the year (with the omnipresent injury caveat everywhere), I’ve been slow to hop on the Scutaro bandwagon. After he went 12/20 with 11 RBIs over his last seven days, I can ignore him no longer, especially when shortstop is the worst position ever.  Leading up to the play-offs, I imagine Francona is going to try to ride the hot streaks of his marginal players. So, as long as he hits, Scutaro will play. He probably won’t get 11 more RBIs all year, but he’ll post a user-friendly batting average and maybe a homer or two while scoring some runs. In short, he’ll be serviceable. Not a ringing endorsement, but he could be a good Jeter/Rollins (or insert other shortstop) fill-in as it appears they might get some rest down the stretch.

Don’t Look Back In Anger: Adam Lind, Brandon Morrow, Justin Masterson

At Razzball: http://razzball.com/dont-look-back-in-anger-adam-lind-brandon-morrow-justin-masterson/

h2h Corner ~ Check You Out On the Flip Side: Brandon Morrow

Really? I call poppycock on this! In no way did the Mariners feel that Morrow was just a “dose of command and a dash of consistency away from becoming a big winner.” If they did, they wouldn’t have traded him for Johermyn Chavez (a low-level minor leaguer but with some potential) and Brandon League (a, albeit good, relief pitcher). Or if they did believe it, that means they value relief pitching way too much.

After the Mariners were done yanking him between pitching roles, the Blue Jays decided to let Morrow start and let the chips fall where they may. While he started 15 games total for the Mariners and appeared in 116 others, he started 26 games for the Blue Jays, and shockingly, only appeared in 26 games.

He also pitched 146 innings for the Jays in one season, compared to the 197.2 IPs he threw for the Mariners across three seasons (of course there were some demotions and injuries, but still). According to Baseball America, Morrow was worth 1.6 wins above a replacement player last season. In his career (seven seasons), League has earned exactly 1.6 WAR (including -0.1 last season).

If you’re scoring at home, folks, this trade was a TKO for the Jays. Sure the odds of Morrow both staying healthy and continuing his 2010 form are slim given his history. But the Jays already won. League would have to pitch another seven seasons for the Mariners to fully return the value that Morrow had in just one year.

So what about Morrow’s future? It is hard to say given the incredible amount of young pitchers the Jays have and the volatility in any arm asked to throw a baseball. Can he be better than he was last year? I think so, absolutely. While he benefited from an above-average strand rate (69%), his BAbip was .348 – a number that typically rests around .300 for a major league pitcher and has been .310 for Morrow’s career.

At the time, I remember being somewhat confused with the trade. I mean, at the worst, Morrow is an above average reliever, which League is. At best, Morrow can be a #3/#4 starter or above-average innings eater. I assumed Morrow was injured again, clearly he wasn’t. Maybe I am missing something with Chavez, but he seems pretty far from the majors to me to even out this trade.

You have to give the Jays a lot of credit for this move and the way their organization is going. They have some shades of the Rays going on right now.

Follow h2h Corner on Twitter (http://twitter.com/h2h_Corner)

For the history of this series, check out this article: Check You Out On the Flip Side: Howard Johnson.

h2h Corner ~ I’m a Believer: September Edition

h2h Corner ~ I’m a Believer: September Edition

Welcome to September’s “I’m a Believer” column. Yes, I got the name from a Monkees’ song. And yes, I like the song. Did you know that Neil Diamond wrote it, as well as many other songs by the Monkees? Isn’t Neil Diamond cool (Red Sox fans)?

Like the song teaches us, this column attempts to be a fun, quick read, mostly focused on what performances we can/can’t believe in.

Without further ado, I’m a believer that:

While Ryan Braun ranks in the top 30 players this year, he has had a disappointing season. Who has been the biggest disappointment on your roster? Post below!

h2h Corner ~ Keep, Trade or Drop: Wade Davis, Brandon Morrow, Homer Bailey?

Brandon Morrow just ended up on the wrong side of a divisional swap. Trading the West for the East won’t help his ratios. Still, there is a lot of good in Morrow: he wont be 26 until July; he has a career 9.3 K/9 rate in the majors; and he has tasted major league success, albeit as a reliever. However, if you look at his statistics as a starter and reliever they are eerily similar: 4.42 ERA, 1.47 WHIP as a starter, 3.65 ERA and 1.46 WHIP as a reliever. Basically, in his beast season (2008), his BAbip was .207. In 2007 it was .321 and, in 2009, it was .287. Unsurprisingly, Morrow’s career has been a yo-yo, his stats have hit highs and lows, he’s been a reliever, then a starter, then a reliever. One would hope he gets a chance to prepare and be a starter for a full season. Still, at the moment, Morrow is nothing more than a cheap lottery chip.

h2h Corner ~ Red Light District, the Closer Carousel

I almost decided to rebrand this column “Aint no Other Man.” Instead, however, I have chosen to defer to Bob Dylan and Wag the Dog when they so famously said “why change horses in mid-stream?” Technically, this isn’t mid-stream; fantasy owners should know that we aren’t that far into the year. It is only May 20.

h2h Corner ~ Red Light District V, the Closer Carousel

They do most of their work late at night, often after most upstanding fantasy managers have gone to bed. They necessitate early checking of box scores and Fantasy Baseball 101 to see if they secured the win for the home team. They are your average, everyday closers.