Fantasy Baseball: Saturday's Roto Roundup

Could Miguel Cabrera start next season as the top overall player for fantasy? He hit his 22nd homerun of the season, and now has 64 runs, 76 RBI and a .346 batting average. Clearly, he's not providing any speed, which you would hope for with the top pick of the draft, but if he hits .340+ with 115+ runs, 40+ homeruns and 130+ RBI, would that be enough to pass Pujols?

Cliff Lee had a bit of an unusual start in his debut for the Rangers yesterday. He gave up homeruns to Cezar Izturis and Nick Markakis, clearly not beacons of power in the league at this point. All in all, not quite the start that they were hoping for, as he gave up 6 earned runs but threw a complete game in taking the loss. He could have days like this in Texas, but I'm not worried about Lee.

Someone needs to tell Carlos Gonzalez that it's not this easy. He hit his 17th homerun yesterday, his 4th in a week. He ended up in a tie for the 10th spot in our rankings, and I am wondering if we could end up being low on him.

There are very few hitters who are as hot as Buster Posey is right now, as he went 4 for 5 with another homerun and 3 more runs batted in. Over the last 7 days, he has 4 homeruns, 9 runs batted in, and is hitting .440/.516/.920.

Aramis Ramirez continues to hit extremely well of late, homering again yesterday for the Cubs. He now has 10 on the season, and 32 runs batted in, but is hitting .476 with 3 HR and 8 RBI in the last week. Aramis was only ranked by Seth in our 3B midseason rankings, and he's looking like he's the one who knew more on this particular instance.

Tim Hudson had another good start yesterday allowing no runs and striking out 3 over 7 innings to get the win for the Braves. His ERA is now at 2.30, but his FIP is at 4.29. At some point, he's going to regress to some extent, but I continue to wait for it to happen.

Jose Bautista hit his 24th homerun of the season against the Red Sox, and now has 56 RBI as well. I don't think that any of us really believe he's going to be this good for the rest of the season, as evidenced by our ranking him 44th overall. But he is still on pace to get over 40 homeruns and 100+ rbi. Clearly, he's not a sell high candidate, as you'd never get the value back in a trade, so just enjoy the ride and watch his batting average.

Scott Kazmir may officially be useless for fantasy purposes at this point, as he officially has one of the worst fantasy starts I have ever seen. 5 innings pitched (103 pitches), 2 strikeouts, 3 walks, 11 hits and 13 earned runs. Honestly, the league would have to be unbelievably deep to even think of owning him at this point. He now has a 6.92 ERA and 1.64 WHIP, and after watching him for part of the start, he simply can't control where his pitches are going right now. He's either way off the plate, or right in the heart of the zone.

Rajai Davis went nuts against the Angels yesterday, going 4 for 5 with 5 runs batted in, 3 runs scored, a stolen base, and just a triple short of the cycle. It would help his value if the A's would move at least one more of their excess outfielders, but he does appear to be getting a majority of the starts and should provide some solid value for the rest of the season.

Also in the same game, Coco Crisp went 2 for 4 with a homerun and 4 RBI. He's now hitting .295 with 3 HR and 17 RBI in only 17 games so far this season. If he continues to hit like this, he could become a valuable trade piece for the Athletics to move to a contender. Only the risk of re-injury kept me from ranking him in my top 50 outfielders.

Travis Wood took a perfect game into the 9th inning against the Phillies, but his team couldn't pick up enough to even get him a win, as the Reds ended up losing in 11. He struck out 8 batters and only allowed the single hit in the 9th inning. On the other side, Roy Halladay struck out 9 and only allowed 6 base runners in the no-decision. Wood strikes me as a NL-only play right now.

Juan Gutierrez got the save yesterday in Arizona after Chad Qualls couldn't get an out. If you're desperate, you probably already own him or one of his brethren in Arizona, and hope that you can find some consistent saves at some point.

Javier Vazquez pitched another good game yesterday, throwing 7 shutout innings. Unfortunately, Joba Chamberlain couldn't hold that lead for Vazquez and gave up 4 runs. Vazquez only allowed 5 baserunners against the Mariners, and struck out 7 batters. Everyone hoping that he would get moved back to a National League team can let that idea go, as I'd be shocked if they moved him now that Cliff Lee is no longer available.