Fantasy Baseball: Tuesday's Roto Roundup

Chase Utley and Dustin Pedroia both returned from the disabled list, and to me both should be inserted into your lineup immediately, as the odds are whoever you have replacing them is not nearly as high upside as Utley or Pedroia. Hopefully their injuries didn't kill your season.

Ricky Nolasco went 6 shutout innings against the Pirates, striking out 9 for the victory. Very nice start again, but it was against the Pirates. Very quietly, he has 14 wins this season, which is also 4 more than teammate Josh Johnson.

Martin Prado returned from the disabled list with a 3 hit game yesterday in the Braves victory. He is going to be playing 3B every day with Chipper Jones out for the season, and I think that the numbers for him are legitimate. He's going to hit around .320 for the remainder of the season in my opinion, with some power and solid counting stats.

Matt Garza dominated the Rangers yesterday, striking out 10 over 7 shutout innings. The Rays really are going to be scary when the playoffs come around, as there really isn't a spot in their starting rotation that could be considered all that weak.

Hunter Pence homered twice and drove in 4 runs against the Mets. He's now hitting .289 with 18 HR and 66 RBI, and is well on his way to providing the value he was thought to have back at draft time.

Casey McGehee has been very hot of late, going 3 for 4 with a homerun last night. In the month of August, he is hitting .357 with 4 homeruns and 17 runs batted in, all on pace to be much better than any other month this season. He will lose his qualification at 2B before next season, but he's still going to be a top-15 3B at worst next year.

Daniel Hudson had a solid start in the defeat yesterday, as he struck out 10 and gave up 3 earned runs in 7 innings. I'm wondering if he could be a top-40 type starting pitcher for 2011 in the Diamondbacks rotation?

Brandon Morrow only lasted 4 innings yesterday in his start against the Athletics. It is a bit concerning to me that he only threw 80 pitches, but I haven't found any news to indicate he was pulled due to injury. He had been ineffective, so that could be the answer as well.

Clay Buchholz had another great start, recording his 14th win of the season against the Angels. He went 7 shutout innings with 3 strikeouts, and lowered his ERA to 2.36. I don't think he's necessarily going to win the Cy Young award, but I think that he's going to be near the top of the voting regardless.

On the other side of the field, Jered Weaver had a poor start, giving up 6 earned runs in 5 innings to take the loss. The strikeouts were down somewhat, with only 4 in the 5 innings. He should be fine in his next start, but I'd be concerned about his ability to get wins at this point.

C.C. Sabathia won his 16th game of the season last night against the Tigers, and pitched pretty well along the way. He went 7 innings of 2 run ball and struck out 9. His ERA is now down to 3.12 for the season, and I think he's really going to be a top candidate for the Cy Young, especially if he gets to 20 wins.

Clayton Kershaw had a great start against the Rockies yesterday, with 7 shutout innings, and 6 strikeouts. The walks remain a concern, as he walked 3 in that time frame, but did lower his ERA to 3.03 on the season. He remains an enigma to me, that I just cannot trust him to have a solid start everytime out. But the upside is so much higher than a lot of pitchers.