For New York Yankees and Mets fans looking for information on Joba Chamberlain and/or closer Billy Wagner, Baseball Prospectus has kindly included those updates in the non-subscriber portion of Will Carroll's Under The Knife column.  It's fingers-crossed for both pitchers.  Click through to see why a trip to Pensacola may be as alarming as a trip to Birmingham used to be for baseball fans.

Will follows-up on the news that Texas Rangers' closer, C.J. Wilson, will undergo elbow surgery to remove bone spurs.  The Rangers' closer job looks wide open for the rest of the season.  With Eddie Guardado getting the first shot, he appears to be the early favorite but don't discount Frankie Francisco getting a look either.

With Wilson out, I was reminded why I traded him earlier this season.  At the time, I was derided for dealing a $7 closer for a $35 Paul Konerko in this 4x4 AL-Only keeper league.  The gamble I took was akin to dealing too early rather than waiting until it was too late. 

With the turnover in closers, I decided to bank the two "seasons" of Saves I got from Wilson and sell him high.  Unfortunately, the White Sox disclosed Konerko had a hurt hand the day after I acquired him, and the Rangers stuck with Wilson in the role despite his 1.60+ WHIP.

Hindsight has made the deal an awful one for me, but the rationalization behind the deal is still solid.  Dealing closers after a season plus of success will generally work in your favor.  I did the same with Takashi Saito and used him to land Lastings Milledge and Jordan Schafer in the pre-season (NL-Only 4x4 keeper).  But It has not worked out as well when I dealt Joakim "The Mexicutioner" Soria for Melky Cabrera, Brian Bannister and Matt Wieters.

Two out of three ain't bad, right?

Is there another change in closers occurring in the A.L. West?  Texas Rangers' manager Ron Washington looks close to removing C.J. Wilson as the team's closer.  Look for Eddie Guardado, another lefty, to get the first chance.  I wouldn't be surprised to see Guardado rack-up a lot of saves in a brief time.  I wouldn't be surprised to see him not do that.

In Guardado's favor is a Rangers' bullpen that can't stop walking hitters.  This may mitigate a longer leash than anyone else anticipates.

Who is Stephen Strasburg?  He is the sophomore ace of Marshall Faulk's allma mater, the San Diego State Aztecs, and the front runner for the #1 overall pick in next year's MLB draft.  Here is a link in this morning's New York Times that will be the first introduction for many.

The conversion of New York Yankees wunderboy Joba Chamberlain from lights-out middle reliever to starting pitcher is complete.  He tossed 5 2/3s innings of one-run ball yesterday while striking out nine Padres.  Those last two outs were by strike out.  He threw nine fastballs that inning with five of them clocked at 95 or 96 MPHs.  The lowest was 92. 

My only concern is he is walking a lot of players since he entered the starting rotation - 12 in 18.1 innings.  This just looks like a Scott Kazmir situation - lots of strikeouts, lots of lost opportunities for Wins thanks to high pitch counts.

Is it inevitable that the Toronto Blue Jays deal A.J. Burnett?  I think it is, and his bombing yesterday will not help the clubhouse atmosphere.  How do his teammates think he isn't distracted?

For the hardcore fantasy basbeall player, The Onion has a great article about an aspiring Hank Steinbrenner.

BABIP is a stat becoming more and more accepted as a signal for pitchers whose WHIP and ERA are due for a fall or rise depending on an unusually low or high BABIP.  This appears most applicable to starting pitchers due to the large number of innings pitched and opportunities for their BABIPs to correct to the .300 level.

What about relievers, and specifically closers?  These pitchers throw an inning at a time and only in high pressure situations.  Does this make a difference in BABIPs?  I am not sure so I ran the BABIPs over the past five seasons for the current closers of each team.  Granted, most closers do not remain so for five seasons, but I wanted as much data as possible to see if there is any trend - to the extent five seasons for a particular pitcher can be statistically significant.

If the BABIP stat is useful as a signal for potential trouble for a closer, does it necessarily mean that closer would lose his job?  Mariano Rivera currently has a BABIP of .190.  Will he lose his job if he gets hit around a bit?  No.  Texas Rangers' closer C.J. Wilson has a BABIP of .224.  If he gets hit around a couple times, will he lose his job?  Maybe.

How about the higher end?  Is San Francisco Giants closer Brian Wilson as buy low candidate with a .356 BABIP or is he a candidate to lose his job because he isn't a good pitcher and has a higher BABIP because he gets hit harder than most?

The historical BABIPs are on the jump page.

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Whenever a manager gives a tepid declaration of support for his closer, fantasy players' ears perk-up with the possibility of getting a closer from the free agent pool or via the draft at the price of a mere middle reliever.  Texas Rangers' manager Ron Washington said this about his current closer C.J. Wilson in this morning's Dallas Morning News :

Manager Ron Washington said Tuesday he would "probably" give the ball to Wilson in the Rangers' next save situation. But he didn't commit past that.

In addition to the possibility of a new source of saves for fantasy players, the Rangers are also starting heavy-set reclamation pitching project #1, Sidney Ponson.  (#2 is Bartolo Colon in Boston.  #3 could be David Wells once the Yankees admit their desperate situation.)  He has been nothing less than a revelation so far.  the question is whether he continues to do so.

In honor of the heavy pitcher, here is a Monty Python clip to provide perspective on anyone's weight issues including Ponson, Colon and Wells