Rangers outfielder Nelson Cruz had a slow start to the 2012 season, as he hit just .247-.309-.382 with 2 HRs and 11 RBI in April. May has been much better, especially after his night at the plate on Friday. Cruz went 4-5 with a grand slam a double and 8 RBI. Yes, EIGHT RBI. He is now hitting .275-.328-.421 with 5 HRs and 31 RBI on the season. The RBI total places him 6th in the AL in that category.

Blue Jays starter Brandon Morrow followed up his best start of the season by getting just two outs last night, giving up 6 runs on 5 hits and 3 walks. He threw a complete game 3 hit shutout in his last outing. His effort last night raised his ERA to 3.47 and his WHIP to 1.07, both are very solid compared to his 2011. He has given up 6 runs in 3 of his 10 starts, but he has pitched very well in his other 7 starts where he has given up one run or less in 6 of those 7 starts.

I wrote about Pirates starter A.J. Burnett on Friday morning discussing how he is pitching better than his overall stats indicate. Last night, he shut out the Cubs for 5.1 innings giving up 6 hits, walking two and striking out 6. He is now 3-2 on the season with a 4.19 ERA, 3.28 FIP and 2.94 xFIP, a 1.35 WHIP, and a 39-12 strikeout to walk ratio in 43.0 innings of work. He has now given up 2 runs or less in 6 of his 7 starts this season. He, like Morrow, is prone to the to blowup game from time to time, but he has been a much more consistent pitcher in the National League this season.

I am surprised this guy didn't get hurt with this amazing catch.

More Roto Roundup after the jump:

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Mike Gallagher has been publishing his early 2012 Fantasy Football Position Rankings, and here are links to each of them, in case you missed them.

2012 Fantasy Football Position Rankings

Quarterback

Running Back Part 1

Wide Receiver Part 1

Tight End

Top 75 PPR Rankings

Mike also provided you with his take on which 2012 draft choices you should be thinking about on draft day.

2012 NFL Draft Coverage

NFL Draft Analysis - Round 1

Mike ranked the first round picks based on 2012 fantasy value.

NFL Draft Analysis - Round 2 - 7

Mike ranked the players drafted in rounds 2 though 7

2012 NFL Draft Keeper League Rankings

Mike ranked his top 75 2012 NFL draft choices for keeper leagues.

There are two kinds of bad hitters: the guys that are bad all over (Chone Figgins) and the guys that are really bad in certain splits and actually kind of okay in others. Right now, Dustin Ackley is in the latter group. (When I say that term I always think of a bunch of guys standing on ladders, smiling and waving.)

I have always liked (to be fair, loved) Ackley, ever since the Mariners took him with the second pick in the 2009 draft. Sure, he wasn't Stephen Strasburg, but there couldn't be a better consolation prize that year that picking second, because those two looked like the only elite talents. And when Ackley had his continuous early-season slumps, I had to go right back to defending him and explaining why he'd get better.

And he always got better.

Ackley made his major league debut in 2011 and played in 90 games, hitting .273/.348/.417, 6 HR, 6 SB, 2.7 fWAR. Not bad for a rookie. But so far in 2012 in 45 games (half the amount, because I am a math genius) he's hitting .247/.312/.357 with 3 HR, 4 SB, and 0.4 fWAR.

What's the deal? Why hasn't he improved from last year? Here's just a quick Friday look at the numbers:

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The Rockies took shortstop Trevor Story with their second pick of the draft in 2011, and has been opening eyes so far with his performance in the South Atlantic League. But what will his performance look like for dynasty league owners, and is he worth taking high in minor league drafts coming up?

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Keith Law gave us the first update of the season to his top 25 prospects list, with Orioles' top prospect Dylan Bundy at the top of the class. You can find the whole article here (Insider req'd), but he also led a chat on Thursday as well. Here's his new top 10 prospects:

You can find my thoughts below, as well as some excerpts from the chat itself after the jump.

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Adam Lind is still not good at baseball, and still in the minors. Honestly, I'm amazed enough people owned Lind for him to top the most cut list two weeks in a row. Mark Ellis will be out for six weeks or so, but he's just happy to still have his leg. Jarrod Parker might not be quite ready for mixed leagues yet, so I understand your hesitation. Christian Friedrich finally got his rude welcome to the bigs, causing nearly everyone who rushed to scoop him up to drop him already. Make a decision and stick with it, folks.

As for the adds, there are a few intriguing names (and one of them, surprisingly, isn't Roy Oswalt yet).

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We went through this in the middle of April when we discussed the Miami Marlins' very pitcher friendly schedule which would last about six weeks. We're finally getting to the end of it now, and Anibal Sanchez and Carlos Zambrano both have an ERA under 3.00, Ricky Nolasco has 5 wins, Mark Buehrle's been solid and while Josh Johnson's stats look disappointing, he's been very unlucky. As I said back then, there are going to be these types of stretches for a couple of teams each year, both good and bad. I assume you can probably guess where I'm going with this.

It's no great secret that you don't love a pitcher that throws half of his games in Coors Field. However, you could usually count on nice match-ups versus the lesser-hitting opponents of the NL West and their favorable ballparks (Chase Field excepted). However, the Rockies have a stretch of nine series, of which they will play eight in hitters' parks -- and the ninth series is against the Big Boys from Motown with the DH. Let's take a look at the gory details:

@CIN, HOU, LAD, @ARZ, LAA, OAK, @DET, @PHI, @TEX

You picked up Christian Friedrich after his great first two starts? That's awesome, but he's probably not leaving your bench for a while. You still believe in Juan Nicasio as a sleeper for this season? Don't think about activating him until conditions improve. You own Jamie Moyer or Guillermo Moscoso is anything other than a fantasy league where only players with last names that start with the letters M-O are eligible to be owned? Just stop it. Honestly, I'd drop any Rockies pitcher in any reasonably shallow league right now and grab someone more likely to be used in the next month.

On that note, let's move on!

THE POTENTIAL OUTPERFORMERS

Homer Bailey (@PIT, PIT, DET, @NYM, MIN)

Fresh off his best start of the season Thursday night against the #Barves, Homer Bailey is a constant tease of what he was supposed to be when he was one of the top-10 prospects in all of baseball coming up through the Reds system. Not only does this stretch contain three starts against the Pirates and Mets, but he also gets Detroit and Minnesota at home -- and each of these clubs loses a bit of their offensive spark without the DH. He's widely available, as I tabbed him as my #streameroftheday for this most recent start, but I'd expect that ownership to go up sharply in the next couple of weeks.

More after the jump..

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I had an argument with a friend about A.J. Burnett's value yesterday (yes, the same guy who traded him and Matt Kemp for Jay Bruce and Brandon Beachy a few days ago). The argument stemmed over the fact that I said Beachy is only a minor upgrade over Burnett in the comments section of a recent Roto Roundup. He disagreed, so I decided to take a closer look at Burnett's performance this season. I own Burnett in two of my NL-Only leagues, and I think he has been better than his numbers indicate, so let's have a look.

So far in 2012, Burnett is 2-2 with a 4.78 ERA, 3.46 FIP and 3.00 xFIP with 3.30 K/BB ratio, a K/9 just under 8.0/9, a 2.39 BB/9, and a near elite ground ball rate of 55.2%. His ERA is not much different that it was in 2011. But, what is different is his FIP and xFIP, as his FIP is more than a run better than in 2011, while his xFIP is just under a run better. He meets all 3 of the qualities needed to join Bret Sayre's Holy Trinity for starting pitchers, as he is striking out more than 7 batters per nine, walking less than 3 batters per nine, and is inducing plenty of ground balls.

If you take out Burnett's May 2nd start where he was blistered for 12 runs on 12 hits and a walk in 2.2 innings, here is how he has performed on the bump thus far:

IP: 35

ER: 8

H: 28

BB: 9

K: 31

K/9: 7.75

BB/9: 2.31

ERA: 2.06

WHIP: 1.06

We all know we can't throw out that May 2nd start, but if we could, Burnett would have the 5th best ERA in all of baseball at 2.06, and he would be in fine company. The other starters with better ERAs are the aforementioned Beachy, Clayton Kershaw, Johnny Cueto, and Gio Gonzalez.

His 1.06 WHIP would rank him in the top 20, and more than likely a result of his Holy Trinity status this season, as more often than not, a ground ball results in an out. In addition, his walk rate is down from 3.92 per nine innings to just 2.39 per nine. He also has put up a quality start in 5 of his 6 starts this season, and has given up 2 runs or less in each of those 5 starts.

Looking at Burnett's batted ball data over at FanGraphs, we see that his line drive rate of 23.3% is the highest of his career and is due for some regression, as his career line drive rate is 18.5%, so more line drives should turn into outs going forward. His ground ball rate of 55.2% is also the highest of his career, and, while near elite, is probably due to regress closer to his career 49.1% rate.

Now, this article comes on the day that Burnett will face the Chicago Cubs tonight, and the Cubs have struggled to score runs of late, but any team on any given night can bust out and put up 8-10 runs. I just don't think that will happen with Burnett on the mound tonight.

Can A.J. Burnett continue to pitch this well or will he return to performing like the pitcher the Yankees gave up on this offseason? Burnett is probably available in many mixed leagues, so he is worth a grab as his overall stats don't tell the real story about how well he has pitched in 2012.