Fantasy Baseball: Friday's Roto Roundup

Clearly, the top story in baseball yesterday had to be the trade of Cliff Lee to the Rangers. You can read reactions from Rangers' fans over at Lone Star Ball, Mariners' fans reactions over at Lookout Landing, and the spurned Yankees' fans reactions over at Pinstripe Alley.

Stephen Strasburg won his 3rd game of the season against the Giants, striking out 8 batters in 6 innings and throwing 95 pitches. I'm not sure if it says more about Strasburg or the other pitchers on the Nationals, but Strasburg now leads the team with 61 strikeouts. Also a bit scary is that the player he passed was Tyler Clippard, a setup man. It was announced that his innings limit would be 160 for the season as well. He's currently at 98, which figures to leave him with somewhere between 8 and 11 starts left. To me, this is a crucial detail if you're in a head-to-head league, as his owner is likely to be without him for the playoffs.

Jake Peavy will miss the rest of the season with the shoulder injury he suffered earlier in the week. Drop him everywhere but keeper leagues. Do it now. And go get Daniel Hudson, as he's probably the most likely to keep that spot the remainder of the season.

Quietly, Adam Wainwright is right behind Ubaldo Jimenez for the lead in wins this season. He recorded his 13th of the season against the lowly Astros, going 8 shutout innings and striking out 4. We are starting our SP rankings shortly, and I think he's going to have to be in the top 5 for the rest of the year with the way he is pitching.

Angel Pagan stole his 17th base of the season, and had 2 hits for the Mets last night. Our outfielder rankings will be coming out soon, and I didn't rank Pagan in my top 50. I think that Pagan will lose at least some playing time to the returning Carlos Beltran, but it remains to be seen how much time that will be.

Ricky Romero got blown up for the second straight start yesterday, giving up 5 earned runs (9 total) in only 2 2/3 innings pitched. I don't think that there's necessarily a whole lot to read into here, as these starts were against the Yankees and Red Sox, but I want to see what he does against a middling lineup.

Mike Leake pitched a pretty decent game yesterday, which unfortunately was not reflected in his final line. The Reds coughed up a 6 run lead in the 9th inning, and eventually lost the game in the 10th. Chalk it up to a bad day, but Francisco Cordero always seems to worry me. His job is about as secure as it gets, but I'm not sure I'd put him in my lineup.

Magglio Ordonez went 3 for 4 with 2 runs and 3 runs batted in. He is now hitting .314, and I honestly had forgotten to rank him in my outfielder rankings. Apparently it's been really quietly that he's been hitting so well.

Chad Billingsley ended up going 7 innings and striking out 9 despite pitching poorly at the start of the game. I watched the first few innings of this game, and it seemed like he was having a hard time finding precise control of his location, but clearly must have rebounded to some extent. I think Billingsley can be a really good pitcher, but it seems like he has these tough innings quite a bit, and could keep him from really being a top-tier starter.

Mark Teixeira hit 2 more home runs yesterday, raising his season total to 17 and his batting average to .243. The opportunity to buy him low could very well be closed, as he's now hit 9 homeruns and 25 runs batted in since the beginning of June. I don't think he's going to get up over .300 for the season, but I think he could still get over 35 homeruns and 110 runs batted in.