Medicine Hat ...

isn't just the unique name of a now-defunct Toronto Blue Jays affiliate anymore.

As a fantasy baseball owner, you get to wear many hats. You paid for your team, so you're the owner. You pick the players and talent, so you're a general manager. You set your lineup and use strategy to field a winning team, so you're the field manager too. You pore over box scores and player profiles with the exactitude of a mathematician, so you're an armchair statistician too. Some of you may even wear a judge's hat as your league's commissioner.

Yet one of the most overlooked roles a fantasy owner may play is that of injury expert, your "medicine hat." Already so far this spring training, the injury bug has bitten several players, and it's sure to bite more by the time Opening Day rolls around.

For the most part, baseball is an elegant. non-contact sport, ... unless you're Ryan Church and Marlon Anderson, that is. Yet there aren't too many physical maneuvers as unnatural in sports as a pitcher hurling a pitch to home plate. The combination of extreme torque, bizarre arm angles, and the process of generating enough kinetic energy to propel a ball at speeds nearing 100 miles per hour is an incubator for arm injuries.

It's no wonder so many injuries occur today, though this blogger suspects that most pitchers would avoid injury longer if they actually pitched more frequently, not less.

Part of your ability to field a winning fantasy baseball team depends largely on your ability to make decisions quickly and decisively. To the extent that knowing as much information as possible about a player's health can inform your managerial decision, it truly pays stay on top of injury information.

Here are a few quick tips for wearing your "Medicine Hat" proudly in 2008:

• Check out these websites that devoted to injury reports regularly: ESPN, CNNSI, CBS Sportsline, Fox Sports, even sports handicapper Jim Feist. A straight list of injuries is great, but boiling down that raw injury data into more user-friendly information is another thing. Here are a few websites devoted to more thorough fantasy-related injury analysis (KFFL, Baseball Injury Report, Yardbarker)
• Read the online content of local newspapers: Short of speaking directly with a player or a manager, local newspaper coverage is often the best resource for the most current team and player coverage. Newspapers in major baseball markets often have at least one beat writer covering the team on a daily basis. And many of them file 2-3 stories a day in addition to regular online chats. And frequently there is more team content available on the newspaper's website than in the print version itself. For example, if you have Nationals third baseman Ryan Zimmerman on your team, you can read all about him on both The Washington Post and The Washington Times. Familiarize yourself with the names of the beat writers if you have the time. Many of these same writers moonlight at related baseball sites and frequently host chat discussions. Be a detective. You can sometimes "google" a beat writer's name and track done some injury nuggets in the dotsam and netsam of the Internet.
• Become an injury expert: If you know a doctor, give them a call occasionally. Pick their brain about typical baseball injuries (rotator cuffs, elbows, hamstrings). This will give you insight into the scope and severity of many types of injuries. It stands to reason that a board-certified surgeon would actually give you better medical information than some tool like me sitting in front of a laptop. And if you know an orthopedic surgeon or Dr. Frank Jobe himself, you're golden.
• Evaluate trade offers judiciously: Be wary of trade offers involving players who have done any of the following: a) are coming off a recent injury, b) who have recently met with a team doctor or outside specialist or c) have gone on the disabled list. Fantasy owners often look to "dump" a player with suspect health issues before the extent of his injuries become widely known. Don't create a reputation for your fantasy team as being a haven for the infirm and the convalescing.

Useless Trivia:

According to Wikipedia, Medecine Hat is a city of nearly 57,000 people located in the southeastern part of the province of Alberta. It is the home to the world's tallest tepee, the "Saamis Tepee". Designed for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary as a symbol of Canada's Aboriginal heritage, it was moved to Medicine Hat in 1991. It stands over 20 stories high and was designed to withstand extreme temperatures and winds up to 240 km/h (150 mph). During a January 2007 windstorm, a portion of the tepee was damaged. Upon further inspection, it was discovered that extensive weathering was partially to blame. After repairs were complete, the Saamis Tepee now stands approximately 15 feet shorter.