There's No Place Like Home

There's No Place Like Home - Article found on ESPN. We wanted to share it with our readers.

By AJ Mass of ESPN

If you can't find what you're looking for in your own backyard, perhaps you'll never be able to find it all. While most players will tell you they prefer sleeping in their own bed at night, most of the time they're still able to produce away from the friendly confines of their home ballpark. However, while some players' home numbers glow like a beautiful Technicolor picture, their road numbers come through in dreary black and white. As a fantasy owner, you can hope your fortitude will lead you to do the right thing (bench a player) when you see a twister on the distant horizon, but it takes a lot of nerve to actually pull that trigger, especially when your heart might be telling you something different. Unless you want to end up in bed with a cold compress on your head, you should pick up the warning signs these guys are throwing your way:
Kosuke Fukudome, OF, Cubs (Home batting average: .407; road batting average: .227). Fukudome has "blown in" from Kagoshima, Japan and seems to have found a home inside the ivy-covered walls of Wrigley Field. Away from Wrigley, however, that's a horse of a different color.
Jason Bay, OF, Pirates (Home runs at home: 5; home runs on the road: 1). What's interesting here is the Pirates have only 11 homers at home as a team, and they've actually hit more of them on the "yellow-brick" road.

David Ortiz, DH, Red Sox (RBIs at home: 17; RBIs on the road: 4).
Big Papi is more like the Wizard at home; on the road, maybe the scarecrow, flopping around on the ground trying to collect all that lost straw?

Ichiro Suzuki, OF, Mariners (Home stolen bases: 5; road stolen bases: 1).
It's 90 feet between the bases no matter where those bases might happen to reside, but apparently Ichiro's feet simply aren't as fleet if he's not breathing in that fresh "Emerald City" air.
Paul Maholm, SP, Pirates (Home ERA: 0.89 ERA; Road ERA: 8.10 ERA). At home, Maholm is a good, good witch. On the road, his ERA is the most wicked of them all. Have a little fire, Paul! It's time to step up your game and cut down on those long balls you've been giving up in the opposing team's parks.

Jake Peavy, SP, Padres (Home K/9 rate: 9.29; road K/9 rate: 4.50).
We know Petco gives pitchers "da nerve" to take a few chances with their pitch selection, but should it really have that much of an effect on strikeouts? Hmm, sure seems like it does.
Brian Bannister, SP, Royals (Home batting average of balls in play: .183; road BIPA: .288) Sure seems like Bannister knows all too well when he's not in Kansas, er, Kansas City anymore. At the very least, he seems to have the flying monkeys known as luck working against him more when he's on the road.

Troy Percival, RP, Rays (Saves at home: 4; saves on the road: 1):
Okay, so this is more because the Rays win more at home (and also haven't played many on the road yet), but this is also a theme that carries over from last season. The Rays went 29-52 on the road in 2007. If the Rays can't play well enough in their road grays to find the need to call on Troy, then all that rust may well lead to this tin man's demise.

Now that you've been given ample warning of a few players to avoid when the schedule forces them away from the family farm, the choice is yours whether to leave them active. You can be a happy little bluebird and ignore it, but beware of the house falling from the sky and crushing your championship dreams, ruby slippers and all.