Fantasy Baseball Tonight 5/13; Pitchers, Catchers, Prospects and Injuries

Catchers

Geovany Soto finally was able to hit his first home run of the year. His owners have been cursing his name between his injury and just general struggles that he has had. I still have faith in Soto, even with his .193 average. The guy hopefully will get going now that he got that first home run out of the way. Keep the faith, it will pay off.

Chris Iannetta hit his second grand slam of the week, and is now looking like the quality catcher I thought he would be when the season started. He got off to a real tough start, but is now sitting on seven homers and 16 RBI. His average is still in the .210s, but it was .174 a week ago. Iannetta should get in the 20-25 homer range in 2009. He is one of the up and coming young catchers in the league.

Pitchers

Shairon Martis is 5-0, but I don’t know how. His ERA is 4.10, and he has 17 walks against just 21 strikeouts. He might be the worst 5-0 pitcher of all time. That being said, there is some fantasy value to a guy with five wins, let’s just not be surprised if he doesn’t keep this up.

Dontrelle Willis returned to the Tigers’ rotation, and given what he has been through lately, it wasn’t all that bad. Willis threw 87 pitches over 4.2 innings, allowed four earned runs, walked two and struck out nobody. I am still a very, very long way from advising picking him up, but it is nice to see him back on the mound.

Barry Zito wasn’t great, but he still has stayed away from being the embarrassment he was the last few years. Zito allowed four runs over 6.1 innings, walked three, and struck out five. I am still not buying in on him, but as a guy you add and drop by matchups, he could help you some.

Ross Ohlendorff was effective tonight against the Cardinals, improving his record to 4-3 on the season. Ohlendorff pitched six solid innings, allowed just one run, didn’t walk anyone, and struck out five. Of all of the Pirates pitchers, I have the most faith in him long term, but if you’ve read my recent stuff about Pirates’ pitchers, that isn’t exactly saying much.

Prospects

OK, folks the kids are coming up tonight, and this one I’m more excited about. With injuries to Adam Jones, Luke Scott, and Felix Pie’s generally suckiness, the Orioles have called up Nolan Reimold. He could be an injury fill in, but I also think he could take over left field for Lou Montanez. Reimold is the real deal. In 31 games at AAA he is hitting a ridiculous .394 with nine homers and 27 RBI. This could be short term, but I don’t think so. Last year in the minors he hit 25 homers in 139 games.

Arizona has called up one of their top prospects in Gerardo Parra, and he is in the lineup in centerfield tonight. He was ranked as Arizona’s #2 prospect in their organization by Baseball America. I’m not sure how much of a long term move this is, but the D’Backs have been benching Chris Young here and there throughout the last week or so. Parra is more of a speed than power guy, as he has 30 steals written all over him. Like I said, he is playing tonight, is batting second and even hit a homer in his first major league at bat. In 29 games at AA, Parra is batting .361 with three homers and 12 RBI with 7 steals. i’ve read some things questioning how ready he is for the majors, but apparently we are going to find out.

This is more of a rumor, but Brewers’ 3B Mat Gamel is supposed to be called up tomorrow. Now, he has extreme talent, and is doing quite well at AAA, I’m just not sure where he gets his ABs from. In AAA, in 33 games Gamel is batting .336 with 8 homers and 31 RBI. With Bill Hall still at third (for what reason, I’m not sure), I just hope Gamel isn’t being brought up to sit the bench. In keeper leagues, you should think about grabbing him.

The Marlins brought up Chris Coghlan and I thought he was goig to play third. But Emilio Bonifacio has started hitting a little again, and now it seems Coghlan might end up in left. Wherever he lands, it appears he is going to play, and he hit his first career home run tonight, and drove in his first three runs. Coghlan is now hitting .250 in his young career, but he is a guy who consistently hit around .300 in the minors and he has 15 homer and 30 steal capabilities.

Injury News (Bad)

Carl Crawford left the game tonight with a bruised shoulder that he injured trying to make a diving catch. He is, of course, listed as day-to-day. Hopefully this injury is not serious and he will be able to get back in the lineup ASAP.

Adam Jones also left the game with a strained hammy. I guess he injured something on Tuesday running the bases, and then appeared to aggravate it tonight. Keep an eye on this situation, and hopefully it won’t keep him out very long at all, as Jones is enjoying a breakout season.

Troy Tulowitzki was hit in the wrist/forearm with a pitch tonight and left the game immediately. I have been unable to find any further details, but apparently it didn’t look good. Given his recent track record of health (or lack thereof) this is not encouraging news.

Ryan Ludwick ended up landing on the DL with that strained hamstring. Keep him stashed away until he is ready to return, he is hitting the way we hoped he would coming into 2009.

Injury News (Good)

John Lackey will make his return to the Angels’ rotation on Saturday instead of Friday like originally reported. Who cares? We’ve been waiting six weeks, we can wait one more day. Get Lackey activated in time for his start. It is against the Rangers and Vicente Padilla, but I think he can be effective from the beginning.

Ervin Santana will return for Los Angeles of Anaheim on Thursday against the Red Sox. Then Angels must be doing dances of joy as they are watching their starting rotation come back to form. Get Santana activated if there’s still time before you read this.

Chien-Ming Wang is going to throw another rehab start after his six shutout inning performance on Tuesday in which he struck out six. He looks like he could be back before the end of the month, which is great considering the number of runs that Phil Hughes has been giving up.

New Feature

For those of you who are regular readers, I would like to offer a new service. I am starting a mailing list. Sometimes I see news during the day, but I wait until this nightly article to pass it along to you guys. Prospects coming up, injury news, closer movement, etc. Just send me an email to fightingchancefantasy@gmail.com with “Mailing List” in the subject line and I will add you to the list. Then, whenever I find news that I feel is breaking and important, I will send it to you as soon as I find out about it. Hopefully this is something that you all will find valuable to make a possible move before your competition.

Also, you can now follow me on Twitter for more updates. Go to www.twitter.com/fightingchance.

Attention League Commissioners! If you are looking to spice up your league some, go and visit Fantasy Sports Trophies. Tom Harkins has put together a great site with all kinds of different trophies to give the winner of your league something besides just bragging rights. There are trophies for fantasy baseball, football (check out the beer league trophy), basketball, hockey, and auto racing. I invite you to take a look at the site and try them out.

I’m also going to start mentioning the Fantasy Windup with Steve Gardner over at the USA Today again. His blog is updated many times each day, and is always covering the stories you are talking about when it comes to fantasy baseball. Go check out the blog and be sure to leave him some feedback.

As always, your comments and questions are welcome at fightingchancefantasy@gmail.com. I guarantee a response within 18 hours. Also, don’t miss “The Fantasy Baseball Gurus Show” every Wednesday night at 10pm EST on Blog Talk Radio. The show is co-hosted by Todd Farino of fantasybaseballsearch.com, RC Rizza of junkyardjake.com and myself, Ryan Hallam at fightingchancefantasy.com. To hear the show go to www.blogtalkradio.com/the_true_guru. The Fantasy Baseball Scouting Report is also back! Join me with Jeff Mans every Tuesday night at 10pm EST for all the news, free agent pickups, minor leaguers, and injuries. A can’t miss if you plan on winning your league.