AJ Burnett

These days fantasy baseball is loaded with crazy stats for everything you could possibly think of, from hits to Linear Weights Run Value . Some of them are completely worthless to most of us, and to be honest, if you have to go to something like Ultimate Zone Rating to decide between two players, you can probably just flip a coin.

As a fan of the New York Yankees, an American League East team, it is easy to forget about the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The last time the two faced each other was back in 2007, at the old Yankee Stadium.

Looking at the bigger picture, the D-backs pose no real threat to the Yankees, whose hopes are to repeat as World Series Champions.

  From Chad Jennings :

As I was taking in the hideous stylings of one Allan James Burnett last night at Chase Field, I thought it would be fun to gauge the A.J. Love on some sure-to-be completely rational New York Yankee message boards.

The struggling right-hander had allowed three homers and five runs through one inning against the last-place Diamondbacks. Burnett, I reasoned, would be a periphery topic at the very least.

It turns out that Yankees fans—even-keeled lot that they are—were not happy with their supposed No. 2 starter.

Pitching Preview: Champs vs. Phillies Game 2 focuses on the game two match-up, in this 2009 World Series revival between the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Yankees .

Game 2:

Baseball-reference has a stat that is rarely ever used: bequeathed runners. 

It's the number of runners on base when a pitcher leaves the game.  Subsequently, there's also a stat on how many of these runners score.  These runs are added to the starter's ERA, even though the relief pitcher was pitching and, ultimately, allowed the runs to score. 

Want a full year of data? Look at the stats from 2009. 

The big story of the start of the baseball season would be the great starts by Tampa Bay, San Diego, Cincinnati and Washington.

The other big stories are off the field tales of Hall of Fame players napping and teens getting tasered.

The big debate is about parity. As of right now, there are fifteen teams that are .500 or better. That is great news for those who argue that parity does exist.

This is a weekly focus on the hurlers that dominated their adversaries. These pitchers put up nasty numbers and made big league hitters wish they were playing Tee Ball again.

1) SP Ubaldo Jimenez COL

Ubaldo Jimenez is pitching the best baseball of his life. Jimenez gave Colorado their first no-hitter in franchise history. He struck out seven and pitched 128 pitches.

He has a 1.29 ERA after a flawless pitching performance and has a perfect 3-0 record.

As I continue to fine-tune my pitching projections, there is a major shakeup in the rankings.  Names like Yovani Gallardo, Ubaldo Jimenez and Javier Vazquez saw a major change in their rankings from the first time around. 

Let’s take a look at how things currently stand, but again keep in mind that these still have plenty of room to change as draft day grows closer.

I think it’s safe to say that Joe Girardi is no Joe Torre.

Sure the Yankees made it to the World Series this year under Girardi, but not without him making some blundering decisions.

This whole season the guy has had a tendency to overmanage or undermanage games and Monday night was no different.