Fantasy Baseball

Here’s a look at some unheralded players who played well yesterday.

Marlon Byrd, Chicago Cubs

Byrd is heating up again. He went 3-for-4 with a run and two RBI. He has four multi-hit games in a row, hitting .588 over that span. On the year he’s hitting .321 with 33 runs, seven HRs, and 31 RBI.

Carlos Silva, Chicago Cubs

Silva continues to be one of the league’s biggest surprises after giving up one run on four hits with five Ks over seven innings to improve to 8-0 with a 2.93 ERA.

Photo credit: Gallery 2 Images

Here’s a look at some unheralded players who played well yesterday.

Javier Vazquez, New York Yankees

Vazquez gave up two runs on one hit with nine Ks over seven innings as he improved to 5-5 with a 5.63 ERA.

Jeff Francoeur, New York Mets

Francoeur went 2-for-4 with a HR (six) and three RBI. He’s hitting .268 with 33 RBI.

Drew Stubbs, Cincinnati Reds

Are you hurting in the RBI category? Here are some reasonably available players that can help you out.

Delmon Young, OF, Minnesota Twins

Young had 12 RBI in the past 15 days while hitting .286 with five runs, a HR, and a SB. On the year he’s hitting .265 with 27 RBI, 20 runs, five HRs, and three SBs. Delmon is owned in 19.9 percent of ESPN and 41 percent of CBS leagues.

Clint Barmes, 2B, Colorado Rockies

The only way to measure a closer’s true success is by looking at their performance come year’s end. Since we don’t have the luxury of looking into the future, we measure a closer’s success on a weekly basis.

For this reason, we may have players such as Billy Wagner at the top and, as we saw last week, players even as great as Mariano Rivera at the bottom.

No reliever is safe in this report, and an A grade will only be given to the week’s most outstanding performers.

Now is the time to try and acquire a big bat or pitcher before they take off. Now is the time to sell players that are on hot streaks before they cool off. At the end of each month, fantasy owners look at their teams and how each player has performed over the last month.

This late in the season, it is rare to see bona fide stars sucking, but that’s what you get from Nate McLouth , Aramis Ramirez , Chone Figgins ,or Jake Peavy . All of these guys were drafted with expectations of big fantasy numbers, but all have floundered this season.

It’s time to look at the potential two-start options for the upcoming fantasy week.  If I have someone rated as a three, four or five-star option, they are someone I would definitely use.  A two-star option is someone who is borderline, but I’d strongly lean against it unless I have no other options.  The one-star options are an absolutely not scenario.

So, with that said, let’s take a look at the players available to you this week:

To call Max Scherzer’s first eight starts of the 2010 season disastrous would be an understatement.  When you are carrying a 7.29 ERA and 1.67 WHIP, there is no one word to succinctly describe just how bad you’ve been.

With close to 50 games in the bag, some player trends are starting to mold. There are some huge surprises on the list and many big names are missing. Pujols, Howard, Fielder, A-Rod, Teixeira are all guys that missed this list.

Here are your top 10 fantasy players thus far. Four are pitchers and 6 are position players. They are not necessarily in any order. Andre Ethier has been left off the list due to injury.

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