Player Profile: James McDonald

On fantasy baseball draft day 2012 no one was buying Pirates’ hurlers. A.J. Burnett was hurt, Erik Bedard would be hurt soon (he always is – though surprisingly he wasn’t in 2012), and while James McDonald owned a good arm he’d yet to flash it consistently at the big league level. At the All-Star Break lots of people had interest in Pirates’ hurlers. Burnett was 10-2 with a 3.68 ERA, and McDonald was out of control good channeling Doug Drabek as he was 9-3 with a 2.37 ERA and 0.97 WHIP (Bedard made it through the half healthy but he went 4-10 with a 4.80 ERA). Things went south for the entire Pirates team in the second half, and no player typified that derailment better than McDonald who limped to the finish with a 3-5 record, 7.52 ERA and 1.79 WHIP over his last 13 outings. So who is McDonald? Is he the first half superstar, the second half loser, or the pitcher who overall went 12-8 with a 4.21 ERA, 1.26 WHIP and 151 Ks in 171 innings pitched?

I usually don’t do this, but I’m going to give my answer before breaking down the player. Is McDonald an elite hurler? Certainly not. Is he so bad that he should be in Double-A? You know the answer to that is also a big fat no. That means, of the three categories I offered, that James is closest to the pitcher we saw for the duration of the 2012 season. I’m thinking Edwin Jackson like here, and if you owned McDonald you know what I mean as he was, at times, spectacular, and at other times spectacularly bad. Many will overlook McDonald on draft day because of his painful to contemplate second half numbers, but do yourself a favor and look at his season long numbers for the true picture. In fact, let’s compare his 2012 effort to his 2011 season. I know there isn’t one person in the world that would call McDonald consistent based upon his 2012 effort, but in reality, his season-to-season work was extremely consistent in a few key categories.

2011: 171 IP, 4.21 ERA, 0.92 GB/FB, 11.0 HR/F, 7.47 K/9
2012: 171 IP, 4.21 ERA, 0.99 GB/FB, 11.3 HR/F, 7.95 K/9

Remarkable isn’t it? And this brings up the point of perception. If you owned McDonald in the first half and kept your head about you, there was an understanding that McDonald was pitching well over his head and that at some point you would bail on him when things went south. If you turned away from logic and expected McDonald to keep up his first half run in the second half you were left as one angry, dispirited person. For the first group the perception is that McDonald just slowed down to become the pitcher he is (after all, look at the similarity in the numbers I listed above). If you were in the second ground you think that McDonald isn’t even a big league hurler, that he’s garbage, and that you would be a fool to look at him in 2013.

As I said at the top, I think the overall performance we saw last season is more of the hurler that McDonald is. His catastrophic failures in the second half, in my eyes, present a solid buy low opportunity in 2013. In addition to the similarities between his 2011 and 2012 numbers in a myriad of categories, there are a few other reasons to view McDonald’s 2012 season with a positive eye despite his deplorable finish.

McD recaptured half a K per nine innings over his 2011 mark, and his 7.95 mark is a strong number that is in excess of his 7.78 career mark. McDonald also cut his walk rate down to 3.63, about half a batter better than 2011. Those two moves allowed his K/BB ratio to go from a pathetic 1.82 in 2011 to a borderline passable 2.19 in 2012 (it was just under three tenths off the league average). As a result of the reduction in walks, his WHIP also went from an unacceptable 1.49 to 1.26 in 2012. That’s a better than league average number. Though his ERA was the same in both years, his SIERA and xFIP both say that the events under his control painted him to be a slightly better performer in 2012. Incremental growth from a guy in his second full season as a big league starter is encouraging.

I think McDonald can improve upon the numbers he posted the last two seasons. I also think that his draft day value will be beaten down by that dreadful second half so that McDonald will end up being available at a point in nearly every draft where he couldn’t help but represent a strong buy low option.
By Ray Flowers

Player Profile: Francisco Liriano

Oh how I wish my left-handed father had pushed me to be left-handed as a child. Take the case of Francisco Liriano who was at one time one of the best hurlers in the game (his 2006 season is one of legend as he had a 2.16 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 10.71 K/s per nine, a 4.50 K/BB ratio an a 12-3 record before blowing his arm out). Despite his talent, the road has been extremely bumpy the last few years for Mr. Liriano. There have been periods when he has locked things in, but the majority of the last few years has been spent with middling production being par for the course. I mean, what would you think about the following player if you didn’t have a name associated with it and just looked at the numbers?

Career: 53-54, 4.40 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, 2.38 K/BB

I know what I would think, and it’s not kind. Since 2005 when Liriano began his career here are the numbers of the average AL hurler: .500 winning percentage, 4.26 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, 2.15 K/BB. Those numbers paint Liriano as a league average arm. The numbers worsen, substantially, the past two years as Liriano has gone 15-22 with a 5.23 ERA, 1.50 WHIP and 1.72 K/BB ratio. Given the dearth of effective production on the hill, especially over the course of the past couple of years, is there any reason to expect Liriano to be worth starting on a consistent basis in 2013?

Long a strikeout arm, Liriano has two issues working somewhat against him. First, his velocity is down two mph from his heyday of 95 mph (on the plus side he did add over a mph to his heater in 2012 when compared to 2011). The second issue is that his velocity on his slider is down two mph. This was the pitch that made him, like Steve Carlton in his salad days, nearly untouchable when he was on. The pitch is still effective but it lacks that extra giddy up that made it such a dominating pitch a few years back. There are still days when it all comes together for Liriano, it happens every year (he struck out 25 batters in back-to-back starts in July), but for the most part he’s just not as effective because, chiefly, his stuff isn’t quite as good.

This loss of stuff is normal for all hurlers as they age. Usually, if a guy is an elite talent, they learn how to work around this. Maybe they add another pitch. Maybe they study game film more closely. Maybe they change up the patterns they use to attack batters. In the case of Liriano maybe he studies more and maybe he changes up his patterns, but he is still a predominantly two pitch hurler who will also throw the change up to keep batters off balance. His 2012 usage (50 percent fastball, 33 percent slider, 17 percent change up) is virtually identical to his career marks (51/31/18). The biggest issue probably isn’t a lack of growth with this lefty, it’s been an inability to consistently locate his pitches.

From 2005-10 Liriano walked an average of 3.18 batters per nine innings, a tenth better the AL average during that time. The last two years he’s nearly added two full batters to that mark walking 5.01 batters per nine innings. I could have honestly started and ended this profile with just this number (the amount of pitches he throws inside the strike zone has dipped from 55 percent in 2006 down to 39 percent last year). There is no way a pitcher can be consistently effective if they have an BB/9 mark over five. It just can’t be done (hell, even Mr. Walk, Nolan Ryan, walked 4.67 batters per nine innings). This lack of control does a couple of things. One, Liriano’s WHIP goes up and obviously that leads to an increase in his ERA. Two, his lack of control emboldens batters to spit on his off-speed stuff. Third, it means he’s often forced to pitch to batters behind in the count which means he has to ‘give in’ to the strike zone more than he should – if he can control the pitches. Given all of that, it’s rather amazing to think that he still struck out over a batter per inning in 2012. Moreover, he’s struck out 8.63 batters the past two seasons, not that far off his career 9.06 mark, so it’s clear that when he’s dialed in and gets ahead in the count he can still put batters away.

So what to do with Liriano? Take a shot. He’s still got a pretty impressive arm, even if he doesn’t spin pitches like he did years ago. He’s still more than capable of dominating any lineup on any day, but there is significant downside here. Don’t forget this guy has had an ERA in the 5′s an a WHIP over 1.45 in three of the past four seasons. It doesn’t matter how many punchouts you get with numbers like that. He’s worth a few bucks in mixed leagues, or a reserve round add in snake drafts, but you cannot make him a foundational block for your pitching staff unless your goal is to allow someone else to win the league.

NOTE: Liriano agreed to a 2-year deal reportedly worth $14 million to pitch for the. That’s a solid place to pitch, there’s no pressure there, an a move to the NL all signal that the arrow is pointing up with Liriano.

By Ray Flowers

Player Profile: A.J. Burnett

The Yankees and the Pirates worked out a deal that sends the hard throwing A.J. Burnett to the Pirates in exchange for Diego Moreno and Exicardo Cayones (neither is a top prospect). The Pirates also received $18 million from the Yanks to help offset the $31 million that Burnett is due to the next two seasons. Just what type of arm did the Pirates roster for the sum of $6.5 million the next two years?

Burnett’s big ticket item in the fantasy game are the punchouts. You may not have realized it, but A.J. struck out 173 batters last season, one fewer than Max Scherzer, the same total as Michael Pineda, four more than Daniel Hudson and seven more than Wandy Rodriguez. Moreover, the past five years Burnett has struck out 920 batters which just so happens to be the 10th best mark in baseball. It’s also heartening to see that he pushed his K/9 mark back over eight last season after seeing it dip to 6.99 in 2010. He isn’t likely to strike out 200 in the coming campaign, but he could easily post another season of 170 (don’t overlook the fact that he will face pitchers instead of the DH).

All those K’s bring up another point with Burnett. Though he’s long been thought of as an injury risk, and rightly so mind you, he’s actually been pretty darn healthy the past four years never failing to hurl at least 185 innings. His total of 805.1 innings the past four years is 22nd in baseball, ahead of guys like Matt Garza (790.1), Gavin Floyd (780.1), John Danks (778.2), Chad Billingsley (776.2) and Ted Lilly (768). It seems like you can safely roster Burnett expecting him to make 30 starts covering 180 innings, and that stability might help you sleep a bit better at night.

Now Burnett has his fault, and this piece isn’t going to be written with rose colored glasses. He still walks too many batters, last year he issued 3.92 walks per nine innings slightly above his 3.79 career mark, but that’s well within the random variation level of acceptance (even if the number is elevated when compared to the big league average). Something he has not been able to get a handle on though is the long ball. The past three years he’s had a HR/9 mark of at least 1.09 including last years mark of 1.47, a career worst (you can at least partly blame a massive 17.0 percent HR/F rate that was well above his 11.3 career mark). This is an area where he could see some improvement. In 2011 Yankee Stadium was 26 percent above the average AL park in terms of allowing home runs according to Park Indices. His new home in Pittsburgh was 19 below the NL average according to Park Indices clearly pointing to the fact that he might be able to see a fair amount of decrease in his homer rate.

Burnett posted a 49.2 percent ground ball rate last year, and that was a four year best. If he can hold on to that number in 2012, while seeing a slight reduction in his HR/9 mark (the park alone should supply that), he could be in line for a significant improvement in his ERA (his xFIP last year, which is the rate normalized to a league average HR rate, showed a three year best at 3.86. How differently would you be looking at him right now if his ERA was 3.86 versus his actual mark of 5.15?).

Here are the facts as I see them.

Burnett has thrown at least 185 innings each of the past four years.
His strikeout total the last five years is the 10th best in baseball.
In 2011 his K/9 and BB/9 rates were smack on his career marks.
His left on base percentage was 70.0 percent (career 71.4).
His GB/FB ratio was 1.52 (career 1.50).
His line drive rate was 18.5 percent (career 18.4).

I don’t know about you, but that certainly doesn’t sound like a guy who should have had a 5.15 ERA. In fact, it sounds much more like the guy who owns a career mark of 4.10. Bid accordingly on draft day 0 i.e. think of the 2009 version (13-9, 4.04 ERA, 1.40 WHIP and 195 Ks) – as Burnett is likely to offer a solid return on investment because you will likely be able to add him for relative peanuts when others at the draft are starting to swig their beer and make plans to hit the bar scene (to see how little love that Burnett is getting, take a look at Fleaflicker).

Don’t forget to pick up a copy of the 2012 Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide.

By Ray Flowers

Around the Horn: April 22, 2011

(1) Slow starts for Carl Crawford and Carlos Gonzalez.

(2) Torii Hunter struggling as bad as Vernon Wells.

(3) Josh Beckett looking aces, just like I wrote he would be in Is Josh Beckett Finished?

(4) James Loney looks terrible.

(5) Mat Latos struggling.

(6) Brandon Wood claimed by Pirates. For more on Wood see Conspiracies and Comebacks.

By Ray Flowers

Hot Stove: The Arms Race

In today’s article I’ll expound upon a rather interesting comparison between setup men. I’ll also discuss another reliever looking for a home, an all-time great who might retire, and the hottest arm on the free agent market if you decide that based upon the numbers of teams that want to sign him to a deal.

Daniel Bard vs. Joba Chamberlain: The perception is that the Red Sox righty reliever is a much better option in 2011. However, is that really the case? Let’s compare each hard throwing setup man to the other based on 2010 numbers.

Bard:1-2, 1.93 ERA, 1.00 WHIP
Joba: 3-4, 4.40 ERA, 1.30 WHIP

Clearly Bard was the better pitcher last season, and it wasn’t even close. Or was it?

Bard: 9.16 K/9, 3.62 BB/9, 2.53 K/BB, 1.23 GB/FB
Joba: 9.67 K/9, 2.76 BB/9, 3.50 K/BB, 1.22 GB/FB

Admit it – you almost fell out of your chair when you saw those three numbers, didn’t you? That’s right, Joba had a better K-rate, walked fewer batters, and had a better K/BB ratio. Given that their GB/FB ratios were virtually identical, if that was the only data you had at your fingertips you would say that Joba was the better pitcher, and it wouldn’t even be a tough call. So how in the world were his ERA and WHIP so much worse than Bard’s marks last year? I think I have a rather simple answer.

Bard: .225 BABIP, 15.4 LD-rate
Joba: .343 BABIP, 17.2 LD-rate

Yahtzee. Bard’s BABIP was artificially low while Joba’s was artificially high. That’s obviously a huge piece of this puzzle. We can make the argument that both hurlers also had artificially low line drive marks, but clearly the difference between the LD-rate and the BABIP mark was totally nuts for Bars. The big league average is 20 and .300, yet somehow Chamberlain flew past that to an obnoxious .343 BABIP even though his LD-rate was terrific. It just doesn’t make much sense. If both hurlers maintain their ’10 line drive rate in ’11, you would expect Bard to have a BABIP mark of about .270 and Joba to have a mark of about .290. If the gap does close to .020 points instead of last years .118 spread, you can bet the fantasy performance of both hurlers will be pretty darn close. Oh, and don’t forget that the Red Sox added reliever Bobby Jenks to their bullpen which might mean that Bard wouldn’t be the first choice to close if something were to happen to Jonathan Papelbon. As for the Yankees situation, do you have any doubt that Joba would get the call in the 9th inning if Mariano Rivera went down?

Octavio Dotel: He has certainly seen better days, but the guy still throws hard and knows how to post strikeouts. In fact, his 10.55 K/9 mark in 2010 was his fourth straight year in double digits and just slightly below his career 10.95 mark. Of course, walks are always a concern, more than four per nine in his career, and they were even above that poor mark up at 4.50 last year. Still, when looking for a power arm on the cheap, he is one of the best bets still on the market, so you can understand why he has been linked to the Rays, Blue Jays and Pirates.

Andy Pettitte: It really is starting to sound like Pettitte may indeed hang up his spikes. According to Buster Olney, Pettitte isn’t preparing as he normally would with his offseason training regimen. Even if he were to sign a deal with the Yankees, at this point he’d be weeks behind where he would normally be at physically. The Yankees have to be feeling like that kid who knows he was bad and is somehow holding out hope that Santa will overlook that fact and still bring him a gift on Christmas. As of now, here is the Yankees rotation: CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Phil Hughes and ??? They are nearly to the point of desperation with the only legitimate internal option apparently being Ivan Nova (I’m not buying Sergio Mitre). It’s not a good situation to be in. What is that old say, pitching wins championships? If that is the case, the Yankees are in serious trouble.

Brandon Webb: Last night there was a mystery team added to the mix (Ala the Phillies with the Cliff Lee negotiations). Who is that mystery team? We don’t know other than the club is from the NL Central and that it isn’t the Reds or Brewers. Since everyone already knows the Cubs are interested, that would seem to mean that either the Cardinals, Pirates or Astros are in the mix. Come Wednesday, we now have a second mystery team in the mix according to Webb’s agent Jonathan Maurer. Has there been this much interest in a broken down asset since the housing market crash?

By Ray Flowers

The End of Baseball?

“And I saw, and behold, a pale horse, and its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him; and they were given power over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the Earth.”
- The beginning of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation (by the way everyone, there is no “S” in the title of that work).

To transition this verse over to the world of baseball, are the Yankees “Death” and the Red Sox “Hades?”

The Red Sox traded for Adrian Gonzalez. Because of tax related issues, the club has a deal in place with Gonzalez (wink, wink) for a reported 7-years and $154 million (the announcement will have to wait until April. Oh, and I’m not buying Gonzalez saying earlier today that there is no deal in place).

Was that all the spending the Red Sox engaged in this week? Why of course not. They went out and added Carl Crawford on a deal that is being reported as a 7-years, $142 million (thanks to Jayson Werth for driving that price up – he can expect a huge flat screen TV under his tree from Mr. Crawford).

So, in the span of mere days, the Red Sox invested nearly $300 million in two players.

The Yankees? They have remained relatively quiet so far, a shock to be sure, but it’s only a matter of time before they land their man – Cliff Lee – on a deal that is expected to grow to well over $130 million (potentially as high as $150). Oh wait, I almost forgot. The Yankees did invest over $80 million to retain all-time greats Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, so it’s not like they have completely sat out the offseason party.

Welcome to the world of 21st century baseball folks.

This should come as no surprise though. According to ESPN, and I’ll get back to them in a moment, the Yankees payroll in 2010 was $206,738,389. No other team in baseball was over the $160,913,333 that the – you guessed it – Red Sox spent. In fact, they were the only teams in baseball over $150 million. Moreover, only eight teams in baseball, including the aforementioned Yanks and Sox, spent $100 million as the World Champion San Francisco Giants just missed joining the group at just slightly over $98.5 million.

Need something to talk about at your companies holiday party? If you add up the payrolls of the four lowest paying teams in 2010 – the Pirates, Padres, Diamondbacks and Athletics – you would just barely move past the Red Sox team salary at $172,424,366 – some $34 million short of the Yankees outlay.

You need some more data to share when the spiked eggnog starts to wear out? If we average out the prospective deals of Crawford and Gonzalez we end up with an annual salary for the duo of about $42.3 million. That’s more than either the Pirates or Padres spent on their entire teams in 2010.

I think you get the point.

I’m a free market guy, an ideas such as income redistribution that are often floated by people in our government disgust me. However, will you permit me to be a bit of a hypocrite here? Thank you.

Baseball has to do something to rectify this situation. You simply can’t have one team spending, literally, five times as much as others. How in the world can there be any competitive balance in such a world? Speaking of that, the real shock in all of this might be how in the world the Yankees or Red Sox don’t win the World Series every year given their financial commitments. Am I in favor of a salary cap? It hurts me to type this, but I think baseball has to move in that direction. It might be beneficial to not only have a cap, but also to have some kind of flooring like the NHL does. In truth, I would be in favor of there being a flooring more than an upper echelon limit that would impede teams from improving their club. Revenue sharing and the like could be brought into play, but whatever decisions are made, something must be done.

And this brings me back to ESPN. How are they culpable? Have you tried to watch your hometown team on ESPN lately? Unless you live in New York, Boston, Philadelphia or Chicago, ESPN doesn’t admit that you exist. Ever watch Sportscenter, or as I have dubbed it “Yankees – Red Sox television?” A whole generation of kids who don’t live in those cities are never exposed to any other clubs. Have 95 percent of people in the United States ever seen the wondrous Andrew McCutchen play? Does anyone outside of California realize that the Athletics had the best starting pitching in the American League last season? By focusing so heavily on the “big” markets, ESPN is effectively telling people, tangentially, that the other teams don’t matter. So, is anyone surprised that the Giants and Rangers World Series was the lowest rated Series in television history? I mean, for goodness sakes, it’s not like San Francisco isn’t a huge media market. Moreover, the Rangers had never won the World Series while the Giants hadn’t won since 1954, so there is no reason the baseball universe shouldn’t have been riveted by the matchup.

Baseball isn’t broken by any means, but the path they are currently on will one day end up in ruins. Before The Four Horseman come to wreak havoc on the land, hopefully the powers that be in baseball will avert the disaster by policing themselves a bit better to ensure the ultimately survival of the whole sport, and not just the well being of teams that play their home games in two cities.

By Ray Flowers

Numbers: A Look Back

Each week I write a piece entitled By The Numbers where I break down all forms of interesting information from the baseball diamond. In this entry I’m gonna take that same idea but go back in time with my time machine as I’ll list a bunch of interesting numbers and facts that pertain to players that have been immortalized in the HOF.

Luis Aparacio led the AL in steals in each of his first nine seasons in the league (his high was 56). From 1960-64 he stole 51, 53, 31, 40 and 57 bases each season. While none of those totals are outlandish, it should be pointed out that the game was played differently back then with base runners rarely attempting a steal. In fact, during that five year only one other rival was able to steal as many as 30 bases in a season.

Yogi Berra is one of the greatest hitting catchers of all-time (11 times he went deep 20 times and nine times he produced at least 90 RBI). He also won the MVP award on three separate occasions. But perhaps the most amazing number of all in his career is the fact that he struck out 12 times, twelve, in 1950 over the span of 597 at-bats. He was no slap hitter that year either producing a batting line of .322 with 28 homers and 124 RBI for the Yankees.

Sandy Koufax led the NL in ERA each of the last five seasons of his career (he had to retire with elbow problems at the age of merely 30). Three times he posted a mark below 1.90, and his five year run resulted in an overall ERA of 1.95 in that time. He also went 111-34 during that five year year of excellence for the Dodgers (.766 winning percentage).

Juan Marichal led baseball with 191 victories during the 1960′s. Three times in that decade he won at least 25 games, but he was never able to win the Cy Young award

Bill Mazeroski made the Hall of Fame despite the fact that he never hit even .285 in a season. Moreover his career mark was .260, he had a pathetic .299 OBP, and his career OPS was a frightening .267. He did however make six All-Star teams while also winning eight Gold Gloves as one of the finest fielding second basemen of all-time. It’s ironic that he is most remembered for hitting the first walk-off homer in World Series history in Game 7 when the Pirates defeated the Yankees in 1960 on his blast.

Amos Rousie is a HOF pitchers who won 246 games in his career with a 3.07 ERA from 1889-1901 (he won 30-games 4-straight seasons). Still, he was far from a control artist as he led the league in walks five straight seasons with a high of 289 batters in 1890, the most ever in a single season. At the same time you’ll want to cut the guy a little bit of slack since he tossed 548.2 innings in that season. In fact, in the five seasons that he led the league in walks, each season with at least 200 free passes, he never threw less than 444 innings. During that fateful season of 1890 his BB/9 rate was 4.74 which is actually a hair lower than the 4.78 mark that Scott Kazmir currently has to lead the “worst” list of 2010.

Hoyt Wilhelm was the first pitcher in big league history to win the ERA title despite the fact that he spent the entire season in the bullpen. In 1952, his rookie season mind you, Hoyt led the league with a 2.43 ERA and 71 games pitched. Since the NL played 154 games that year, his total of 159.1 innings was enough for him to qualify for the ERA title. He won 15 games and saved 11 on his way to another league leading figure, a .833 winning percentage.

Ted Williams won the Triple Crown in 1942 (.356-36-137) and 1947 (.343-32-114). He didn’t win the MVP in either season as he finished second in ’42 and ’47. Amazingly, Williams also led the league in OBP each season (.499 and .497) as well as SLG (.648 and .634) yet he still wasn’t awarded the trophy. Moreover, and this is truly amazing, from 1941-42, and 1946-49 (he missed 1943-45 serving in World War II), Williams led the AL in OBP and SLG in each and every season. All told, he led the AL in both slash categories an amazing nine times. As great as Albert Pujols is he has done that only one time (in 2009).

By Ray Flowers

Around the Horn: April28, 2010

(1) Kurt Suzuki continues to miss time with sore side. Jake Fox nearing catcher eligibility.

(2) Brett Anderson’s elbow flexor strain is really a muscle strain.

(3) Blown saves everywhere – Octavio Dotel, Trevor Hoffman, Ryan Madson.

(4) Frank Francisco closing gap on Neftali Feliz?

(5) Matt Capps first to 10 saves.

(6) Justin Morneau could miss rest of the week with back issue.

(7) The world of numbers and hitting broken down at By The Numbers – Hitters including the lack of power from Joe Mauer.

By Ray Flowers

Around the Horn: April22, 2010

(1) Carlos Zambrano moved to bullpen for Cubs.

(2) Jacoby Ellsbury has four fractured ribs. What does that mean for is recovery?

(3) Dallas Braden continues great early season work against the Yankees.

(4) Prince Fielder goes deep for first time in 54^th at-bats.

(5) Brewers destroy Pirates 20-0.

(6) Scott Baker has rough outing, or did he?

(7) Carlos Quentin demoted to 6^th in order. Andruw Jones takes his spot in third hole.

(8) Brian Fuentes still closer in Anaheim.

(9) Mike Lowell gaining on David Ortiz?

(10) Ryan Zimmerman dealing with another hammy issue.

Around the Horn: March 15, 2010

(1) Is the 27 year old breakout season a reality or a myth? See below for links.

(2) Which 1B/2B/3B are being undervalued in fantasy leagues? See below for links.

(3) Yovani Gallardo looked really good on Monday dominating the Indians.

(4) Brian Roberts gets epidural for injured back.

(5) Kerry Wood shut down with back woes.

(6) Joe Nathan to throw on Saturday, test elbow.

(7) Octavio Dotel improving, should pitch in game this week.

(8) Mark Reynolds becomes a rich man in desert.

27-Year-Olds: Hitters.

27-Year-Olds: Pitchers.

Taking Sides: First Base.

Taking Sides: Second Base.

Taking Sides: Third Base.

By Ray Flowers