Thursday Wrapup: 2 Months In The Books!

Alright, now that we're 2 months into the fantasy baseball season, this is the time where you have to take a look at your team, especially in rotisserie leagues, and figure out where your strengths and weaknesses are. The first couple months you can worry more about getting the best value in a trade, but now you should think a little more about will this trade negatively impact a particular catagory. Do you have lots of steals but are stuggling in RBIs? Time to deal one of your speeders for a bigger bat. Do you have quality bats through your lineup, but you're down there in ERA/WHIP? Time to use your extra bats to get a quality arm. You can officially start panicking about underperforming players. There's still some quality buy low/sell high guys out there at this point, especially if one terrible month is affecting their overall numbers (Pujols and Delgado come to mind, if their owners are only paying attention to total stats instead of recent trends).

Here's Thursday's action:

Craig Monroe - Hit his 8th HR last night, including his 3rd in the last 7 games. He'll hurt your batting average (.239 this year, .255 last year), but he has power in an impressive lineup. If your AVG can take the hit, he's worth a spot in your lineup as a HR/RBI guy in the 3rd OF/UTIL spot, and he could even be available on waivers.

Justin Verlander - 5 IP, 8 H, 7 ER, 3 BB, 6 K. Spanked by a great offense last night as he obviously wasn't on his game. AL pitchers just can't maintain an ERA below the low 3s unless they have an elite K rate and outstanding stuff. Verlander has great stuff, but his K rate is not elite (50 K in 68 IP). I don't like his workload last year, given the Tigers went all the way to the World Series, and he has never thrown close to that many innings in his young career. Perhaps he'll stay strong all year, but he's a candidate to fade in the 2nd half.

C.C. Sabathia - 7 1/3 IP, 10 H, 5 ER, 1 BB, 2 K. Another top pitcher not on his game. No worries though, the Detroit offense is playing as good as any offense in baseball right now.

Mike Cameron - He jacked his 5th HR last night, and his numbers are now more in line with what he's been doing for most of his career. Make sure to grab him if he's still out there. He's another low AVG guy, but he's a 25/25 threat and he'll put up solid RBI numbers if he keeps hitting in the middle of the order.

Greg Maddux - 6 2/3 IP, 9 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K. A fairly solid outing, and he's still a marginal 5th starter in fantasy leagues pitching half his games in Petco.

Ryan Zimmerman - Cranked his 7th HR last night, 6 of those coming in May. He's still a quality buy-low guy as his overall numbers (.247 AVG, mainly) are below where they should be. Another 100 RBI season will be very tough in that lineup, but he'll continue to improve.

Mark Buerhle - 8 IP, 2 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 6 K. His K numbers have improved this year to more of what we're used to seeing from him, and his overall performance reflects that. Given he's pitching for a contract, he should be plenty motivated to keep up the great work (3.66 ERA, career best 1.02 WHIP) he's been doing so far. His Ws are suffering, but those are always more luck based than anything else.

Roy Halladay - 7 IP, 6 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 7 K. Welcome back, Roy. He's obviously safe to activate, if you haven't done so already. Hopefully that time off did him good and he'll return to his Cy Young-esque form.

Matt Cain - 7 IP, 10 H, 4 ER, 2 BB, 5 K. He was battered for all 4 runs and 7/12 baserunners in the first 2 innings, but settled down after that and cruised through the next 5. The Mets offense is undoubtedly a tough matchup, so his overall line wasn't that bad.

Orlando Hernandez - 7 IP, 2 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 K. Cruising right along. As I mentioned before, he'll be a quality fantasy starter when he's healthy. If you can move him in deal to get a less injury-prone starter based on his great numbers so far, I'd do it. He's not so much injury-prone, as he is injury-certain.

Jose Reyes - Stole his 29th base last night. He's on pace for 80 SBs, and he'd be the first player to reach 80 SBs in "I'm too lazy to look it up" long. It's been a while, trust me.

Prince Fielder - HR #19, tying him with Slump-Rod for the major league lead. There's nobody hotter at the plate right now.

Hanley Ramirez - His 16th SB last night. A cheaper, similar version of Jose Reyes. Less steals, more power. He's might be a borderline 1st rounder last year, so everyone who drafted him expecting similar/improved production is jumping for joy at this moment.

Corey Hart - 3/4 with a couple doubles last night. Keep an eye on him as he's a legit talent and possible 3rd OF in fantasy leagues before long. Or, pick him up and stash him if you have room. 20/20 potential.

Bronson Arroyo - 5 IP, 11 H, 8 ER, 0 BB, 2 K. Hope you benched him like I advised...there's something seriously wrong here. His velocity is down and he's getting lit up by bad offenses. Continue to keep him benched until something more comes of this.

Lance Berkman - Bigtime buy low guy here. Hitting only .244 with 6 HRs and 28 RBIs so far. He's been mired in a long slump, but he has a long track record of big years. Hopefully his HR last night gets him going.

Scott Rolen - He's now raised his batting average 50 points over the past 10 days, has 3 multi-hit games in a row including a HR and 2 doubles. He's coming around, and is worth starting again. He's another buy-low guy, although with the depth at 3B all starting to heat up except for Garrett Atkins, odds are you have a similar player on your roster already.

Kelvim Escobar - 8 IP, 9 H, 5 ER, 4 BB, 3 Ks. Bad performance last night, although he still pitched deep into the game and kept his team in it after a rough 5th inning.

Chone Figgins - 3/4 with 2 SBs last night. He's a decent buy-low guy if you're into light-hitting stolen base machines. He'll need to get hot for a while in order to keep his job as I can't see Anaheim putting up with a sub .200 (.160 right now) average for much longer.

Howie Kendrick - His bat has been dead since coming back from the HBP that landed him on the DL for a month. He's too talented of a hitter to keep slumping like this, though. I'd suggest buying low, but like with Rolen, 2B is deep this year and odds are you also have someone like him on your roster.

Ichiro Suzuki - He ends May with a .357 average, 26 Rs, and 13 SBs for the month. What a great comeback he had at the plate in May.