Patrick Corbin was supposed to be a back-end starter. On a team that featured Randall Delgado and Tyler Skaggs in the minors, Corbin was thought to be a temporary solution in the rotation. Someone who wouldn’t embarrass himself until better prospects were ready. But a month into the season, he’s been the Arizona Diamondbacks best starter. Corbin’s 2.97 FIP ranks him 10 among National League starters. He’s already made a case to stick in the team’s rotation once the youngsters are ready. While some regression seems inevitable, Corbin is well on his way to a breakout season.

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Tiptoe along the deep league waiver wire,
Search for a player you want to hire,
With the hope that he catches fire,
Gives you a performance in which you won’t tire,
And is featured in a story by Rob Neyer

::takes a bow:: Thank you, thank you very much. That was my practice round as an aspiring poet. How does my RARP (rhyming above replacement poet) rank?

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Happy 31st birthday to Adrian Gonzalez! The present author will always fondly remember Gonzalez for being an amazing keeper following the 2006 season.

On today’s agenda
1. Evan Gattis, outfielder?
2. Tommy Milone: more than a streamer
3. The return of Matt Adams
4. James McDonald to the disabled list
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• If you were smart, you wouldn’t have listened to me when I said Koji Uehara would get the first shot at saves in lieu of Joel Hanrahan’s injury because it’s Junichi Tazawa who will see the ninth inning now. Colin pretty much summed up the entire situation earlier today so I won’t add much and just lead you over to what he said. With Hanrahan and Bailey on the DL and the former struggling all year and the later always struggling with injuries, Tazawa could possibly see more than just a weeks worth of saves this year.

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Episode 9
Today’s episode of The Sleeper and the Bust stars yours truly and features RotoGraphs editor Eno Sarris. We continue our discussion of the positional tier rankings that have been published over the past week.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @mikepodhorzer or @enosarris on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via the feed. iTunes coming soon.

Approximately 33 min of joyous analysis.

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… you’re the next closer for the Boston Red Sox!

Last night, the much-maligned Joel Hanrahan suffered an elbow strain while in the midst of blowing a save against the Twins at Fenway. Initial reports after the game were not positive with Hanrahan eschewing the clichéd “yeah, it’s a little tight, but I’ll be fine” and instead going with comments like “I threw the pitch and felt a little pull. My forearm went with the ball,” before eventually finishing the interview with “the pickoff at first, the ball barely got there. I threw one more. I couldn’t take it anymore.” Ouch. Those don’t sound like the comments of a man who thinks his removal from a tie game was an overly cautious one. With Hanrahan headed for an MRI today and quite likely to join fellow Boston late-inning reliever Andrew Bailey on the disabled list, the team’s bullpen depth, considered one of their key assets as recently as a week ago, is suddenly being tested.

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Jason Vargas (ESPN: 15 percent owned; Yahoo!: 16 percent owned)

Despite a number of high profile injuries to pitchers on both sides of the city, there is some good pitching going on in Los Angeles and the surrounding environs. However, unlike Clayton Kersahw and Hyun-jin Ryu, Jason Vargas is actually available in most leagues.

Veras opened the season well against the Rangers, then was absolutely shelled by the A’s and the Twins in back-to-back starts that pushed his ERA up to nearly 7.00 and his WHIP above 2.30. Since then, Vargas has had three consecutive quality starts, having pitched at least seven innings each time, culminating in his complete game shutout of the Orioles on May 3. Read the rest of this entry »

It looks like Roy Halladay is done — at least for a while, as he is expected to hit the disabled list with a shoulder problem — but the real question is if he is Done. He’s about to turn 36 and he’s aching in the worst body part for a pitcher. Just how bad is this news?

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Not a whole lot changes during the first month of the season. There simply haven’t been enough plate appearances yet to knock established players for poor performances, ditto boosting them due to strong performances. Injury is the biggest reason why players move from tier to tier at this point of the season. Our preseason consensus rankings can be found right here while the April tiers are right here.

Tier One
Joey Votto
Prince Fielder
Albert Pujols

How much longer do we consider Pujols an elite player? He’s off to another slow start (89 wRC+) and it’s painful just watching him run these days because of his knees and plantar fasciitis and whatever else. The homers and RBI totals are still there, but everything else is going south. Pretty scary.

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One of the most popular questions I get on Twitter is something along the lines of “Was just offered player X for player Y. Should I take it?” And I always do my best to answer, but the reality is analyzing a trade without a ton of context is really tough.

Where are you in the standings? Are you building for this year or next? Who else is on your roster? Are there other offers out there? Without answers to these questions, and quite a few others, any answer I give requires an asterisk: warning – trade advice woefully short of information. But, like I said, I still try to answer, so I thought I would provide some color on how I analyze ottoneu trades when presented without context.

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