Injury news was slow side over the weekend and no pitchers were taken off the DL. I have a few updates, a 2013 SLOW leader board. With less expected later in the week, I will breakdown in detail the PAIN and HURT leader boards in my next article.

• Last week I examined Matt Cain‘s and Yu Darvish’s possible injuries. More news has become available on them.

Yu Darvish is said to just have shoulder fatigue.

Yu Darvish was examined by Dr. Keith Meister in Texas on Thursday, and the results showed nothing out of the ordinary in the right trapezius muscle. The Rangers feel Darvish is dealing simply with fatigue in the muscle and nothing more. Darvish did not even undergo an MRI. (Source)

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The king is dead. Long live the king.

That’s right, we have a new number one. For many of you, it’ll be far too late to move Albert Pujols off the top of the heap. But, given how his season went last year, and the excellence he’s shown his whole career, and his combination of contact and power, and his bad batting average on balls in play, it seemed like the good bet was on him to recapture some magic once he was healthy. Maybe the all-star break will help him, but now the mounting evidence about his decline (three-year declines in ISO and HR/FB in particular) is just too much to ignore.

The replacement top dog is not by consensus, however. It’s a pick em, so my ranking got the extra weight. It’s what the boss does in situations like this. But it is worth noticing that all four rankers had a different number one first baseman. Who’s your number one?

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It’s often said that almost anything in baseball can happen in a single month. We witnessed Yuniesky Betancourt compile a .848 OPS with six home runs and 21 RBI during the month of April, while Barry Zito began the season with 14-consecutive scoreless innings and had a 3.29 ERA in the first month.

Both players have since crashed back to reality, but their unexpected performance helps highlight the point outlined above. One month in baseball is a minuscule sample size. Literally, almost anything can happen in a single month, and when it happens to begin the season, it can fill fantasy owners with false hope and result in bandwagon-jumping at the expense of more proven commodities.

Gordon Beckham missed 47 games in April and May with a broken hamate bone in his left wrist. Since returning on June 3, he’s begun to turn heads with a .338/.361/.460 slash line and a pair of home runs. He’s quietly been the sixth-best fantasy second baseman over the last 30 days, and his .361 wOBA over the same stretch ranks eighth amongst all second baseman in the league. The fact he’s running a bit and has five stolen bases since returning from the disabled list certainly helps his fantasy rankings.

But what do we make of Beckham’s fast start? After all, we’re talking about the same guy who ranked 27th amongst second basemen last year — behind guys like Dustin Ackley, Mike Aviles and Chris Nelson. He’s also posted a measly .238/.303/.362 combined slash line over the last three seasons. Thus, for fantasy owners to discount the previous three seasons and begin to put some trust in the 26-year-old infielder, his numbers must illustrate something has changed. Something substantive in his approach or his peripheral numbers must have changed to make owners forget previous performance and place a modicum of trust in his bat.

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With all the ups and downs in the catcher position, the coloring on this table might be a surprise to some.

Yeah, until Russell Martin, nobody moves more than two spots in the rankings since our last update. Even Brian McCann only moved two spots by proving he was healthy. Jason Castro’s new batted ball profile, and all that new power? It earns him a few spots.

Evan Gattis won a job, lost it, got hurt and got healthy again, and there he is, almost in the same spot (he was 18th). He’s actually a decent argument for the consensus approach. Others may have undervalued his power, while I definitely over-projected his playing time. But now that we know more about his playing time with a healthy McCann, our rankings are closer — all of us have him around #20 — and the result is the same. Because the consensus reins in any outlier.

Between the tenth-best and twenty-best catcher, there doesn’t seem to be much difference. .260 or something, double-digit home runs… it may not sound exactly like that for each one, but it’s an approximate thing. Maybe a catcher in green in that group is more interesting than the rest just because he’s in green. Maybe it’s Alex Avila or Wilson Ramos, finally getting healthy.

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Last year across the majors and minors Brett Wallace hit 25 home runs. This year between the majors and minors he has hit 15. His ISO at triple-A was .227 and at the MLB level it’s at .235. The issue, as it always has been, is the enormous amount of strikeouts. He has struck out in 37.9% of his 87 plate appearances this season but he still has been able to amass a 99 wRC+ — despite a .222 average and .276 on base percentage.
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The demise of Tim Lincecum has been greatly exaggerated. He proved as much Saturday, tossing a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres. While Lincecum hasn’t put up vintage numbers, he’s shown big improvements from 2012. At the same time, some of the reasons for Lincecum’s 2012 struggles are still present. His velocity hasn’t improved, and his walk rate is still less than ideal. The main reason for Lincecum’s improvement has been the resurgence of his change-up.

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It is hard enough to compile a list of breakout candidates in the preseason. Usually, these lists are pretty cookie-cutter and include a swath of young hitters supposed to be on the upswing. Gee, you’re predicting a young guy to get better and perhaps breakout? Throw enough darts at the youngins and some will turn out correct. But projecting a hitter to break out over the remaining 2 1/2 months of the season is even more difficult. How much should we weight the first 3 1/2 months versus the hitter’s career? Is the hitter hiding an injury if he has been a disappointment so far? Has age caught up to him? As usual, all we could do is analyze the various metrics we have at our disposal and make educated, higher percentage play guesses.

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Today’s Roto Riteup was penned while the author watched the end of Brandon Workman’s no-hit bid.

On today’s agenda:
1. Justin Smoak and Lonnie Chisenhall
2. Matt Garza and his likely destinations

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Final Bullpen Report before most players embark on a mini-vacation. I like Mariano Rivera if you are in some sort of high-stakes “who gets the save in the all-star game” pool. Or is that just me?

• There’s been some chatter over the last week or so that Jonathan Papelbon might be one of a host of closers who could be had in a trade this month. Unfortunately for Ruben Amaro, he certainly didn’t help his value today, blowing save number five and robbing Cole Hamels owners of a ‘W’ (luckily for the Phanatic, the Phils still won in extras).

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Episode 37
Today’s episode of The Sleeper and the Bust stars yours truly and features RotoGraphs contributor Colin Zarzycki. We discuss another no-hitter and bullpens galore.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @mikepodhorzer or @enosarris on Twitter and tweet us any fantasy questions you have that we may answer on our next episode.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or via the feed.

Intro by DJ Sinton (no, contrary to popular belief, I do not moonlight as a rap star)

Approximately 39 min of joyous analysis.

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