Roto Riteup: April 27th, 2012

In order to one-up Zach, I bring you 5, yes five bullet points today for the Roto Riteup today:

• Now to add to Zach’s Roto Riteup yesterday, after Carl Crawford visited Dr. James Andrews it was discovered that Crawford has a sprained ulnar collateral ligament. His recovery is supposed to be played out in phases, and phase one is a suspension of all baseball related activities. A possible 3 month downtime was discussed, but Crawford maintains that he’ll be back sooner than that. Boston fans and fantasy owners are most assuredly upset and frustrated at Crawford for his struggles last year and injury this year. I was optimistic of his ability to bounce-back, but a quality 2012 bounce-back is looking less and less likely. Expect his ranking to plummet on Monday.

• Ryan Zimmerman missed yesterday’s start. It has now been six days (probably seven today) since he saw any game action. He’s been held out of the lineup due to shoulder inflammation, specifically in his throwing AC joint. The most likely scenario at this point is a cortisone shot and a DL stint retroactive to April 20th. After missing most of April and all of May of last season with an abdomen injury, Zimmerman still can’t quite shake the injury bug. If you can find the (potentially) disgruntled Zimmerman owner in your league, I would e-mail them an offer. When healthy, Zimmerman is a top three third basemen.

• It appears as though Lorenzo Cain suffered a setback in his rehab start yesterday. There were hopes of Cain returning to action today, but it is being assumed that the middle of May is now a much more realistic and likely return date. A bit of a savvy pre-draft sleeper, Cain hasn’t played – or hit – much at all so far this season.

• There is a potential closer controversy brewing down in Miami. Heath Bell blew his third save of the young season last night. His ERA currently sits at 7.20 though his advanced metrics are a touch kinder, with his FIP and xFIP weighing in at 5.30 and 4.88 respectively. Bell’s BB/9 is an all time high and so is his HR/9. Walks and homers tend to lead to a lot of blown saves, and it appears as though Bell is another victim of that recipe for a disaster. His velocity is fine, but his SwStr% is at an all time low and his F-Strike% is at it’s lowest mark since 2008. I don’t expect Ozzie to name anyone else the new closer, but with Ozzie, you never know. I’d keep a close eye on the closer situation down in Miami. If someone new is named, I would expect it to be Steve Cishek.

• Staying in Miami, Omar Infante is currently crushing the baseball. His 194 wRC+ is tied for 9th (minimum 40 PA) in all of baseball despite a .250 BABIP. Infante only has 15 total hits but five of those hits have cleared the fences. He also have four doubles and one triple. Do the math. All but five of his hits thus far have been of the extra base variety. I can’t reasonably expect this .750 SLG to continue, but given that he owned in only 63% of Yahoo! leagues it is possible that his hot start has been over-shadowed.

For those of you brave and fun enough to play FanGraphs: The Game, I present you with several players of interest.

A Pitcher For Today: Brandon McCarthy (OAK) at BAL
McCarthy is throwing a first pitch strike two-thirds of the time so far in 2012. He allows less than two BB/9. The Orioles strike out at the 8th highest frequency. The O’s draw walks at the 5th lowest rate. I really like this match-up for McCarthy.

A Pitcher For Tomorrow: Brandon Morrow (TOR) vs SEA
To be honest, Seattle and San Diego (along with the A’s and Pirates) are generally my go-to stream options. I expect for this to be the game where Morrow rediscovers his strikeouts.

A Hitter For Today: Albert Pujols (LAA) at CLE (Jeanmar Gomez)
I have a good feeling about Pujols hitting his first home run of the season tomorrow.