Fantasy Cincinnati

Jay Bruce has taken the baseball world by storm. He is hitting .450 plus, with three home runs, 11 RBI and a 1.5 K/BB rate plus two stolen bases. In 46 at bats. So, more or less, the only way he could be more perfect is if he understands the importance of certain statistical evaluations. And, of course, he does.

No surprise, Bruce is getting the last laugh. Heading into this season, in many circles he was considered baseball's best positional prospect. Yet, a start that included 16 hits in 30 at-bats is an attention grabber, no matter what the expectation.

Asked to explain his Red-hot start, Bruce said simply "Sample size."

Picture me blushing in awkward man-love admiration. Because that's, um, not what I am doing. Anytime a baseball player starts talking about BABIP or sample sizes it is awesome to find out that we have, as dak at FJM said, a "dude who gets it" on our hands.

Perhaps the best irony -- and maybe I am stretching it by wanting to think that Bruce believes nerdilicous statistical evaluations -- is that he has Dusty Baker as a manager. And Dusty does stats like Charlie does surf. Or Bruce does slump.

Fantasy Spin: Keeper leagues all hold on as tightly as possible to Bruce. Seasonal leagues may want to consider selling because, as you can see above, even Bruce knows this pace can't continue. And right now, you can get a pretty sickner bounty for him.

If you are in a single season fantasy league, there is absolutely zero reason you should not be trying to sell high on Edinson Volquez right now. Okay, actually, there are actually a few reasons why you don't want to move him. His sparkling ERA (1.12), coupled with his six wins (tied for second in the bigs) and 57 K's in 48 innings have made him a valuable fantasy commodity.

But, as is often the case, things are not all that they seem. Reality tells us that there are several factors working against Volquez' current success, and that makes him a superb sell high option.

First, his stats. A 1.12 ERA and a 10.61 K/9 ratio are wonderful. But there are some other mitigating factors to those numbers. His WHIP (1.26) is actually higher than his ERA. That's not obscenely shocking, but it does indicate some luck. As does his ERA when compared to his 4.84 BB/9.

Both of those numbers tell us that he is frequently allowing baserunners, but not letting them score. And that checks out perfectly with his 90.8 strand rate, 20% above the big league norm. In other words, some of these guys getting on base are going to start scoring more frequently.

Fantasy Felony tells you how to melt other owners' faces via swindling them in trades.

Aaron Harang is a bonafide upper-echelon fantasy pitcher, and when owners get through the first week of May with a 1-5 pitcher whom they landed in the early rounds ... well, they start to get angry and impatient. A desperate, disillusioned owner is a vulnerable owner in the trade market, so it's time to swoop in. Pull all your usual smooth-talking tricks. You don't have to pull a George Costanza ("do that thing you do, where you lie to everybody," says Jerry), but you can allow emphasis on cons while conveniently forgetting about the pros if the owner is complaining.

As I said, he's 1-5. His team sucks, and the run support he's receiving is embarrassing. After Tuesday night's eighth outing, Harang had surrendered 19 earned runs, while his team had only scored 23 (five of which were in one game which happened to be his only bad outing, so you can see there's bad luck at play as well).

Bet on the luck changing -- thus altering his record positively -- and everything else to remain the same.

Okay, okay. "Old and busted" is probably a bit excessive. But Johnny Cueto is certainly not the "new hotness" any more. That title, friends, belongs to Max Scherzer. You may have seen me post about him once or twice. Anyway, the point of recognizing the huge schism between the two right now is that it shows just how ridiculous hype gets in fantasy baseball leagues.

No less than two weeks ago, Cueto was the new Pedro Martinez, only in his prime and with faster, better stuff. And now, Cueto is getting dropped from fantasy teams left and right after giving up six earned runs in less than two innings this week.

All of this while Scherzer, who threw four plus perfect innings and got inserted into the rotation, is being added at "record" pace. I use the quotes because this is what happens with baller young pitchers when they get called up. The importance here, is to recognize the importance of selling high on these kids. If you go look at any "recent trades involving" lists on Scherzer, you'll see people like Johan Santana and Ryan Howard on the other side. And that's just ridiculous.

But the exact same thing was happening with Cueto a few weeks ago. Scherzer is going to be a dominant pitcher. And he is going to strike a ton of guys out. But the Diamondbacks are very much interested in the future of their organization. And Doug Davis is going to return. In other words, his rotation job and innings aren't guaranteed. But upside blinded owners don't see that.

When Dusty Baker announced his impending reign of terror, he did so with great authority. He mandated that Joey Votto stop looking at so many pitches (even if they were bad) and he immediately sent top prospect and future of the organization Jay Bruce back down to Triple-A. Understandable, certainly, because Dusty had Corey Patterson on his roster.

Yes, by "understandable", I do in fact mean "certifiably and irrationally stupid". Bruce was the consensus number one prospect in all of baseball in 2007 and seemed nearly assured of the starting centerfield job in Cincy. Anyway, I hate to be overtly optimistic, much less to trust the mad (cow disease ridden?) brain of Mr. Baker, but I think there's a pretty good chance we see Bruce back in a Reds uniform within the next few weeks.

Why? Because Corey Patterson stinks, that's why. Yes, he started off hot, but as my good friend Mr. Greber pointed out in a new series of articles today, so did Chris Shelton. Now, he's batting .183 and not clogging up the bases to the tune of a .254 OBP. Congratulations, everyone. (The insane thing is that he has four home runs. Just weird.)

Bruce, meanwhile, is putting up numbers (.333/.348/.561) with three home runs and four stolen bases in just 16 games at Louisville. The best part, Dusty? Only two walks. That's right. You don't even have to tell him to swing more! Look, the point of all this Dusty-dogging and Patterson-bashing isn't to point out how silly the Reds organization was for signing him to coach the team (not entirely anyway).

The point is to tell you, the fantasy owner, what a steal you could be getting on Jay Bruce right now. The kid is a masher, he's ready for the majors and sooner or later, Dusty is going to have to cave and let him on the field at the major league level. You either need to a) pick him up and stash him now or b) make a play for him from another owner before it's too late. Bruce is the future, and if there's anything the Reds should learn from the way Votto, Johnny Cueto and Edison Volquez are currently playing, it's that the future is now.

Carson Palmer says he's feeling great and ready to have a big year for the Bengals in the upcoming season.

"It's comforting to know that I am confident in my knee and it can withstand whatever is thrown at it," said Palmer, who looked sharp in his first 2007 training camp practice Friday. "I don't have to worry about the rehab and all the stuff I had to worry about last year."

Palmer has always had a close relationship with Chad Johnson, but this off-season, he scheduled off-season workouts with TJ Houshmandzadeh and Tab Perry. He also stumped for the team to re-sign free agents TE Reggie Kelly and RB Kenny Watson. He's not just the go-to guy on the field, but the go-to guy in the locker room. And as for his knee?

"It's the first day and I've already had 15 questions on my knee. But I'm hoping those are just first-day questions and they'll be gone tomorrow. It's just good to be healthy and in shape and not worried about what's going to happen."

The Jungle ... and your fantasy squad ... could see quite a few huge days from ol' #9 this season.

Major League Mongering will look at players rumored to be on the move between now and the July 31st pseudo-trade-deadline.

The Braves are in second place and bearing down on the Mets despite a rotation that's giving lots of starts to Buddy Carlyle, Kyle Davies, Chuck James, Andrew Lerew, and Jo-Jo Reyes. It's all very un-Braves-like if you ask me. While most of those guys haven't been awful, it's pretty safe to assume that the Braves would like to add a veteran arm to solidify that rotation before the July 31st deadline.

Buster Olney wrote in his blog yesterday that a rumor was passed his way that the Braves were inquiring about Cincinnati starter Bronson Arroyo (Olney link is Insider only, sorry). Arroyo would be a guy that would make a lot of sense for the Braves. He eats up innings like crazy and he's got plenty of experience in pressure packed post-season pitching, having been with the Red Sox from 2003-2005. Add in the fact that he's had a pretty poor first half and the Braves may be able to prod Cincy to sell low on him, and you've got yourself the making of a deadline deal.