Fantasy Phoenix

Brandon Webb is still on pace for 23 wins, which is absolutely ridiculous, considering he's scuffled his way to losses in four of his last seven starts. Obviously he wasn't going to go 118-0, or whatever he started out heading towards, but he should still have a really good, Cy-Young-worthy season.

And it seems, based on what Webb is saying, that he could be due for a drastic improvement, now that negotiations for a contract extension have been called off. Because these negotiations, which have been going on since Spring Training, were clearly just killing him.

'It's off my mind now,' Webb said. 'It's not something I'm thinking about. I'm just going to go out there and pitch; we're still talking about 2 1/2 years here. Yeah, I was very disappointed that we didn't get it done, but I'm moving on from that. I've got a responsibility to pitch for these guys in here and for the fans.'

Yes. Yes, you do, Brandon. And you also have a responsibility to get my fantasy team off the schnide. I tend to side with Bob Melvin on this one when he points out that "it's not like he hasn't pitched in games with that out there" already this year.

I understand the point that continued discussion of the extension finally just wore on him, but come on. It seems like a pretty feeble excuse.

Fantasy Spin: Webb is actually a pretty good buy low right now. There has been discussion about his "dead arm" and his continued struggles over the past four starts might make his owner think injury. Now there's a possibility that there is an injury, but Webb has too much upside not to make him worth the risk.

One has to imagine that Micah Owings and the Arizona Diamondbacks take umbrage to Hank Steinbrenner's ludicrous rants about the National League needing to "grow up" and embrace the Designated Hitter rule.

After all, Owings has a career batting average of .302 and a career OPS of .890. Sure it's only 102 at bats, but he's also got five homers. All of which have garnered some really ridiculous comparisons, and maybe landed him a spot as the Snakes DH during interleague play.

"It's always an option," Melvin said.

Known just as much for his work with the bat, last season Owings won the Silver Slugger Award at the pitcher's position. Owings has slumped at the plate recently, but still owns a .302 career batting average with five homers and 18 RBIs in 102 at-bats.

"It's just not his best stretch going for him," Melvin said. "We'll monitor it going forward."

Yeah, what are you gonna do when one of your pitchers, who bats generally every fifth day, is in a slump. And how do you even know it's a slump with that much time off -- the guy's not supposed to be taterjackin' every time he gets to the plate.

Philadelphia Eagles running back Brian Westbrook made one of the strangest plays of the NFL season when he took a handoff against the Dallas Cowboys, broke into the clear, raced toward the end zone -- and stopped at the 1-yard line.

The Eagles had a four-point lead just before the two-minute warning at the time, the Cowboys were out of timeouts, and after Westbrook's play Philadelphia could just run out the clock with three straight kneeldowns.

Eagles coach Andy Reid praised Westbrook, but not everyone did. Take Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, who approached Westbrook at the Pro Bowl and told him, "You ruined my fantasy football team."

Yes, NFL players do play fantasy football, and as Adam Rank of NFL.com writes, Fitzgerald was among the thousands of fantasy football players who were disappointed when Westbrook took away some easy fantasy points for a silly reason like managing the clock late in a close game.

Westbrook's play might have been the most memorable in the history of fantasy football, and Fitzgerald is one of the many fantasy players who was still thinking about it long after the season ended.

That's right, Mr. Diamondback fan, you can leave Mr. Cub fan out on the ledge and step on inside. It would seem, at second glance, that Brandon Webb is going to be just fine. We hope. At least it does not seem like the line drive he took off the sternum is going to be the problem.

"He felt it a little bit, but at that point, the way we had been riding him, I didn't want to run him out there for two more innings and get his pitch counts up," Melvin said. "Innings-wise he's pitched quite a bit for us. Just wanted to give him a little blow."

Melvin pulled Webb (likely "just being cautious" as Mullet said) after he took a "line drive off his belt in the fifth."

Good for freaking you, Bob Melvin. Now, which session of your Managing for Dummies Summer School do you have Ned Yost signed up for again?

Because, really, the sooner the better for him. But despite solid bench work, there's still something a little troubling about the decision, if only because it unveils some potential arm issues.

Webb said his velocity has been down in recent starts and allowed for the possibility that he might be experiencing a "dead arm," in which everything feels healthy and sound but the ball doesn't come out of his hand in the usual manner.

"Yeah, it doesn't hurt," he said. "Maybe a dead-arm period or something like that. Like I said, it doesn't hurt, so it's tough to tell. Everything feels good."

Now for all my medical wisdom, I believe that "dead arm" is not something other than just being tired, no? Which means a little extra rest should actually prevent further injury. So consider the non-fatal liner actually a good thing.

The news that Doug Davis is set to return to the Arizona rotation on Friday, is one of the best baseball stories of the year. It is alsowhy you sell high on your fake baseball teams (Max Scherzer is the odd man here).

Of course, Scherzer is still talented and will most likely get a look in the rotation at some point, but for now, he is most likely bullpen bound (although he could be headed to AAA). And he is headed that way because Davis is making a return from a battle against cancer.

'I definitely feel like I'm ready to come back and help out,' Davis said.

Davis threw 94 pitches in his second and final rehab start Sunday for Triple-A Tucson, allowing two runs in five innings and coming away with a feel for all his pitches.

'Everything went good,' he said. 'My cutter was there, my curveball, my change-up.'

Melvin said Davis would replace rookie Max Scherzer in the rotation. But with the official transaction a few days away, Melvin wouldn't tip his hand as to whose spot Davis would take on the roster.

There is little question that putting Davis in and pulling Scherzer out is the right move; Arizona already knows Mad Max is on a season long pitch count. The question is whether they want to keep him in the 'pen or attempt to groom him further as a starter in Tuscon.

Nick Pierco and the AZ Republic got Inside Edge to pass along a scouting report from Max Scherzer's horrific start against the Philadelphia Phillies, and well, it's pretty freaking telling, in terms of figuring out why he struggled so badly. As Pierco points out (and I wholeheartedly agree) it was the lack of any offspeed stuff that really killed Scherzer's ability to dominate.

You can scope the report card here for yourself, but he's right -- the biggest factor out of everything you see on here is that 71% of his fastballs were thrown for strikes while only 39% of the offspeed stuff crossed the plate. Which means that the Phillies did a pretty outstanding job of scouting him. It doesn't mean that Scherzer can't be dominant, but it does prove the point that no one is going to get big league hitters out with just a fastball.

The other interesting thing is that 71% (an A+) of his 2-0, 2-1 and 3-0 counts ended in an out. That would seem to be good, until you realize that the Philadelphia hitters were more or less under strict order to not touch anything that wasn't a fastball, leading to Scherzer getting behind in counts. Which led to fastballs when he was behind. Which led to contact. Some of them (just a shade under 3/4, in fact) ended up as outs.

What it basically boils down to is that Scherzer has to develop better off speed stuff; you better believe there are plenty of major league teams who got an eyefull of what the Phillies did to him.

Fantasy Spin: I'm still starting him for his next start, because of my stupid weekly lineups. It's against the Cubs who have been raking and while he could pile up K's, he could also punish your ratios. H2H leagues should keep an eye out heading into the weekend to make the call.

Even though the Phillies are a potent offensive team, there was the general expectation among baseball fans that Max Scherzer, he of the four no-hit innings relief debut, would be able to hold them down and rack up some strikeouts. Not the case, as Scherzer got rim-rocked last night over four innings for seven hits, two earned (might become five) runs, two walks, one hit batsman. He did strike out five batters tough.

But Nick Piecoro makes a fantastic point in his AZ Republic blog today about a young flamethrower's ability to dominate, if he doesn't have his best stuff.

It looked to me like his fastball command wasn't quite as good as the other night and his off-speed stuff didn't have the same bite. I missed a few pitches, but from my count he threw about 20 off-speed pitches out of 92 total pitches, and elicited only a handful of swings.

It looked to me like he wasn't throwing the off-speed stuff for strikes and the Phillies were taking it and sitting on the fastball. And basically, no matter how good someone's fastball is, major league hitters can catch up to it.

And that's just a straight-up baseball truth. You can throw a 100 mph fastball all day, but unless you have another pitch that can give hitters trouble, it's just going to be leaving the park that much faster.

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.

Holy. Hype. Machine. Max Scherzer, who was absolutely filthy in his first stretch of MLB pitching (four innings of no hit ball, seven strikeouts) last night while starter Edgar Gonzalez got absolutely shell-shocked.

Manager Bob Melvin and Josh Byrnes, the team's general manager, met just after the D-backs lost, 6-4, to the Astros and made the decision.

"It was a very short meeting," Melvin said on Wednesday only hours before his club closed its three-game series against Houston.

Melvin pointed out that Doug Davis would be returning soon, so there was no guarantee how long he Scherzer would be in the rotation. It's hard to believe that if the kid continues to pitch like he did last night -- or anywhere in the immortal realm of what he was slinging anyway -- that they will pull him from the starting five. On the other hand, the Backs have shown how good they are at youth development over the past few years, so I'm going to just trust Byrnes implicitly on this one. Either way, do what you need to in order to see this kid pitch.

Fantasy Spin: Add, add, add. If you can get your hands on Scherzer, you pick him up immediately. If he's not available in your league, you put a waiver claim in for him when he clears. (May 2 is the date I believe in Yahoo! leagues.) And I've mentioned this before, but it merits repeating: if you can swing a stud for Scherzer, and it's highly likely that you can, make sure you do it. The guy is going to be great, but there's no guarantee on his production. If you'd like to know what is considered a good deal for him or not, hit up the Fantasy FanHouse crew via email.

I've already mentioned Max Scherzer twice within the past two weeks. And I have already been ridiculed by another owner in one of many fantasy leagues because I have "never seen someone yet to throw a pitch in the majors that I didn't love." Fair enough. I mancrush on high strikeout prospects. But this list has included Johan Santana, Francisco Liriano, Cole Hamels and Yovani Gallardo. And now it includes Max Scherzer.

The freaky-eyed (seriously, one is like black and one is blue) Arizona number one draft pick made his major league debut Tuesday night ... and pardon my French, but damn. Edgar Gonzalez, possibly fearing for the life of his rotation spot, lasted only 2.2 innings before he gave up six earned runs on eight hits and two walks.

Scherzer was brought up for extended relief and that's exactly what he did, pitching 4.1 perfect innings, striking out seven of the 13 batters that he faced on an insanely scant 46 pitches.

Look, Scherzer might not do that every time. In fact, he probably (definitely?) won't. But he has a good shot at getting a rotation spot with the Diamondbacks for the duration of the season.

In the realm of real baseball, he is a tremendous young addition to an already tremendous young team. In the realm of fantasy, if he is available, you want to grab him immediately. If you already have him, you probably want to think about shopping him. I know, I know. It contradicts what I just said, but the hype machine is going to be out of freaking control, and if you can pull a stud pitcher or hitter for him with a proven major league track record, then you end up winning that deal 90% of the time.