Roto Baseball Guru

So the weekly hot hitter stats are up on the main site, and while updating those stats I was pleasantly surprised to see the Blue Jays own Alex Rios at the top of the list.  Alex has been tearing it up since the all-star break, hitting more home runs (a total of four) in the past week than he did in the entire first half.  It’s a bit sad if you think about it, but it’s really part and parcel with the pathetic Jays offense this year.  Viewing from a glass half full perspective, it’s good to see Alex starting to pick things up … it’s long overdue.  However I’m not holding my breath that he’ll keep this going.  I’m still kicking J.P. Ricciardi for the fact that he didn’t trade Rios for the current leading NL Cy Young candidate, Tim Lincecum.  Hindsight is 20/20 but that would have been a sweet trade … you can never have enough quality pitching!

On another note, when I was reviewing the weekly top hitters from the past month to look for any trends, it became apparent to me how quickly a player rotates in and out of a hot streak on a weekly basis.  Over the past 4 weeks, only 2 players were able to make it to the Top Ten list more than once.  Can you guess who they were?

If you guessed the usual suspects such as: Alex Rodriguez, Hanley Ramirez, Jose Reyes, Albert Pujols or even Josh Hamilton, you would be incorrect.  No, instead of these fantasy household names the two players that have earned this prestigious distinction are:

Ryan Braun (Mil - 3B,OF) - Ranked #2, Week of July 20-26 and Ranked #8, Week of July 6-12
Matt Holliday (Col - OF) - Ranked #3, Week of July 20-26 and Ranked #1, Week of June 29-July 5

What does that tell you?  One thing is that picking up the hottest player of the week doesn’t necessarily equate to that same player staying hot for the next week.  More often than not, that player will fall out of the Top 10 the following week.  The other is that baseball is a long season, and any metric at a specific point in time is not enough to make a good fantasy player evaluation decision.  It’s really a good mix following the latest news, as well as the weekly stats that will help you find that next hot fantasy gem.

Remember that you can always get the weekly top hitter stats for the fantasy baseball source: www.rotobaseballguru.com

Sometimes it takes a little controversy to light a fire under a team.  Case and point, take recent comments given by J.P. Ricciardi about the status of the Blue Jays.  With the team dwelling in the basement of the American League East, by far the most competitive division in baseball, Ricciardi all but threw in the towel and admitted that the post season hopes for this year have been flushed down the toilet.  From a certain perspective, I guess it’s a bit refreshing to hear him being so brutally honest and admit to something that anybody with any reasonable grasp of reality knows already … the Jays STINK and are not going anywhere anytime soon.

However, albeit for myself, J.P. or any reasonable Jays fan to call it a year already for this team … there’s still almost half a year left to play, and anything can happen, right?  Well whether it’s because of positive thoughts like that which have inspired their play of late, or the recent comments from J.P. above, the Blue Jays have been playing entertaining baseball.

I was just watching them pull off another walk off victory, scoring 2 runs in the bottom of the ninth of Baltimore All-Star closer, George Sherrill.  And let me tell you, there was that feeling in the air that they were going to do it … aggressively going after the first pitch strike and hitting the ball hard for a base hit.  This was the second time in 3 days that they have come back in the ninth for a walk off victory.  The number of times they did that before Ricciardi’s comments?  Big fat ZERO.  Sign of things to come … probably not, however, I’ll ride the bandwagon until it breaks down … and at the very least, have some enjoyable baseball to watch.  Amen to that.

Get the scoop on fantasy baseball here: www.rotobaseballguru.com