The fantasy focus of this deal is of course that Lee is going to a better team with infinitely better run support.  Even with very little help from his offense, Lee has been as dominant as expected, going 8-3 with a 2.34 earned run average and now he has the added bonus of not having to pitch a shutout every time he takes to the mound.  There might be a slight upswing in Lee’s ERA now that his home games will take place in what is considered a hitter’s park but Lee did pretty well in Philadelphia which is basically a bandbox.

As far as how much this effects Lee’s value considering he was almost a Yankee?  Both the Yankees and Rangers are in first place and both have a pretty good offense.  From a purely fantasy numbers wise approach, this move is pretty much identical to being traded to the Yanks.

The move isn’t official as of yet, but when the pitcher who is being traded, says his general manager told him he was traded, that’s about as close to official as you can get.

It’s days like this that I really love my job.  I turn on the television, and fire up the ole laptop preparing to search for a topic to write about, and the search takes exactly 30 seconds.  What a weird and whacky end to the work week.

Let’s start with the first game of the day.  What a long strange trip it’s been for the Chicago Cubs’ Carlos Zambrano.  From end of the bullpen guy, to best number three starter in all of baseball to ace, to just opening day starter, to eighth inning guy, back to starter, and now to…..former Cub?  From a fantasy standpoint, if you had Carlos Zambrano on your team you were either a hopeless Cubs fan desperate to see Zambrano recapture his dominance, or in an incredibly deep league.  Zambrano has not been a fantasy producer this season.  He was moved to the pen after a couple of pretty bad starts and one pretty good one and was brought back to rotation earlier this month.

Anyone who thinks that’s a recipe for success is fooling themselves.  Zambrano apparently wanted to make sure you understood just how bad a this season has gone by serving up four runs in the first inning of Friday afternoon’s game.  Of course that wasn’t the real story.  Zambrano only pitched one inning because after the inning ended…..he lost his damn mind.  Coming off the field Zambrano began screaming at…..everyone but Cubs first baseman Derek Lee apparently heard something that made him think the tirade was aimed at him and fired back, starting with STFU and other profanities.  Zambrano was sent home, and has been indefinitely suspended.  I think his days with the Cubs are over, and manager Lou Pineilla doesn’t seem to disagree.  When asked in the post game whether Zambrano’s days in a Cubs uniform was over, Lou responded “that’s not up to me”.  Hardly a ringing endorsement for your opening day starter.  A manager who wanted Zambrano to stay on the club would probably have said something along the lines of “I don’t think so, I want him on this team.”

So the bottom line is, if you still have Zambrano on your fantasy roster, DUMP HIM! DUMP HIM NOW!  He’s done playing for the Cubs, and I think right now he’s radioactive.  He’s the Milton Bradley of pitchers at the moment and I think he’s going to need to sit out the season before another Major League club is willing to take him.  Don’t believe me?  Watch the video of his meltdown today, and the remind yourself this is not the first time almost this exact same thing has happened.
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However, Zambrano’s insanity is only half the story for Friday.  If Carlos is what was wrong with baseball on Friday, then Edwin Jackson was almost assuredly what was right with the game.  It’s not very often that the phrase “effectively wild” is applied so aptly.  Jackson walked eight Tampa Bay Rays en route to a 149 pitch no-hitter.  It was the second no-hitter in Arizona Diamonbacks history and oddly, the third time the Rays have been no hit in the last year.

To say no one saw this coming from Jackson is an understatement.  With the win Jackson improves to 5-6 and lowers his earned run average to 4.63 on the season.  Even in the start that Jackson will remember for the rest of his life, he walked more than he struck out (6).  For those wondering whether this means you should snap up Jackson in your fantasy leagues?  He’s probably out there, however, as I already said his season has been pretty bad coming into tonight.  After throwing 149 pitches it’s a pretty good bet his next start will be pretty bad.  Hell, Diamondbacks manager AJ Hinch might have effectively ended Jackson’s season in order to get the no-hitter.  Whether that’s the kind of trade-off Jackson would be more than willing to make, considering just how bad the Diamondbacks are is up for debate.