The Colorado Rockies would surely not have won 16 of 17 games and have arrived Friday morning in Denver with a 2-0 NLDS lead over the Phillies without an explosive offense (which scored an NL-best 172 runs in September) led by outfielder Matt Holliday and a surprisingly effective, bend-but-don't-break rotation headed by lefty Jeff Francis. But equally key to the Rockies' late-season surge, if far less heralded, has been the performance of the bullpen, which on Thursday turned in the latest in a growing string of fine performances, holding the mighty Phillies to one earned run and five hits in six innings.
A week ago two of the players featured in this week's Who's He were playing in Triple-A waiting for an opportunity to get a shot at the big leagues. Now, through some pre-deadline deals that cleared out the veterans ahead of them, not only are they in the majors, but they're everyday starters and should be for the rest of the season. So it goes for the ever-changing world of fantasy baseball.
As Major League Baseball does its best to honor Barry Bonds this week when he finally passes Hank Aaron as the all-time home run leader -- whether we like it or not -- it's appropriate at this time to take a quick look at this year's home run leaders to see if there were any surprises. To be truthful, most of the Top 50 home run hitters as of this week were predictable, but there were a few sluggers we didn't see coming.
It's a good thing to have a free-agent-to-be on your fantasy team. At least that's the conventional wisdom. Guys in their walk years have a lot of incentive to play hard, to play through pain and to compile statistics. Think about Alfonso Soriano hitting 46 homers in a pitcher's park in Washington last year. Think about Carlos Beltran three years ago parlaying a playoff surge into major bucks. Not everyone has a great season in a walk year, however. The pressure can get to you. Also, free agents are always veterans, so age and nature can take its course at a financially inconvenient time. Let's examine the hitters this week and see which free-agents-to-be are performing above their career levels.
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