Fantasy Baseball Tonight, June 3: Tommy Hanson Fills Tom Glavine's Spot

Tommy Hanson was called up to the major leagues after Tom Glavine was released by the Braves. Hanson will start Saturday against the Diamondbacks. 

Hanson is awesome and one of the top prospects in all of baseball. He sports a 3-3 record with a 1.49 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, and 90 strikeouts in 66 innings.  ou want him on your team regardless of how good your pitching is. This is a move I would make right away. Unless you are saving your waiver priority for the chance that Stephen Strasburg might come to the majors this year, I would use it on Hanson.

Nate McLouth has been traded to the Atlanta Braves for three prospects: pitchers Charlie Morton and Jeff Locke as well as outfielder Gorkys Hernandez. This might give McLouth’s value a little bit of a bump since he goes to a better team and a better lineup, but it shouldn’t do a whole lot for him. It is interesting news, but as far as fantasy is concerned, it doesn’t move the needle much in my opinion.

The news might not help McLouth much, but it does help Pirates prospect Andrew McCutchen. NMcCutchen has some great speed potential, and even should show some power in the future. He should give you 10-15 homers for the rest of the season, and could steal around 25 bases if he hits for the average that he projects for. I wouldn’t go running to the free agent wire for McCutchen, but if he has a good day or two or three, I would then make the move.

At Triple-A this year, he was hitting .303 with four homers, 20 RBI, and 10 steals in just 49 games. He was ranked as the second best prospect in the Pirates’ organization by Baseball America.

Gordon Beckham was called to the major leagues, and for those of you who own Josh Fields, I would be very nervous. Beckham was rated as the number one prospect for the White Sox and has some good power potential down the road.

He never really spent too much time at any level of the minors to get a good grasp on what he might do, but he had a great college career.  His senior season he hit .411 with 28 homers and 77 RBI in just 71 games. He also stole 17 bases. 

He is another guy who I wouldn’t go running out to grab unless it is a keeper league. I’m not sure exactly how much playing time he will get, or how effective he will be.  Beckham has elite talent, it is just a matter of time before he realizes it.

Chien-Ming Wang will be back in the Yankees’ rotation tomorrow. In a shocking turn of events, Phil Hughes will be sent to the bullpen, while Wang gets his rotation spot back. 

Personally, I don’t know how smart of a move this is, and I wouldn’t go grabbing Wang back at this point. Wang hasn’t pitched more than a couple innings in a while, and he isn’t going to go out there and throw seven innings. It will be a few weeks before he goes back to being relevant in fantasy—if he even gets back there. Don’t forget his ERA was 34.50 before his "injury."

Jose Reyes won’t be returning to the Mets’ lineup on Friday. He felt a twinge in his injured calf during an extended spring training game and had to be removed. Manager Jerry Manuel didn’t seem to be too worried about it. He said that he expected Reyes to be back sometime over the weekend, or at worst when the Phillies came to Citi Field. So, you have to wait a few more days to get your shortstop back.

Scott Feldman is now 5-0 for the Rangers and hasn’t allowed more than three runs in any of his starts this season. I don’t have long term faith in Feldman, but he is off to a great start. He was a sub-.500 pitcher with an ERA over 5.00 last season, so I just don’t see this hot streak continuing. He might be worth picking up against a bad team, but mostly, he isn’t worth much.

Major Announcement

I would like to let you all know that in the near future you won’t be getting your daily fantasy update from Fighting Chance Fantasy. I have agreed to team up with my podcast mates over at Fantasy Baseball Search.

Todd Farino, Jeff Mans, RC Rizza, myself, and the guys are forming a formidable team. I am not abandoning you, but making the coverage better.

Over the next couple of weeks I will be transitioning the site over to its new home at www.fantasybaseballtonight.com. I have already started to post on that page, so feel free to start heading there whenever you want.

We are still in the process of doing some work, but your nightly fix will be there. 

You will see improved features, more professional emails, and better coverage. You can find a plethora of information at Fantasy Baseball Search from me and the guys, but Fantasy Baseball Tonight will just be me and links to the podcast. 

The email address will slightly change to [e-mail], but I will continue to check both for quite a while. 

I am very excited about this change, and I believe that it will be great. 

Mailing List

For those of you who are regular readers, or even new to the site, I would like to offer a new service. I am starting a mailing list.  Sometimes I see news during the day, but I wait until this nightly article to pass it along to you guys. Prospects coming up, injury news, closer movement, etc. 

Just send me an email at [e-mail] with "Mailing List" in the subject line and I will add you to the list. Whenever I find news that I feel is breaking and important, I will send it to you as soon as I find out about it. Hopefully this is something that you all will find valuable to make a possible move before your competition.

Also, you can now follow me on Twitter for more updates. Go to www.twitter.com/fightingchance.

Got another mention on Steve Gardner’s Fantasy Windup blog on the USA Today site.  You can check out the post here. It is a great blog, and they also have some good contests for you to check out. I know some of you have already started to participate  and are enjoying it.

Attention League Commissioners!  If you are looking to spice up your league, visit Fantasy Sports Trophies. Tom Harkins has put together a great site with all kinds of different trophies to give the winner of your league something besides just bragging rights. There are trophies for fantasy baseball, football (check out the Beer League Fantasy Football Trophy), basketball, hockey, and auto racing.

As always, your comments and questions are welcome at [e-mail]. I guarantee a response within 18 hours. Also, don’t miss the “Fantasy Baseball Tonight” podcast four nights a week from Monday-Thursday.

The Big Show on Wednesday is co-hosted by Todd Farino of fantasybaseballsearch.com, RC Rizza of junkyardjake.com and myself, Ryan Hallam at fightingchancefantasy.com. To hear the show go to www.blogtalkradio.com/the_true_guru.  Join me with Jeff Mans every Tuesday night at 10 p.m. EST for all the the info and craziness we can pack into one hour. A can’t miss if you plan on winning your league.