What's a fantasy owner to do? In the latter case, go get Chris Duncan if your leaguemates haven't beat you to it. Duncan has shown he can hit pretty well and he's going to get a lot of at bats while Pujols heals. However, I'll go out on a limb here and say that it's V-Mart's injury that will have the biggest fantasy impact. Why is that? Because paying for a catcher is a deliberate strategy in fantasy baseball -- you either pay for that position or wait and pick someone else up on the cheap (I'm a huge believer in the latter strategy, for what it's worth). Owners of Martinez have suffered through a season where he hasn't swatted a single homerun, so they've been suffering for a while now. They may well have found a replacement that they've stashed on their bench, but it's hard to believe that the makeup of their overall team isn't somewhat worse as a result of taking Martinez in their draft or auction. According to Mock Draft Central, Martinez was taken on average with the 28th pick. Assuming a 12-team league, that means players taken from 29 to 44 were all gone before that team's next pick. Take a look at some of those names and wonder if your team would have been better: Magglio Ordonez, Brian Roberts, Brandon Webb, Manny Ramirez, Derrek Lee, Bobby Abreu, and Nick Markakis.  Taken just before Martinez, on average, but certainly after him in many drafts, were names like Lance Berkman, Ichiro Suzuki, and Vladmir Guerrero.

Meanwhile, guys like Geovany Soto (156), Bengie Molina (206), and even Chris Snyder (289) have been perfectly good options this year, far better than Martinez.  There are very few sure things in fantasy baseball, and the catching position isn't one of them. That's all I'm saying.

I wrote a little bit about Top Chef last week, and I have to say that I was a bit underwhelmed by the finale. I'm pretty happy with Stephanie winning, but I really was looking forward to Richard stealing the show with his creativity. Like Casey in the prior season, he got a little up in his own head during the finale, though. I don't think he 'choked' as he said, but when the finale meal isn't your best effort (and the third time you make "banana scallops" for dessert), it's probably not your time to win. That being said, he was somewhat of a ringer on the show in the first place. Heck, he's competed on Iron Chef America before. He'll do just fine, and it's nice to see Stephanie get the props she deserves.

On the flip side, Cedric Benson isn't getting much love at all these days. The Chicago Bears finally realized what fantasy owners had hopefully already come to understand: Ced Ben isn't very good. Two DUIs during the off-season may have finally given them the impetus they needed to pull the rip cord. Benson finds himself a free agent at a particularly bad time. Normally, owners like Al Davis would be more than willing to give a troubled but presumably talented back another chance. Not only does Davis have a guy named Darren McFadden in tow, but check out the other running backs looking for work:  Shaun Alexander, Travis Henry, and Kevin Jones.  All I'm saying is, DeShaun Foster's agent did right by getting him signed so early in the process. While I'm less than convinced that Benson invested wisely, he'd better have enough stashed away to keep him fed for awhile, at least until a few teams have suffered setbacks in their backfields.

Let's head back to the diamond for awhile, shall we? Chone Figgins was activated from the disabled list and is someone who shouldn't be given any time to bake before eating. OK, that's a very weird way of saying to activate him as soon as you can. Figgins is pure speed, and while he's working his way back from a hamstring injury, odds are good he'll start running pretty quickly. By the way, here's an interesting factoid about Figgins' name, and it's not just that "Chone" is pronounced identically to "Sean."  It's that Chone isn't his name. His full legal name is Desmond DeChone Figgins.  Now, I'd probably be making even more fun of his name if he went by DeChone instead of Chone, but what if he called himself Desmond Figgins? That's a seriously cool name, people. Players do this all the time, and sometimes it is the right call -- Jimmy Rollins would seem like an entirely different player if he was named James Rollins, or Jim Rollins. Larry Jones would probably not be the favorite player of young suburban youth everywhere if he didn't still call himself Chipper.

But I'm telling you this -- I'd root for a guy named Desmond Figgins. And don't get me started if he called himself Dez. Dez Figgins? That's a name which can't lose, people.

That's going to wrap things up for this week sitting in the Thinking Chair. Let's hope this next week proves to be a bit safer for you and your fantasy teams.

Photo Credit: ninjapoodles

Matthew Greber is thinking about making banana scallops for dessert tonight, but he’s pretty sure it still won’t impress Padma Lakshmi. When not wondering about cooking or fantasy sports, he plants his expansive rear in a chair (yes, a thinking chair) and loves to answer emails. Why not add to his fun by sending him an email or three at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ?

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