I'm flying down to the Yahoo! Sports headquarters in Santa Monica early on Tuesday to meet up with the rest of the Yahoo! Sports fantasy writers, so I'm going to forego a lengthy lead-in this week as I literally have to get packin'.

Let's move on to our weekly trip around the diamond, starting this week with middle infielders – with the intent to give Howie Kendrick(notes) my highest endorsement. Read on …

MIDDLE INFIELD

• In most competitive fantasy leagues, Howie Kendrick is not sitting available on the waiver wire. But he is still a freebie in 27 percent of Yahoo! leagues. And considering a pedigree that includes a .360 batting average in more than 1,600 minor league at bats and a .305/13/82/64/10 roto line for his past 118 games at the major league level, that he can still be had in more than a quarter of Y! leagues is hard to fathom.

Because of injuries to Erick Aybar(notes) and Maicer Izturis(notes), Kendrick has hit leadoff of late, where he has clubbed two home runs in four

I had the pleasure of watching both of Stephen Strasburg's(notes) first two major league starts this past week. And all I can say is: believe the hype.

His fastball consistently (always) sits in the high 90s and moves like a Trac-ball, his curveball elicits wobbly knees from opposing hitters at a frequency rarely seen at the major league level and his motion is free, easy and repeatable.

We may only see another 12-14 starts from Strasburg because the Nats are looking to limit his innings, but I'd be surprised if he's not among the top half dozen starters in the Y! game for that span. I look at Adam Wainwright(notes), who is the No. 3 pitcher in the Y! game after 13 starts this season, and I can easily imagine Strasburg being as valuable over his next 13 starts – maybe the ratios will be slightly higher, but Strasburg's strikeout advantage should make up for that.

I think it's natural to want to fight the Strasburg hype machine – and I think if I was being honest, I'd admit that I was

Baseball is in full bloom. And for fantasy owners, it might not get any better than this.

We've passed the arbitration window for top prospects, and now the roto game gets to enjoy the added punch of players like Buster Posey(notes) and, come Tuesday, already mythological figures Stephen Strasburg(notes) and Michael Stanton(notes).

The 2010 amateur draft got underway on Monday, which means that we can expect the "When will the Nats promote Bryce Harper?" questions to start pouring in as soon as he launches his next 500-foot home run.

We're also just seven weeks away from the MLB trade deadline, which means plenty of juicy new rumors to chew on each day from now until the end of July.

And finally, there's still four months of the regular season remaining, so there's still hope (and time) for those struggling fantasy owners to make some bold moves and turn things around.

If you're a baseball fan that resents the steady encroachment by fantasy football as the summer progresses, this is a

Thankfully, we've reached that point in the season when teams no longer have to worry about the arbitration ramifications of calling up top prospects, and you can expect to start seeing names like Michael Stanton(notes), Stephen Strasburg(notes) and Pedro Alvarez(notes) pop up in MLB box scores in the coming weeks. With the prospect glass ceiling lifted, it's time to start turning our attention in fantasy to players that might be jumping teams and leagues between now and the end of July – the trade deadline.

Here are just some of the names you can expect to see emerge (if they haven't already) in upcoming swap talks: Roy Oswalt(notes), Paul Konerko(notes), A.J. Pierzynski(notes), Cliff Lee(notes), Corey Hart(notes), Luke Scott(notes), Lance Berkman(notes), Jose Guillen(notes), Chris Davis(notes), Heath Bell(notes).

That's just a taste of what is already brewing, and there'll be other big names thrown into that mix as more teams realize that they have no chance to contend in 2010. Until

I got home late on Sunday after heading into Seattle to watch the soul-sucking Mariners flat line once again, losing 8-1 to San Diego. But despite not sitting down in front of my TV set until 10 pm, I couldn't stop myself from diving, first, into the two-hour "Lost" retrospective and, then, into the even longer series finale – thankfully, DVR cuts those times down quite a bit. Thoroughly dazed and confused, I finally stumbled to bed around 2:00 am, only to spend the next hour or so trying to make sense of what I saw.

I woke up on Monday feeling … well, tired. But I also felt pretty satisfied with the conclusion of the show. It wasn't the best ending in TV history as some claim. I give that honor to "Newhart" – Bob waking up next to wife Emily, as if it was the older "The Bob Newhart Show," and claiming he had a strange dream about being an innkeeper in Vermont surrounded by a lot of eccentric people was a major league curveball. The "Lost" final chapter didn't plug all the holes that

I'm coming off Closing Time duty and it's admittedly hard to motivate myself for a MLB Skinny so soon after posting something of a similar ilk. So I thought I would go a little minor league/prospect heavy here this week, since this is typically considered the opening of prospect season in MLB – Jenifer Langosch, a writer for MLB.com, explains why in her latest article about Pittsburgh prospects Pedro Alvarez(notes), Jose Tabata(notes) and Brad Lincoln(notes):

"By holding a prospect back for the first part of the season, teams put themselves in position to delay a player's first year of arbitration eligibility, because each year, the top 17 percent of players who have between two and three years of major league service time are eligible. The rest must wait to complete a third year. There isn't a defined cutoff date for this "Super Two" period, but it has usually fallen about a week from now."

Yes, major league managers and GMs can talk about a player's need to mature, but it's curious

I'm humming Ice Cube's "It Was a Good Day" as I write this week's Skinny. For the first time in a long, long time, I'm not in last place in the Yahoo! Friends and Family League. I'll be honest, I have no problem telling you things like, "Be patient, it's a marathon, not a sprint …" But those comments don't provide me much solace in hard times, and I doubt it does a lot to lift your spirits, either. Nope, there's nothing like actual forward progress in the standings (or box score) to lift one's mood.

Alright, let's take our usual spin around the diamond, but I'm shuffling the position order this week just to keep things fresh. Here we go …

OUTFIELD

• Austin Jackson(notes) has been a polarizing figure, no doubt. He has his staunch supporters, but he's also on the top of a lot of sell-high lists, including mine. I can admit that he's an extremely talented guy, but you have to consider that while everything has gone as well as it possibly can go for a player (league-high .511 BABIP,

I've said before, I'll typically wait a month before I start future tripping about my struggling early and mid-round players. Well, it's been a month, which means it's time to decide if April showers will indeed bring May flowers, or if the rainy days will continue. In one of my leagues, I've reached that point with both David Ortiz(notes) and Ben Zobrist(notes), among others. For my take on those two, and many others, read on:

CORNER INFIELD

• At the corner, only Evan Longoria(notes) is coming off a better fantasy week than what David Freese(notes) put together (.462, 3 HRs, 11 RBIs). He's 21 percent owned in Yahoo! leagues. I talked about him as a deep league grab a couple weeks ago. Now I'm elevating him into 12-team territory. Seriously, there's at least a handful of first- and third-base eligible players that are owned in more than half of Yahoo! leagues that I'd kick to the curb in favor of Freese – Todd Helton(notes), Casey Blake(notes), Mark DeRosa(notes), Adrian Beltre(notes),