Kevin Seraphin (Getty)Need a short-term bump with solid long-term potential? Give Kevin Seraphin a look. Add Seraphin Tuesday and you'll get three games in three days (Wed IND, Thu @DET, Fri @NJN), Seraphin has averaged 12 points on 54-percent shooting, 7 boards, and 1.5 blocks in his eight starts, and both Nene Hilario and Trevor Booker continue to be limited by plantar fasciitis. Give Jan Vesely a look in the deepest leagues, as well, as he'll also get run for as long as Nene and Booker remain inactive.

• Status updates: Andrew Bynum (ankle) will be a game-time decision on Tuesday .. Marcus Thornton (calf) is out Tuesday. Terrence Williams could be in line for major minutes if Thornton joins John Salmons on the inactive list for any length of time .. Kyrie Irving (shoulder) is expected to play on Tuesday .. Dwight Howard (back spasms) and Jameer Nelson (calf) missed Tuesday shootaround and are both game-time decisions .. Ryan Anderson (ankle) is out Tuesday and day-to-day in advance of Thursday's

Send in the Clowns (hector31)

Alright, gamers, let's do this thing. Against the advice of all counsel, I've decided to get this Blog League off the ground.

I'll openly admit that the invite process will be unfair. This isn't a lottery, this isn't a blind draw. I want nice people in this league, respectful people, people who won't make me regret this league start-up decision, people who won't be rude to the other owners. I'm not worried about skill levels — most of our regular readers here are skilled. I want an enjoyable group.

If I haven't eliminated you with the above paragraph and you feel like throwing down Wednesday night at 8 pm ET (it's going to be an auction, so have four hours handy), then I want to hear from you. It's going to be a fairly standard 5x5 affair, with one specific tweak: no DL spots. All they cause is arguments at the end of the day. We live in Fantasy Football without DL spots and everyone seems fine with it (even though football injuries tend to be more disastrous). If you want Carl Crawford on your silly little team, you're going to have to pay for it.

Andrew Bailey (AP Images)

If you took "opening day" in the Andrew Bailey-hits-the-DL pool, then it looks like you're a winner. If instead you own Bailey in a fantasy league, then today you're scrambling for saves.

Bailey is reportedly seeking a second opinion on his right thumb injury, because the first opinion was, "That thing needs surgery." Brutal news. We don't yet have a clear rehab/recovery timeline, but, assuming surgery is needed, you're not going to like his ETA when you hear it.

In Bailey's absence, the prime candidates to handle the ninth are Mark Melancon, who saved 20 games for the Astros last season, and Alfredo Aceves, who had a pair of multi-inning saves for the Red Sox in 2011. Melancon's name was the first one I searched for across my fantasy portfolio, as he'd always seemed like the best Bailey handcuff. Yet according to the Boston Globe, "Aceves was told by [manager Bobby] Valentine to be prepared to pitch in the eighth or ninth inning."

Just in case you were wondering, Bailey has no idea how he suffered his latest injury. It presumably happened in a minor league appearance in late-March, but no one seems certain. He first noticed discomfort in the thumb — and this is not a joke — while squeezing a shampoo bottle. We fearfully await further details.

Update: Additional details are rolling in, and they aren't great. Bailey will have surgery on Wednesday to reconstruct the UCL in his right thumb, an injury that will cost him months, not merely a few weeks. So the bad news gets worse.

After the jump, you'll find a full sweep of every MLB team's current closing situation, with blurbs wherever blurbs are needed. I'm breaking the bullpens into tiers, sorting by relative danger/volatility. The closing situations that have the least clarity are at the top; the most reliable 'pens are at the end. If a player's name is italicized, that means he's dealing with an injury.

Got it? Great. Let's go ...

Hosmer's hot spring has fantasy owners drooling over his 2012 potential. (US Presswire)

At the Royals spring training facility just outside Phoenix a murderer is on the loose. Tall, slender and scruffy in appearance, the serial killer has preyed on several innocent baseballs, routinely displacing the dented objects on a grass covered berm just beyond the outfield wall at Surprise Stadium. His violence is controlled, calculated and, to opposing hurlers, downright cold. When confronted by the cutthroat, no manager feels comfortable. No pitch is safe. No surprise Sherlock Holmes is sniffing his trail. Prospective fantasy buyers are too.

Eric Hosmer is a statistical madman on a mission.

Hide the women and children.

No player in baseball enters the regular season hotter than KC's "Hoss". Over the past two weeks of Cactus League action he's maintained a blistering pace. In 77 spring at-bats, he's slugged an insane .714, amassing a .416 BA with five homers, eight doubles and a spring-best 29 RBI. The cracking sound off his bat has resonated throughout the league. Everyone from

Derrick Rose (Getty)Derrick Rose now admits that his groin injury was worse than he originally thought. This comes after missing 10 straight games and still having yet to push himself beyond some light running on the court. Yes, he remains without a timetable for a return, and Rose could only say Sunday that he does expect to be back before the end of the regular season. Rose looks like a drop in default h2h leagues - he's certainly not going to help anyone this week, and the Bulls have just three games during next week's default finals, and Rose wont play big minutes in the initial stages of his return, whenever that happens to be. C.J. Watson will continue to start in Rose's place. He's averaged an inconsistent 12.6 points, 1.8 threes, 4.2 assists, and 1.1 steals in his 18 starts on the season.

• Kemba Walker, Byron Mullens, and Reggie Williams are all headed for expanded roles for the Bobcats down the stretch. Walker will start ahead of D.J. Augustin on Tuesday, in part because Augustin's knee

Robbie Cano, roto god (US Presswire)

Here are your Shuffle Up prices for the infield, amigos. In the middle of the year we'll break up the infield by corners and middles, but today it's a mash-up of all four positions. Serve with ranch, feeds 12-14 hungry mixed leaguers.

Normal disclaimers apply. As always, it's a 5x5 scoring system. Players at the same price are considered even. Don't stress over the dollar amounts; all that matters is how the players relate to one another. I might tweak this list as the day goes along, and I'll add full commentary a little later. And if you have any disagreement, we welcome your comments: but for the love of all things holy, give a solid reason. Further the conversation, roto head. Construct an argument. Respect the room. Respect yourself.

Yes, there will be an Arcade Pro-Am Auction coming before the (full) season starts. Details will be up in the next day or two. Keep checking back. This is not a bait-and-switch. I'm still working out specs and details.

Now go crush it in your weekend drafts. Here are your prices for all infield-eligible players.

Nikola Pekovic (Getty)Nikola Pekovic, J.J. Barea, and Michael Beasley are all out for the Timberwolves on Friday and all are out for at least a few more games. Barea said he also expects to miss the team's Sunday/Monday back-to-back and is aiming to return on Wednesday. That would mean two games for h2h owners, at most, next week, so a drop is in order in most cases. As for Pekovic, beat writer Jerry Zgoda speculated that Pek's season is probably done - "wouldn't be completely surprised" - thanks to the bone spurs in his ankle that will very likely require off-season surgery. The T-Wolves are headed for a three-game week and you'll be getting Pekovic at less than 100 percent in any case, so a drop is also in order here in the majority of formats. Anthony Tolliver is the beneficiary here - he's Rick Adelman's primary/only big off the bench and has averaged 12 points on 60-percent shooting, 1.2 threes, 5.8 boards, and 0.8 blocks in 28 minutes over the past six games. Managers in hyper-deep leagues should take a look at Wayne Ellington for the upcoming back-to-back, as well - he scored 0 points on Wednesday (24 minutes, 0-5 FG, 0-2 3PT) but had averaged 14.8 points on 56-percent shooting, 1.8 threes, and 1 steal in 28 minutes over the previous four games.

• Jeremy Lin is out for at least two more games (Fri/Sat) with knee soreness and is no lock to return on Tuesday, according to Mike Woodson. With the Knicks headed for just a three-game week and previous talk of limited minutes to address his overuse, he's a very poor option for Week 23 and beyond. A timeshare with Baron Davis is to be expected the rest of the way, and that's a best-case scenario. Davis has averaged 12 points on 37-percent shooting, 1 three, 6 boards, 6.5 assists, 5.5 turnovers, and 1 steal in 30 minutes during his two starts thus far, but the potential timeshare will also keep Davis' relevance in check beyond the next few games.

Carl Crawford (US Presswire)

This is not the most surprising news, but we need to toss it out there: Boston Red Sox outfielder Carl Crawford isn't expected to make his regular season debut until late April, or, more likely, May. Crawford is still recovering from January wrist surgery and hasn't swung a bat since suffering a setback in March. Boston clearly doesn't intend to rush this recovery.

Details right here, via the Boston Herald...

"The only thing I know about that is that you don't want to put the kid, anybody rehabbing, under the pressure of a deadline," Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine said. "It can never be the calendar or the schedule that says when a guy is healthy. It can't be. It's just not fair."

[...]

"Are we going to ask him to have 50 at-bats somewhere? Probably."

This news shouldn't matter much to Yahoo!'s Scott Pianowski, who just gave Crawford an official list price of $14, but unofficially prices him at no-[expletive]-way-not-on-my-roster. (Truth: Scott has spent a significant amount of time this off-season attempting to negotiate a Crawford deal on behalf of the Red Sox, reaching out to fans of other teams. Pretty sure we agreed in principle to a Crawford-for-Alfonso Soriano swap. Just need to get Ben and Jed on board, then phone that thing in to the league office).