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It’s going to be a busy week for the teams in MLB as the deadline looms on the exclusive negotiating period with their free agents. When the clock strikes midnight tonight, free agents can talk to any of the teams about a contract for next year and years to come.

So what does this mean for the Red Sox? It means that they better hope their contract offer of 3-years $36 million is good enough for Lowell or they risk the potential of losing him. I fully expect Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein to be burning up the phones of Lowell’s agents, the Levinson brothers, all day today.

It will be interesting to see what happens with other free agents like Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Barry Bonds, Francisco Cordero and others.

There is a fantasy baseball impact on this as well as many of you out there participate in fantasy baseball leagues. Some of you participate in AL-only and NL-only leagues as well as mixed leagues. With some of this AL and NL-only leagues being keeper leagues, your hoping that your star free agent on your team doesn’t switch leagues. I’ve had this happen to me when Jim Thome was a free agent with the Indians. He ended up signing with the Phillies and it hurt my team for the following season.

Today also marks the start of the big four awards in MLB, the AL & NL Rookie of the Year, the AL & NL Cy Young, the AL & NL Manager of the Year and the AL & NL MVP’s. This is how the schedule breaks down this week and next.

Nov. 12: AL and NL Rookies of the Year
Nov. 13: AL Cy Young
Nov. 14: AL and NL Managers of the Year
Nov. 15: NL Cy Young
Nov. 19: AL MVP
Nov. 20: NL MVP

[tag]Tampa Bay Devil Rays[/tag] second baseman, [tag]B.J. Upton[/tag] is enjoying an incredible start to the 2007 season. He’s hitting .370/.427/.667 with 5 home runs, 5 stolen bases and 20 runs batted in. However, by looking at a couple of [tag]batted ball statistics[/tag] I have come to the conclusion the Upton may be overachieving.

The first stat that scares me is his BABIP (Batting Average for Balls In Play). Basically, BABIP shows the percentage of every ball a batter hits in fair territory (minus home runs) that falls for a hit. It tells us how “lucky” a hitter is getting. The average BABIP is around .290. Upton’s BABIP is .532. That means that something close to 54% of the balls that are falling for hits for him right now, shouldn’t be. Let that number sink in for a minute…54%.

Another number that scares me is his contact rate. 90% is a contact rate you see in most .300 hitters. Upton’s contact rate is 64.19%. This tells me that Upton doesn’t make contact with the ball like a .300 hitter does. It’s his high BABIP that is keeping him afloat right now. What’s going to happen if his contact rate stays at 64% and his BABIP corrects itself back down to .290?

I’m not telling you to jump off the Upton bandwagon and don’t jump ship right now. But you may want to consider trading him while his value is very high. If you don’t want to trade him or if a trade isn’t available, you may want to come up with a contingency plan to put into place when Upton’s numbers start going down.

[tag]Ryan Theriot[/tag] was slated to play a lot of second base for the [tag]Chicago Cubs[/tag] in 2007 until Mark DeRosa came to town in the off season. Now, he’s filling in at third base for the injured Aramis Ramirez. Theriot is putting up some good numbers. The question is, how long will Theriot be kept out of the every day lineup?

“I’m going to play the people who are getting the job done, and he’s hit the ball,” Piniella said of Theriot, who went 8-for-12 (.667) in the Cincinnati series with three RBI.

ZiPS projects Theriot at .275/.335/.356 with 2 home runs and 17 stolen bases if he reaches 400 at bats. He may be ready for picking up in NL only leagues. He’s ok for short term help in deep mixed leagues, but shouldn’t be considered for full time work until we’re sure he’s going to get those 400 AB’s.

There have been some grumblings from the [tag]Minnesota Twins[/tag] crowd about trading head case 2B, Luis Castillo. There are a few reasons the Twins may do this. Castillo isn’t expect to resign with the Twins after 2007, the final year of his current contract. The Twins need to start thinking about money allocation for Santana’s new contract. And finally, the Twins have a major league ready 2B in [tag]Alexi Casilla[/tag].

Casilla, 22, is having a pretty good spring hitting .286 with 4 stolen bases in 35 at bats. But you need to look at his minor league totals from the last 2 years to see his future value.

2005 - Casilla played in A ball, AA and AAA. In 366 at bats he hit .311 with 49 stolen bases.
2006 - Casilla played in high A ball and AA. In 493 at bats he hit .318 with 50 stolen bases.

This kid can obviously run. If he breaks camp with the Twins he an be looked at for a late round pickup in AL only leagues or any keeper league. As soon as Castillo gets traded or if Casilla is announced as the starter at 2B, he should be picked up immediately in any format.

Here’s my list for the [tag]top 10 fantasy second basemen[/tag].

1. Chase Utley
2. Robinson Cano
3. Dan Uggla
4. Brian Roberts
5. Josh Barfield
6. Tadahito Iguchi
7. Ian Kinsler
8. Ray Durham
9. Brandon Phillips
10. Julio Lugo