The 2005 baseball season had just started. Hideo Nomo went 2 innings against the Red Sox, surrendering 8 earned runs and walking 5. Rotoworld told you to keep him active. Austin Kearns hit rock bottom and broke out the pick-axe. Rotoworld kept on plugging him. Wily Mo Pena, the 23 year old man of the monster 12 AB/HR, hits a HR. Rotoworld warns of Austin Kearns’ presence stealing ABs.

Joe Borowski: Rotoworld said “Keep him,” even when Dempster was showing it was his job and he was going to keep it. Rotoworld wanted you to keep Kolb. If you owned Lyon pick up Bruney. The list goes on.

Most people aren’t in leagues with unlimited bench slots where picking up, or keeping, every under performing player in the MLB is an option. I know that my league doesn’t even have a bench and we’re restricted to making two pick-ups per season. I would guess that most really competitive leagues are structured this way, and that daily-transactions, unlimited pickups, and unbalanced trades are all left to the 13 year old kids who play free Yahoo Fantasy Ball.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with that. I’m not some Roto snob who’s going to preach Fantasy purism to you. It’s only that Rotoworld kind of gets me a little with the advice they offer with their news blurbs. As a source of Fantasy news, I don’t think there’s any site on the planet that beats Rotoworld’s free coverage and user-friendly interface. I know where the news bulletins come from. But who writes the advice?

I mean, I’m a long-suffering Kyle Lohse supporter. But there’s no way I’d tell anyone to have this guy active on their team. Rotoworld would, and did.

The whole point is that Rotoworld’s a great site, up there with Baseball America in the Top 2 of Fantasy publications. Just be wary of their advice.

It just seems that the boys over there are willing to advocate any given player on any given day. True, there are exceptions. I just read a warning against picking up Eric Milton. But at some point these guys have to get a little more objective and start evaluating players properly. That might mean curtailing some of the staff-written notes and just going with the straight-up news. But if the alternative is telling people to take a chance on Corey Patterson then that’s what needs to be done.

Now what Rotoworld does really well is give you recent statistics and trends. Jeff Francis is 4-0 in 5 starts vs. the Diamondbacks this season. I wouldn’t have known that. But that’s just a fact. It’s not advice.

Oh, and one more thing: the spyware and pop-ups are really annoying. I wonder how much revenue they really generate.