Joel Sherman of the New York Post has a New York Mets trade and free agent rumors post on his Hardball blog.  Amongst his bits and pieces:

* The Mets want to sign one starting pitcher and let Jon Niese pitch as the #5 starter a la Mike Pelfrey last season. Contra Mr. Sherman's opinion, this appears to be a good idea to me.

* Closer Francisco Rodriguez has the persona to survive the back pages of the New York tabloids.  Brian Fuentes doesn't give the same vibe.

The easiest match-ups to judge are those made involving poor rush defenses.  The teams at the top of the list need to be consistently bad game in and game out to reside there.  This week the St. Louis Rams offer themselves up agains the Miami Dolphins and Ronnie Brown and Rikcy Williams.  The challenge is deciding whether either Dolphins' back can get 100 yards on fewer than 20 touches.

The Oakland Raiders present their soft underbelly to the Kansas City Chiefs and RB Larry Johnson.  Against a good pass defense, and without a fearsome passing offense, the Chiefs have no reason to do anything but feed the ball to Johnson with a nice dash of Jamaal Charles.

More interesting will be to see how Frank Gore does against the suddenly inept rush defense of the Buffalo Bills.  Ove rits past three games, the Bills have allowed 144, 161 and 159 yards rushing after keeping opponents under 100 yards in 6 of its first 8 games.  Can San Francisco be the first West Coast team to travel East for a 1 PM kick-off and win?

Ten Worst Rush Defenses:

Easy Sits: Sammie Morris, Peyton Hillis

Easy Starts: Adrian Peterson, Michael Turner, Matt Forte

Angst-ridden Starts: Willie Parker, Clinton Portis, Marshawn Lynch, Willis McGahee

Top Ten Rush Defenses:

There are clear starts at QB this week based on match-ups. Peyton Manning of the Colts, Matt Ryan of the Falcons and Phillip Rivers of the Chargers stand out, but what do you do if you have the opportunity to start Shaun Hill of San Francisco or Derek Anderson of Cleveland or Trent Edwards of Buffalo?

If your #1 is Aaron Rodgers against good Carolina Panthers pass defense or David Garrard against a poor Houston Texans one or Brett Favre against a putrid Broncos' rush defense? Then the decision gets tricky. With fantasy play-offs on the line, sitting a QB with a favorable match-up for the more "established" QB could mean the difference between the play-offs and kick starting fantasy baseball preparations.

Ten Worst Pass Defenses:

As the Detroit Lions showed on Thanksgiving having a top-ranked pass defense means little if it is accompanied by a horrid rush defense. The Oakland Raiders and St. Louis Rams also combine top PYAs with bottom RYAs. This is good news for Larry Johnson of the Chiefs and Ronnie Brown and/or Ricky Williams of the Dolphins.

From the more traditional angle of good pass defenses suppressing passing totals of the opposing offense, the New England Patriots travel to Pittsburgh to face the 9th-best PYA. Of note, Patriots' QB Matt Cassel has thrown for 400+ yards in consectuive games. Can he get a third? Not likely, but the Steelers are ferocious versus the run which may compel Cassel to the air to move the ball.

Top Ten Pass Defenses:

Surprisingly, today's Detroit Lions game sets-up as a rushing affair as both teams have been dismal against the rush over the past three games.  The Lions are an expectedly awful as the 2nd worst team in rushing yards allowed, but the Titans have been an unexpectedly bad 23rd in RYA.

RB Chris Johnson was a lock to start for fantasy teams, but Lions' RB Kevin Smith is surprisingly viable start assuming his shoulder isn't serious.  In Smith's last three games, he has 96, 112 and 86 yards against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Carolina Panthers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers respectively.

The Dallas Cowboys' game agains the Seattle Seahwaks shapes up as a must start for the Cowboys' skills players as the Seahawks rank 26th in both RYA and PYA.  The toughest question is whether WR Terrell Owens can have a second consecutive quality fantasy game.  I was personally burned by his 198 yard game last week as I finally threw in the towel on TO after his five consectutive under 40 yards receving games.

Finally, the biggest start/sit decsion of the day involves Philadelphia Eagels' RB Brian Westbrook.  He has not practiced during this short week and was ineffective in Sunday's blow-out loss to the Ravens - as he had been in the previous two games.  In the three, he has had no more than 14 carries.

I'm not taking any chances with Westbrook.  The Arizona Cardinals rank 5th in RYA over its past three games.  A dinged-up Westbrook against a Top 10 rush defense is something that will not make me relinguish the opportunity to start another RB before Sunday's games.

As I begin preparing for the 2009 fantasy baseball season, my focus begins at catcher. Why? Because I believe early season speculation will be feuled by the anticipated arrival of Baltimore Orioles' top hitting prospect, catcher Matt Weiters.  Because of that, I have begun to wonder where Weiters will place amongst his fellow backstops the moment he is recalled.  (Others already are.)

When valuing catchers, I always look at HRs and adjust for the other categories.  For catchers, the 2008 HR leaders were Brian McCann and Geovanny Soto with 23 each.  Next was Cleveland Indians' catcher Kelly Shoppach.  He provided big time power from the position following the near-season'long injury to start Victor Martinez.  With 21 HRs, he barely missed leading the position despite 150-200 fewer ABs than the leaders.

With Victor Martinez healthy, can Shoppach repeat his power display?  Do the 133 times he struck out in fewer than 400 plate appearances matter?

While I would consider both the strikeouts and VMart's presence as big impediments to Shoppach's quest for back-to-back 20 HR seasons, others do not.  Over at Fangraphs, you can see Bill James' 2009 projection along with the Marcel projection.  Both expect big time Ks and HRs for the 29-year-old.

Courtesy of Sean Delonas of Page Six: