You love baseball. You're here, reading this, so that's an easy assumption to make. Well, I love baseball, too. I'm lucky to be able to do what I do for a living, and I hope no one ever realizes how much fun I'm having while working, lest the privilege be taken away.

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If you had to script an end to the Omar Minaya era in Queens, you couldn't have outdone reality: Oliver Perez, the $12 million-a-year albatross in the Mets' rotation, pitching for the first time in a month on the last day of the season, promptly walked three straight batters to send the Mets home losers in extra innings. A sarcastic chant of “M-V-P” followed the first out that Perez recorded during the debacle, and illustrated how fed up the fanbase was—not just with Perez, but with everything the pitcher and his contract represented.

Perez embodies so much that was wrong with the mindset of the Mets’ previous administration under general manager Minaya. The Mets gave Minaya his first genuine GM job, since his mandate as the league-appointed guardian of the dying Montreal Expos had included overseeing a form of organizational euthanasia, as opposed to the involuntary manslaughter he could be convicted of for bringing the Mets' roster to its knees. While he had his successes in New York, there were far more misses, and they all came back to one fundamental and repeated problem.

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With nearly two months of the 2011 season behind us, let's take a look at which players are leading the pack at their respective positions, and whether or not we can expect those starts to develop into trends, or if we should be selling high before the bottom falls out.

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Brian Roberts, BAL (Concussion-like symptoms)
Chris Dickerson, NYA (Concussion)
Roberts began suffering concussion-like symptoms after a head-first slide on Monday night, and he continued to experience symptoms over the next several days, leading to a concussion diagnosis and another entry on to the new 7-day DL for the concussed.

Our ability to assess concussions has greatly improved in recent years with the advancement of ImPACT testing and even more detailed neuropsychological testing, which allows us to get an idea of just how set back a player is as a result of his concussion. Everyone can agree that Roberts started experiencing symptoms after one particular moment—his head-first slide. He will still have to progress through all the various steps necessary to get back onto the field, regardless of whether or not his condition is officially called a concussion—you have to give MLB credit for playing it safe with its players.

In the last two weeks, I have written about both Royals prospects who were expected to make it to the majors in 2011 and pitchers who are striking out a significant number of batters in the International League. Because of those specifications, Danny Duffy, who starts tonight for the Royals against the Rangers, didn't make the cut for either—Duffy's ETA, according to Kevin Goldstein in his Top 11 prospects ranking of the Royals, was 2012, and he has been blowing away hitters in the PCL, the league I had not yet covered.

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David Wright, NYN (Low Back stress fracture)
Low back stress fractures are a type of overuse injury more common in adolescents than adults, but given the team's recent medical track record, it hardly surprises when even the most unlikely ailment befalls a Met. A stress fracture takes place when the body's ability to build new tissue is overcome by forces that try to break it down. Most classic stress fractures don't involve a clear precipitating event such as a dive for a ball, instead gradually progressing over weeks or months.

Often one particular repeated action is a contributing factor–in the lumbar spine, it is usually hyperextension or bending backwards–but as the condition worsens other actions also become symptomatic. One factor that always plays a role, however, is the muscular and connective tissues' inability to absorb the forces from these actions that break down tissue.

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Today we will take a look at a few pitchers who are striking out at least a batter per inning in the International League, and who may make their way onto a big league roster near you this summer.

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If baseball injuries were anything like the health issues on “House," we would have something new and exciting to tell you about every day, and it would take a team of specialists—along with heavy doses of sarcasm and sexual tension—to solve the mystery each one presented. (Conversely, if baseball injuries were anything like how “Scrubs” presents things, then we would just need to sing “99 Luftballons.”)

Instead, we are left with common injuries—considered so for a reason—such as hamstring, oblique, and quad strains. The most valuable sports medicine staffs aren't necessarily the ones that find and treat that one-of-a-kind injury; the ones that can both prevent and get the common strains back on the field sooner than the rest deserve that praise. No matter how great the staffs are, though, there will be injuries. The players are not robots, despite what some of their post-game interviews may lead you to believe.

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It's tough to argue with this week's drops—Kendrys Morales is out for at least six months thanks to surgery to remove scar tissue from his foot, Chris Young elected to have surgery to repair the shoulder that has knocked him out three years running, and Dallas Braden is having a similar procedure done on his own noodle. Nick Hundley is next up for most drops in the past week, but let's think about this for a moment: He is a catcher who can avoid embarrassing himself at the plate, and there are not nearly enough of those. You don't want to cut him because he will be out for a few weeks. As for the most popular adds of the week…

Homer Bailey, Cincinnati Reds (63 percent owned, +29 percent)
Bailey is the kind of pitcher who, by year's end, will be in the 90s for ownership in mixed leagues. That seems odd to say for a hurler with a career ERA of 4.91, but there are some extenuating circumstances that have made people forget just how good Bailey is supposed to be.

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Bartolo Colon, NYA (Stem cell therapy)
Despite the potentially life-altering benefits of stem cell research and its potential real-life applications, negative attention and fierce debate have surrounded its ethics, cost, and effectiveness. The majority of the controversy arises from the use of fetal or embryonic stem cells for research and/or transplantation into another human.

This story on Bartolo Colon and the use of stem cells raised as many eyebrows throughout baseball as it did questions about the effectiveness of Colon's procedure and the obligation of a player to accept that his career has come to an end. Because Dr. Joseph Purita—the orthopedic surgeon who treated Colon—admitted to using HGH in procedures on the general public, MLB was forced to launch an investigation into both him and his practices. He claims not to have used HGH on professional baseball players—since it's illegal, and all—and for now we'll just have to take him at his word.

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Jenrry Mejia, NYN (Right elbow—TJS)
Chris Young, NYN (Right shoulder—re-tear of anterior capsule)
The Mets got two bits of news they didn't want: possible surgery for Chris Young and definite surgery for Jenrry Mejia. While we have a firm grasp of what Tommy John surgery entails, questions remain about how Mejia ended up at this point.

All injuries come down to one basic premise: can the tissue deal with the forces necessary for the act that is about to be performed? In most cases, the body creates force production and subsequent force dissipation without any difficulties (even when you fall down on your arm or back). Other times it is simply unable to dissipate the forces fast enough, which results in injury when a player is hit by on the hand by a pitch or dislocates a shoulder while diving.

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Eric Hosmer is in the major leagues, and earlier than expected. He is just the first of many prospects who may become Royals in 2011; what kind of fantasy impact is the rest of the bunch likely to have this year?

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