Fantasy Baseball Advice

Hey, Matt Holliday finally hit a homer!  Please don’t tell me this is gonna be negative! Sorry, random italicized voice.  If you look at Holliday’s peripheral numbers you would see a guy that is more or less in line with his norms.  Now here’s the real kick in the nads.  He’s K’ing and walking less.  So what do I take away from that?  Trouble.  To me this means, Holliday is seeing more pitches to hit because AL pitchers haven’t been worried about him and rather than making them pay, Holliday’s putting the ball into play in the form of a flyout or groundout.  He’s hitting a bit fewer line drives than normal so that means his average may go up a bit, but I don’t think we see the .330 we were accustomed to in Colorado.  Now that he hit a homer, see if you can convince someone Holliday’s back from, uh, holiday.  Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Matt Garza – 7 2/3 IP, 2 baserunners.  Sonavabench!  This is the problem with Garza.  He instills so little confidence.  We’ll see what he does next time out.  I got suspicions.

Josh Beckett – 4 2/3 IP, 7 ER.  Even the AL pitchers I like give me agita.  This is why I own Wolf, Paulino and Gaudin and have cast aside Carmona and Davies.  I’m convinced, it’ll make for longer life expectancy.

Julian Tavarez – 2/3 IP, 2 ER.  Maybe he should’ve screamed nicely at the ball last night.

Joel Hanrahan – Quick actin’ Acta brought Hanrahanananan in to relieve Tavarez.  I’m close to calling uncle here.

Ryan Zimmerman – Another HR as he approaches his total from last year.  Well, not really but it feels that way.

Aramis Ramirez – Cubs said he will avoid the DL.  Hopefully, it’s that and not, he’ll avoid the DL for ten days then play one game then go on the DL.  Cause I’m not a fan of the 2nd option.

Jeff Weaver – 4 IP, 0 ER.  Guess what, Mom?  Your number one is back!  What?  You missed my game because you were resting up to watch Jered tomorrow?  Oh.  Yeah, I like his hair too.

Chris Volstad – 7 IP, 2 ER. Wasn’t an easy matchup, but pitched very well.  I’m convinced the Marlins have the best scouts in baseball.  They are so cheap… How cheap are they?  They got rid of Josh Willingham because he was too expensive. But they always seem to put a decent product on the field.

Sean Marshall – 7 IP, 1 ER.  I liked him coming into the year, but then when he didn’t pitch until the middle of the month I had to move on.  Now he’s at 19 IP and a 3.32 ERA with 15 Ks on the year.

Jorge Cantu – Another HR.  Where ya at, Nick Swisher?

Mike Napoli – Hit his 4th home run yesterday.  This is why you ignore playing time and just put him in your catcher’s slot.

Huston Street – He might already be back in the closer’s picture.  That picture obviously isn’t pretty, but SAGNOF.

John Buck – Two triples.  5 RBIs.  I haven’t seen that much hustling from a guy named Buck since Midnight Cowboy.

Jesus Flores – Delivered a teabagger right in Joe Thurston’s face.

Mark Teahen – 8 runs for the Royals and he goes 0-for-5 with 1 Run.  What a ticker tease!

Mitchell Boggs – Has there ever been a more lawyery sounding pitcher than Mitchell Boggs.  Mitchell Boggs – Attorney at Law.  I can hear dear Phil Hartman’s faux sincere tone being his voice.  In his 2nd game started, he fanned 9 Nationals.  Granted, the batting practice pitcher does that every day before the game but still.  His minor league record indicates 5th starter (on an MLB team not fantasy team) at least for this year but he’s worth stashing in an NL-only team.

Dallas Braden – 5 “scoreless” innings. Quotes because Sweeney robbed Kinsler of a three-run homer.

Max Scherzer – You can’t K as many guys as him and Kershaw and not have breakout potential.

Chris Carpenter – May be back by late-May as he ran without pain.  May! (Rule of 3’s)

Eric Chavez – Headed to the DL.  Looks like someone was jealous of all the attention Nomar was getting.

Juan Cruz – Save as he fills in for Soria.  Soria’s supposed to come back, but that doesn’t mean he will.  Remember these clubs play fast and loose with the truth.

Chorizo – Still hasn’t won a race in Milwaukee this year.  Something smells fishy!  Wait, that’s the seafood paella!

BABIP is Batting Average for Balls In Play.  And they do lie, sometimes.  But who can resist a title alluding to a Shakira song?  Not me!  BABIP is a quick way to know how much luck a hitter is having.  There’s more to it, but for the purposes of this, above .300 BABIP for a hitter and it means the hitter could hit a bloop single just over the pitcher’s head with a drawn in infield.  Below .200 and the hitter could hit a line drive into the Grand Canyon and it would get caught by Alice on the back of a mule.  Then there’s HR/FB%, which is a quick way to know if a hitter is hitting more home runs than what makes sense for that player’s amount of fly balls.  Then there’s LD%, which is the percentage of hits that are line drives.  Line drives are usually a sign of solid contact aka a player is hitting the ball hard.  Finally, K% or the percentage a hitter Ks.  So why all the fancy acronyms?  Well, the other day a FOR (Friend of Razzball), jsp2014 threw this nugget into the comments:

“I was curious about who’s been lucky and unlucky so far for some buy low/sell high ideas, so I did a little research on Fangraphs.  I figured this could be useful to others as well:

Min. 50 PAs

Lowest BABIP (look for the AVG to go up): Zaun, Byrnes, Berkman (.171), Rollins (.172), Encarnacion (.175), McCann (.176), Tulo (.176), Alex Gonzalez, Hardy (.178), Quentin (.184), Phillips (.184)

Highest BABIP (due to come back down to earth): F.Lewis (.543), Youk (.490), Flores, Votto (.469), Beltran (.464), B.anderson, Markakis (.441), Asdrubal, Abreu (.426), F.Sanchez, B.Roberts (.415)

Highest HR/FB (expect the HR pace to slow for most of these): Young (42%), Adrian Gonzalez (35%; career 16.5%), Quentin (32%; 21% last year), C.Davis (31%; 21% last year), Thome (31%; career 28%), Inge (30%; career 10%), Reynolds (29%; career 18%), Dye, Pena, Jeter, Overbay, Branyan, Fukudome, Uggla, Tulo

Highest LD% (unsustainable but means they’ve made a lot of solid contact): N.Johnson, Salty, Feliz, Fields, Rolen, Blum, Teahen, Fukudome, Bartlett, Asdrubal, Castillo, Dukes, Youk, Bourn, Andy LaRoche

Highest K-Rate: C.Davis (49%!), Maybin (42), Thome (38), Dickerson (38), Upton (38), Schafer (37), Salty (37), Flores (37), F.Lewis (36), Reynolds (36), Fielder (35), Fields (34), Upton (33)”

That’s a great comment right there, and I appreciate it.  Now what can we gleam from this?

Fred Lewis – With his power and speed Crapolanco-like, his average is due to regress.  Might want to get out while the gettin’ is good.

Lance Berkman – He’s been the anti-Fred Lewis.  All power, no average.  That will get better.

Kevin Youkilis – While he will continue to be solid, he won’t be this solid.

Adrian Gonzalez – He always seems to start the year on fire and cool off as the summer heats up (Maybe he needs a trade to San Francisco?  It’s cold there in the summer.).  This year probably won’t be any different.

Brandon Inge – Because he’s eligible at catcher, he’s not a straight sell candidate but the homers will eventually dry up.

Troy Tulowitzki – As a career .312 BABIP hitter, he’s due to explode at some point soon.  Buy into the correction.

Cameron Maybin – His K% shows he’s struggling.  Yeah, no kidding.

Jimmy Rollins – Maybe luck has knocked the wheels off of J-Roll in the early going.

Geovany Soto – Just missed the cutoff of 50 ABs, but he has a .161 BABIP.  Shoulder might not be the only thing holding him back.

Jesus Flores – Don’t believe his early season flash, the pan’s coming soon.

Travis Hafner pronk’d you like only he can.  Here’s you in the 17th round of your draft, “Well, Swisher’s staring at me like he wants my Jolly Ranchers, but his playing time is an issue.  Oh, wait, I know!  I’ll grab Hafner because he’s going to bounce back to in medias res HGH levels of production.” First off, it’s impressive you used in medias res in a sentence to yourself even if it was used wrong.  That kind of Latin isn’t often seen during internal monologues by anyone born after 78 AD.  Second, I told you to avoid Hafner!  What are you doing?  Thinking on your own? And in Latin?!  C’mon, man.  Carpe Diem!  Hafner’s off to see Dr. Freeze and the Indians are looking at a possible LaPorta promotion.  Mmm… Bop!  I still don’t think he comes up yet, but his chances just got better.  This Pronk’ing also just opened up more time for Shoppach.  Member how annoyed you were that you owned Shoppach and he wasn’t playing?  Well, he should be owned now.  Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Yovani Gallardo – 8 IP, 0 ER, 11 Ks.  Also, provided the only scoring for the Brew Crew with his 2nd homer this year.  Choose your favorite commenter’s word play:  A) He went Ga-yardoed!  B) Gallardonk!

Edinson Volquez – 8 IP, 0 ER, 1 Hit.  Only one walk.  Efficient, son.

Ryan Zimmerman – 18-game hitting streak.  Looks like Zimm’s sick of being the bridesmaid.

Adam Rosales – 1-for-2, 2 RBIs.  More importantly, Dusty played him.

Asdrubal Cabrera – 2-for-5, .329 on the season with 4 steals and one homer.  I haven’t mentioned AS-drubal much since the season started because I pushed him so much during the offseason.  Well, he’s doing what I thought he would.  Little of this, little of that.

Felipe Paulino – 5 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 3 Ks.  Now with a 2.55 ERA in three games.  Gets the Nats next.  Yes, please.

Julian Taverez – Got the save yesterday.  Then crane kicked himself in the head.  He’ll be okay.

Kelly Shoppach – HR yesterday in the DH spot.   Later, Pronky Loser.

Eric Stults – 2 2/3 IP, 5 ER.  He didn’t look Some Kind of Wonderful last night.

Pablo Sandoval – Day-to-day with tightness in his left groin.  Sandoval has two groins?

Fausto Carmona – 6 2/3 IP, 2 ER.  Don’t matter to me cause I dropped his 6.28 ERA owning, no strikeout throwing ass.  I told Rudy something like this when I dropped Carmona for Gaudin, “Carmona’s got the kind of promise that can really hurt a team.”  What I mean, you can’t start him and you can’t bench him.  It’s the worst place to be.  I’m going to let some other schmohawk deal with this nonsense.

Jon Van Every – HR yesterday.  Wait, is that the lady from Knots Landing?

Brett Myers – 6 IP, 3 ER.  I have similar feelings about Myers as I do about Carmona.  Only Myers is in the NL so he’s slightly more attractive.

B.J. Ryan – Expected out until at least late-May as he was told he needed a week of “no-throw.”  Hmm… How about a month of “no-own?”

Carlos Marmol – 1/3 IP, 4 ER.  This one’s hurting me because I don’t have patience for an MR who’s giving up runs.  No matter who he is.  Marmol might be hurting.  Maybe it was those 20,000 pitches he threw last year.

Kenshin Kawakami – Next start being pushed back two days because of a sore shoulder.  Not a good sign…

Javier Vazquez – 8 IP, 5 ER, 8 Ks.  I’m convinced Javy could have this line if he pitched in Petco or Coors.  Always seems to strikeout guys and give up some runs.  He’s not all or nothing as much as all and nothing.

Eric Patterson – Someone in our fantasy baseball forums mentioned him yesterday and I realized I failed to mention him when I talked about Ellis going down.  Anyway, Patterson — SAGNOF.

Nick Swisher – 2 HRs yesterday to bring his total to 7.  And these haven’t even been in The Jetstream.

Billy Butler – 4-for-5, 2 HRs.  He did it for all of you muffin tops out there.

Jorge Cantu – HR yesterday for his 6th.  He’s in a cheap power for a 1st baseman race with Swisher.

Rick Porcello – 3 2/3 IP, 6 ER.  Okay, but you shouldn’t have been starting him in this game anyway.  Save him for AL Central matchups or lose him forever. (<–Hey, that sounded like Meg Ryan’s line to Goose in Top Gun.)

Conor Jackson – Hitting only .200 with 1 HR.  Manage 2 RBIs and 1 Run just by walking twice with the bases loaded.  We’ve said it once counting this instance:  Conor Jackson is the best RBI guy in baseball if you discount all RBIs earned from official ABs.

Zach Greinke – 7 IP, 2 ER, 8 Ks.  I think he might be this year’s feel good story like Hamilton was last year, “Zach Greinke:  The Purpose Pitch.”

As the first month of the season winds down, it’s time to finally look in on our Fantasy Razzball leagues to see how well our participants are doing at sucking.

For those unfamiliar with ‘Fantasy Razzball’, it’s a fantasy baseball variation where you aim to manage the worst team possible.  (See here for rules).  We expanded from one Blogger league last year (won by me – suck it Grey) to 6 10-team divisions:  3 blogger leagues and 3 commenter divisions (note:  we may actually have some satellite leagues – need to check on this).  We then compile a total standings based on each team’s total points and an index based on league performance (basically, it’s total points of league divided by average league points).

The standings can be found here.  For future reference, we have a link to this page in our Razzball Leagues section in the top left of the homepage.

Big shout-out to the top 3 so far:

1) Mike Podhorzer of FantasyPros911.com

2) Grey Albright of Razzball

3) Freak of the Razzball Commenters

27 and rising) Rudy Gamble of Razzball (still smarting from Brandon Inge and Marco Scutaro’s hot starts)

As part of these standings posts, I’m going to throw a few shout-outs to the participating blogs.  We appreciate them putting their reputations on the line to compete against bloggers and commenters in our little masochistic game.  Here it goes:

Jonathan Halket of THT Fantasy Focus – Jonathan writes for The Hardball Times’ Fantasy Baseball section and currently is leading the Jose Lima Division (of which I am in).  Definitely some strong content throughout that whole site – ranging from very statistical to smart but entertaining (e.g., Shysterball).  From his post-article bio that states “Jonathan Halket is graduate student in New York”, I have learned two things:  1) Jonathan Halket is in graduate school and 2) He is not studying English.

Paul Moro of UmpBump – Paul is one of a stable of awesome bloggers at what would’ve been Billy Martin’s second favorite blog after Razzball (Billy would’ve appreciated Grey’s ’stache).  Rather than copy/paste his whole bio, I figured I’d just copy his picture and give you the link to his bio.  If you’re a baseball fan beyond the fantasy aspect, definitely check out this site.

Cory Humes of MVN – Cory – who is also in my FantasyPros911 NL Blogger league – has a leg up on everyone in this game as he’s a diehard Pirates fan.  Cory’s too busy overseeing MVN these days to post some entries on Pirates Revolution but I’m looking forward to his coverage of the Pirates’ inevitable Razztastic slide this year.

That’s it for now.  We’ll try to keep these standings updates posts coming every 2 weeks and update the standings at least that often.  We’ll change the date on the standings page when we update it.

Hmm… Let’s see, where does the news that Josh Hamilton is headed to the DL go on the Hype Cycle?  Oh, wait!  I know!  “Falls Back to Earth, Hits the DL.” Call me, Greyvoyant!  Hamilton may be headed to the DL this Thursday if he’s still in pain.  This is obviously bad news for Hamilton owners.  As we learned from Dylan McKay’s battle with drugs on 90210, addicts can’t take pain killers.  So Hamilton is in “extreme pain” and needs to let it subside on its own.  I don’t think he’ll be out much longer than two weeks, but I’m no doctor (I am psychic though).  If Hamilton’s rib becomes a nagging type injury that bothers him for a few months, this could turn into a Def-Con 4 situation and his owners may have to jump into an Andromeda Strain decontamination shower.  For those out there with alligator blood, this may be your only opportunity to Buy Low on Hamilton.  Just remember his owners were crying in their soup last night, don’t blow on it for them.  Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Edwin Encarnacion – Looks like his chip on his shoulder has moved to his wrist as he heads to the DL.  I liked Edwin going into the year, and was bummed to see him do nada, nada, not a damn thing this season.  At least the wrist injury explains what was going on with him.

Adam Rosales – NL-Only owners could take a flier on the Reds call-up, Rosales.  There’s no indication Baker will play him at all.  If he does, he has some pop.  He was batting .431 with 4 HRs through 17 games at Triple-A.  Not really mixed league material yet, unless your league is very deep.

Joel Hanrahan – Removed from the closer role.  Actually, he kinda removed himself.  As I said yesterday, Julian Taveras seems like the best option to me.  Kip Wells is said to be in the mix.  That mix is in the toilet bowl.  Joe Beimel is rumored to get a shot when he comes off the DL.  Might be, but if Taveras can hold the job, then Beimel will never see the chance.  Hmm… Now that I write that I must say it’s anyone’s job.  I would not carry more than one Nats reliever.  If you have an open DL spot, no harm no foul with Beimel.  I took a chance on Taveras in all of my leagues.  If it’s not him, I’m not losing sleep over it.  Just watch what you say about Taveras, he will karate kick you in the sternum.

Scott Richmond – 7 IP, 1 ER.  Not sure how long Richmond’s mastery continues because his stuff isn’t really that great, but I’ll admit it.  I started him last night in a mixed league.  Hey, lightning, you wanna get in a bottle for me?

Hideki Matsui – How many pop-ups can a lefty hit to the 2nd baseman?

Edwin Jackson – 6 IP, 0 ER. Hey, whaddya know?  He’s still looking good almost a month later.  I went over why I liked Edwin Jackson during the first week of the season.  If you weren’t here, go back and read it again.  If you were here, continue on, I start to pick up speed soon.

Phil Hughes – 6 IP, 0 ER, 6 Ks.  I told everyone to start him because we were going at this like ripping off a Band-Aid.  This was either gonna be the last time he was on anyone’s team, or he was going to be great.  Glad he climbed the latter.  His hook was complementing the speedball very nicely.  Like a well-trained gimp, his leash got longer.

Jose Valverde – To the DL.  Told you yesterday it seemed to be headed this way.  LaTroy Hawkins gets a few weeks to shake his Cuddle Boy label.

Cole Hamels – Left the game after 4 1/3 scoreless innings with an ankle injury.  Can’t a brother get a Win?  Hamels really seems cursed this year.

Jo-Jo Reyes – 7 IP, 1 ER.  I don’t mind Jo-Jo in deep mixed and NL-Only leagues.  Though in most leagues, he’s No-No.

Kyle Lohse – 7 IP, 0 ER.  Has an ERA of 1.97 on the season.  You don’t want to be there when it starts to climb up to 4.

Dave Bush - 5 IP, 4 ER. Almost threw a no-hitter last time out.  So it’s a no-brainer to start him against the Pirates, who batted Brandon Moss as their number three hitter, right?  Moss of a .220 average.  Nope, Bush took a no-brainer and made you look stupid.  (BTW, I always need spellcheck for “brain” and “genius.”  I’m a moron.)

Jorge Cantu – Took deep Livan and Sean Green (not the Jewish one) in yesterday’s game.  Cantu’s now batting .357 on the season with 5 homers.  Mmm… Me love some cheap power.

Chase Utley – Chase ordered up two homers yesterday and three strippers.

Nick Swisher – HR yesterday.  Swisher has 5 HRs and is batting .300.  At some point the bottom will fall out of the average, but he’s good for 30 home runs.  You can put it on the boardddddd…  Oh, wait, he’s no longer on the White Sox.

John Danks – 4 IP, 5 ER.  Sure, Mike Sweeney’s batting third and A-drain Beltre is at cleanup with a .169 average.  Of course, you get hit hard in this game!  Makes perfect sense!  Danks!

Mike Fontenot – HRs in back-to-back games as he played 3rd for Aramis.  He’s still batting .238 and he seems destined to be a three to four games a week guy.

Felix Hernandez – 8 IP, 0 ER, 9 Ks.  I almost predicted him for AL Cy Young.  That’s how much I believe.  If he can stay healthy and get some Win Karma, he could do it.  Next start, F-Her ‘n the A’s. (<–provocative!)

Chone Figgins – 2-for-3.  I give Figgins a hard time and he’s still batting .246, but he stole two bases last night to give him 9 on the season.  That’s a healthy pace.  Then again, Fowler has 9 steals and he’s batting .310.  Cust kayin’.

Mark Ellis – Calf injury, headed to the DL.

Nomar Garciaparra – Sympathy pains, to the DL.

Ian Stewart – Lookie here, Miss Moneypenny, Ee-yon Shtew-art just played his 6th game at 2nd base and, with the Polish kid benched, 2nd base eligibility could happen verrrrry quickly.

Chad Gaudin – 5 IP, 0 ER.  I’m picking him up in all kinds of deep leagues.  Hey, he’s in Petco?  Why not?

Wandy Rodriguez – 7 IP, 1ER, 1.69 ERA on the season.  Begged people to draft him this season, but, let’s be fo’ realz, even I didn’t think he’d start out the year this well.  He’s not necessarily a sell because I don’t think people are buying, but he’s not going to finish the year under a 3 ERA, so he will take some lumps at some point.  Hopefully, they’re not for a while.  I’m still on the Wandwagon, just tempering expectations.  (BTW, wouldn’t Tempura Expectations be a great Japanese restaurant name?  What?  You like yakitori?)

Brad Penny – 2 2/3 IP, 4 ER.  And Penny’s usually a pre-All-Star Break pitcher.  Hmm… Looks like someone’s missing Alyssa Milano’s nooners.

Ben Zobrist – HR yesterday off the bench.  As Zobrist goes, so go the mohels.

Matt LaPorta – Ripping up Triple-A and could replace Ben Francisco, then Francisco goes and hits a HR yesterday.  LaPorta will be up soon, but soon’s relative.  Ask Stephen Hawking.

Francisco Liriano – 6 2/3 IP, 2 ER.  He bounced back from that last mugging like Bernie Goetz.