Just to clear my head the other day, I threw on some bicycle shorts, jumped in my El Dorado and went for a spin. Cause that’s how guys with a ‘stache roll. If you didn’t know, now you do. Consider yourself informed. As I was rocking out to some Don Henley, I was thinking back on some guys that helped me win leagues last year. Ryan Madson – Thanks, Mad-Man! Morse, you dot-dot-dashing hunk! All She Wants To Do Is Dance DANCE!
Please, blog, may I have some more?2012 Fantasy Baseball
Welcome to the Razzball Fanduel Freeroll for Thursday night. This week we get an exclusive $500 dollar freeroll for Razzball readers. 1st gets $125, 2nd $80, 3rd $60, 4th $40 and so on until unlucky 14th who gets a big pile of leaves and just scooped cat droppings.
Please, blog, may I have some more?I hate guys that are injured before the season even starts. I should’ve emphasized that more in the preseason. I should’ve followed my gut on that with Stanton too. At least Stanton can play through the nagging pain (hopefully), on the other hand, Mike Morse is shut down for 6 weeks and he has a history of injuries. (Can you tell I’m still reeling a bit on the Stanton news? It’s like a teenage love…Don’t…Don’t hurt me again…) As for Morse, he was a former roider (RIP, Lyle Alzado, I don’t know football, but I enjoyed your random guest spots on bad 80′s TV shows) and they say that tends to break down a player’s body. It’s all very sad (actually, I’m still thinking about Stanton; don’t worry, I’ll move on by Monday). I don’t think this moves up Bryce Harper’s ETA.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Surprisingly, the dust has settled a few places and some of the riskier closers (Frank Francisco, Jim Johnson, Grant Balfour, Fernando Rodney (wtf?), Javy Guerra, etc.) have gotten off to good starts. That said, there’s still a dash of turmoil in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Miami, Toronto and Washington.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Welcome to our second FanDuel Freeroll of the season. And congrats to fyeabaseball who took 1st out of 337 entries and won a cool 75 toad hides. I came in 70th and am a disgrace to my family. This week’s freeroll is on Friday the 13th which means Peyton Hillis will jinx a Ricky Nolasco no-no.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Went over our NL-Only team already that was also hosted by Scott White of CBS. To refresh your memory, it was the post that you didn’t read and skipped to the comments to ask questions. No, not that one. The other one… Yeah, that one! If I had my druthers, and if I were using the word druthers correctly, I’d do an NL-Only league instead of an AL-Only league. You think NL-Only was shallow? NL-Only makes AL-Only look downright vapid, by comparison. To give you an idea, the best starter available on waivers right now is Vicente Padilla. That would be great if Ugly were a category. The best 3rd baseman available is Jayson Nix. I’m not sure if his mom, Jayne, would even draft him. The top five best shortstops had 5 homers combined last year. Democratically, divvying them up one each. If you lose a player, you’re basically done. With that said, I wrote this post right after I drafted the team and now we’re in first place (it’s still early; I know). Anyway, here’s our 2012 fantasy baseball team with thoughts on different draft picks:
For sake of clarity: 12 teams, AL-Only, Roto, 5 x 5 — C, C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, CI, MI, OF, OF, OF, OF, OF, Util, BN, BN, BN — P, P, P, P, P, P, P, P, P, BN, BN, BN, BN, DL, DL
C – Jose Molina $3
C – Chris Iannetta $9
1B – Justin Morneau $7
2B – Alexi Casilla $9
3B – Evan Longoria $33
SS – Alexei Ramirez $21
MI – Brendan Ryan $7
CI – Mark Reynolds $19
OF – Nick Swisher $20
OF – Michael Brantley $13
OF – Eric Thames $8
OF – Nick Markakis $19
OF – Yoenis Cespedes $7 (guessing on $ amount, he wasn’t in CBS when we drafted)
U – Alberto Callaspo $4
Bench – Ryan Kalish $0 (free round)
Bench – Jarrod Dyson $0 (free round)
Bench – Jermaine Mitchell $0 (free round)
P – Justin Masterson $13
P – Brad Peacock $4
P – Aaron Crow $3
P – David Robertson $5
P – Jim Johnson $12
P – Ivan Nova $8
P – Chris Sale $12
P – Jake Peavy $8
P – Brian Fuentes $6
Bench – Kevin Gregg $0 (free round)
Bench – Matt Lindstrom $0 (free round)
Bench – Tyson Ross $0 (free round)
Bench – Dylan Axelford $0 (free round)
ACCORDING TO EVERYONE, OUR PITCHING’S TERRIBLE
By everyone, I mean Rudy and myself too. Our pitching staff has one ace… If the league only used Cleveland Indian players. Yeah, not so good. If Peavy surprises and Sale does what I think he’s capable of, then the staff won’t be the worst in the league. Maybe only 11th worst. Our saving grace is our hitting isn’t terrible… Only slightly bad. (BTW, to give you an idea of how early it is in the season. We’re in first place because of this pitching staff… HA!)
ACCORDING TO EVERYONE, OUR HITTING IS SLIGHTLY BAD
I don’t mind our outfield. Though I think it says a lot when Nick Swisher is your most expensive outfielder. I think, in fact, it says, “What the hell were you doing?” Our 2nd highest get on the whole team was Alexei Ramirez. Huh? That’s egregious with a side of vomit. We need about ten players to play over their head and then some luck on top of that.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
First off, let me just state this post could be jumping the gun. Hell, I might be winning the 10K marathon because I started the week before everyone else did (which would explain why I had time for so much beer as I went). I know that, I own that. Now that we’ve clarified I’m trying to show the skill of clairvoyance, let’s review.
Chipper Jones has already announced he’ll retire after the end of the 2012 season and he just went on the DL to start the year due to…well whatever is ailing Chipper. Seriously, the dude hurt himself putting on a sock at one point in his career. A SOCK for all those who can only read capital letters. Though they could’ve put Martin Prado at 3rd to temporarily hold the spot, the Braves trade for a seldom used free swinger from Cincinatti named Juan Francisco. So the guy who should get the majority of starts at 3rd if and when Glass Chipper gets injured – which happens every other day – is currently less than 1% owned in yahoo, ESPN, and Fleaflicker leagues? While it’s true Jones will eventually come back and play 3rd again, in deeper leagues you have to ask yourself some important questions: ‘How long will Chipper play at age 40′, ‘will he play well if he comes back’, ‘if Juan plays well, does it delay Chipper’s return and does he come back at all at that point’ and ‘where are the question marks, I thought these were questions!!!’? It’s true, the trade for Francisco was due to the ’In case of Glass Chipper break, emergency’ sign above Jone’s locker but it’s clear the Braves don’t want Prado at 3rd in the future full time with this trade. Since 2004, Jones has averaged 122.75 games a season with his highest total coming in 2009 at 143. Chipper has always been a gamer but he’s never been confused with the Iron Man (though he has been confusing blue collar fans everywhere with his Larry the Cable Guy impersonation). The Braves will need a replacement after this season and what better way to do it then to work with the possible future one this year?
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Feels like a 26 weeks and a day since I wrote about two start pitchers. Since we are in the future, do we even still play baseball with bats or do robots run/hit/throw now? So week 1-slash-2 is a weird menagerie of eclectic starters.
Please, blog, may I have some more?No surprise that Johan Santana pitched well yesterday. Everyone pitched well yesterday (except relievers). Now I know what it was like to play fantasy baseball during the dead ball era. “Hey, Scoots, I got me a base hit from my second bagger! I’m so excited, but maybe that excitement is from this Coca-Cola that’s made from cocaine! I love me some fizzle! I’m gonna boil this Coca-Cola, then smoke the leftover brown soot. You want in, Scoots? Huh?!” Can’t everyone do the juice and then use FedEx? I miss the shrunken ball era! Did anyone even hit a ball out of the infield yesterday? Someone lower the mound six inches and use aluminum bats. Please! I need Justin Masterson looking like Bob Gibson like I need another hole in my head (I already have four; one of my ears closed up after listening to the Cleveland Indian announcers). Can’t say I wasn’t unpleasantly surprised to see Johan pitching. It would’ve been straight pleasantly, but I don’t own him anywhere. He’s not the pitcher he once was. He’s not going back to that, but he looked like he could be a fairly competent number three fantasy starter if — and this “if” is the size of Gilbert Grape’s mom — he can stay healthy. Though, after yesterday, every healthy pitcher may be a competent number three. Now go smoke some Coca-Cola soot! Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Frank Francisco – A perfect inning save. It’s safe to drop Rauch and/or Parnell. If you want, pretend you’re going catch Rauch in a trust exercise, then let him drop. It’s more fun that way.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Grey covered the Andrew Bailey and Frank Francisco situations nicely on Tuesday. However, I had already started putting information together, so I’ll leave you with a few lines from my Francisco write-up:
While Francisco is not expected to miss anytime, we’re talking about a relatively fragile relief pitcher here and a Mets organization that has a hard enough time keeping healthy players off the disabled list.
Please, blog, may I have some more?