Okay, we’re going to put behind us the absurd notion that absolutely everything has changed in a little over a month of a six month season. I’m not going to point out regression to the mean, skill sets or anything else in regards to players doing what they should do over the marathon-like baseball season. We’re going to assume ESPN knows better than us. That their rankings a month ago made sense and today their new rankings also make sense. We’re not going to say, “How could Brandon Webb be ranked tenth overall on Berry’s ranking yet Harang is ranked 70th?” We’re not going to say, they kinda have the same numbers, except for wins. We’re going to assume Webb will go 30-0 and Harang will go 3-27. We’re going to do all of that because we’re all brainwashed. We won’t second guess Karabell ranking Webb first overall. That’s right. We’re going to take our medicine, because that’s what we do — day in and day out. What choice do we have? You get all of this tremendous information at ESPN Hindsighter™; they know better than us because they broadcast games. And they’re owned by Disney. And Disney stockholders must know better than me. And… Fuck that! Is Hater Bell the only one that’s irate? You’re not frustrated with the status quo?

You need to start listening to some ’80s PE, and stop watching Flavor of Love. You need to get angry, quickfast. Put down the wine cooler and pick up a four-oh of OE. Stop holding your girlfriend’s pocketbook while she’s in the bathroom. Take her cash out of her wallet, drop the purse in the garbage and take the eighteen-year-old Wetzel’s Pretzels girl home and do her like Karabell’s been doing to his readers for the last seven years. You’re all to blame. Karabell et al is the meter maid who gave you a ticket while you ran into the store to get change. Karabell’s your eighth grade crush who asked your best friend to the Sadie Hawkins dance. Karabell’s your insecurity and that shizz is eating you alive. /rant

Looks like someone got around to translating Karabell’s Etch-A-Sketch writings into fantasy baseball advice. Unless the rumors are true that Karabell’s gone green and started simply writing his fantasy baseball advice on toilet paper. Waste not, want not. So Karabell’s latest blog post was about how unproductive DHs currently are and how this should affect the way we look at pitchers. Could Karabaloney have hit on something when he surmised from seven unproductive DHs that league disparity isn’t what you think? Yeah, he hit on my last nerve. You have to be an ESPN Hindsighter™ to fully appreciate Karabell’s mangling of common sense, but I’ll give you a few turd nuggets to mull:

…with one month down, it’s no longer so big a gap (between leagues) that we should evaluate pitchers differently. The current league ERA in the NL is 4.07, and in the AL it’s 4.23. In 2007, it was also a small difference, 4.43 to 4.51. Maybe the designated hitter isn’t such a big deal anymore, eh?

Besides, using the word ‘eh,’ there’s about four hundred things wrong with this (you don’t draft entire staffs or entire leagues, you don’t draft every single middle man that is influencing these stats, you don’t start three of five starters in Citizen’s Bank or four of five in Coors, you draft maybe one Marlins starter, maybe two Pirates starters — I could go on, but I’m getting a tumor thinking about this.). So I’m going to focus on the most obvious:

The designated hitter isn’t such a big deal, eh? Who in their right mind would prefer to face a designated hitter instead of a pitcher? Heffin’ hey, are Karabell’s posts being written by Corky for Life Goes On? Sure, Karabell could shat on a piece of paper and win a FSWA.ORG award, but to say the DH is irrelevant is stoopid. (BTW, The FSWA has a mission statement. It’s akin to someone writing down rules for Rock, Paper, Scissors. Picture the FSWA getting together for drinks. “Hey, man, I’m not paying for your second colada!” “Figured I could sneak it through… Like I snuck Wade Boggs through in ‘87!” *Belly laughs all around.* But I digress.) In 2007 (I’m going to ignore 2008’s stats because, unlike maybe Karabell, those are the stats I drafted with. Not to mention, one month of stats isn’t indicative of anything other than someone who doesn’t know how to sort stats correctly), the fourteen AL teams placed in the top fifteen teams for OPS for the ninth placed hitter. The only NL team that snuck in was the Cardinals. Why? Because LaRussa, who’s cracked out of his mind, batted the pitcher eighth. So with current DHs sucking up the suck pot, does this mean it’s easier to face them than the NL pitcher? C’mon, only Karabell would think that nonsense. Or another way to put this, Karabell’s off his meds.

Then Karabell talked a bit about how awful some DHs have hit thus far. Again, it’s only one month, but we’ll let Karabell play with his Speak & Spell. Frank Thomas was on his list. The same Frank Thomas who Karabell pegged as a big sleeper. Dude, I’m telling you, you can’t make this shizz up. It’s like Karabell is not a real person but an amalgamation (Word of the Day) of whatever the interns are talking about while they pickup Kruk’s lunch.

Someone else who was in this list, David Ortiz. Now I’m not sure how I even missed this one back in March, but Karabell described David Ortiz as his pick for AL MVP! (Sorry for the exclamation point, but I felt it was needed.) A DH who has off-season knee surgery is who he chooses? Seriously, this is ESPN’s top fantasy analyst. Did he forget when Ortiz had his best seasons people wouldn’t vote for him because he was a DH? Did Karabell call in his pick from Tijuana after a night of ‘ludes and donkey shows? When he chose Ortiz, was he eating a Sonic Coney that caused him to hallucinate? Does his high school bully still torment him and was giving him a noogie until he chose Ortiz? Please, someone explain this to me, cause I’m about to lose it. Meanwhile, Karabell, go get your shinebox!

And by breakdown I don’t mean of the crying variety with Zach Greinke suffering from an abulia. (Sorry, it was the Word of the Day.) My favorite fantasy baseball writer, Eric Karabell, did a breakdown of the Royals pitchers. (You can click that link but I think you need to be an ESPN Hindsighter™ to read it. And you thought they were for the populous. Well, they are, the paying-money populace. Don’t cha know, they’re owned by Disney. But I digress.) Within Karabell’s piece, he breaks down what he thinks of Gil Meche and Zach Greinke for this year in fantasy baseball. So what did Karabell say that sent me from scratching my head to banging it against the wall?

Karabaloney ranks Gil Meche ahead of Zach Greinke, saying this:

Meche is not off to the same start as last year, of course, when his April ERA was 2.18, and if you remove that month from his 2007 ledger, his final ERA jumps from 3.67 to 4. Maybe he is just average. Isn’t that OK? I have no problem that he is, because Meche is relatively safe at the back end of a fantasy rotation. He’s the most experienced pitcher on the Royals staff, about the only one capable of strikeouts….

Now before you argue with that, he preceded that by saying:

Look, I won’t listen to any arguments about the current statistics. It’s just too early.

Well, that squashes anything anyone could possibly say.  Anyway, what Karabaloney says about it being early is true. So that makes it surprising when he takes Greinke’s early season stats and uses them as fact.

Greinke’s problem could be strikeout rate. It wasn’t an issue a year ago…

Greinke’s strikeout rate is also after three outings?! How is okay to look at Meche and say, “Hey, it’s early. He’s gonna be just fine. I bet my ugly face on it.”

Over 1000 innings, Meche’s major league strikeout rate is 6.38. Just under 500 innings, Greinke’s K/9 is 6.41.  Sure, it’s a smaller sample size but he’s five years younger and he went caca-cuckoo for a year so there’s less miles on his arm. Last year Greinke’s rate was probably a little high because of a lot of it came in middle relief, so what’s fair to say about both of these guys? Both of their K/9 is close to 6. That means Meche is not the only pitcher capable of strikeouts.

Also, Meche will walk more hitters than Greinke. Maybe none of this means anything to Karabaloney, but Meche’s career WHIP is 1.41. Greinke is 1.37.  Now is Meche safer because of his track record? It makes him more predictable, and if we look at his track record, it makes him pretty bleh. On the other hand, Greinke has upside. Will Greinke be a top twenty pitcher at the end of 2008? No, probably not, but to say Meche is better is just stoopid. Now go get your shinebox!

Luckily someone transcribed Eric Karabell’s crayon drawings into a blog post so we can see which players Karabaloney is thinking are overrated this year. As Common said, “It doesn’t take a whole day to recognize sunshine…” Well, it also doesn’t take a mouthful to recognize shit either. The following is only a sampling of Eric Karabell’s crap. Seriously, try and wrap your head around these puppies.

Roy Halladay – The ESPN ‘perts ranked him at 67. The rest of the free world ranks him at 99. You can’t say someone is overrated when you are the one overrating him?! Inconceivable! This would be like me saying Alex Gordon’s overrated after rating him sixty spots higher than everyone south of Canada and north of Mexico. Halladay may be good value at 99 because other than Ks, he has a proven track record of Wins, ERA, WHIP and injuries. He’s not in my top hundred for a reason.

Placido Polanco – The ESPN ‘perts ranked him 133. Everyone else ranked him at 163. This is akin to me saying I’m an overrated lay, even though I’m the only saying I’m good in bed. Polanco will guarantee you 90/7/65/.310/7 and a fifth place finish in your league. Try harder!

Travis Hafner – The World says 42. ESPN says 37. I said 34, and I thought I was overrating him. Hafner’s one of my risky picks because of his injury history and his position eligibility. I could understand if you passed him by, but to say he’s overrated… Ugh.

Bobby Abreu – Check out this Karabell turd nugget, “I bet most people who draft him think he can still be a 30/30 player. I do not.” Seriously, is it me or is Karabell The Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer? Abreu hasn’t come close to 30 homers in a while; does anyone actually believe they are getting a 30/30 guy? My projections were 120/15/110/.310/20. Sure doesn’t look like 30/30. Abreu hasn’t hit 30 homers since ’04 and has only recorded two 30 homer seasons in his career. Who’s expecting 30/30 at the age of 34? Seriously. crickets

What have we learned from this exercise? ESPN overrates players then dispatches their experts to tell us to be careful they’re overrated. Do yourself a favor and ignore ESPN. They will hurt you. And they’re owned by Disney. Do you need other reasons?

ESPN’s top “analyst,” Eric Karabell, lit a flame nugget under me when he decided to tout Frank Thomas as a big 2008 sleeper. That’s right, the soon-to-be 40 year-old, Toronto DH who limps around the bases. Seems to me that Karabell has been sleeping for the last ten years. You need to be an ESPN Outsider to read the entire Frank Thomas is a “big 2008 sleeper” hooey, but I’ll recycle the relevant rubbish here:

The Big Hurt isn’t young, has a limited ceiling and certainly isn’t the same player who put up Hall of Fame stats for more than a decade, but he’s hardly a bad option at this point. In fact, in one of the January drafts I had, Thomas was my 22nd-round pick, the second to last player I chose. I kept waiting and waiting and nobody wanted the guy. I was stacked on offense, and intended to use my utility spot for steals, but how could I turn down a shot at Thomas?

Utility spot filled with a diminishing-skills 40-year-old? This is mind numbing. Was Dave Roberts already off the board? How about Mike Schmidt? Greg Luzinski?

Karabaloney doesn’t say who was still on the board this late in the draft, but you absolutely have to take an upside guy (LaRoche, Kotchman, Votto, etc.) or round out your pitching with a quality middleman who might get you saves (Rodney, Broxton, Betancourt, etc.). If you take Frank Thomas, you’re just not trying hard enough or paying attention. The Big Limp is not hitting as many fly balls and his average is (updated) around .260 since 2001. Sure, he takes walks, but he should be lifted every time he gets on the basepaths. Watching him run is as painful as watching Claire Danes act. At age forty, if his career continues to decline (which there’s no reason to think it won’t), he’s lucky to go 22-80-.260 with a paltry 60 runs. As Rich Dad might say, that’s a liability not an asset. You’re welcome.