Fantasy Baseball Advice

Every day that Justin Verlander starts, you know there’s a chance of a no-hitter.  You just expect it to be thrown by him and not another pitcher.  Guillermo Moscoso took a no-hitter into the 8th inning against the Royals and finished with 0 ER, 3 baserunners, 4 Ks in 8 2/3 IP.  He now has 8 wins in 18 starts which is as many wins as Brett Anderson, Dallas Braden, and Rich Harden managed this year combined.  Everything about Moscoso’s year screams fluke.  His 3.63 ERA / 1.14 WHIP does not gel with 5 K/9 and 3 BB/9.  But as an owner of this guy in my AL-only league, all I can say is this guy has been money against bad to average teams.  He’s had 4 ugly starts – @BOS, @TAM, @DET, and home against TAM.  His home WHIP is now under 1.00 in over 60 innings.  His road WHIP is 1.44.  There’s not much time left this season but if he has a start against a bad-to-average team at home – I’d go-go for Moscoso.

In other news…

Jerome Williams – The Angels’ starter has won all 3 of his Angel starts with this past one by far the best – 8 IP with just one hit (a Trayvon Robinson HR) and a walk.  Nothing to see here.  Just a 30 year old journeyman who’s perhaps half a notch more tolerable than Tyler Chatwood.

Chase Utley - Pulled out of the game after being hit in the helmet.  The Phillies brass are concerned he might have a mild concussion but Charlie Manuel is confident it’s just a standard variety ‘noggin burner’ and he just needs to rub some ‘piss ‘n’ vinegar’ on it.

Matt Cain – 7 IP, 2 ER, loss.  Same old song.  He’s now 11-10 despite a 1.06 WHIP.  He’s a career 68-73 despite a career 1.19 WHIP.  He should retaliate against the offense – I suggest he takes a dump in the pine tar.  Just don’t lose your balance or you’ll end up with sticky buns and tempt Pablo Sandoval.

Aaron Harang – Beat the Giants with a 7 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunner, 3 K start.  He’s now 13-5 for a team that’ s 19 games under .500 (62-81).  He’s like Steve Carlton for the 1972 Phillies except he’s not lefty, not an above average pitcher (3.74 ERA/1.39 WHIP), and has never allegedly said that the world is ruled by 12 Jewish bankers meeting in Switzerland.

Ian Kinsler – 2 HRs to up his season total to 28 and tie for the team lead (with Nelson Cruz).  If it weren’t for the .245 AVG, he’d be in the conversation with Cano and Pedroia for most valuable fantasy 2B (.245/101/28/71/23).  Or as an incompetent announcer would phrase it, “You talk about second baseman who can hit…Ian Kinsler…”

Justin Verlander - Snagged win #22 but gave up 4 ERs thanks to 2 HR / 4 RBI by his kryptonite – Shelley Duncan.  Clearly Verlander can only effectively pitch to batters shorter than him and he’s just lucky that there aren’t a lot of 6’5″+ hitters.  The Yankee and Red Sox scouts should be out recruiting locked-out NBA players for playoff rosters.  If there’s one lesson to be learned from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, it’s that if the other guy is going to go tall, you’ve got to do the same.  If there is a second lesson to be learned from MMPR, it is that if you’re producing a show that has kid actors, it is best to hide their faces behind masks so you can swap in other actors when the original ones get too old or expensive.  Saved By The Bell would still be on if it was set in Milwaukee and each of the kids wore a different sausage costume.  (Kelly Kapowski – Polish sausage.  Slater – Chorizo.  Zach – Bratwurst.  No one qualified for Italian Sausage until the summer season with Stacey Carosi.)

Victor Martinez - Hit a 7th inning grand slam.  His .325 AVG and 89 RBIs are great for a catcher but that was only his 10th HR of the year.  And he’ll have only DH-eligibility next year.  V-Mart is going to be discounted like he’s Wal-Mart.  (Correction: As noted in the comments, V-Mart has 26 games at Catcher this year so should retain C-eligibility next year.)

Daniel Bard - The Sawx’ rumored closer in waiting ruined Tim Wakefield’s billionth chance of being one of the 13 worst pitchers with 200 career wins by posting a 5-spot thanks to a single, HBP, 3 BBs, and the next pitcher giving up a run-clearing double.  That said, aside from having only 2 wins, Bard has been everything a Mr. B could’ve hoped for (2.76 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, 66 Ks, 1 pity save).

Jacoby Ellsbury - 4 for 5 with a HR (#25), 3 RBIs, and 2 Runs.  5 more HRs away from 30-30.  And only 2 HRs and 44 SBs away from joining Rickey Henderson and Eric Davis in the illustrious 27-80 club.  (Oddly enough, both done in 1986 – Davis in 415 ABs!).

Manny Acosta – Got the save for the Mets as Parnell and Izzy threw 30+ pitches the night before and no one else in the bullpen had 299 saves.

Carlos Lee - Hit his 15th HR of the year – and his 3rd in the past 8 games.  Maybe El Caballo doesn’t need to be taken to the glue factory just yet.

Andrew McCutchen – The Dread Pirate HR’d twice against the Astros.  He’s now at 81/22/85 but only 20 SBs and .269.  Jeff Francoeur has 20 SBs.  Braun has more than 20 SBs.  Can’t the Pirates hire Omar Moreno to be his Davey Lopes?

Chris Carpenter - Shut out the Brewers on 4 hits, 2 BB, and 5 Ks.  He also allegedly yelled an expletive at Nyjer Morgan.  Maybe he just mispronounced his name.

Rafael Furcal – Another HR – his 4th in the last 8 games.  He had 4 in his first 63 games.  Even with the sudden power burst, wow do his stats look bad this year.  .215 AVG?  5 SBs?  When did Rafael Furcal turn into Rafael Belliard?

Roy Oswalt – The 2nd best Roy in Philly is looking close to his old magical self again with a 7 IP, 7 K, 2 ER effort vs. Atlanta.  I’m having a premonition – Oswalt pitches well through the regular season + 1st round of the playoffs, makes some bad throws in the championship series, says he’s going to retire to spend more time with his family and tractor in Mississippi, and then end up playing again in 2012, 2013, and 2014.  It’s just the Mississippi way.

Jemile Weeks – 4 for 5, now batting .303 with 22 doubles, 21 SBs, and 0 HRs.  Growing up, Jemile was always the fast one, Rickie was the strong one, and Nynind’haph was the seductive one.

Brett Pill - 2 games, 2 HRs, for the Giant rookie 1B who mashed in AAA the past two years while the Giants skipped over him to promote rookie tease sensation Brandon Belt.  Proof once again that when grabbing for the Belt, it’s better to be safe and take the Pill first.

The Fantasy Razzball Master League Standings went up on Saturday. You can access them here and via the link in the ‘Razzball Commenter Leagues’ section in the left sidebar.

Early congrats to the owner of team Bill Bergen c. 1909 (aka commenter ‘Tom’) who has the early lead. Your team must really suck. Although they can never suck as much as your team’s namesake. E-mail us your address at info@razzball.com and we’ll send you a free t-shirt. The same goes for the owner of the Pesky Pole Dancers in the Razzball Commenter League. For those unfamiliar, we worked with a company to design two t-shirts – a Sparky Anklebiter shirt and a “It’s Tough Being In A Platoon” shirt. They’ve got several other t-shirts as well that are sans Razzball fingerprints. Buy one of the t-shirts now and receive a free once-used envelope and invoice with your name on it!

Early congrats to the league, Razzball 5, which so far has the highest competitive index of 107. It’s probably because you’re collectively out-pacing the 1250 IP cap but at least your innings so far have stuck.

The competitive index is based on the point totals of the top 8 teams in each league. If your league is bad (good?) enough to have 3 teams that fall below the top ‘Razzball Dummy’ team, I use the ‘Razzball Dummy’ team’s points.

Second to last note: I had Vin Mazzaro on my bench for his historic 14 ER in 2+ IP. Sonavabench!

Last note: If you’re in one of the Fantasy Razzball Leagues, fill out this form to add your Razzball Commenter Handle:

Last year, the only type of starts and luck that Charlie Morton had was bad.  Despite good stuff and pedestrian ratios (6.7 K/9, 2.9 BB/9), he put up some of the worst stats in recent history.  A 7.57 ERA in 79 innings during the year of the pitcher!  It was a 54 ERA+ (adjusted for park and era) which stands as the 5th worst ERA+ since 1945 for pitchers with 79+ IP.  It’s hard to say how much of his .353 BABIP was because he threw down the middle or back luck but let’s just say the latter.  It seemed like luck was balancing out in his first three starts this year as he went 2-0 despite throwing 6 Ks and 12 BBs in 22 innings.  But excluding an ugly win in Colorado (where just about every non-ace should be benched), his last three starts – including last nights 5-hit shutout – have shown significant progress.  In those 18 2/3 IP, he’s K’d 17 and walked 7.  So let your league mates focus on his ghastly K:BB for the season while you get him on the cheap.  I’d still bench him during bad match-ups but he looks primed to be a solid 5th/6th SP in shallow leagues.

Onto other fantasy baseball news….

Jake Peavy - A 3 hit shutout with 8 Ks against the Indians who’ve recently been scalping opposing pitchers.  To quote the great Larry King, “Sorry Mr. Westbrook but the best Jake pitching today is Jake Peavy”.

Bartolo Colon- How fitting.  Jake has his first great comeback start and the Fatman nearly matches him (8 innings, 0 ER, 3 hits).  Now they just need to thank their doctor who I think first starred in the Six Million Dollar Man.

Pedro Alvarez – 3-run HR for Alvy.  Maybe he’s finally figuring out how to get the lobster in the pot.  Reminds of this old joke about two elderly Pirate fans sitting on the Roberto Clemente Bridge.  One of them says, “Boy, the Pirates’ <fill in 3rd baseman> has been really terrible.”  The other says, “Yeah, I know, and too few at-bats.”

Jon Niese – 7 shutout innings with 7 Ks.  You made your Aunt and Uncle proud!

Matt Holliday and Lance Berkman - Yes, the Cardinals were victorious against the Astros and Bud Norris (with that last name, shouldn’t he be a Texas Ranger?) but both Holliday (quad) and Berkman (wrist) were out of the game by the 5th inning.  Much like the rest of our existences, they are ‘day-to-day’.  Bud Norris must’ve roundhouse kicked them with his mind.

Mark DeRosa – Left the game in the middle of an at-bat when he re-strained his wrist.  That hurts more than having your wrist restrained – depending on who’s doing it.  If it’s Mrs. DeRosa, I would not be check-swinging.  The official announcement is ‘day-to-day’ but I’d move the versatile DeRosa to ‘Left Out’ in all but NL-only leagues (where we unfortunately have him).

Kyle Lohse – Another strong (8 innings, 1 ER, 7 baserunners) yet not dominant (3 Ks) start.  He should change his last name to Wihn.  He’s now 5-2 with a crazy low BABIP (somewhere in the .215 range).  His ERA/WHIP might be due for regression but he’s still worth starting while he’s on this streak.

Craig Kimbrel – Okay, maybe it’s officially time to start worrying.  Tonight was blown save #4 and it was an ugly one – 2 ER & 4 hits  in 1/3 of an inning to spoil the Braves second straight extra inning victory.  This is after Jonny Venters threw two shutout innings in the 9th and 10th.  If it weren’t for the anti-lefty sentiment that fuels closer decisions and McCarthyism, Venters would be closer by now.  But my guess is Kimbrel won’t be a fugitive from the closer role as he’d been dominant his previous 4 outings (4 IP, 1 hit, 9 Ks).

Mark Reynolds – 0 for 5 with 2 Ks and a BB in the Orioles 15 inning loss to the Yanks.  He did manage his 2nd sB of the year but his average now stands at .184.  To those of you who said he couldn’t repeat last year’s .198 AVG, well, I guess you’re still technically correct.

Julio Teheran – 4 innings, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, and 1 strikeout.  This is after his first start where he threw 4 2/3 innings and managed 1 strikeout.  I know it sounds pervy but I’d trade in this 20 year-old phenom for a Minor.

Yovani Gallardo – A six inning win with 2 ER and 9 Ks.  That’s three straight wins for Yovani.  Have we finally seen the end of his evil telenovela twin – Oyvani Goneyardo?

Elliot Johnson - 2-3 with 3 RBIs as he started for the 3rd straight night.  Sam Fuld might be Mr. April but looks like someone is auditioning hard for Mr. May (TM to Dave Winfield).

Trevor Plouffe – 2 for 4 with 3 RBIs.  He’s shown some power in the minors (15 HRs in 445 AAA ABs last year) and a K-rate (22%) that screams .250-.260.  So, best case, he’s a J.J. Hardy in hi prime type.  Worst case, he’s 2011 J.J. Hardy.  Either way, I don’t think anyone minds seeing Gardenhire say “See ya” to Casilla when Nishioka comes back.

Neftali Feliz – A blown save after Hosmer took him deep to star the 9th.  Ron Washington was tempted to bring in Arthur Rhodes to face the lefty rookie but, when he approached him, Rhodes responded in a world-weary voice, “I’m getting too old for this s**t” and shared how he plans to spend his retirement.

Michael Dunn - Quick shoutout to the Mr. B‘s.  Dunn now has 25 Ks in 19 innings this year.  He can come in handy in daily leagues where you need K’s.

Clay Buchholz – Unlike Steve Howe and Dwight Gooden, Buchholz was able to go face-to-face against Coke and come out unharmed (7 shutout innings, no decision).  Buchholz is pitching well of late (he’d won four of his last 5).  More importantly, he’s been putting up some K’s (he’s now averaged 6 in his last 3 games).  His K/9 and BB/9 ratios were very average last year (6.2 and 3.5 respectively) and they’ve been about the same this year.  If he can keep K’ing guys like he has in the past 3 games, his value goes up significantly.

Danny Duffy - Making his first major league start, you can imagine the pressure Double-D must’ve felt to fit in with his Royal teammates.  4 innings and 10 baserunners (including 6 walks) later….son,  you’re going to fit in just fine.  Ignore for 10/12-team mixed leagues but I’d keep an eye on him for deeper leagues.

Scott Hairston – Is it me or does this guy have the face of an anthropomorphic frog?  No wonder why he’s an outfield while his father and brother are infielders – he’s a natural at shagging flies.

The Razzball Commenter League Master Standings are now available. We added a link in the top left of our main menu under ‘Razzball Commenter Leagues’ for future reference.

Early congratulations / unintended jinx to…

1. The Pesky Pole Dancers who are in 1st place among the 456 participants (38 leagues of 12)! And thanks for putting an image in my head of Johnny Pesky pole dancing. At least you didn’t name it after this guy.
2. Everyone in RCL 5 as you are currently the most competitive league (competitive index of 105).

We’ll do our best to update the standings on a regular basis. We’re currently talking to a commenter about becoming the league commissioner of which the duties will be to update the standings regularly, mine for interesting data, and sell used cars in Milwaukee.

League Competitive Index is based on the total stats for the whole league. The index page can be found here. The points formula is courtesy of Tom Tango at InsideTheBook.com and is: HR + SB + R/3 + RBI/3 + (H-.27*AB) + 2*W + 1.5 * SV + K / 5 + IP – (ER+H+BB/ 2).

One last item. It would be great if we can attach each team to a Razzball Commenter handle. Please fill out the below form so we can add your handle to the Master Standings page (note: you can also enter this for a leaguemate if you like).

In 2000, a gritty bunch of veterans, role players, and youngsters almost did the impossible – beat the New York Yankees in a World Series.  Led by the mad genius of Bobby Valentine, the silver foxiness of Steve Phillips, and the support of a well-capitalized owner who gladly stayed out of the public eye (Fred Wilpon), the 2000 New York Mets were almost at the top of baseball’s pyramid.

But what happens when a financial industry wizard and a certifiable baseball GM scheme together to implement the same strategies that fueled the recent Wall Street collapse?  In the case of the New York Mets franchise, disaster happens – the culmination of one of the greatest turnarounds in baseball history.

In The Skim Is In – How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team From First to Worst, financially-successful journalist and sportswriter Mike Lupica chronicles the remarkable story of one team’s Dante-like journey from World Series team to a paragon of all that’s wrong in America.  By misquantifying the game’s tangibles, Bernie Madoff and ‘boy (was he not a) genius’ Omar Minaya were able to skim out that extra 2% that separates a losing organization from a winning organization–they were able to deliver to New York something that the Royals had never brought to Kansas City: a pyramid of incompetence that entombed a whole franchise.

Following are some excerpts from the book:

Tricking Yourself Into Thinking You’re Smarter Than the Competition:

….Minaya, along with passionate sidekick Tony Bernazard, developed metrics that let them take advantage of aspects of the game that they felt were undervalued such as FIS (fluency in Spanish) and LoCoZo (short for ‘loco como un zorro’ which translates to crazy like a fox).  As Minaya saw it, “People would see a 40 year old Moises Alou as injury-prone and unlikely to repeat his past successes but we knew he still spoke fluent Spanish and anyone who pees on their hands has LoCoZo to spare.  For $15 million, we got two years of .340+ AVG with power from Moises.”  To the rest of baseball, they saw that Moises only managed 377 ABs in those two years and this money could have been invested in a billion better ways.  But it was strategies like this that helped Minaya feel he outsmarted baseball by tying up unwanted players like Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo to multi-year contracts, ‘outfoxing’ the Yankees and Mets to sign Johan Santana and Carlos Beltran to $100 million dollar contracts, and cutting losses with uni-lingual, even-tempered prospects Heath Bell, Matt Lindstrom, and Brian Bannister.

Whiffing On Andrew McCutchen:

….Mets scout Rodrigo Ciudad was accustomed to life as a Mets scout.  Responsible for scouting all of the United States, Rodrigo’s region was nowhere near the Mets’ preferred baseball hotbeds of the Caribbean, Latin America, and Venezuela.  With most teams employing multiple scouts in his region, Ciudad tended to focus in warm weather climates that were more conducive to baseball talent and his love of fresh mango dusted in sugar and chili powder.  It was on one of these mango-missions that he heard about a Florida high schooler named Andrew McCutchen.  Ciudad liked what he saw in the young outfielder and was even more encouraged when the Mets didn’t sign a top free agent and would keep their 1st round pick.  Unfortunately, Minaya lost a bet with Jeff Wilpon over who would get to make the first pick in the 2005 amateur draft.  Wilpon, the owner’s son, ignored Ciudad’s pleas, saying “We’ve already got a better version of McCutchen in Lastings Milledge.” and spent the 9th pick of the 2005 draft on Mike Pelfrey.  To add insult to injury, the hapless Pirates drafted McCutchen and the Reds followed that pick with Texan High Schooler Jay Bruce.

Turning A Lucrative Franchise Into an Over-Leveraged Shell

….Fred Wilpon was always wary of ‘get rich quick’ schemes.  He made his money through shrewd real estate investments.  If George Steinbrenner was an IPO that struck it rich, Wilpon was a trustworthy mutual fund – steadily accruing value over time.  Bernie Madoff was the same way.  He wasn’t in business for the quick buck.  He was in it for the slow billion or so bucks.  They quickly became friends and, for 10 years, didn’t overlap business with friendship.  Wilpon started by investing $10 and, upon getting $11.50 back the next year, slowly invested more and more funds from his company (Sterling Equities).  The consistency was welcome to the Wilpon as inconsistency might’ve required him to do research into how the money was being made.  Smart enough not to meddle in the day-to-day dealings at the Met offices, Wilpon focused on building up the right-side of the Sterling Equities balance sheet (to the tune of $500+ million in debt), building a new stadium, and starting a new TV network.  His financial prudence led him to avoid selling branding rights to the new stadium to a ‘fly-by-night’ company like Enron, striking a deal with the responsible CitiGroup.  You can imagine the disappointment when his trust in Wall Street and consistent profits proved to be his very downfall….