An optimist once said, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” It was so inspiring that no one followed up with the relevant question, “Did life also give me sugar because, otherwise, this lemonade is going to taste like crap?”
There are plenty of lemons in baseball*. Fantasy Razzball is the sugar that helps make them as satisfying as a cool, refreshing drink.
* There were three players whose last name was lemon – pitcher Bob Lemon and OFs Jim and Chet Lemon – but all three were good to very good players. As was Hank Sauer. Harry ‘Stinky’ Davis did stink though.
This post ushers in the 4th annual installment of Fantasy Razzball - the game where the goal is to manage the worst fantasy baseball team possible. We have gone from one ‘blogger’ league in 2008 to 16 leagues in 2010. At this rate of 16x growth every 2 years, we will have over a million leagues by 2016. So it’s best to get in now while the competition isn’t as heavy.
Weekly Roster Changes (leaves you time to lavish on your Daily Leagues)
C / 1B / 2B / SS / 3B / CI / MI / 5 OF / 9 P / 5 bench
1,250 innings cap. No minimum IP. No AB mins/maxes
We’ll be commissioner of all leagues and will designate one person per league to help arrange a draft date that works for everyone.
Leagues will be filled on a first come, first serve basis. If you want to play in the same league with a couple friends, no problem. Just submit the e-mail addresses at the same time.
Each league will have four ‘dummy’ teams that merely serve to draft the top players. This helps minimize the damage for anyone who misses the draft and forgot to update their draft list.
1 team per person.
Collusion between teams is grounds for disqualification from winning the grand prize.
Blogs/sports sites may have multiple participants but one team per writer. These blogs will be noted in the standings and during periodic standings posts. It is expected – but not required – for some quid pro quo mention of Razzball on your site.
Hitter Stats
AB = +2
H = -3
R = -4
HR = -6
RBI = -4
K = +2
Pitcher Stats
IP = -1
HR = +4
L = +8
K = -1
ER = +1.5
H+BB = +1
The point structure makes it so that about 2/3 of the league’s hitters as well as just about every pitcher has positive value. So leaving a roster spot open or filled by a guy who plays once a week will hurt your team.
Grand Prize
An autographed baseball by Fantasy Razzball All-Star Neifi Perez, Grey Albright, and myself (Rudy Gamble).
How To Sign Up
Click here for our signup page. Note any requested leaguemates in the 3rd column.
If you are a sports blogger, fill out this form to be part of our Fantasy Razzball blogger leagues.
Note: Besides providing advice and news on fantasy baseball, we at Razzball created and sponsor a fantasy baseball variation where the goal is to manage the worst team possible. These Historical Spotlights honor those players who would’ve excelled in such a format. See here for more info. See here for our 2010 Fantasy Razzball standings where the winner gets a free DreamMaker Spa.
Stars are made in California. There are thousands of stories….Harrison Ford getting his big break in American Graffiti after George Lucas had initially hired him for a carpentry job…Robert ‘Kid Stays in the Picture’ Evans was discovered bathing at the Beverly Hills Hotel….Two A’s outfielders funding ex-batboy Stanley Burrell to realize his rap dreams under his nom de rhyme MC Hammer…Traci Lords was discovered selling Girl Scout Cookies in San Fernando Valley, etc.
It was this California star-making machine that saw a .210-hitting non-3B prospect in Matt Keough and saw the potential for a star-making role at starting pitcher, a role worthy of a Razzball Spotlight.
1977-1978 – The Prologue
Keough was converted to pitcher in 1977 at the age of 21. After a satisfactory year at AA (9-12 3.81 ERA /1.31 WHIP) and 6 starts during a September callup, Keough made the 1978 A’s major league pitching staff. This is surprising until you scan the 1978 A’s roster which had been completely gutted by Charlie Finley of the talent that led to a 1972-1974 ‘three-peat’ that has only been matched since by the Yankees 1998-2000 run and Tom Emanski’s early ’90s back-to-back-to-back AAU championships.
Keough’s 1978 season was a relative success at initial glance. He went 8-15 but with a 3.24 ERA/1.33 WHIP and an ERA+ of 110 (meaning his ERA was 10% better than the average pitcher adjusted to the ballpark in which he pitched). He was even the A’s representative for the All-Star game where he managed a scoreless 1/3 of an inning. But the season was really a tale of two halves as he went 6-4/2.16/1.17 in the 1st half and 2-11/4.44/1.51 in the second half. The stage was set for a Razztastic 1979…
1979 – The Initial Setback
During the 1979 offseason, there may have been doubts among Oakland coaches whether Keough’s first half was a flash in the pan or his second half was just the result of a talented young pitcher having a tired arm.
Keough put those doubts to rest over his first 25 starts where he managed a win total of…..zero. On the bright side, he managed 11 no-decisions so his record was merely 0-14. This tied the MLB record of losses to start a season with (Sloppy?) Joe Harris of the 1906 Red Sox whose 9.1% career winning percentage (3-30) is not only the worst post-1900 for 30+ decisions but it’s twice as bad as that of runner-up Hal Griggs (18.8%). This poor start left Keough 2-25 since the 1978 All-Star break and with 18 straight losses – only 5 away from the then record.
Editors of the San Francisco Chronicle and Oakland Tribune readied their newspapers for history with drafted headlines such as “Enough is Keough”, “KO for Keough”, and “Is The O-Fer Oakland?”. But then Keough found his first wind on September 5th with a complete game victory against the Brewers. He also threw a shutout against the defending AL West champ Royals intermixed between three more losses. The final results:
A 2-17 record with a .105 winning percentage that was the worst since 1916 (only to be bested 6 years later by Jose DeLeon’s 2-19).
A 5.04 ERA that finished 4th in MLB (with an ERA+ of 81 that was the 6th worst in the league bested, ironically enough, by ex-Athletic ace Vida Blue).
His 1.687 WHIP was worst in the MLB.
1980-1981 – The Redemption
Despite the poor 1979 season, Keough still had a spot on the starting staff of a resurgent 1980 A’s team that went from last to 2nd place under Billy Martin. Youngster Rickey Henderson stole 100 SBs with an insane .420 OBP, Tony Armas hit 35 HRs, and the A’s relief pitchers took the season off as the A’s starting staff threw 94 complete games (?!?!) with four of those starts going 14 innings (see here for the box score of Keough’s 14 IP triumph over the Blue Jays, outlasting Dave Steib who wussed out after 12 innings). The next two AL teams in CGs – Milwuakee and Baltimore – managed only 90 between them. Keough went the distance in 20 of his 32 starts finishing 3rd in CGs to teammates Rick Langford (28) and Cy Young runner-up Mike Norris (24).
Keough’s 1980 and 1981 pitching lines of 16-13/2.92/1.248 in 250 IP and 10-6/3.40/1.211 in 140 IP (in a strike-shortened season) were both strong campaigns – clearly benefiting from experience and the respect given to those who can pull off a Selleckian moustache. Entering 1982 at the young age of 26, Keough was making his 1978-1979 challenges look like a fluke…
1982 – The Penultimate Setback
Billy Martin’s magic fizzled out in 1982 as the team fell back to 68-94. While Rickey Henderson thrived (setting the record with 130 SBs), the young Oakland pitchers fell back to earth like a chopped oak to land. The top 3 starters (Langford, Norris, Keough) had all achieved an ERA+ over 116 in 1980. By 1982, none of the three even reached 100 (league-average). And none of them fell harder than Keough…
Keough’s 11-18 record belied how bad of a season he had. How bad (all of the below for 162+ IP pitchers)?
The 18 losses tied for the MLB high.
His 5.72 ERA was the worst in baseball and the 10th worst between 1944-1996.
His 68 ERA+ was the worst in baseball and the 10th worst in baseball since 1944.
His K/BB ratio of 0.74 (75 K, 101 BB) is the 5th worst since 1962*
His 38 HRs were worst in the majors and made the top 25 list prior to 1998.
And, last but least, his WAR (Wins Above Replacement) of -2.5 is the worst WAR for a pitcher since 1952. (His 1979 WAR was amazingly +1.0 so I guess a replacement pitcher would’ve gone 1-18?)
*Interesting sidenote: The list of pitchers with more walks than strikeouts in a season since 1970 include Tommy John, Phil Niekro, Mike Torrez (4 times!), Joaquin Andujar (twice) and Fernando Valenzuela.
1983-1986 – The Denouement
Keough managed just 10 more wins over the next 4 injury-plagued seasons before retiring (sadly this is one more than fellow Billy-abused starters Rick Langford and Mike Norris managed COMBINED for the rest of their careers). Keough couldn’t even escape Billy Martin as he was sadistically traded in 1983 to the Martin-led Yankees just in case his arm needed more abuse.
1987 – 2004 – The Triumph
Keough’s star turn in California baseball did serve him well in that he was able to snag a Playboy Playmate / one of the three ZZ Top girls (Jeana Tomasino) with which he had three children – including one (Shane Keough) that is was an OF in the A’s minor league system (the A’s released him in July 2010). He also has worked for the Angels, Rays, and A’s in various roles such as coaching, scouting, and front office. While not a star, it appeared Keough would at least have one of those desirable supporting roles like being on the second detective team of a procedural (thanks for chasing down that lead, Ice-T and Richard Belzer!)
And, because it’s California, this turmoil was featured in the initial series of the nadir of TV franchises – the Real Housewives of the OC – where his now zaftig wife was able to broadcast that the two had separated. (Hey Scott Podsednik – hope you’re taking notes).
Matt Keough – Congratulations on a fabulous journey and your star will always shine in the Razzball galaxy.
Fantasy Razzball Standings are up! Click here for the standings. We’ve added a link to the left sidebar for the standings page as well. We’ll try to update it every week or so.
Early congrats to Minor League Miner, the unidentified owner of the Flailin’ Mendozas (is that you, Mil Mascaras?), and Troy Patterson of RotoSavants.com and FireBrandAL.com
Good luck to all those in the running for the free DreamMaker Spa!
We here at Razzball take a perverse, Nelson Muntzian joy in pointing out the failures and shortcomings in fantasy baseball and baseball in general – whether it be identifying overrated players (see Grey’s Fantasy Schmohawk series), highlighting historically bad seasons (see my Historical Spotlight series), or just talking general smack about players in our daily roundups.
We consider it a byproduct of all the player rooting and hyping that comes with the production of a fantasy baseball blog. And much like the molasses that’s a byproduct of sugar production, this joy may be darker than the main product but it tastes just as sweet.
So with that acknowledgement, we sadistically ring in the 3rd annual installment of Fantasy Razzball – the game where the goal is to manage the worst fantasy baseball team possible. In 2008, we started with one 10-team league of bloggers. In 2009, we grew to 90 teams composed of bloggers and commenters. In 2010, we’re planning to grow even more.
One big change from last year is the grand prize. Last year, we reached into our shallow pockets to give out $50 of Taco Bell coupons. This year we found a corporate sponsor in DreamMaker Spas who, in partnership with SpaDepot.com, will be awarding the winner of this year’s challenge a free Dreammaker Fantasy Spa which retails at $3,199. Think about it guys – winning our challenge can be the first time in your life where fantasy baseball helped you get laid! (See bottom of the page for contest details. Please feel free to read them in a sped-up announcer voice like they do in radio commercials).
We have a few changes in the game rules that we think we’ll make for an improvement:
1) We’re going to cap Innings Pitched at Yahoo!’s default level of 1,250 IP to avoid the rampant streaming of 2-start pitchers. This will get crappy relievers some roster space too.
2) We’re creating two bogus teams per league that will be assigned the top 54 players (36 hitters, 18 pitchers) based on regular fantasy baseball rules. The reason? Well, it’s inevitable that 1-2 players might no-show the live draft. If they didn’t adjust their pre-draft rankings, you end up with teams drafting Albert Pujols and Hanley Ramirez in the first round. This gives the other teams an advantage in snapping up the crappy players. By taking 54 of these candidates out of the running, this should minimize the impact of this happening.
3) We’re decreasing the penalty of HRs from -10 to -6.
Weekly Roster Changes (leaves you time to lavish on your Daily Leagues)
C / 1B / 2B / SS / 3B / CI / MI / 5 OF / 9 P
1,250 innings cap. No minimum IP. No AB mins/maxes
We’ll be commissioner of all leagues and will designate one person per league to help arrange a draft date that works for everyone.
Leagues will be filled on a first come, first serve basis. If you want to play in the same league with a couple friends, no problem. Just submit the e-mail addresses at the same time. It’s a cap of 4 though to avoid any major collusion. (Note that we also adjust points based on League competitiveness)
1 team per person.
Blogs/sports sites may have multiple participants but one team per writer. These blogs will be noted in the standings and during periodic standings posts. It is expected – but not required – for some quid pro quo mention of Razzball on your site. We appreciate it if you mention our generous corporate sponsors (DreamMaker Spa & SpaDepot.com) as well.
Hitter Stats
AB = +2
H = -3
R = -4
HR = -6
RBI = -4
K = +2
Pitcher Stats
IP = -1
HR = +4
L = +8
K = -1
ER = +1.5
H+BB = +1
The point structure makes it so that about 2/3 of the league’s hitters as well as just about every pitcher has positive value. So leaving a roster spot open or filled by a guy who plays once a week will hurt your team.
Contest Rules
You need to be 18+ and live in the Continental US to have the spa shipped to your address. If you are 18+ and live outside the Continental US, you can ‘gift’ it. Full-time bloggers on Razzball are ineligible (even for gifting). In the case that a Razzball blogger wins, the prize will be awarded to the next highest ranked non-Razzball affiliated participant. Shipping is included. Installation will need to be paid for by the winner.
Any sign of collusion among league owners for the intent of giving a team an unfair advantage – including highly dubious trades – will disqualify the winner and the spa will be awarded to the next highest ranked non-Razzball affiliated participant. Running 2+ teams are also grounds for disqualification.
How To Sign Up
Please e-mail me at rudy@razzball.com with the e-mail title of “Join Fantasy Razzball 2010″. Within the e-mail body, note either your site in the e-mail or your Razzball commenter handle. Otherwise, we’ll just use the name attached to your e-mail.
Note: Besides providing advice and news on fantasy baseball, we at Razzball created and sponsor a fantasy baseball variation where the goal is to manage the worst team possible. These Historical Spotlights honor those players who would’ve excelled in such a format. See here for more info. See here for our 2009 Fantasy Razzball standings.
There is one immutable law within baseball. When on offense, don’t make outs*. For a short time in the 80′s, no one broke this law with as much abandon and aplomb as Omar Moreno.
* Yes, you can argue the sacrifice bunt, sacrifice fly, and the ground ball to the right side when a man is on 2nd with no outs are ‘productive’ outs. That doesn’t mean we want to hear it.
Omar Moreno never pretended to be on the right side of the law – his affiliation with Pirates, his love for the stolen base, a name that sounds like an amalgam of badass Omar Little from ‘The Wire’ and Tony ‘Scarface’ Montana. After being signed as a free agent in 1969 at the age of Latin 16, he toiled for over 7 years in the minors before earning his skull and crossbones with the 1977-1978 Pirates. Besides narrowly missing the playoffs for two straight years because of their cross-state rival’s unstoppable troika of Mike Schmidt/Fat Shit (Luzinski)/Bat Shit (Carlton), the Pirates also had a startling number of:
Future Yankees (7 – Moreno, Dale Berra, John Candelaria, Mike Easler, Goose Gossage, Al Holland, Ed Whitson)
Future managers (4 – Phil Garner, Ken Macha, Cito Gaston, Jim Fregosi)
Future players charged by MLB with doing cocaine (3 – Dale Berra, Dave Parker, Al Holland)
In 1979, Moreno ascended to the leadoff spot as previous leadoff hitter Frank Taveras was jettisoned to the Mets. Moreno had his best year yet leading the league in ABs (695), SBs (77), and even getting some MVP votes (finished 15th) as the ‘We Are Family’ Pirates won the World Series. Beneath all this success, however, was a hunger to make Outs. His 535 outs (395 ground out/flyouts, 104 Ks, 21 CS, 7 GIDP, 6 Sac Hits, 2 Sac Flies) were the 4th highest in MLB history. Any satisfaction that Moreno could take in this accomplishment was lost when the same very Frank Taveras whom he supplanted at the top of the Pirates batting order set the new standard with 545 outs.
Armed with this motivation and the goodwill that comes from helping a team win the World Series, Moreno shattered the single-season Outs record with 560 outs in 1980 despite 12 less plate appearances from the previous year. Playing in all 162 games for the 2nd year in a row, his luck turned when his BABIP (batting average on balls in play) dropped from .322 to .290 and knocked his AVG (.249) and OBP (.306) to Razztastically low levels. While he dazzled the league with 96 SBs, they were only a cover to pad his Outs total with 33 caught stealings. No one – including Frank Taveras – could compete with the Out-making machine that was Omar Moreno.
After a strike-shortened 1981 where Moreno only finished 3rd in the league in Outs behind Ozzie Smith and past Historical Spotlight nominee Ivan DeJesus, Moreno arose like a malevolent Phoenix in 1982. He equalled his 1979 total of 535 outs in 51 less plate appearances by getting back to fundamentals. He increased his K rate, cut down on those pesky BBs, and decreased his SB percentage. His adjusted OPS (i.e., OPS+) of 68 was a career low.
Realizing he had nothing left to prove in Pittsburgh, Moreno signed a free-agent deal with Houston who traded him in August to the ex-Pirate loving Yankees (note: besides the seven 1977-1978 Pirates mentioned earlier who went on to play for the Yankees, another five played with Moreno from 1979-1982: Tim Foli, Cecilio Guante, Pascual Perez, Rick Rhoden, Rod Scurry). Despite never clearing a .300 OBP for the Yanks from 1983-1985, the Yankees never gave Moreno the inordinate playing time he had with the Pirates as his one dazzling skill (stolen bases) flickered away. A last hurrah with the 1986 Braves (.276 OBP over 386 plate appearances) hinted at another run at the single season Outs leaderboard but it wasn’t meant to be. He retired from MLB at the young age of (Latin) 33 but stayed involved with baseball – playing in the short-lived Senior Professional Baseball Association, coaching in the Panamanian winter leagues and teaching his son (Omar Moreno Jr.) the gift of Out-making.
Omar Moreno – we’ve never seen another player make outs as often as you did. If liking you is against the law, consider us outlaws.
** Omar Moreno’s 560 outs are still the single season record as of January 2010. His two seasons of 535 outs are tied for 7th most in a season. **
Omar Moreno never pretended to be on the right side of the law – his affiliation with Pirates, his love for the stolen base, a name that sounds like an amalgam of badass 
