The Twins said goodbye to Ben Revere, that troublemaker! (Not really accurate, but I’m trying to make the Winter Meetings seem exciting. Revere seems like anything but a troublemaker. Either way…) The Twins just couldn’t handle his gamesmanship and play-by-the-rules attitude. Makes them wish they could get back Delmon Young (they probably could; all they have to do is ask or simply put a cupcake near the entrance of their stadium and he’ll wonder back). If the world had a nickel for every time Revere caused a disagreement, the world would be in a deep recession. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Yo, Macro Economics Professor, I blame Ben Revere! So, Revere on the Phils is great for the Phils, finally finding that big bat to fill-in for Juan Pierre. If you graphed out Revere’s homers over the last five years side-by-side with Pierre’s, you’d have a big waste of graph paper. Revere’s over/under for power is 1 homer. His steals, runs and average are above-average, with the steals his biggest asset. His power is such a clusterfudgiethewhale that he’s nothing but SAGNOF and shouldn’t be owned for longer than a month or two if you’re lagging in speed, otherwise you will start to lag in power. For 2013, I’ll give him the line of 82/1/30/.291/45. Remember, my projections are a plus/minus two homers, so he could hit one foul pop 400 feet backwards behind home plate and get a negative homer. Anyway, here’s some more offseason moves for 2013 fantasy baseball:
Darin Mastroianni – Will become the new Twins center fielder. How does one get the name Darin with that last name? Is Darin short for Daringiuseppe? He stole 45 bases one year in the minor leagues, but keep in mind that prior to now he was having a hard time getting everyday at-bats on the Twins. If that doesn’t tell you all you need to know, you need to know too much. Nosy! Mastroianni will steal 40 bases, and even hit three times as many homers as Revere (i.e., three homers), but he might not hit .250. He strikes out a lot for a lead off man. Daringiuseppe, “Your momma strikes out a lot! Hey-oh!”
Vance Worley – Traded to the Twins for Revere. Will become the Twins number one starter, which can be illustrated by a sideways emoticon with a piece of hay hanging out the side of its mouth, saying things like, “Over yonder a piece.” Maybe the Major League Baseball Association, as spam comments call it, can fold the Twins and Astros together and make an egg-white omelet. Worley’s not a bad gamble for the Twins (that wasn’t sarcastic, though even in my head it sounded it). He did end the season on the DL with elbow problems, getting shut down at the tail end of August. August’s Tail End, “Stop staring at me.” Worley had some loose bodies removed from his ‘bow and should be ready for Spring Training. That’s really the only huge red flag. In Hubert H. Homerfree Retrodome, he could easily be a 3.75-ish pitcher with an average-ish WHIP. He did have an 8+ K-rate as recently as 2011 and he’s only 25. There’s some possibility here for a slight break out, so get proactive. (Pun point!) For 2013, I’ll give him a fifth fantasy starter line 9-11/3.90/1.28/155, but he has room to get third fantasy starter-type numbers (think around 3.50 ERA, 1.22 WHIP).
Ian Stewart – Re-signed with the Cubs. Valbuena was the guy penciled into 3rd for the Cubs, but that’s why pencils have erasers. Like Giancarlo, any day now Valbuena is going to reveal his real name is Notbuena. In either case, Stewart is just holding the fort down until Vitters can strike out less than every third at-bat, which is also Stewart’s problem, so there’s that. Maybe they can form a platoon, but not your standard lefty/righty platoon, but rather they bat at the same time from opposite sides of the plate. You’ve heard of switch hitters? Well, this is for shit hitters.
Yes!!
@The tAlented Mr. Dope Man: Ben Revere’s got you excited…
Grey, I like your new picture. You look like Eric Byrnes!
@Jim: Byrnes’s more curly, I’m more feathered…
I still don’t like having to click another button to read the rest of the article I know everyone is doing it, but I guess if everyone else was jumping off a bridge it looks like you would to.
At least there is a bright side: I no longer have to zoom in 300% to bask in your glorious mustache!
@MrMojoRisin: See, there’s a bright side to all of this!
@MrMojoRisin:I have this site on my home page and i can read the whole article without clicking another button.OOPS maybe I shouldnt have said anything
I prefer and appreciate the Oliver reference in my continued reading, an inviting approach, over the interogating style, More! Tell me more! And thanks Grey for the Gavator tip you gave someone, I took and now have a face
@Gus: Is that a racing sausage? Nice!
Yes sir. Gotta love Spring Training!
@Grey:
Ah… It’s a sausage in the sun, nice…
Don’t you think Hicks will also have an opportunity to play CF?
@Mike: I don’t think for Opening Day…. I think starting in June he’ll be on radars… Should he have a huge Spring, it’s possible he breaks camp… I’d say pretty improbable though…
Pardon me if you’re not taking trade advice yet……
Got offered Castro and King Felix for Trout and Cozart in a 12 team 5×5 Keeper
Whatcha Think?
It’s a fair trade, I’d take Trout…
Word on the street – and by ‘street’ I mean ‘mlbtraderumors.com’ – is the Dodgers and Twins are interested in Skip Shumaker. I can’t wait for that post on Monday if the trade goes down. BTW, your sarcasm HTML tags are busted.
I put invisible HTML tags around them…
@Grey: invisible HTML tags…sounds like something used on Mariners and Padres boxscores.
Mariners vs. the Padres, interleague matchup, is brought to you by the American Heart Assoc. Everyone with high blood pressure gets in half off…
@Grey: Ha!@Grey: The last time I went to the doctors and told them I was having trouble sleeping, they gave me a DVD of the last 5 years of interleague play between the Pads and the Ms. The last thing I remember is Jason Vargas taking the mound against Venable. Slept like a baby.
I have a CD of whale noises, which is actually Kyle Blanks swinging and missing…
@Grey: Funny, I thought my wife had bought me an Ocean Noises CD as an early Xmas gift this year. It’s simply the sound of mass exodus of fans from Safeco by the 6th inning of every game in 2012.
If you drive down the 405 by San Diego, you’ll see cars pulled off the road, drivers sleeping… They were listening to sports radio…
@Grey: Assisted suicide was approved by law in the state of washington in December of 2008. Carlos Silva was signed to a 4 year, $44 million dollar contract in December of 2007. Coincidence? I think not.
I wonder if a Mariners/Padres “super” team could beat the Rangers…
@Grey: Brendan Ryan at SS, Everth Cabrera at 2B…I think you just penned the next great American Horror film with a sports crossover. Well done!
Sadly, they still don’t have a left fielder…
@Grey: That will be the plot twist. It’ll be played by the ghost of Randy Winn and Joel Haley Osment will help guide him to the spirit world of lost and forgotten worthless LFs.
“I see no cleanup hitters.”
@Grey: That would be spooky. I haven’t seen a clean up hitter in years for either team.
I see Philly is trying the Sabean approach in trading for and signing players as they pursue Michael Young. I’d have to assume it’s a salary cap thing. Social security has been paying part of Marco Scutaro’s contract for the Giants, right?
I love this news… “The Yankees are running a background check on Josh Hamilton.” How? By going through back articles on Deadspin, obviously…
@Grey: Haha! They’re probably saying to themselves ‘Well, we didn’t know about A-Rod and his love of manly old women and centaurs…let’s just play it safe with the former junkie’.
Ha…. Love to be the PI on this case… Well, Cashman, I found some videos of Hamilton not doing drugs… That wasn’t easy to find…
@Grey: haha…’We also found out that his intestinal issues from 2007 were brought on by still being a drug mule for the cartel’.
Investigator, “On the bright side, he’s agreed to mule the next big prospect out of Cuba.”
@Grey: For his sake, I hope the kid’s nickname isn’t ‘The Cuban Missile’.
Ha… It’ll be like one of those Maury Povich guests that didn’t know she was pregnant then one day she went to the bathroom and plop…
@Grey: I hear that’s how Ozzie Guillen found Alexei Ramirez but Maury didn’t understand what he was saying.
Ha! “Sorry, I don’t speak Spanglish.”
My friends say nothing came out of the baseball winter meetings.Totally wrong.We got a ton of good old sarcasm. I left four comments in the last 2 days.Anything about actual fanasty baseball?No,but sarcasm? 4 for 4. So to sum up the winter meetings we did get a double dose of sarcasm from there and everywhere.Gotta go back to the bathroom where the paints drying and find my mind. I lost it when I woke up today and read your big wrap up of the baseball winter meetings.Oh good the moth is still stuck in the paint.
I didn’t even mention how four clubs were pursuing Jason Grilli!
@Grey
76 day’s to spring training.Have you ever thought of having a sarcastic fanasty baseball column.Your very good at it and there’s no lack of sarcasm in baseball,that’s for sure.Just a thought.
Ha… I thought all my columns were seeped in sarcasm…
@Grey: Wow, I thought Al was bustin’ out the double reverse sarcasm on you there, but now I’m starting to think that he was serious.
Al, how can you not realize that Grey’s “column” on Razzball is 50% sarcasm and 50% mustache?
Sometimes it’s even 60/40…
@JoeC:
Yeah your right ,it is that.My mind is numb from all the blockbuster deals from the last 4 days. I lost it for awhile, but found it in the bathroom today.I,m almost better.
@JoeC:
I think I was thinking 100% sarcasm no stats. But than you realize you can have it all wrapped up in one column like Grey does so well, and have it all.
I needed relief from my boredom and the Winter Meetings let me down,and there’s no NHL this year,so sarcasm is all I have Joe.
Sound like McCarthy to the Dbacks is as good as done. A little NL West can’t hurt – even for someone that’s hurt as often as he is…
Yeah, O.co wasn’t a bad park, so his value will probably stay pretty even…
@Grey:
Kinda risky signing for them given his health, but I suppose if he’s healthy he could be a #3 starter for a reasonable price.
Yeah, not a huge risk for decent size reward…
WTF?!?!?!?!?!
I log on and think I’ve gone to the wrong site. Mind = blown over the new layout. Change is hard, not sure how long it will take me to stop looking for the soft grey tones of the old site.
SOG…Same ol’ Grey…
@Grey: yeah , but , as someone alluded to earlier …
“the old Grey’s hair , it ain’t what it used to be …” .
you never did confirm (or deny) whether that is a new shirt ,
New shirt is being designed, should be a few weeks…
@Grey:
sorry .
to be more clear , i meant the shirt in your “new” picture .
will be monitoring haren’s velocity during spring training , but even if he’s lost a few mph’s , he;s savvy enough to breeze through most nl rosters .
that nat’s bullpen is also a plus .
am expecting a solid bounce-back from danny boy .
@costaricanchata: The shirts that have the Razzball graphic? We don’t have those… Here’s what we have: http://razzball.com/razzball-t-shirts/ Same as before for now…
Mini Donkey set to sign with the Indians. I guess he do what he do wherever he be.
Tampa Bay Times baseball writer saying on Twitter that Shields and Davis have both been traded to the Royals…
@Steve: Myers and prospects going the other way apparently.
@Steve: Shields AND Davis (and PTBNL) to #Royals for OF Myers, RHP Odorizzi, LHP Montgomery, 3B Leonard
@Steve: whoa, seriously all those dudes are going to TB? That has the potential to be a huge mistake.
@royce!: https://twitter.com/robneyer/status/277990049986011136
@Steve: Yeah, it’s pretty bad, and has the potential to rival the assassination of Ferdinand as one of the poorer decisions in western history…
@Steve: Holy shizz that’s insane! Myers just shot up the draft boards, and the Royals just got incrementally better, for a year or two! And Frenchy will keep his job, which I’m cool with in the real world, though I can’t remember why…had something to do with bacon…
Holy crap… I was out all day… Dah, gotta write about this….