I’ll be honest here, I had no idea that Shelley Duncan was still playing. Not only is he playing, he’s, um, well, I’m supposed to put something he’s doing well here to make the play of words work. But that’s not really possible. Oh, he does have two homeruns. Does that help? With a career slash of 230/306/427, I think I’ve actually found a worse outfielder than Don Kelly. What’s next, stigmata? While, if given regular at-bats, 260/330/480 represents the very high end, I could foresee 10 homers and 50 RBI’s if he play’s for 50% of the season’s games.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Chris Getz
We have almost a week of baseball in the books and Yu Darvish‘s Marvishlous 14 K 1-hitter and Chris Davis‘ power surge have been early standouts. Don’t own either? That’s a shame. Feel like quitting? Not yet, Razzball Nation, I am here to help. You may remember me, Dan, or my alter ego Blairtch, from such fantasy Friday roundups as Mike Trout Saved My Season, But Jewel Saved My Soul and Harper: Better, Faster, Stronger, and my popular online fantasy advice guide, Quit Losing Already, You Loser! I will be recapping Friday nights in fantasy baseball, providing plenty of references to The Cure and fantasy advice so Grey can use his weekends to take care of business, i.e. drink all those daiquiris you’ve been buying him and continue travelling across America interviewing players and managers, scouting top prospects, and attending round table discussions featuring only the most prestigious faculty, alumni and council members at the Fantasy Baseball College of Charleston. So do not worry, I’ll be here throughout the season to cover Friday’s full slate of games for the loyal weekend warriors. There are lots of players to cover this week so let’s get right to it.
Here’s what happened Friday night in fantasy baseball [*Opening Week Edition*]:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
If you’re like me, once you finish your fantasy draft, you have a photographer take a picture of you with your team. You pull up your team page on your laptop, and the both of you sit next to a flower bed. The setting is similar to your mother’s yearbook picture. The cameraman even uses the filter that blurs out everything around you. As you wait for the makeup person to dab cover-up on your nose pimple, you reach into the flower bed and pull out a hydrangea. Then you speak directly to the SAGNOF Gods and recite his prayer, “He loves me, he loves me Motte, he loves me, he loves me Motte, he loves….” And the last petal ends on “He loves me Motte.” And you weep. Motte has an elbow strain and you’re stuck with his litigious brother-in-law, Mitchell Boggs. The Cardinals are currently saying all the right things, “Motte will be fine,” “Mitchell will temporarily fill-in,” “We had no idea McGwire was on steroids.” An elbow strain sounds like a thing that’s going to take Motte from his 40-save potential to an eight-save season with a 5.00+ ERA, which will be interrupted by surgery. Grab Boggs in every league, he could easily be a top five closer for this year. If you own Motte, you obviously DL him and hope for the best. Anyway, here’s what else I saw in Spring Training for 2013 fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Gird your loins – we’re going to be navigating positions battles in each division. Last week, I covered the NL East. Today I’m talking about the AL Central, which actually looks fairly interesting this year. At first glance, the Tigers should run away with the division. At a slightly closer glance, the Indians, Royals, and White Sox all appear to be trying to contend. Who knows? Maybe Verlander’s arm will fall off after pitching over 1,000 innings across the past four seasons, while Miggy and Fielder enter a 24/7 all-you-can-eat buffet in Vegas and never return. Anyway, here’s some of the position battles to keep an eye on in the AL Central:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
We at Razzball realize that exporting our views across the country has damaging consequences on the blogosphere. To help make amends, we are reaching out to leading team blogs and featuring their locally blogged answers to pressing 2013 fantasy baseball questions regarding their team. We feel this approach will be fresher, more sustainable, and require less energy consumption (for us anyway). The 2013 Royals Fantasy Baseball Preview comes courtesy Michael Engel from Kings of Kauffman.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Recently, I had the pleasure of doing karaoke with Johnny Cueto. He decided to go with Landslide by Fleetwood Mac. Here’s what he sang, “I took my ERA and I took it down…. I climbed a mountain and I turned around… And I saw my xFIP in the snow covered hills… Well, I’ve been afraid of changing… ‘Cause I’ve kicked the life out of Jason LaRue… Awh, take this ERA, and TAKE IT DOWN!…” Then I joined him on stage for Islands in the Stream. Cueto was pitch perfect with Stevie Nicks even if he did skip lines here and there to keep it related to fantasy baseball. Right now, his ERA is 1.63. Oh, c’mon. Seriously, come on. Come on, come on, come on Chameleon! His xFIP is 3.52. His K-rate is 6.23 which isn’t good and below previous season marks. He’s leaving 83% men on and has a .216 BABIP. There’s not one category he’s excelling in right now except ERA. The mouth on the left side says, “S.” The mouth on the right side says, “ell.” Anyway, here’s some more players to buy or sell this week in fantasy baseball:
BUY
Jonathan Broxton – ‘So much junk, so much junk inside that trunk’ could be lyrics about the Dodgers bullpen or specifically about Broxton.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Stealing is like borrowing until it becomes permanent. I don’t steal; it’s immoral, reprehensible and I’m really out of shape so I’d probably get caught. The fact of the matter is that these guys aren’t for everyone. They shouldn’t be, but they will give you the all coveted stat: steals. These players should only be considered if you are in need of steals after your draft, 12 teams or deeper. In H2H leagues, these players are especially important if you’re trying beat an opponent and only need a few quick “pick me up” steals.
Please, blog, may I have some more?The other drafternoon I took part in my Fantasy Razzball draft where the object is to field the worst team possible. This team isn’t just bad. Nah, I outdid even myself this time. On a scale of one to ten, they’re a negative seven. I did the math! Somehow I managed to get a team where not one hitter projects for more than twelve home runs. If someone in the Royals brass gets wind of my drafting skills, I may get a job! If you think I’m being facetious (which was recently outlawed in Madagascar), shame on you. And shame on this team! My co-conspirators in this were:
Chet G., Fantasy Football
Andy B., Yahoo!
In roto, you can can’t gain ground in many categories in September, unless you’re already close. The two categories you can conceivably gain ground in is in steals and saves — SAGNOF! If you are up in power, or at least far enough that you can’t be caught by the team right behind you, then I’d stack up on guys that could get you some steals. As for saves, you probably don’t have as many options on waivers. But there’s a some guys that might get a save or two in the final few weeks, and, well, every save counts. Anyway, here’s some guys that can provide steals and saves this week in fantasy baseball:
STEALS
Drew Stubbs – He has 5 homers and 3 steals in the majors in two weeks. He had 3 homers and 46 steals in 5 months in Triple-A. Maybe he sleeps with a 1996 Brady Anderson card under his pillow.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
As Stephen Drew tried to take that step forward in 2009 that fantasy baseball owners craved, he hurt his hamstring. Wonder what a Drew family vacation is like… “J.D., you wanna go see the world’s largest bottle cap? It’s supposedly 17 inches in circumference!” “Sure, I’ll go tell Mom and Pop.” On the way to the Sequoia, two hamstring pulls, a fractured hip and the Mom needs Tommy John surgery. Pretty sure no one’s giving them joint family coverage. The MDs in AZ say Drew’s injury shouldn’t knock him out longer than the 15 days. When you consider he hadn’t even started to hit yet, looks like Drew’ll begin his season mid-May. All in all, this is a decent buy low guy right now. If you can trade some spare parts for him (closer-du-jour, extra OF, etc.), he should prove worth stashing. He’s still talented and he can have a solid three-quarters of a season. Hopefully, he spent the first quarter on someone else’s team. Anyway, here’s what else we saw yesterday for fantasy baseball:
Brandon Webb – Earliest return date is late-May. Still a long season so you can’t really sell him short, but with the trouble coming in his right shoulder, I’d be worried this doesn’t become a worst situation before it gets better.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
