Fantasy Baseball Advice

I picked up Doug Fister in every league I could.  So, that’s out of the way.  I won’t start him the next time out though and I’m not sure I’ll start him ever.  I may just drop him if I never get a good matchup at home.  At home’s key.  That’s the only place I’d start him.  Last night, his 7 IP, 1 ER, 4 baserunners, 3 Ks performance is his peak.  He pitches to contact and doesn’t K anyone.  He’s similar to Joel Pineiro.  Call him Jo-eh.  If you were the firster to get him off waivers, chuck him into a package trade for someone much more reliable or exciting.  His appeal is limited.  So, yes, I grabbed him to chuck him.  My apologies, Mister Fister.  Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Casey Kotchman – Hit his 2nd homer in as many days.  Going mono y mano with Soriole, Bradley Bergesen.

Franklin Gutierrez – The Big FraGu left the game in the 7th with tightness in his groin.  Ugh-arf!  That’s FraGu backwards (almost).

Conor Jackson – To the DL with a hamstring.  This is probably the best thing to happen to his owners all year.  If you’re struggling to find room for him on the DL, I’ll save you the time.  Drop him in most mixed leagues.

Kelly Johnson – 1-for-4, but Conor Jackson’s hamfret pushes Johnson into the leadoff role.  I like me some Johnson!  Not like that.  C’mon, that’s juvenile.

Gerardo Parra – 1-for-3, and now has a starting job because Conor Jackson’s injury is paying it forward.  Parra has little value outside of NL-Only leagues.  There, he’ll give you very little power and little speed.

Ty Wigginton – I mentioned grabbing him yesterday when he had four homers in the last week.  Today, he has 5.

David Eckstein – He hit a walk-off HR for San Diego.  When pressed for comment, Eckstein said it was his biggest hit since knocking out Soda Popinski.

Clayton Richard – 6 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners, 5 Ks.  He’s not really bad on Ks and he will have an under-4 ERA at home this year.

Brian Fuentes – Scheduled to return from the DL on Wednesday.  He should get the closer role right back.  At least I hope so since I own this doode.

John Lackey – 3 1/3 IP, 8 ER.  A’la Superintendent Chalmers, “Lack-eee!”  Honestly, this might have been Lackey’s alter ego pitching, Lon Jackey.  He pitches like he’s in a horror film.

Mike Cameron – Could miss a few games because he’s got some stones below the belt in the literal instead of colloquial sense.

Jacoby Ellsbury – May end up D’ellsburied after all.  The Sawx played Bill Hall in center yesterday.  How’s that for depth?

Jeremy Hermida – HR yesterday.  Hermida couldn’t get to a ball he should’ve, which started the scoring on Lackey.  Hermida is a poor-man’s Trot Nixon.  Call him Mosey Agnew.

Brad Penny – 7 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners, 5 Ks.  He’s actually been one of my best pitchers so far.  Scary, yet true.

Aaron Rowand – Reports are good that Rowand won’t need surgery on his face.  Too bad Willie McGee never received the same good news.

Juan Uribe – Has two homers in the last two games.  He’s one of the streakiest hitters.  Bet he hits at least two more homers this week.

Dontrelle Willis – 6 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 2 Ks.  He seems like a good guy.  I wish him the best.  I wouldn’t touch him.

Felix Pie – Will miss up to three months with latissimus dorsi muscle injury.  I thought only dolphins had dorsi muscles.  Anyone ever see Felix Pie flinch around a can of tuna?  Eh, guess it’s not important.  I imagine Reimold’s still nursing his Achilles’ because he’s pulling a Kotchman with that thing, but he’s got one less schmohawk to deal with for playing time and he has been hitting cleanup.

Kelly Shoppach – Out for 4-6 weeks with knee surgery.  I had knee surgery once and I wasn’t able to catch for almost two months later.  Actually, that’s a complete lie, but my English Comp teacher once told me to personalize.

Brandon Morrow – 7 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 8 Ks vs. the Royals.  Now they should make him a closer!  I keed.  Morrow should be capable of more performances like this one, but he gets the Rays next and I’m officially more worried about the Rays’ offense than the Sawx’s.

Mike McCoy – 3-for-4, 2 steals.  Hill’s due back soon which will push McCoy to, well, wherever McCoys go when they’re not playing.  In the meantime, McCoy stole 40 bases in Triple-A.  As they say at Razzball, SAGNOF!

Travis Snider – 2-for-5 as he hit his 2nd homer in four games.  I think he might be a year away still, but he could be coming around; don’t sleep on him if he’s out there.

Cliff Lee – Will throw a simulated game on Tuesday.  They should use a Wii for that.

Ike Davis – 2-for-4, 1 RBI and a million New Yawkers thinking this Davis has an idear up der at bat.  If you scroll down, you’ll see a post about him.  Want more, greedy?  Okay.  The Mets announcers (I heart Keith Hernandez) were comparing Davis to John Olerud.  Davis was wearing a batting helmet at the time, but they meant it about his hitting.  Also, they meant it as a compliment, but I took it as insult.  20 homers and a good average?  I’m hoping he develops more power than that.  Either way, you should own Davis for the chance at a breakout.

Jose Reyes – Wanted the day off because of fatigue.  It’s fair after playing three plus games in two days.  Then he got in the game late and continued to do nothing.  We need to remain calm.  He had no time to ramp up to the season.  The thyroid shorted him his Spring Training.  I’m not worried.  If Reyes gets hot, he could carry you for a month.

Craig Stammen – 8 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 5 Ks.  That Stammen is a real pistil!  What, flower jokes ain’t your thing?  Whatever.  Oh, and Stammen’s a terrible pitcher, nothing’s changed.

Kevin Mench – The Nationals gave him a minor league deal and he’s hitting so far.  If the Nats call him up, I’m booking tickets for Kevin Mench Fathead Poster day when the first 10,000 guests get life-sized posters of Kevin Mench’s head that one can affix to their wall like a giant tapestry or fresco.

Scott Podsednik – Left the team for a family emergency.  The emergency:  give his hot wife a royal f***in’ vs. playing for the f***in’ Royals.

I’m not sure if Jeff Kent will retire. I’m sure his wife doesn’t want him to retire because he seems like he’d be a miserable prick around the house. Why doesn’t this remote work?! She sighs, “You have to turn on the TV first.” Maybe he lands as a DH somewhere in the AL. Either way, Kent prolly won’t be on the Dodgers next year. So that opens 2nd base in 2009 for the Dodgers. This should be filled by Blake DeWitt, no relation to Joyce DeWitt, against righties and Mark Loretta against the occasional lefty. Okay, so what can we expect from Blake DeWitt for 2009 and why is he a fantasy sleeper?

In 2008, Blake DeWitt was rushed to the majors to fill-in at 3rd base prior to the Casey Blake move. He was marginally meh, but never quite eh or feh. He has limited power and speed. Kent could prolly out-homer him even in his 41st year on the planet and Rickey Henderson could still outrun him. Blake’s ideal 2009 has him at about 60/14/75/.275/7. Kelly Johnson just yawned reading those numbers.  Now Blake also has corner and middle eligibility (here’s a list of all the players that have multiple position eligiblity for 2009), and there won’t be many 2nd basemen who come as discounted as Blake in 2009 fantasy drafts. Some of the schmohawks I’ve seen drafted before Blake are Mark Loretta, David Eckstein, Nick Punto, Mark Grudzielanek and Marco Scutaro.  I just vomited in my mouth writing some of those names. So towards the end of your NL-Only drafts or very deep mixed leagues, Blake DeWitt is a good sleeper name to have stashed away.

We’re at the 1/4 mark for the first season of Fantasy Razzball – a fantasy baseball game where you try to manage the worst team possible – and we’re on our way to probably the worst collective stat totals ever seen in a Yahoo! public league. With team batting averages as low as .238 and ERAs and ERAs as high as 5.36, it’s no wonder that Alan Trammell keeps bugging us for a chance to manage one of these teams (See 2003 Tigers team totals).

The top 4 are closely bunched but the leader at this point is….me. That’s right. My team sucks more than the rest. Look at me, ma. I’m king of the third world!

No doubt my 48 point offense (out of 60) has prospered at the expense of the real-life lineups that employ my top two picks (Willy Taveras, Michael Bourn). The two of them have combined for 277 ABs and managed 40 Runs, 3 HR (all Bourn), 12 RBI, 60 Ks, and a .206 AVG. Multiply that by two and you’ve got one AWFUL season. Message to Cecil Cooper and Clint Hurdle: Keep those guys at the top of your lineups. Don’t ruin a good thing…for me!

In 2nd place is our amateur entry from Josh the Non-Blogger – Team DFA (Designated For Assignment? Destined For Awfulness?). He’s overcome surprising starts by Scott Olsen, Edwin Jackson, and Ryan Ludwick with draftees like Franklin Morales (6.39 ERA over 25 IP yet only 2 HR?), Jose Castillo, and Brendan Harris (.248/33 Ks/2 HR/9 RBI) and smart pickups like the one-time apple of my eye Eugenio Velez and Tom “I’m Punto’s Backup” Tolbert.

In 3rd place is April league leader Cards In The Attic. Coincidence that his drop from 88 to 78 points started around the time that Pittsburgh dropped the anchor of his staff (and an anchor on their staff) Matt Morris? I blog to differ.

The 4th team of the top quartet is Roto Professor – who is so dedicated that he scouts Razztastic performances in the minor leagues. He’s smartly banking on the Giant offense (Ortmeier, Durham, Winn) but needs to find more AB machines like Kurt Suzuki and Jason Bartlett to avoid the minimum AB penalties (He’s currently about 320 AB off the pace of 5200 AB – the pro-rated stats definitely have an impact…e.g., goes from 20 to 25 HRs after applying 80 ABs of pro-rated 35 HRs.)

Other notes:

5th place Mop Up Duty’s team is looking good (bad?) relying on high AB/low performance middle infielders like Julio Lugo, Felipe Lopez, and David Eckstein. Also liked their recent preview on interleague play.

Biggest gainer in the last 20 days or so has to be the Fantasy Baseball Generals moving from 10th to 6th. Their ridiculous 3.17 ERA / 1.17 WHIP finally regressed (progressed?) to the mean with a move to 3.78 / 1.27. Keep up the bad pitching.

Blogmate Grey has fallen to 8th place. Ha ha…you don’t suck!

The team fielded by the blog formally known as GOTOS – now FantasyPhenoms – is suffering from a roster full of benchwarmers. Stop spending so much time on your fancy new blog and pick up some every day players. Their team’s 14 HR boosts to 31 HR because of the minimum-AB penalties. (BTW, here’s an interesting rank of pitchers they did – a little stat wonky but good.)

And in last place, our occasional contributor Lou and his Defunct Baseball Lab. Defunct indeed. I think you have to spend less time writing about great fantasy baseball players and start reading my Razzball Spotlights!

We realize that exporting our views across the country has damaging consequences on the blogosphere.

To help remedy this, we will try to occasionally feature locally blogged advice/insights/humor/etc. that will be fresher, more sustainable, and require less energy consumption (for us anyway).

Send tips to info@razzball.com. Enjoy…

Drunk Jays Fans and Tao of Stieb – Did you think that Yanks and Sawx blogs had the monopoly on AL East expletive-laded rants about their team? Think again, you fuckin’ hoser! Local POV on Wells’ injury, J.P. the GM, David Eckstein (Tao has some great nicknames for him), the resurrection of Eric Hinske, and the 2008 Jays season.

The Nationals Enquirer – Looks like Ryan Zimmerman has joined us and Philip Hughes in the blog world. According to Nationals Enquirer, his hitting has improved since he started the blog. I’m not surprised as I’m having a career softball season this Spring after starting to write for this blog. (Someone send a memo to Barry Zito). I just hope blogging doesn’t hurt Ryan’s wrist like Guitar Hero hurt Joel Zumaya’s forearm.

Sons of Steve Garvey – This well-manned Dodger blog calls out the dead weight in the LA Dodger outfield. Hint: it’s not the one with the Frenchy last name…

Sliding Into Home – Does it make you an old fart if you think Joba Chamberlain shouldn’t celebrate after striking out a schlub like David Delucci? Sure feels like it. FYI, Grey and I like to chest bump after a particularly good blog post.

Sox Machine – A White Sox fan ponders the future of Gavin Floyd – unstoppable force for good or unsustainable good fortune?