Virginia is renaming a city for Stephen Strasburg.  An old Yankee reliever is renaming himself Myke Stanton so he shows up again in Google.  It’s a brand new day, Sting.  You stink POO-holes, however you spell your name.  Hanley, don’t wanna run out a pop-up?  Have a good life!  Change came, nephew.  The mollywhopping, pony stick carrying, Mike Stanton is in town.  No homers though.  Sad trombone.  3-for-5 and a rope to right in his fourth at-bat.  He looked fast down the line and absolutely gigantic.  Like Frank Thomas big.  Maybe it was the 3-D glasses I was wearing.  Rudy and I were speaking about Stanton.  We agreed.  He could hit 15-20 homers and .280.  Or he could hit .220.  It’s rookie nookie, you gotta decide if it’s worth the blisters.  Now for Big Baby Jesus, Stephen Strasburg.  He had his last tune up tonight against minor league hitters… Oh, wait, that was the Pirates.  My bad.   Strasburg was introduced, “Last name:  Ever.  First name:  Greatest.”  For a nifty trick, in the 2nd inning he threw a 98 MPH fastball and also caught it.  He looked flat-out dominating at times.  Towards the end of the game, he really started heating up — maybe he put his arm in the microwave for 15 seconds on both sides — and he looked unhittable.  He did after all strikeout 14 hitters.  And he homered three times.  Once off himself.  At other times, he looked like a rookie making mistakes.  I mean, he did give up a homer to Delwyn “I Don’t Even Know How To Spell My First Name” Young.  I think there’s going to be a bunch of 6 inning, 2-3 earned run, 8-10 K games and some wins.  Fantastic, for sure.  He could win the Rookie of the Year over Heyward.  But you didn’t just back into owning 1999 Pedro.  Not yet at least.  Maybe next year.  Yesterday, one of our three girl readers got Sabathia, Dunn and Ervin for Strasburg.  That’s tremendous value for Big Baby Jesus.  I’d explore how hyped he is in your league too.  Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Cameron Maybin – Will sit in favor of Stanton.  That’s so Maybin!  Oh, wait.  No, it’s not.  In NL-Only keeper leagues, I would hold onto Maybin.  Elsewhere… Well, if you worried your team can’t continue without Maybin, you have bigger fish to fry.  Marlin pun!  Kinda!

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Javier Vazquez touched you in your no-no area for two months to the point where just looking at his name made you crawl up into a ball and cry, but yesterday he flirted with a no-no for seven innings.  He held the 1927 Blue Jays to only one hit, a home run by HGH Wells.  (In a strange twist, Bautista didn’t homer, but he did have sex with your wife.  Don’t shoot the messenger!)  So can Javier Vazquez now be trusted?  The better question is did anyone really think he was the 8 ERA pitcher he was showing in April and May?  Come on, this is baseball.  It’s a sport of aberrations from day-to-day and week-to-week and month-to-month, but, in the end, people find their level.  Vazquez is more or less a 4.50 ERA pitcher in the AL.  So you need some months of dreckitude surrounded by some months of usability.  Vazquez is still walking too many guys and, other than him striking out 9 Blue Kays yesterday and the Suckie-O’s the game before, his Ks have been down.  So usable, but don’t expect a full return of 2009 Vazquez.  Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Mike Stanton – He’s coming up on Tuesday.  Can you hear that?  It’s my heart going pitter patter.  Put your ear up to the computer monitor, you’ll hear it.

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Matt Lindstrom threw 1 IP, 2 ER and his second blown save in two games and third in his last four.  If you’re not reading this until Sunday, he probably blew another game.  Oops, there goes another one.  I grabbed Brandon Lyon in two leagues where he was available.  If it was simply Lindstrom sucking, I’d say you can hold off, but Lindstrom said he has mechanical issues.  You know what mechanical issues are code for, right?  A breakdown.  In the mean’s while, Lyon is just okay.  If I said he was good, I’d be (Mad Lib in your own pun).  But Lyon does have closing experience, so there’s that junebug on the duck’s back or some other yokelism.  As for Matt Capps, his rope is a bit longer, but his shakes haven’t been great either.  Yesterday, he went 2/3 IP, 3 unearned runs and the third time he was Cappsized this year.  Ticker shock due to Cristian Guzman playing about fifty feet too far behind 2nd.  It was Guzman’s third error of the game.  [mind-boggling] I realize the Nats are the Nots without Guzman and all, but there really should’ve been a defensive replacement in this game.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

No, there’s probably no cast in Andre’s future.  I’m not even sure they make casts small enough for the pinkie finger.  That was Pingping‘s downfall, that and the chain smoking.  After Andre Ethier broke a bone in his pinkie, he said something was seriously wrong.  Seriously?  You got a boo-boo on your pinkie!  What, you can’t make shadow animals now?  When he found out what it was, he said that it’s the leverage point of his swing and it would prevent him from holding the bat the way he normally does.  Who’s leverage point is their freakin’ pinkie?!  This is like the pea under the princess’s mattress.  His biggest concern is probably how he can stick his pinkie out while drinking tea.  Ethier could be out for a few weeks or he can play through it.  So he’s damned if he does or a half dozen of the other… Or however that cliché goes.  If it is his leverage point, you don’t want him playing through it.  If he doesn’t play through it, he could be out at least a few weeks.  And here I thought the only time Ethier and the word pinkie would be associated would be from this picture.  Draw your own conclusions, but I’m guessing he’s in Key West.  Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:

Chad Billingsley – 7 1/3 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks.  What every pitcher needs, a trip to Petco.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Jorge Posada’s going to hit 161 home runs (accounting for one rainout, of course), Granderson’s going to win the MVP and Big Papi still sucks.  Oh, and Beckett’s record will be 0-25-1. Yes, a tie.  My crystal ball doesn’t lie, don’t second guess it.  Spring has sprung and baseball’s back.  It’s a good time to be alive.  The flowers smell different, don’t they?  They smell like hot dogs.   Right now, I feel like putting some endangered Chilean sea bass on the grill, an Olde English in an oversized cozy and kicking back for the next six months while the sounds of baseball dance in my head.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Before we get into today’s Buy/Sell, I want to clear something up.  Last week someone commented that my Buy/Sell post only had Buy guys in it for very deep leagues.  This is sorta true.  With only a little over a month left of the season, just about every league’s trade deadline has past.  So I could tell you to buy Manny Ramirez, but how are you going to do that?  I do believe in the last month of the season, there’s something else you should be doing.  Or actually not doing.  You should no longer be waiting around for production.  Jermaine Dye‘s put up fine stats this year.  You guys going to get a room in October and talk about his great May?  If Rajai Davis is on your waivers and you need steals and don’t need power, forget Dye’s previous production and go for the here and now.  You’re up against the clock, fantasy baseballers (<–my Mom’s term).  You only have so much time to make this shizz happen.  If it’s going to happen.  This is more or less for one year leagues.  In keepers, you need to be prudent about who you can drop.  Oh, and bee-tee-dubya, Jermaine Dye was dropped to fifth in the order and has one homer in the past month while batting .187.  Cut the umbilical, doode.  You guys are done.  Anyway, here’s some more players to buy or sell for this week in fantasy baseball:

BUY

Jack CustWait, I know a better title for this post, “How To Bore The Crap Out Of Your Readers With Boring Ass Names?” Random italicized voice, you seem like you have a bit of a chip on your shoulders.  No, not at all.

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Evan Longoria went 0-for-4 yesterday.  He’s been kinda terrible for about three months now.  Man, third base is a minefield.  Now I’m not putting Longoria in the Wright Sucks Then Gets Conked On The Head box.  No, he hasn’t been nearly that bad.  But two separate months of an under .240 average and two months of zero steals and tw0 months of 1 steal and this sentence has nearly as many ands as, “In the saying, “Fish-and-Chips,” it’s necessary to have a hyphen between “fish” and “and,” and “and” and “chips.”  I’m not ready to proclaim where Longoria should be drafted next year.  I’m Grey and I make proclamations!

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When doctors said Aaron Harang is going to have a useless part of his body removed, everyone in the Reds clubhouse thought the same thing, “What is Willy Taveras doing in Harang’s body?”  If Dusty were a doctor, he would left Harang’s appendix in a few more innings.  The appendectomy will force Harang to the DL for the rest of the season.  Too bad, the Reds just traded for Rolen and things were really starting to come together.  Feel free to cut Harang.  He’s done-zo.  Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Chris Dickerson – Headed to the DL with a whatever-you-don’t-care.  What you do care about, the Reds might call up Chris Heisey.  He’ll be talked about in the afternoon post where I break down the potential September call-ups.

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If you drafted Manny this year, then you better make a new plan, Stan because Man-Ram is getting time off for bad behavior.  50 games to be exact.  The reason – he came up positive for human chorionic gonadotropin, or HCG, which can be used to boost testosterone levels.  Manny seems to be claiming his doctor prescribed it for erectile dysfunction but the drug is most often prescribed for…women’s fertility.  Huh?  And here we thought Alyssa Milano was the only person in the LA Dodger clubhouse taking those.  Maybe Manny got screwed by a bad boner doctor but our money is on Scott Boras.  He probably gave those pills to Manny, told him they were Flintstone vitamins, and Manny hallucinated Flintstone faces onto the vitamins.

Please, blog, may I have some more?