Now, if Clay wants to be called Buchholz, Imma call him Cassius. Clay Buchholz took a no-hitter into the 8th inning and ended with the line 8 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 11 Ks vs. Tampa. The Jewish Journal’s headline read, “Clay Spins Rays Like A Dreidel.” You know why he’s pitching this well, right? Cause I had nothing positive to say about him in the preseason. That’s spiteful, Clay. Spite is one of the seven deadliest sins. Right after that soup the fat guy ate in Se7en and Paltrow’s career after she stopped sleeping with Harvey Weinstein. “Sleep with the gross, sweaty producer, win an Oscar. Sleep with that guy from Coldplay, do movies with Huey Lewis.” Okay, this is a big step for me, but I’m willing to buy into the new and improved Buchholz with his splitter that he learned at the tail-end of last year. I’m not going out and trading for him, but if you went against my wishes and drafted him, you did good. It looks like you might’ve stole a pitcher late that has number two fantasy starter upside. Though I can’t say that I won’t be rooting against him every step of the way, since I don’t own him. My will vs. your will in a steel cage. My will will rake your will’s eyes. My will fights dirty. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?Josh Hamilton
Welcome to the brand new series called Bear or Bull. In this series, we will be talking about animals and how they relate to baseball players. No, really, we are. Otis Nixon is a cheetah! No, not like that. More like, if by animals I mean market trend descriptors. Yes, that totally makes more sense. No, not really. Basically, I’ll be spotlighting players every week and make a framework of where they trending, a big picture analysis type of thing. Think Sky’s Creeper of the Week, but for multiple seasons, mixed with a hint of Grey’s Buy/Sell with a touch of my manly musk and prowess. We’ll do some light bio work, have some lol’s, make some GIFs, and assess where this player is and where this player is going. In the end, you’ll learn whether or not I’m Bearish (not zesty) or Bullish (yes please) on the player. Personally, I’d always want to be the bear. A polar bear actually. All I would do is hunt for seals and fish, drink a bunch of Coke, and never fear anything. Well, except global warming I guess. And maybe acid reflux.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
This morning’s rant is for all the owners who took it up the ace on Sunday. It’s one thing when your ace is pitching @TEX or @COL but home against Cleveland where David Price gave up 8 ER and 13 baserunners in 5 IP? Ouch. Home against an Ortiz-less Boston offense (RA Dickey – 4.2 IP, 7 ER, 12 baserunners – the first 5 runs coming before an out was recorded)? Damn. Home against the Kansas City Royals (Cole Hamels - 5.2 IP, 8 ER 13 baserunners)? Oof! Home against a Holliday-less Cardinal team at one of the pitching-friendliest parks in baseball (Matt Cain – 3.2IP, 9 ER, 9 baserunners)? C’mon, that’s just cruel! For those of you in H2H leagues, consider yourselves lucky. At least these starts are expunged from the record. As for Roto players who own these guys, not much you could do now except turn down the perfunctory ‘buy low’ trade offers. Price, Hamels and Cain all have great track records so you have to assume these games were anomalies. Dickey….who the hell knows? Knuckleballs are like snowflakes – I don’t really understand either of them. Why wouldn’t snow fall in balls or, at the very least, in a uniform shape? (Rhetorical – please don’t explain this phenomenon). On to the other events of the weekend….
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Welcome to the first Deep Impact of the year. Did you miss me? Good, because I didn’t miss you. So there.
Remember, the Deep Impact series is aimed towards a different audience than your regular re-draft leagues. That’s because we do things deeper and harder, with special sauce. And while there are many different formats and scoring systems for deep leagues, there are elements we can create a context with. All deep leagues have some sort of dynasty mechanism, which favors younger and/or cost-controlled players. Along with that aspect, you’ll have a robust MiLB system, usually with multiple drafts (MLFAD, FYPD) and escalating long term contracts that attach to those players once activated. And last, but not least, you are most likely dealing with leagues that have anywhere from 15 to 30 teams, NL-only, AL-only, more advanced scoring categories (OBS, W+QS, TB, S*2+H, etc.) and you can even add simulation leagues like Strat-O-Matic or Scoresheet into the mix. We basically have to smash all those things into one sandwich, and then add your usual facets: 2013 production, lettuce, 2014+ potential production, tomatoes, injury risk, bacon, positional scarcity, etc.
Please, blog, may I have some more?I’m gonna turn the top 20 outfielders for 2013 fantasy baseball to 100, because I love you as much as someone who has never met someone else can love someone. More than a top college athlete could love a non-existent girl. I’m sure this has been said before, but as a top college athlete you can get basically any girl you want (that’s whether or not the college athlete is a male or female). If you really want a girl in another state, not only can you afford to fly the girl to you with illegal handouts, but, if you’re the girl, you fly to see your athlete boyfriend because he’s about to become a millionaire. You find time. I mean, this is the most unbelievable story since the Catfish guys said their story was nonfiction. Not to mention, the pictures the kook was using in Catfish weren’t even of a girl that attractive. Before all of that, I would’ve said spoiler alert, but the movie’s five years old, you should’ve seen it already. Pull yourself away from your computer and watch some TV! Now, it’s only fair I turn the outfielders up to 100, since I’ve turned the top 20 catchers for 2013 fantasy baseball to 26 and the top 20 1st basemen for 2013 fantasy baseball to 42 and the top 20 2nd basemen for 2013 fantasy baseball to 33; the top 20 shortstops for 2013 fantasy baseball to 35 and the top 20 3rd basemen for 2013 fantasy baseball to 32. All the 2013 fantasy baseball rankings are there. As always, my tiers and projections are included. Anyway, here’s the top 20 outfielders for 2013 fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?This is one of the hardest posts to write all year. There’s so many different ways the top 20 for 2013 fantasy baseball could go. I almost wrote a top 10 for 2013 fantasy baseball and just made the tenth ranked guy a ten way tie with these guys and washed my hands of this post entirely. Isn’t David Wright as risky as Longoria but Wright didn’t even make the top 20? Then Beltre’s low with seemingly no risk? Where’s the pitchers? Posey’s not ranked? You know the NL MVP?! What gives, GA? McCutchen was crazy high and now Kemp is crazy low! Was I taking meds when I wrote this? Was I not taking my meds?! There’s a lot of questions to be answered as we continue our 2013 fantasy baseball rankings. There are not as many guarantees as I’d like. Verlander seems more safe than any of these hitters, but you can find so much pitching later, he didn’t even make the top 20. Thankfully, as VinWins’s data about our leagues shows, a 2nd round pick that you Mr. Bungle doesn’t spell doom. Last year, a Cano second round pick was solid and you finished around sixth out of 12 teams. An Adrian Gonzalez pick, which wasn’t great, had you finishing around sixth, too. One pick does not a team make. Here’s just twenty picks you should make. Anyway, here’s the top 20 for 2013 fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?I’m not sure what the L stands for, but Josh Hamilton obviously felt LAA was a good fit for him. What I’d like to know is how is California a bankrupt state? The Dodgers and Angels’ salaries combined are equal to the GDP of every country, except China and Switzerland. Mozambique couldn’t afford just Pujols and Hamilton. Forget Greinke, Hanley, Vernon Wells, Matt Kemp and Carl Crawford. Alone, Arte Moreno could sell the Angels and buy Africa. Africa Moreno, that’s what they would call it. Burundi would become Aybarundi, Djibouti would become Dbootyhole and Chad would stay the same name, because that’s a badass name for a country, but Arte would put a country-wide golf course there, because anything named Chad and golf go hand-in-hand. The Angels now have Trout, Aybar, Pujols and Hamilton at the top of their lineup. October 1st called and said Aybar just scored his 197th run. Batting fifth, Kendrys could hit .220 and drive in 100 RBIs. Howie Kendrick… Well, he’ll still disappoint, but this is slightly bizzonkers to have three of the top hitters in baseball all in the same lineup. Trout, Hamilton and Pujols alone hit 103 homers last year. The Astros whole team only hit 146. Specifically about Hamilton, I could throw a lot numbers at you about about how his June through September were well short of his April/May. How his BABIP in April/May buoyed his season average. How not quoting these exact numbers but saying how I could quote them is a lot easier. Honestly, none of these numbers matter. I’d take six months straight of 5 homers/month and a .280 average. I don’t need a .380 average month with 12 homers. The bigger issue for me is you have no idea what you’re going to get from Hamilton year-to-year. One year, he hits 10 homers; one year, he misses 30 games; one year, he misses 55 games. Last year, his K-rate wasn’t good and his homer/fly ball rate was obscene. His swinging strike rate was the worst in the majors. This wasn’t just bad for this year. He had the worst rate since 2002. Mark Reynolds set a strikeout record one year and had a better swinging strike rate. Oh, and he’s 32 years old as of May 21st. He could be in for a huge year, but he’ll probably be drafted before I’m willing to look at him. For 2013, I’ll give him the line of 92/29/109/.277/7. You think adding a top hitter to an already stacked lineup will make it exponentially better, but for fantasy it just spreads out the wealth, as the Angels and Dodgers should do. Anyway, here’s some more offseason moves for 2013 fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?Went over the catchers, 1st basemen, 2nd basemen and shortstops and top 20 3rd basemen for 2012 fantasy baseball. Guess what’s next! No, not pitchers. Read the title, man. In 2010, there were only 5 outfielders that hit 30 homers, in 2011 there were 9, this year there were 14. It isn’t exactly like a bleached Sammy Sosa is sticking players with needles, but at least the rich got a little richer — yay, capitalism! Steals were still in abundance, and that doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere any time soon. There were 14 outfielders who stole 30 bases in 2011 and this year there were 14. Since outfield is a deep position, I’m going to turn this one to 40.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Moving, in short…is a bitch. Like, is there anything more torturous on the planet earth than moving? The boxing. The bubble wrap. The calling of the friends who desperately try and come up with excuses as to how they are busy.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
