Fantasy Baseball Advice

Guess what time it is? No, not three o’clock. It’s time for this week’s fantasy baseball buy/sell thingiemajig. Dur! As we move closer to the end of the season, I wanted to take this opening section to point out some hard facts. Arod is sleeping with a fifty-year-old lady. Ew! No, wait, that wasn’t what I wanted to point out. I wanted to say it’s now or never. Okay, I said that before, but now it really is. Don’t leave anything on the table. Or put it all on the table. Or whatever that inspirational poster with the guy rappelling a mountain says. If you’re thirty steals out in front of your nearest competition, why are you still starting Brian Roberts? He sucks. He’s not hitting as many home runs as Ty Wiggington. (Okay, he doesn’t suck, because he is hitting for a high average right now. But if you need home runs — big whoop! Or not! Depends on your need.) If you can’t gain any points in saves, why are you carrying seven closers? So my nearest competition can’t get any saves. Oh, well, that actually makes sense. As weird as it is to drop some players (Kinsler!), if they’re not helping you right now, they’re not helping you. You have, like, no time, people! P.O.Y.M.G.S.S. (Put On Your Make Grey Smile Shoes) Anyway, here’s some fantasy baseball players to buy and sell:

BUY

Adam Wainwright – If he stays healthy, he might be the September Cy Young. Unfortunately, it’s a Zelda Rubinstein-sized if. (Which is about a 4′ 11″-sized if.)

Jo-Jo Reyes – Member that Campillo dude. Yeah, Reyes is him minus the innings.

Tom Gorzelanny – Easily could be in the Sell list, because, earlier in the year, he added the third suck in sucky-suck-suck. Since July, he’s been T to the -orrid in the minors at a 2.06 ERA and .91 WHIP. To misquote Wyclef, he’ll be back in September.

Pablo Sandoval – A lot has been made of his weight. Well, there’s a lot there to make of it. Oofa! Let’s just say, if Pablo Sandoval gets a single against the Brewers, leaving him and Prince Fielder both at first, everyone else on the field should shift their weight towards third to avoid a landslide. Might get some starts in front of Benji. He’s got some pizz-op.

Travis Metcalf – Three homers in three starts this week. Could be something, might be nothing. If you’re struggling at corner, you take a flier. He might lose all playing time with Blalock’s return, but as we know from knowing what we know, Blalock will get hurt as soon as he returns.

Juan Salas – Just called up from the minors. Middle relief numbers to make you feel alive with pleasure like a Newport.

Mark Reynolds – The other day I mentioned Reynolds could move to 2nd base when Justin Upton returns. Look at Reynolds’s numbers (77/24/85/.245/8). Now imagine them from a 2nd basemen. That’s almost a top five 2nd basemen and he’s better than Uggla. In keeper leagues, this could be huge.

Alexei Ramirez – As I mentioned in yesterday’s fantasy baseball keeper post, I fell in love with Alexei and I liked it! I hope my girlfriend don’t mind it! (Sorry, that stupid song is still stuck in my head.)

Jeff Kent – Yeah, he’s a douchebag, but he’s been hot since Manny’s come to town. Get involved!

SELL

Clayton Kershaw/Johnny Cueto/Edinson Volquez/Zach Greinke/Jair Jurrjens/Jorge Campillo/Ricky Nolasco/Justin Duchscherer/Mike Pelfrey/Any pitcher that is pitching far too many innings for their arm – I’m not saying you need to drop these guys outright (though I have started dropping a few them. I’m looking at you, Greinke, Campillo and Jurrjens. Also, if I had Dook-sheer, I wouldn’t be expecting anything from him.). You just need to make sure you’re not too reliant on any of them. They might go from usable to having starts skipped in the matter of seconds.

David Price – Could be here by September 1st, might be worth the flier in ‘09, he’s not ready yet.

Ian Kinsler – I know this injury hurt you, but there’s not much time left. You can’t be waiting around for him to return.

Chris Carpenter – You might get more from Tim Redding this year. Okay, bad example. But there still has to be more valuable guys on your waiver wire.

Brandon McCarthy – He’s on his way back to claim a Rangers’ rotation spot. In deep leagues, I could see the flier, but I’m not expecting anything from him. That’s not true. I’m expecting him to suck.

Ken Griffey Jr. – He’s looked like Ken Griffey Sr. all year.

Chris Davis – He’s hitting .211 in August with 2 HRs. Could he have a good September? Perhaps, but he’s a K machine. When I told you to pickup Chris Davis in June, I said, “Adam Dunn struckout 101 times in his last full year of the minors. Chris Davis struckout 150 times.” And that’s me cutting and pasting me! Now if Metcalf keeps hitting and Blalock returns and stays healthy, Davis may sit a few games a week. Sorry, but don’t shoot the messenger.

Huston Street – He’s owned in 83% of ESPN leagues. As usual, I assume 97% of ESPN’ers abandon their team so this ownership number means very little, but let’s assume just 7 people actually play ESPN fantasy baseball and out of those 7, 1 person still has Street on their team. That’s one person too many.

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Send tips to info@razzball.com. Enjoy…

Camden Chat and Oriole Post vent and illuminate on ESPN’s blinding love for the Yanks and Sawx. Can’t the Worldwide Leader give the O’s some love?

River Ave Blues uses box score results vs. hype to justify all the excitement over Joba moving to the starting rotation. What is up with these bloggers? Look away people. A true journalist relies simply on intonation and hyperbole. Here is how it’s done. (nice Sports Hernia post on the audio)

Redleg Nation teases us with news that a Jay Bruce is imminent. Check out the post comments – no surprise they want Corey Patterson out the door. More surprising to see the fans ready to say goodbye to Griffey. When Griffey hits his 600th HR, they should give him the hamstring from a cadaver.

Lone Star Ball commits a felony in Texas by inferring that Nolan Ryan might be wrong about something. The concern is that Nolan Ryan has never developed players before and his edict that their minor league pitchers will throw more pitches per game might be detrimental. My POV – no need to worry. Anytime you have a decent pitching prospect, you trade them anyway (Chris Young, John Denks, Edinson Volquez)…

Surviving Grady covers Bartolo Colon’s first start and shows a clip of umpire Tom Hallion going Enrico Palazzo on Colon’s first strikeout of the night. Guess it’s just Hallion being Hallion. Nice catch by announcer Jerry Rummy…I mean Ginny Remy….I mean Jerry Remy.

The blog is about fantasy baseball, but it’s sometimes hard to ignore what goes on in the real baseball world. Frankly, if we weren’t baseball fans first, we wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about fantasy baseball. So, with a heavy heart I write, yesterday was a tough day to be a fan. Taint on lots of big names, past and present — Bonds, Clemens, Pettitte, McGwire, Bagwell, Gagne, Sosa, Justice, Tejada and, um, F.P. Santangelo. The list goes on for pages. If you want to read The Mitchell Report in its entirety, you can here. It’s lengthy and pretty depressing, kinda like if Ken Burns did a seven-part documentary on Tonya from The Real World. But today is a new day, and I’m going to try and put a positive spin on things. Here is a list of some players NOT in The Mitchell Report. If you will, a tribute.

Greg Maddux – 347 wins going into 2008. In 1998, while McGwire racked up 70 homers, Maddux went 18-9 with a 2.22 ERA and 208 strikeouts. Good to hear the Padres are bringing him back for another year. Maybe he’ll pass Clemens on the all-time wins list.

Tom Glavine – 303 wins, 2570 career Ks, and a lifetime 3.51 ERA. In 1998, Sosa hit 66 homers, but went 0 for 4 against Glavine with three strikeouts. In the Cubs second game against Glavine in 1998, Sosa sat out to give Matt Mieske some at-bats.

Randy Johnson – 4616 career strikeouts. Hopefully, he can make it back for his 300th win. It would be nice to see. In 2001, while Bonds hit 73 homers, Randy struck out 372 batters, which is eleventh most for a season and the most since Nolan Ryan in 1973.

Pedro Martinez – From 1997 to 2003, the heart of the having-a-trainer-inject-my-ass-with-something era, Pedro had ERAs of 1.90, 2.89, 2.07, 1.74, 2.39, 2.226 and 2.22 respectively.

Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera – Combined they have over 900 saves and zero mentions in The Mitchell Report. What’s that? Gagne had trouble bouncing back day after day? Trevor smiles at Mariano then, “Try it for twelve years.”

Cy Young Winners from 1996 ‘til present – Jake Peavy, Johan Santana, Brandon Webb, Chris Carpenter, John Smoltz, C.C. Sabathia, Roy Halladay and Barry Zito.

Alex Rodriguez – Canseco claims Arod should be in the Mitchell Report, but he’s not. I say we give him the benefit of the doubt. BTW, he’s arguably the best hitter in the game. When you’re in that argument, you’re pretty good.

Albert Pujols – See that premature balding is hereditary! BTW, second best hitter in the game.

Todd Helton – In 2001, he batted 132/49/146/.336. Too bad it was overshadowed.

Vladimir Guerrero – Some players medicate when they’re hobbled by injuries, some hobble. Here’s one for the hobblers.

Ichiro Suzuki – For not being in The Mitchell Report — arrigato.

Ryan Howard and Prince Fielder – If they test positive, it’s because their steak was injected on the way to the slaughterhouse.

Frank Thomas – Okay, so he’s the Henry Hill of all of this, but it’s still a shame his 500 home runs came at a time when that was a ticket for Copperstown consideration and not a ticket to Copperstown.

Manny Ramirez – The thought of Manny trying to inject himself with something is ludicrous. Actually, the thought of Manny thinking is pretty ludicrous, but Manny get a hug from Big Papi for not being in The Report.

David Ortiz – While we’re here, someone Big Papi wasn’t hugging was McNamee.

Ken Griffey Jr. – Maybe if Griffey took the shortcut many of colleagues did to help recuperate from injury, he would be approaching 800 home runs. Maybe his self-respect meant too much.

I wish these players above had received more recognition then and now. There’s lots of names I’m failing to mention. Please feel free to comment below some names that weren’t on The Mitchell Report.