Fantasy Baseball Advice

Harnessing the pitching brilliance of Native Americans and intergalactic tubbies, Joba Chamberlain appeared to be the savior the Yankee fans, Girardi and Hankenstein needed for their pitching staff. So it was a terrific blow when Joba Chamberlain left yesterday’s game rubbing his shoulder. The only thing worse would be if Joba hurt it in a fight with The Drunken Ghost of Billy Martin. (Fortunately, he’s in a cloud lined with sawdust, boozing it up with Mickey Mantle.) Fantasy baseball owners can’t be thrilled either. Pitcher leaves game rubbing shoulder? Fantasy baseball owner leaves seat walking funny. It’s too bad they can’t trade for Jar Jar on the Braves. Anyway, here’s what else we saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Cliff Lee – I figured since I hadn’t watched him in over two months, it was time to jinx him. I was so close in the 2nd when I got him to walk a few and load the bases. Alas, he pitched well in every other inning. Never fear, non-Cliff Lee owners, I will grab him like some friggin’ floating astronaut and drag him back to earth.

C.J. Wilson – Wilson says he’s feeling fatigued, maybe he got mono from a Kotchman open-mouth kiss. Either way, Eddie Guardado should be owned in all leagues because he would step in if C.J. pulls a Prince Valium.

Jason Bartlett – Won’t be able to throw a baseball for a few days, maybe Kotchman kissed his hand.

Kerry Wood – Word out of Wrigleyville is Wood can close again, but he’s going to get a bit of work in the middle innings then move into the closing role by the end of the week.

Gil Meche – Everyone mocked KC for signing him to that ridiculous contract but who’s dancing now.  That’s right.  Good ol’ Gil.  9 Ks in a 6 IP win against the Sox.  10-9 for an awful team – including 9-5 with a 3.27 ERA since May.

Ryan Zimmerman – Zimmerman says he should be able to avoid the DL with his bruised hand, so he can just clog up your bench instead.

Eric Chavez – Shut down for the year.  Maybe they could build a healthy 3B out of the spare parts of Chavez and Blalock?  Those A’s don’t have a long shelf life, do they?  Mulder, Hudson, Chavez, Byrnes… Who’d have thought Harden and Giambi would be the poster children of durability?

Jay Bruce – 3 HRs in 4 games.  That’s the Bruce we know and love.  He obviously idolized Griffey Jr. and was emulating the current version.  Now that he’s out of Cincy, he’s back to emulating the 90’s version.

Bronson Arroyo – 6 IP, 1 ER, 6 Ks.  This on the heels of Zito besting Peavy yesterday.  Guess it’s premature for both to retire and start a rock trio with Slow Hand Pete called Baked Zito and the Republic of Bro-Yo, featuring Slow Hand Pete.

Roy Halladay – 8 IP, 1 ER. Queue the projector.  It’s time for another installment of Out of Contention Run For Cy Young in Toronto. (see Clemens, Hentgen, Halladay…)

Tyler Yates – Third of an inning, 5 ER. This works out to a 135 ERA, 15 WHIP and 1 less closer on all of my teams.

Manny Parra/Prince Fielder – Hit hard by the Reds, hit harder by Fielder in the dugout. I haven’t seen anything this lopsided since Andre took on this guy. “Stop talking about meat and I mean it!”

JJ Putz returns from the DL. Too bad because the Rowland-O’Flaherty-Green-Lowe-Crap-Smith-Whatever were like the Murderer’s Row of setup men. Really holding down the fort. Too bad The Big Sexy can’t pitch like he strikes out, he could’ve lent a hand there. Anyway, I told you to drop all of these schmohawks a couple of days ago, I will second that emotion today. Don’t handcuff your Putz to anything. It’s way too painful. In other closer news, Chad Cordero is going to get his shoulder examined. When a closer goes on the DL because of arm trouble, then returns, but can’t throw only to have his shoulder examined again two weeks later, it’s not good news. By the time you read this, he might already be on the DL. I think Rauch gets more saves than Cordero this year, so if you have Cordero, prepare to cry. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday:

John Lannan – Is this guy for real? His minor league numbers say he’s only starting in the majors because he’s on the Nationals. In three minor league seasons, he had 229 Ks to 127 walks in 326 innings. That, folks, are pretty bad numbers. So is he for real? I wouldn’t start him against the Cubs for his next start.

Jerry Hairston – He keeps hitting like he did yesterday, Corey Patterson might be on the bench for a while. Dusty, I thought you liked Corey… Wha’ happen? (Oh, and for the first comment, “Grey, should I pick up Hairston?” No, I would not.)

Manny Parra – If you’re looking at a 2.20 WHIP and asking how he only gave up only three runs, let me explain. He was lucky he only gave up 3 runs. Duncan hit a liner to Fielder to get him out of the fifth. That liner would’ve easily scored one more run and who knows what that would’ve led to. Manny hasn’t looked in command of his pitches for a couple starts now.

Eric Gagne – I’m far from a Gagne-apologist, but the blown save shouldn’t have been blown. Weeks threw a ball in the dirt and Fielder couldn’t get his big veggie mitts on it so the tying run scored — costing Parra the win.

Casey Kotchman – Hit his fifth homer. I’ve liked Kotchman for two years while he battled the world’s most drawn out case of mono and, of course, the year I don’t have him on one team, he’s doing well. Here’s hoping he catches a common cold and he’s bedridden for four years because of it.

Edinson Volquez – Or should I say Edison or perhaps Julio Reyes (Volquez has gone through three names in his short career.) He looked decent, if not a little wild. If we can get a game like last night from him seven out of ten times, gonna have to take it.

Juan Pierre – The ironic thing (not ironic ironic, but more ironic like “…rain on your wedding day” ironic… Well, now that I think about it, this actually might really be ironic, not Alanis ironic. Anyway…) Juan Pierre is just as bad as Andruw Jones, only a completely different type of bad. What a mess. (BTW, sample Dodgers’ clubhouse conversation — Torre, “Cashman, I got Nomar batting third. I need some free agent bats!”  Cashman replies, “I’m no longer your GM.”  Torre, “Fine! I’ll call George.”)

Adam Dunn – Went deep. Could have five home runs by this time next week. Don’t sleep on Dunn! (Actually you could sleep on him because he’s big and fat and kinda looks like a walking curly-haired mattress. He’s country comfortable!)

Brandon Phillips – Someone I thought would not be good this year so far has lived up down to expectations. But he did homer last night. (BTW, don’t you love strikethroughs, they’re soooooo snarky! It’s also snarky when you put six ohs on the word “so.” Or soooooo I’ve heard. Actually that so doesn’t make sense to have six ohs. Soooooo Taguchi.)

Franklin Gutierrez – The Big FraGu went 3 for 5 with 3 runs and 3 RBIs. But, then again, everyone got a hit in this game, except for Pronk. What the eff, Project-Donkey?

C.C. Sabathia – The news of his demise was prematurely reported (or whatever that pithy thing is people say.)

Miguel Tejada – I thought The Player Formerly Aged 31 would be great this year. He’s playing even better than I thought he would be.

Joey Votto – If I could go back and change my ROY prediction, I’d pick Votto. He’ll go through slumps, like anyone, but he looks like a home run-hitting Billy Butler.

Matt Holliday – When he’s swinging the bat, it looks like he’s thinking this, “Of course I’m going to hit a double. Might even be a home run.”

Jayson Nix – To make himself feel better about being benched for Barmes, he checks into the Colorado Marriott and calls Corey Patterson and Rich Aurilla to find out if they get to listen to their iPod during the game. When Nix finds out they do not, he silently fist pumps.

Troy Tulowitzski – Had the night off, probably to clear his head. This is a great buying opportunity. Find the Tulo owner in your league and trade for him.

Manny Corpas – I have Fuentes on a few teams. Cust kayin’.

Ronny Cedeno – I had him active for that grand slam yesterday… on my Razzball team. I was grand slammed. Oh, and I got a home run from Geoff Blum. Yes, the Geoff Blum that you thought retired two years ago.

Gil Meche – Looks like he let Karabell’s praise go to his head.

And by breakdown I don’t mean of the crying variety with Zach Greinke suffering from an abulia. (Sorry, it was the Word of the Day.) My favorite fantasy baseball writer, Eric Karabell, did a breakdown of the Royals pitchers. (You can click that link but I think you need to be an ESPN Hindsighter™ to read it. And you thought they were for the populous. Well, they are, the paying-money populace. Don’t cha know, they’re owned by Disney. But I digress.) Within Karabell’s piece, he breaks down what he thinks of Gil Meche and Zach Greinke for this year in fantasy baseball. So what did Karabell say that sent me from scratching my head to banging it against the wall?

Karabaloney ranks Gil Meche ahead of Zach Greinke, saying this:

Meche is not off to the same start as last year, of course, when his April ERA was 2.18, and if you remove that month from his 2007 ledger, his final ERA jumps from 3.67 to 4. Maybe he is just average. Isn’t that OK? I have no problem that he is, because Meche is relatively safe at the back end of a fantasy rotation. He’s the most experienced pitcher on the Royals staff, about the only one capable of strikeouts….

Now before you argue with that, he preceded that by saying:

Look, I won’t listen to any arguments about the current statistics. It’s just too early.

Well, that squashes anything anyone could possibly say.  Anyway, what Karabaloney says about it being early is true. So that makes it surprising when he takes Greinke’s early season stats and uses them as fact.

Greinke’s problem could be strikeout rate. It wasn’t an issue a year ago…

Greinke’s strikeout rate is also after three outings?! How is okay to look at Meche and say, “Hey, it’s early. He’s gonna be just fine. I bet my ugly face on it.”

Over 1000 innings, Meche’s major league strikeout rate is 6.38. Just under 500 innings, Greinke’s K/9 is 6.41.  Sure, it’s a smaller sample size but he’s five years younger and he went caca-cuckoo for a year so there’s less miles on his arm. Last year Greinke’s rate was probably a little high because of a lot of it came in middle relief, so what’s fair to say about both of these guys? Both of their K/9 is close to 6. That means Meche is not the only pitcher capable of strikeouts.

Also, Meche will walk more hitters than Greinke. Maybe none of this means anything to Karabaloney, but Meche’s career WHIP is 1.41. Greinke is 1.37.  Now is Meche safer because of his track record? It makes him more predictable, and if we look at his track record, it makes him pretty bleh. On the other hand, Greinke has upside. Will Greinke be a top twenty pitcher at the end of 2008? No, probably not, but to say Meche is better is just stoopid. Now go get your shinebox!