With the trade deadline in the bag and closers moving, we have a lot to talk about. Some of it refreshing like a glass of ice cold lemonade on a summer’s day. Some of it less so like being asked to write something for Lainie Kazan, wondering who Lainie Kazan is and Googling her to find Playboy pics from the 1970′s juxtaposed with her present-day pics.
Please, blog, may I have some more?michael dunn
First Stanton, now Joey Votto. I got two good knees. Take my knees. Please! I take my knees everywhere and they always find their way home. I will attempt to put into words how distraught I was over losing Votto, but Autocorrect tried to change put into pout, so even it knows this isn’t going to be easy.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Here’s one way baseball could take cues from fantasy baseball. Yesterday, the Marlins announced that they’d be going to a closer-by-committee, which puts Steve Cishek in line for saves. If they had a fantasy baseballer (<–my mom’s term!) running their club, things would’ve been different down in South Florida.
Please, blog, may I have some more?The 2012 fantasy baseball rankings are just about in the bag, but first we look at the top 20 middle relievers for 2012 fantasy baseball. No, next we’re not going to do the Top 20 Guys Who Will Have The Most Balks. Chillax. The only people that seem to pay attention to middle relievers are those that play in a Holds league. That’s wrong, I tell ya. A great way to balance out your ratios is by carrying a few middle relievers on your staff. (BTW, Ron Jeremy can carry three middle relievers on his staff.) Say you had Francisco Liriano last year and he mistook your team’s ERA for his toilet, but you also had Jonny Venters. With just Liriano, you had the 5.09 ERA dump to clean up. With Venters and his brand new toilet brush, you had a 3.81 ERA. If you also carried Tyler Clippard, you had a combined 3.24 ERA. Not to mention, you had 5 vulture saves. 9 junky wins. 8 maids o’ milking. 7 Gary Matthews Jr.’s leaping. Oh, and your WHIP went from Liriano’s 1.49 to 1.19 and had an additional 200 Ks. Okay, school’s out, Alice Cooper. Now, with that said — yes, I pulled out the “with that said” — this middle men post is for 5×5 leagues where you want to handcuff your closer to potentially snag some saves and get good ratios. I projected Holds for these guys, but they are not the top 20 Holds guys. They are the most valuable when you consider vulture saves, Ks and ratios. Anyway, here’s the top 20 middle relievers for 2012 fantasy baseball:
1.
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Last year, the only type of starts and luck that Charlie Morton had was bad. Despite good stuff and pedestrian ratios (6.7 K/9, 2.9 BB/9), he put up some of the worst stats in recent history. A 7.57 ERA in 79 innings during the year of the pitcher! It was a 54 ERA+ (adjusted for park and era) which stands as the 5th worst ERA+ since 1945 for pitchers with 79+ IP. It’s hard to say how much of his .353 BABIP was because he threw down the middle or back luck but let’s just say the latter. It seemed like luck was balancing out in his first three starts this year as he went 2-0 despite throwing 6 Ks and 12 BBs in 22 innings. But excluding an ugly win in Colorado (where just about every non-ace should be benched), his last three starts – including last nights 5-hit shutout – have shown significant progress. In those 18 2/3 IP, he’s K’d 17 and walked 7. So let your league mates focus on his ghastly K:BB for the season while you get him on the cheap. I’d still bench him during bad match-ups but he looks primed to be a solid 5th/6th SP in shallow leagues.
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