Fantasy Baseball Advice

There’s only two types of years for AJ Burnett.  He’s either playing hard because it’s a contract year or he’s hardly playing because he contracted an injury.  Unless the Yanks are willing to give him a new contract every year to add to this one (which is definitely possible with the Yank$), our guess is that this will be a lot closer to a Pavano redux than a Mussina repeat.  For now, Burnett becomes the Yankees number two pitcher, though Wang might have a thang to say about that. Or maybe Joba will be considered the number two by the end of 2009.  So what say I about Burnett for 2009 fantasy baseball?

Burnett’s fairly unpredictable and now that he has a contract it’s almost guaranteed that he’s not going to be as productive in 2009 as he was 2008.  He’ll probably go in 2009 fantasy drafts sometime in the second fantasy pitching tier (think Dice-K, Haren, Shields), though he’s more likely to give you value of the third or fourth tier with all his injuries, i.e. Burnett’s overrated. But, and this is J. Lo-sized but, if he can make it through 2009 healthy, Burnett could give you 18 to 20 wins, a mid-3 ERA and 200+ Ks. In 2009 fantasy baseball drafts, this is the kind of guy I would grab if my pitching were already stacked. Let me explain, you’re in a keeper league and you already have Johan and Halladay. Here, you grab Burnett because if he flames out in 2009 — no big whoop, you’re already set with a solid one and two starter.  In all other cases where AJ’s drafted like he probably will be in 2009, I’d let someone else take a chance on The AJ Burnett Variety of Injuries Show.

Someone who’s friends with Dr. James Andrews just sent him this email, “Yo, Grisly Andrews, quick question. Am I holding onto Hudson or should I pick up Campillo? Also, love to have you over again for dinner, but Mary says you can’t reconfigure a chicken from the bones and scraps. It freaks out the kids. Peace!” Let’s see, so far this year, Dr. James Andrews has seen Hafner, Marcum, McGowan, Estelle Getty, Mulder, Austin Kearns, Freddy Sanchez and now Tim Hudson. That is a Dean’s List of broken dreams and unfilled promises.  As we move into August, you have to make hard and fast decisions and go with the hot hands. So, with that in mind, I’ve already dropped Hudson. His injury sounds like it might need surgery. Even if it doesn’t, an arm injury on a guy who’s playing for a team that decided to pack it in sometime on Monday is not a good thing. In deeper leagues, I probably won’t wait longer than a few days to cut ties with Hudson. It was a good run while he was out there and it’s not goodbye, it’s see you maybe next year. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Jorge Posada – Done for the year. You can go ahead and back date this to April.

Michael Young – Fractured his finger, but vows to be back in a week. I believe it. This guy is so set on getting 200 hits every year I could see him not wanting to score a winning run in an extra innings game just so he might get another at-bat and a chance at another hit. Let’s hope Young never gets to 3000 hits, because if you thought Wade Boggs’s induction into the Hall of Fame was boring, you’ve seen nothing. At least Wade’s speech had the “Is he going to mention Margo Adams?” factor and the “Is he going to start eating chicken?”

John Maine – Shoulder tightness forced him out of the game. In ten team leagues, he’s the next guy I cut. I’m looking at Ubaldo, Meche, Randy and Wandy. (BTW, Wandy should pronounce his name like it rhymes with Randy. Cuz that would be awesome, possum.)

Salomon Torres – Kazaam!

Casey Kotchman – HR yesterday, now 3 HRs in a week. And that’s one home run for every mention of him I’ve done in the past week. That’s my quota. He’s now off my list and I won’t mention him again.

Ian Snell – 7 IP, 4 ER and got the win. This was his second win since April 12th. Wow, what a razztastic season.

Jeremy Guthrie – 6.1 IP, 1 ER, 4 Ks and the win. This performance bought him a two week reprieve on all of my teams. (Maine and Hudson’s injuries didn’t hurt either. I mean, they did hurt, so that aided in Guthrie’s reprieve… Oh, forget it.)

Mike Mussina – 5 IP, 6 ER. Currently reading The Corrections.

Kevin Slowey – Shutout, 6 hitter, 5 Ks. Great start, but I’m not looking at grabbing him in any league. Am I as smart as a 5th grader? You decide.

Alex Gordon – 3-for-4 with a HR. Also the HR was his first against a lefty all year (so of course it came on the bench in the few leagues where I still have him. Sonavabench!). To call Gordon a disappointment up until this point, would be like calling the Astros’ Randy Wolf trade questionable.

Adrian Beltre – 2 HRs. As I mentioned to my Nana and Popsie, Beltre is good in the 2nd half of the year even when he’s not good in the 1st half.

Zach Greinke – 7.1 IP, 2 ER, 11 Ks and the win. I’d point out how I traded Melky to Rudy for Greinke three months ago, but Rudy’s 21.5 points behind me at this point so it would be cruel to point out anything to do with his team. I probably shouldn’t even be mentioning that he’s 21.5 points behind me. I definitely will not be mentioning that I’m also beating him in our Razzball league. By a lot.

Adam Jones – 3-for-6, 5 RBIs, HR. I think Michael J. Fox in “Lucky Man” summed it best when he said, “I became so intoxicated on the nectar of money and the ambrosia of unlimited possibility, that I fell completely under its influence, forgetting for a time that it wasn’t real.” So true, Michael J., but Adam Jones is for real. And has the best ESPN player photo to prove it.

Armando Galarraga was perfect through 6 innings and, for fantasy baseball purposes, Galarraga has been solid all year, but that could all change by next week. No… Don’t deflate me! (Doesn’t that sound like a Coldplay song? Don’t deflate me… As we soar… Through the clouds…. Like balloons… I love Gwynnie…) Galarraga’s sporting a 3.2 BB/9, 6.10 K/9 rate and a .246 BABIP… Grey, numbers and old people scare me! Please. Okay, I’ll take it easy, but his WHIP should probably be in the 1.35 range vs. 1.20. So a lucky BABIP is disinfecting his WHIP. Masking the potential odor. He’s got a strong offense behind him so he might get his share of wins. Just don’t count on his peripherals remaining purdy. Armando Hammer may be from South America but don’t snort him….he’s baking soda. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Casey Kotchman – 5-for-5. If he doesn’t get some kind of kissing disease again from open-mouthing the rally monkey, this could be the start of a hot streak.

Jeff Mathis – Finally hot again. Only took him two and a half months. Eh, doesn’t matter to you, does it? Not like you need a catcher. You do? Oh, well, golly!

Howie Kendrick – 4-for-5. Okay, some of this Angels hitting can be attribute to a thin Indians pitching staff.

Mike Mussina – 8 IP, 0 ER, 7 Ks. 13 Across, Mussina’s season co-hosted by Cathy Lee Crosby, “That’s _________!”

Shane Victorino – HR off Maine. Moves in front of Alexis Rios with his 7th HR.

Carlos Quentin – 2 HRs, up to 26. I know how you feel, it’s all icing at this point. I agree, but say you grabbed (HR-hitting OF who’s on waivers) and traded Quentin for a pitcher. So you have a pitcher and (HR-hitting OF who’s on waivers), who could have the same amount of home runs as Quentin from now until the end of the year.  Things that make you say, “Hmm…”

Chipper Jones – If I’m talking about him, what do you think happened? He’s not hitting .400, he didn’t home run… He was injured? Look at the big brain on Brad. Chipper says he won’t need the DL. Instead, he’ll just clog up your bench. Sweet!

Luis Ayala – Remained the 8th inning setup man and managed to tighten Hanrahan’s hold on the closer job by giving up 3 runs.

Jim Thome – HR yesterday. I feel like Thome’s bringing the potatoes and mashing them, but people are still calling him a turkey. In the last month and a half, he’s batted over .320 with 9 HRs and 18 RBIs. If everyone on your team was doing that, you’d be in first place asking for fanny kisses.

Tim Hudson – Elbow tightness, but word on the streets of Hotlanta is he won’t miss a start.

CC Sabathia – So if he gets 8 straight wins, he’s not going to win the Cy Young because stats don’t carry from one league to another. When was this rule put in place? Before the invention of the phonograph? There’s interleague now, you morons! Why are we counting those stats? This “no carrying of stats” can’t even be defended. There’s no one sitting around in a bow-tie (and really all of these baseball elitists wear bow-ties), saying, “By George, Randy Wolf can still win the Cy Young because he was traded within the same league, but CC can’t. We’ve really figured out a way to make our stats matter!”

Ricky Nolasco – He’s been too good thus far to bail this quickly, but he gets the Mets next. He’s either headed for another Zoinks! or a Rebound! I think we’re looking at a Zoinks! (BTW, Rudy picked up Nolasco for this start in our league. Greinke’d!)

Jarrod Washburn – Trade target for the Yanks. Guess they saw the Randy Wolf move by the Astros and didn’t want to be left out.

James Shields – He’s the mother sauce of a great pitching staff. Mother sauce, I tell ya!

Jason Bartlett – Will be activated on Thursday. He’s been on the shelf all month and he still has 18 steals on the year. It was a knee injury though, so use some caution, you.

Kevin Kouzmanoff – Glad I just traded him so he could start to get hot. *sticking hand in blender like Chunk*

Billy Wagner – Got the save. That ends the Smith-Duaner-Heilman-Feliciano Experiment until Wagner’s next flare up. (Two weeks.)

Mike Hampton – Set to join Braves rotation next week. I bet a bunch of you went back to reread that. Mike who? Hampton what?

Adam Dunn – Grand slam yesterday. They should weigh all MLB players in Dunns. Allow me to demonstrate, “Eric Byrnes is a third of a Dunn,” “So Taguchi is 3 Dunn arms,” and “Mike Napoli is 4 Dunn legs and 7 Dunn sausage fingers.”

Justin Morneau can hit 20 home runs in the 2nd half. Will he? Let me take out my voodoo chicken… Seriously, I’m not a fortune teller. What, you think I have some kind of Pagan Gods telling me what to do? (Bee tee dubya, I considered not capping Pagan. Because, honestly, how many Pagans really read this site? Is that our largest demographic? Probably.) So if I had Pagan Gods telling me what to do… Wait a second, isn’t a Pagan God just a tad contradictory? It’s like an Anarchist Organization. (Again, I contemplated not capping Anarchist Organization, but, well… Why chance it? These are the last people you want to bother. I could see it now, Grey Albright was murdered today because he didn’t cap Anarchist. Suspects include Anarchists and Grammar Nazis.) Morneau hit 24 home runs in the 1st half of last year, then got aboard the Goodship FizzlePop and hit only 7 Post-ASB. So I think you should stay away from him–No, I don’t. I like Morneau going into the All-Star Break this year and I’ll tell you why… There’s no good reason! Joking, of course there is. He’s 27, the magic year for hitters. He was great in ‘06. With the Twins back in contention, maybe that’s his thing. I like the idea of anyone that has shown they can hit 24 home runs in a half (and 23 in the 1st half of ‘06). That’s not something you find every day. It’s worth a gamble if you need pop. Anyway, here’s some more fantasy baseball players to Buy and Sell:

BUY

Garrett Atkins – Last year’s 2nd half, 12/58/.349. 2006’s 2nd half 18/62/.354. If you’re having a hard time reading between those numbers, don’t. Just read them.

Juan Rivera – Zubaz4Fans, who has the best forum picture, name and hotline to the Bobby Grich-ville Angels, reports that Juan Rivera will be starting over Gary Matthews Jr for the near future. I think this sticks. Or as Rex Hudler aka The Hud would say, “Juan Rivera drives in runs!” (BTW, what other site do you go to that you get reports from someone who named themselves after Zubaz Pants?)

Adam Jones – .417/12 RBIs in last 12 games. If he becomes a star, he may get himself a nickname like Taipei Slinklo. Stay tuned.

David Ross – No relation to Cody or Bob (God rest Bob’s soul and may he be sleeping on a happy cloud somewhere or tossing and turning if there are Pagans reading this). Has three home runs. David Ross can hit 12 in the 2nd half while batting .220. If you can hang with that, hit your fist against the jukebox and pickup Ross.

Chris Volstad – He sounds like a character in an Anne Rice book and he pitches like Derek Lowe, but that’s not completely terrible. Could have some matchup potential.

Josh Johnson – He pitches like every other fourth starter. Some Ks, low 4 ERA, high WHIP. Matchups potential. Eff why eye, if you have too many pitchers with matchup potential, you have no potential. Chew on that!

Dave Bush – For two years, Bush was an unshaven mess.  Had promise, but needed serious grooming.  Stunk so bad that many men thought about giving up.  But suddenly Bush cleaned up and looks presentable… First sign of a flare-up, get out.

Any Pitcher Facing The Mariners – Someone just beat the Mariners. And someone else. Vicente Padilla just called, he wants to pitch against them this Saturday disguised as Gil Meche. Hey, you’re not Meche! *Padilla slowly backs out of the Royals clubhouse*

Denard Span – Sometimes we should look away from real baseball and concentrate on what a guy could do in fantasy — most closers, for instance. But with the Twins, it’s hard to ignore their ability to put a consistently good ball club on the field, no matter the personnel changes. With this in mind, I think the Twins will put Span at the top of the lineup. Gomez has an OBP under .300. I know some of you who read are new to following baseball, while others are more experienced, so I’ll keep this short. Under a .300 OBP is not only bad for real baseball, it’s bad for fantasy baseball. Either way, Span has no power yet, but he’s slashing his way to being a mainstay in the Twinkies lineup with very quick hands.

SELL

Carlos Gomez – Most of what I have to say is in Span’s. I will add that on April 15th I watched the Twins and I said this, “In your box score it shows a K in the first inning. He struckout trying to bunt with two strikes. You’re thinking, “Well, that shows how committed he was to moving the guy over.” Dude, he was leading off the game! I really don’t think you want CarGo on your team right now. He doesn’t know what’s coming or going with pitch selection.” Someone in the comments on that April 15th post doubted me. As I said in the comments then, Gomez has unquestionable speed, you cannot steal first base.

Vernon Wells – Punt.

Mike Mussina – What’s a seven letter word for an over-the-hill Yankees pitcher that will disappoint fantasy owners in the 2nd half? I don’t know how many people are reading this that are carrying Mussina on a team, but here’s a harsh reality. Last year, 5.72 ERA in the 2nd half. This year, he’s a year older and a year crappier. 1st half wins or not.

Billy Wagner – He collapsed (almost literally) at the end of last year. He’s not who he thinks he is, if that makes sense. I couldn’t be anymore down on a closer that currently is in good favor with the majority of the fantasy baseball community. (BTW, our community consists of me writing emails to other sites, “Could you stop spamming me? I don’t want to add your widget to my site.”)

Justin Duchscherer – I kinda want him to be bad just so I don’t have to keep writing his last name. But, truthfully, there’s a long history of converted relievers doing well in the 1st half of their inaugural season of starting than fizzling in the 2nd half. Actually, I made that up. But it sounds right, right? I betcha one of those fancy, sabermetric fantasy baseball sites would have an answer for you. But then again, they will bore you to tears. Seriously, I wanna go in and punch up the writing on some of their posts. Well, the cross-platform splits of the XBHs shows a trend towards the fourth-quadrant Least Common Denominator. Hardy-har, there’s no way Ryan Howard hits 16 home runs in July! That reminds of something Ted Striker said that made the nun want to kill herself.

In the last few days, a dark cloud moved over Razzball. Rudy just traded for Weeks, Wainwright hit the DL and I had to sit through Sex and the City, the Movie. Hopefully, my masculinity returns before Weeks. Does anyone remember Weeks coming back quickly from injury? Ever? Okay, Rickie Weeks, Rocco Baldelli and Chipper Jones get onto your cross country flight, do you get off? It’s like Weeks should be on the 15-day Activated List, then when he’s injured he’s taken off the Activated list. Makes more sense to me. Less paperwork. I can’t imagine he returns before the All-Star Break. There’s always the Alex(e)i Twins. I’ll mention someone later that I think you should look at, too. (Hint: His Dad has Ernie Whitt’s phone number.) As for Wainwright, I really hope this is just a matter of him missing three starts then returning fine. My gut says that might not be the case. At least, I hope that’s my gut. It’s either a hairy bellybutton or I’ve grown a vagina from seeing SATC. Mercy me, I abbreviated it SATC! Oh my God, I said mercy me. Anyway, here’s what I saw yesterday:

Ryan Zimmerman – Says he thinks he can play through his shoulder tear. I think he says this all the way up to next April, then he reinjures it next year and finds himself having surgery that has him out until 2010. Ryan, “I’m completely operational, and all my circuits are functioning perfect!”

Jerry Hairston – Fractured thumb, will be out at least a month. Time to make other MI plans. (Or IM snalp, if you’re dyslexic. We care here at Razzball!)

Ken Griffey Jr. – 600th! I was kinda surprised the Reds didn’t trade Griffey as he was taking the field after he hit the home run. I guess they want to dedicate a street to him back in Cincy first, then trade him next week to the AL.

Jay Bruce – He’s showing that penchant for striking out (7 times in last three games) that everyone (maybe just me) tried to warn you about.

Edinson Volquez – Jose aka Edison aka Edinson was very wild again and only effectively so because it was the Marlins. He does have a certain swagger to him that I do appreciate. Now if only he would grow a mustache.

Jose Guillen/Nick Swisher/Mark Reynolds – Said yesterday these guys were insanely hot right now. They all homered yesterday, Swisher twice. Should not be on any league’s waivers.

Josh Barfield – Was just called back up to replace Asdrubal (BTW, WebMD has good information for you, if you suffer from Asdrubal). If you lost Hairston or Weeks, Barfield is worth a flier. At future family functions, Jesse may not have to keep making up excuses for what Josh has been up to since last year. “Yeah, well, he’s thinking about going back to school. This place called…. University of Phoenix.”

Matt Holliday – Has torn up pitching in his minor league rehab. Get him in there immediately.

Mike Mussina – He could pitch back to back Vander Meer’s and I wouldn’t pick him up.

Mariano Rivera – Mo Knows Nothing, Mo Better Get Better, Mo Blues, Mo Better Meaty Meat Burger, Mo Losses Than Royals… Sorry, I was just trying to figure out tomorrow’s NY Post headline.

Matt Cain – I forget if I’ve put anyone in Cain as a Buy Low, but I will. I like him a lot and have been waiting for signs. I think yesterday was a sign.

Joe Saunders – Joe Meet Correction. Correction, you know Joe.