Fantasy Baseball Advice

Roy Oswalt threw his second consecutive shutout yesterday. In his last 32 1/3 innings, he’s been scoreless. Since the All-Star break, he has a 1.94 ERA in 10 starts. He just farted into a bottle and it sold at a Sotheby’s auction for $1.7 million. The cure for the common cold is in Oswalt’s passed wind! Oswalt’s one of the main reasons the Astros are late season contenders and all of this comes as the Cubs and Astros shutter their windows. They’ve been canceled for this Friday and Saturday with a good chance of Sunday being canceled too. In H2H (all leagues actually), you must fill-in your Cubs and Astros with guys that will be playing.  Also, I hope everyone who lives in the eye of the storm is safe. Razzball sends a giant umbrella the size of Prince Fielder’s backside your way. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Mark Ellis – Out the rest of the season with a torn labrum. This gives Eric Patterson a boost in value as he fills in for Ellis. He has speed and he is a middle infielder, do you need to know more? Rhetorical!

Adrian Beltre – Debating whether to shut it down for the season to have surgery on his torn ligament in his thumb. Guess he doesn’t want to miss out on the race to a .400 winning percentage.

Francisco Liriano – Pitched a season-high eight innings at just the right time. He should be up to speed for spring training next year and ready to put together a solid season. I’m sure he’ll be on everyone’s winter “Players to Watch” list. He might be on my “Players That Are On Everyone’s ‘Players to Watch’ List And Have Suddenly Become Overpriced” list.

B.J. Upton – Might be used as pinch hitter this weekend, but he’s not playing on Friday, according to Maddon ’08.

George Sherrill – Will be back on Friday and thrust right into the closer’s role. If he’s out there and you need saves, there’s no reason not to grab him.

Brandon Morrow – 5 IP, 2 ER, while walking 4. Here was the erratic pitcher from the minors. This is closer to what I would expect going forward, rather than the number he did on the Yankees last week.

Adrian Gonzalez - 2 HRs. Wow, did he take two and a half months off or what? With these two home runs, he has 10 home runs since July 1st. He had 10 home runs in May. As Thigpen would say, “Bleh!”

Josh Hamilton – Day-to-day with a bruised foot. You really can’t complain. You were getting high on his supply all summer.

Eugenio Velez – Another two hit night. If you pick him up, it doesn’t mean you endorse him. You’re just using him for a couple of days. Maybe a week.

Matt Cain – He took a dump sometime in August and it’s been running down his leg ever since. I would not be counting on him the rest of the way.

Rich Harden – Got the win in the return as he was limited to 86 pitches. His velocity was down; his moxy was up. If he can get through three more starts, consider yourself lucky.

Jair Jurrjens – 6 IP, 4 ER and 10 Ks. The Ks are on the high side for him, but 6 IP with 3 to 4 earned runs is about what should be expected.

David Price – The Orioles are hinting he might start the September 23rd game. Presumably, after doing the weather for The Early Show.

Francisco Rodriguez – Tied Bobby Thigpen’s Major League record for saves. Bobby Thigpen watched the record-tying save from his personalized booth at his local Outback Steakhouse. When asked about what the record has meant to him, he said, “Bleh!” When pressed he said, “Bleh! Bleh!” When asked to elaborate, he burped.

Looks like Chipper Jones is headed to the DL. In other news, water is wet, taco diarrhea burns and astronaut ice cream is delicious. Couple of things spring to mind. First, steroids lead to injuries. Before 2004, Chipper played in at least 150 games for eight years in a row. Yes, that’s right. He wasn’t always injury-prone. It just feels that way. Why doesn’t anyone question Chipper about steroids? Is it because he’s white (or Caucasian for the PC gang…. Or posse, if gang’s too edgy for you)? Second, Chipper will challenge .400 and just barely qualify for the batting title. This will result in a bunch of crazy old coots (ala Buzz Bizzinger) coming out of the woodwork to say things like, “Hogwash! Williams had 150 more at-bats!” To this I say, I agree. I hope Chipper doesn’t hit .400. I hate that Bonds owns the home run record, that Titantic beat Star Wars for #1 box office and that Joey Chestnut beat Kobayashi. Third, Chipper seems racist to me. Just like Lance Berkman. This is completely unfounded. Just a gut call. I might even be held libel for saying it, but I’m partially insane, so there’s that. My craziness is why you’re here reading. If I were boring, I’d yawnstipate you and you’d move on. What does this mean for fantasy baseball? Nothing really. Just some things I needed to get off my chest. Anyway, here’s some things I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Roy Oswalt – Might be headed to the Disgraceful List a few months after he should’ve. A month or so ago, I said Oswalt would pitch through injury because that’s just how he’s built. (This site is easily searched so I’m going to leave it up to you guys to find that link. Trust me, I said it. I have a photographic memory for nonsense.) Oswalt’s not Chipper Jones, I’ll tell you that. He’ll keep pitching if he can. Since he came out of the game, my non-professional opinion is that Oswalt may hit the DL.

Chad Cordero – Out for the season. As far back as April 3rd (Yes, I found that link myself, smart ass.), I told you Rauch would get more saves and you should unload Cordero, whether you listened is on you. You do what you do; I do what I do and we meet somewhere in the middle. Mapquest it!

Juan Pierre – Hit the DL for the first time in his career. He’ll be out long enough to drop him in most leagues (4-6 weeks). The one guy who held Ethier this whole time just said this, “Yes!” Everyone else just said, “Whatever.”

Eric Byrnes – He aggravated his hamstring. (Or is it reaggravated? And if it’s aggravated then when does it become reaggravated? After the second aggravation? Third? This shizz will keep me up!) I told you to go after Byrnes, now that I see it will be a recurring injury, get out before you’re *pinkie to mouth* burned. Not worth it, trade him for 50 cents on the dollar.

Troy Percival – Wow, big night in fantasy baseball, right? Right. So he (re)aggravated his hamstring strain too. (Maybe… and this is a longshot, but bear with me…. Maybe Byrnes had a Percival voodoo doll and vice versa, but they made a pact to not use each other’s voodoo dolls. Then when Byrnes felt a tweak in his hamstring, he thought Percy betrayed him, so he went into his locker and stuck a needle in Percival’s voodoo doll hammy. Or not. I’m speculating.) Wheeler takes over for Percy until he returns.

Felix Hernandez – Right when the injury happened I said he’d be out at least 15 days. Everyone else said he’d make his next start. I called bullshit. Now he’s headed to the DL. Are you a doctor, Grey? No, I saw the injury and F-Her was carried off the field. That means DL for a last place team’s ace in June. Dur.

Brian Fuentes – Kazaam!

Josh Willingham – 2 HRs, been getting some “Would you get with this or would you get with that? I think you’ll get with this, because this is where it’s at” questions regarding Willingham. So here goes, Willingham over Thome, Swisher, Hermedia, anyone on the A’s, Headley, Bruce, Lyle Overbay, Chris Davis, Swisher, Per Djoos, Snyder, Billy Butler, Frenchy and Fred Lewis. Willingham not over Tulowitzki, Doumit, Kouzmanoff, Gordon, Dye, Parra, any closer currently getting saves and Corey Hart. This list was paid for by the committee to get Willingham on your team.

Mark DeRosa – 2 HRs, 6 RBIs and the start at third as Aramis took a family vacay. Must be something about the last name Ramirez because I could totally see Aramis and Manny getting along like two peas in an empanada.

Jhonny Peralta – 5-for-5, HR, 3 doubles, 3 RBIs, superflouous “H.”

Jim Thome – Hit another home run. I mentioned yesterday that he was getting picked up by me and he did.

Matt Thornton – Got the save yesterday instead of Jenks. Think it might have been just a matter of Jenks being overworked. I’m trying to get to the bottom of this. Stay tuned… (Or simply tell me what’s going on. That might be nice for a change.)

Joel Zumaya – Got the save in Jones’s stead. Just another case of the regular closer being overworked. Or is it? Yes, it seems that way. But it could mean Zumaya might get eight to ten saves from this point on just to “keep everyone fresh,” which is also known as  “not letting Jones blow too many games.”

Aaron Harang – 7 IP, 8 Ks, 3 ER, 1.14 WHIP. Now that looks like a Harang line. I’ll take that from now until October with a few wins mixed in.

Roy Halladay – Threw a four-hit, shutout against the Mariners. Jeffrey Loria, sick of trying to make the Marlins bad and failing, announced he would buy Seattle’s team, move them to Florida and call them the Marliners. First move: Rehire Bill Bavasi. Where did you go so terrifically wrong with Sexson that I went so horribly right with Jorge Cantu?

Dave Bush – Pimple-faced teenager runs in front of your car, “Watch out, Mister! Dave Bush is falling back to earth!” You stop short and Dave Bush falls in front of your car.

Ok, every season there’s some flat-out surprises, but one I haven’t heard too much about this year is Johan Santana’s fairly subpar performance. This was a guy that everyone and their drunk, Irish mother-in-law told you to draft because Johan Santana was headed for a ’68 Bob Gibsonian season. He’s headed to the Mets; Johan’s going to get a .65 ERA! Yesterday, Santana gave up three runs on twelve hits with one K through seven innings, which was a quality start according to Major League Baseball and Kyle Kendrick. No one else considers that quality, maybe quantity. I don’t think you should necessarily trade Johan, but he’s not exactly carrying fantasy teams with his pitching. Wasn’t that the point of drafting him in the first round? He’s sitting at 5-2/3.36/1.18/58 through ten games. You know what those numbers do to me? They yawnstipate me. Not quite yawn-inducing, but pretty close. The thing is… Wait for it… Here it comes… Everyone thinks he’s the number one pitcher. Every. One. Imagine your brain is a dirty alley with a bum urinating in the corner and there’s graffiti on the walls. Written in giant, spraypainted bubble letters, it says “Johan is the best pitcher.” (And it’s tagged by Señor Razz.) So if you have Johan Santana, Marcum and Billingsley on your staff, you’re stacked like Dolly Parton lying on a bed of pancakes. I say move Johan for a first round hitter. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday:

Corey Hart – I was adding Corey Hart into Friday afternoon’s Buy and Sell post as a Buy, but he beat me to the punch. I doubt any of his owners are looking to sell him now. Sometimes time sensitive material spoils. C’est la vie.

Chris Young – To the 15-DL, hopefully he’s fine when he returns. I hate to see things like that… Oh, who am I kidding? I watched the replay seventeen times. It was wonderful! (BTW, when I was watching the Padres game the night it happened, they would not show the replay. They were making like it was the part of Faces of Death II when the guy eats the live monkey brain then vomits on a corpse.)

Victor Martinez – Left the game with an index finger injury. Hey, Victor, I’ve got a middle finger for ya.

Miguel Olivo – Looks like he’s not missing those Miguel Cabrera’s hugs as much as I hoped when I picked him up on my Razzball team. He has 6 home runs and I’m moving my crazy Dioner Navarro love to Olivo. I know, I’m flaky when it comes to catchers, but they’re a dime a dozen and sometimes you gotta rotate your junk. Um, so to speak.

Joe Borowski – Headline: He’s set to return as the closer. Sub-headline: Indians’ opponents just need to keep it close.

Roy Oswalt – Obviously, when Kyle Kendrick out pitches you, there’s problems. Oswalt strikes me as a guy who wouldn’t want anesthesia during a visit to the dentist cause he likes to feel the drill. He could be playing with a serious injury to his hip that is affecting his push off. I wouldn’t be surprised if the ‘Stros push him to a DL stint pretty soon.

Aaron Harang – Are you kidding me? He should’ve thrown a shutout against the Padres. Away I say thou artless dizzy-eyed, maggot-pie. Fetch me some drool, it would be an improvement on ye crapeth soul! (Oops, I thought it said harangue.)

Khalil Greene – Hit two home runs yesterday, ya gotta have some Bahá’í Faith. (I’ve never heard of the Bahá’í Faith, but I think it might have something to do with all of the accents and apostrophes. I think if Christianity or Judiasm or Islam or the Others had that many accents and apostrophes there wouldn’t be half as many participants. I think if Bahá’í Faith were to hire a savvy marketing team, the first thing they’d do is drop the extra punctuation. Or maybe throw a “Forever” at the end of it so people could abbreviate it BFF. Now I could totally see people embracing BFF, there would probably be a castmate on next season’s Real World who was a devout BFFer, and she would cheat on her boyfriend of six years after one episode of the show. Not to say a BFFer would be prone to that sorta thing, but Real World castmates are. But I digress.)

Mike Lowell – Hit a home run yesterday. He’s still got it.

Jacques Jones – He’s getting the call and should start against righties. Best thing I can say is he made for a fun ancillary character in Fantasyland.

Clayton Kershaw – He was pulled from his Double-A start and it’s rumored he’ll make the Dodgers start in place of Penny on Saturday. Add him immediately! Unless of course you play in Yahoo leagues, where he’ll be found sitting between Harvey the Rabbit and Sammy Sosa’s pre-steroids, home run power.