Fantasy Baseball Advice

Wow, that’s an exciting title, huh? I’m sure it will be a big seller for Google searches. Right after the search bukkake + carved pumpkin faces. Whatever, it’s boring to talk about fourth starters for your fantasy baseball team, right? What do Oliver Perez, Randy Johnson, Aaron Harang and some other schmohawk who didn’t pitch well yesterday have in common? They didn’t pitch well. Jair Jurrjens and Shawn Hill did. I’ve touted Jurrjens and Hill in the past on this site. Search on the left if you don’t believe me (it hurts that you don’t believe me, but I’ll get over it). I’m not even sure how to spell Jair Jurrjens’s name half the time, but he’s on a lot of my teams. Why? They’re both cheaper than dog balls to acquire and will put up decent numbers. Jurrjens gets the Padres next time and Hill gets the Astros and Cassel. If you need to Mapquest your way to your waiver wire, do it. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday:

Shane Victorino – The Flying Hawaiian is now the The Benched Fourth Phillie Outfielder™. Heffin’ hey, take Jenkins out of the lineup! Werth has looked the part of starter thus far, but Jenkins? Can I have “Has-Been Players” for one hundred? He is to Milwaukee what Luis Gonzalez is to Arizona. Who is Geoff Jenkins, Alex? Anyway, Victorino’s got too much to offer to be a bench player, he’ll be back in there. Werth’s a six hole hitter (which Jenkins is too) and Victorino’s a one or a two. It’ll all work itself out. Say Victorino doesn’t start for two weeks then he gets what? Four and a half more months to play. He can still get to 15/40. He only played in 131 games last year and he got 12/37. Patience is key.

Chase Utley – I misspoke when I said Chipper’s going to be the Player of the Month. I hope Phillies fans don’t throw any batteries at me now.

Kevin Kouzmanoff – Looks like he just needed some razzing to get going. Actually, he hit the home run off Jamie Moyer, who I believe is a grandpappy, so we probably shouldn’t start giving ourselves a reacharound just yet.

Jon Herrera – The new Rockies 2nd basemen as Barmes takes over for Tulowitzki. Herrera’s minors numbers look, well, minor. By ‘minor,’ I mean don’t even bother picking him up.

Jonthan Sanchez – I like him, don’t get me wrong, but his K/BB ratio is not good. He’s liable to have some tough starts ahead.

Austin Kearns – Some how he ropes me every year. I will never tout him again. Please remind me if I ever forget this. Besides never performing well something else that bothers the popcorn out of me — he never seems to care. I officially hate Austin Kearns. Somebody should start austinkearnssucks.com. I have my hands full.

Conor Jackson – Another home run; he can get to 20.

Nick Blackburn – Twins always seem to farm usable pitchers, some times great ones. Blackburn seems usable, not great.

Carlos Quentin – Seven home runs and counting. How about you give me your login and I pick up Quentin for you?

Nick Johnson – Okay, this is uncanny. Nick Johnson after a 3-for-3 game — Nick Johnson after an 0-for-4 game.

Mark Grant – Who? The retired pitcher/Padres announcer. Why? Cuz he’s got a stalker.

Felipe Lopez – Belliard hasn’t had an official at-bat since April 20th.

Travis Hafner – Hafnot wasn’t even starting against Washburn. The same Washburn who Hafnot has lifetime’s numbers of .400/3/7 in 20 at-bats.

Franklin Gutierrez – The Big FraGu is 9 for 20 on the homestand.

Russell Martin – Home run, but more importantly getting rest from catching by playing third base. He probably won’t get position eligibility at third in most leagues and it doesn’t really matter. You want him at catcher anyway.

Micah Ownings – He hit a pinch hit home run! But I didn’t see because they like everything big in Texas, including commercials.

Randy Johnson – Just a bumpy beginning in what was an otherwise decent start.

Xavier Nady – I told you in the first three days of the season to just pick him up. Nady finished April with 26 RBIs while batting .337. I’d say unload him for someone more trustworthy, but I can’t imagine anyone’s actually buying into this.

Alexis Rios – As member of Da Razzpound pointed out yesterday, he’s been leading off, which would hurt his RBIs. But it’s not going to stay that way. He’s the Jays best hitter. You don’t bat your best hitter leadoff then Rolen third. I mean, this isn’t the Red Sox or Yanks lineup we’re talking about, the Jay aren’t that deep to be batting Rios leadoff. Again, patience.

Dustin McGowan – He’s not out of the woods yet, but getting into the eighth with only one walk is a great thing, know why? Cause now he has some value for you to trade him.

Daisuke Matsuzaka – Another guy that had a good start, that I’m not going to get behind. (Frankly, I have a hard time getting behind any American League pitchers, especially ones in the AL East. But I digress.) You can trade him and still be a Son of Sam Horn, they don’t check your teams for Sawx, do they?

Josh Hamilton – Weird how smack and crack are used for both the sound the bat makes when hitting the ball and for drugs.

Brian Bannister – He got smoked by Josh Hamilton.

Derrick Turnbow – Six runs in two-thirds of inning is the kind of middle reliever hit that really hurts. It was a bad situation with the game out of hand. He shouldn’t been in there, and hopefully you didn’t have him in there.

Wladimir Balentien – Rudy just picked him up in one league. Hey, ya’ll, Rudy knows what he’s doing. At the age of 24 in Triple A, Balentien’s numbers were 77/24/84/.291/15. Look at those numbers again. You’re welcome.

Adam Lind – This is who I added in a deep league. Numbers, please… .378 career OBP in almost 1400 at-bats minor league at-bats. Last year he received almost 300 at-bats from the Jays and hit 11 home runs with a putrid OBP. The fact that the Jays called him up already and have been starting him tells me they are committed. He’s, as they say, a flier. I kinda like Balentien better, but I thought I’d spread the Razzball love.

Casey Kotchman – His average isn’t as much a fluke as you might think. He still won’t hit 30 home runs.

Jeff Clement – Eligibility count: 1 game at catcher.

Dioner Navarro – He got 2 RBIs; Salty didn’t play.

Chad Billingsley – I liked him coming into the season. Still do. A pitcher with his stuff, in his division, in his park, it’s almost not fair.

John Smoltz – He says he will come back as a reliever at least initially. I say, he’s not going back to starting. This also takes the shine off of Acosta and Rafael Soriano. Smoltz will get the bulk of the saves.

Max Scherzer – In his relief appearance, Jobacum left without a stain. Now he’s getting the start over Edgar Gonzalez on Monday for his first major league start. Too bad he’s not on the Rangers, then there could’ve been a battery of Jobacum-Salty. For next Monday’s start, I guess we’ll have to settle for Jobacum discharging the Phillies.

To protest a trade or not? Hmmm… How about, do you have a vagina or not? I keed. I’ve protested trades in the past, but I’m a convert. Now I believe everyone is entitled to manage their teams any way they’d like. If someone wants to trade Prince Fielder for Nomar, that should be protested, but only because the Fielder owner is obviously a drunk and needs a Dylan McKay-like intervention. But 99% of trades should be allowed with protests simply used to protect the integrity of a league. When someone makes a trade you don’t agree with, you can bitch and moan, but it’s their team. What else are you going to do? Tell them to drop Matt Morris for Scherzer? Tell them Cristian Guzman may not be the best utility guy? You can’t manage their team for them, so why should you be allowed to tell them who to trade?

I’ve never traded Asdrubal Cabrera for Matt Holliday to a foreign exchange student who thought fantasy baseball in some way involved girls. Yet I’ve been on the veto side of quite a few trades. It sucks, especially when you know you’re getting vetoed simply because you’re in first place and you’ve just made your team better with a completely fair trade. Last year when I got Reyes for Vlad, protest flags flew immediately. Was the trade in my favor? Well, I try not to do too many trades that aren’t, so, yeah. Was it completely lopsided and shouldn’t have been allowed? The guy needed an OF and I needed steals. When I traded Vlad, he had 11 home runs, 46 RBIs and was batting .355 through two months. Unfortunately (for the other guy), Vlad ended up hitting just 16 home runs the rest of the way, but that’s not my fault. That’s my good fortune. The trade went through and I won the league partly because of it.

In related news in the life of Grey (cuz you care!), there was a trade in my ‘pert league that sent Johan Santana to a team for Granderson and Ervin Santana. I was the first person to post a message on the board. I wrote, “Seriously? No… Wait. Seriously?” My “Seriously” soliloquy sparked a controversy, or I was simply the first person to see the trade and comment. Either way, the ‘perts came out blazing. I don’t think it’s my place to list the parties involved or what was said exactly, but I’ll give you the gist:

“This is collusion!”
“How dare you, sir? Collusion would take me actually knowing someone else in this league!”
“Collusion – delusion. It shouldn’t be allowed.”
“My good man, I made the trade and I think it’s fair.”
I chimed in again, “I just thought it was a bad trade on (the team owner who gave away Johan)’s part, but I never thought collusion. Honestly, I don’t even think there should be a protest option. If someone wants to do trade, they should be allowed.”
“Yeah, the trade sucks. But I guess there was no collusion.”
“Yeah, no collusion. Just a bad trade.”
“I still think the trade should be overruled because the trade sucks.”
This last part I will post directly what was written because it made me laugh, but I won’t mention the owner (but he’s free to chime in the comments). “I will weigh in a say that the trade is lopsided, but every deal is. Hey, if (the owner who got Johan) thinks he got a good deal and is happy with that crap for Johan Santana, then (the other owner) needs to be a car salesman! I’ll go on record right now and say Ervin Santana and Curtis Granderson are not going to be the answer (the new Granderson owner) is looking for. And, when it is all over, he will have traded the top pitcher in all of baseball for a SP with a 3-year average of a 4.84 ERA and a .263 OPP BA and a hitter that nets you about a .280/.344/.496 line with 35 steals. Hardly worth it! Oh, just because your child wants to walk into on coming traffic, doesn’t mean you let him for the betterment of society. Trades have a veto button for a reason. Most of the time people need to be protected from themselves more than they want to believe.”

So there’s the gist and a decent argument in favor of the protest button. I disagree with most protests (this crappy trade included), but there ya go. You can accuse us ‘perts of a lot of things, but dispassionate should not be one of them.