It feels like yesterday the baseball regular season started. You wrote “I heart baseball” in permanent marker on your arm, then you met a girl who wrote “I heart guys who heart baseball” on her arm, then, during sex in September, you screamed out “I love you, Marco Scutaro!” and now you don’t have baseball or a girlfriend. C’mon, calendar, make like a soldier and turn to March. The only cure for the post-baseball season blues — recapping the preseason top twenty lists and being hand-fed Doritos. First up, Cool Ranch and our preseason Top 20 Catchers for 2011. It’s important to look back before we look ahead to 2012.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Wilson Ramos
Alex Gordon and Jeff Francoeur were shut down for the year because the peasant Royals want to give Lorenzo Cain and Jarrod Dyson a full three days to show their worth. Gordon’s line this year was 101/23/87/.303/17. Terrific! Wonderful! Tonderific! But if you peak under the hood, things aren’t as they seem. His BABIP is .358, easily a career high in the majors. His walk rate and line drive rate dropped from last year, and his ground ball rate nudged up. His homers and speed look about right, but if luck goes against him those two categories could get affected. He’s probably much closer to a .280 hitter with 17-20 homers and 12-15 steals. With just a tad bad luck, he becomes a fifteen homer guy with 10 steals and a .265 average. That’s far from spectacular. That’s spectaculess. I just made that up; you like it? You use it. As for Frenchy, his line was 77/20/87/.285/22. Oh, well, that looks pretty normal– Wait a second, 22 steals?! Where the eff in the effhole did those come from? His previous high was 8. He always failed to take pitches like he needed some ADHD medicine, but now he’s running the bases like it too. “Sorry, first base coach, whatever your name is, can’t stay at 1st, gotta run, peace!” That’s Frenchy, and he can’t even stop for a period at the end of sentences; he only has time for commas. He’s always been a notorious bad ball hitter. This year Frenchy swung at 41% of balls outside the strike zone, which is actually high for him, and his percentage of balls swung at inside the strike zone was actually down. Only thing that changed this year, he made more contact with pitches outside of the strike zone. If that stops along with his whacked out of his mind stealing, he may use 2012 to revert to his old ways, so it’ll be hard to give Frenchy my arrondissement. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:
Psyche! Before we get into the roundup, I just wanted to announce a very good friend of mine is putting on a one man show in Los Angeles. If you go see the play, you may just run into yours truly and my significant other — my mustache. If you can’t make it to Los Angeles or if you’re in Los Angeles but afraid to leave your house, you can buy his book. Anyway II, the roundup:
Hunter Pence – 3-for-5 with his 21st homer. Hey, that homer can drink legally! After Pence sat out for three games with a sore knee, it was good to see him return, unless you had him on your bench like I did. Sonavabench!
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Hunter Pence has a patella tendon strain and won’t play until this weekend. Though, more likely, he’s not playing much more in the regular season. Don’t you love H2H leagues? What I don’t understand is how you can fantasy baseball, which is a shizzload more intensive than fantasy football, then leave the end of the season up to luck like it’s fantasy football. I enjoy my one or two H2H leagues, but only because I have ten roto leagues to offset the silly luck factor of H2H. You draft a great team, then your first 5 round picks are sitting out in the finals of H2H? Don’t tell me injuries happen in real baseball playoffs, so this simulates that. Real baseball is played over 162 games, not week to week on who has, say, the most Holds. So I like H2H, but don’t make as if its playoff system makes sense. As for Pence, find someone else to fill in p to the ronto. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Todd Helton – Unlikely to return this season with back issues. It’s probably because when he sits on his bottom, his back can go to the top of its slide. Helton Skelton!
Please, blog, may I have some more?What a ridonkulous season from Melky Cabrera. Most of youse didn’t even draft him and here he is in September going 4-for-5 with his 18th homer, raising his average to .303 to go along with 18 steals. As they used to say in 14th century China, “Damn, Ming.” The spilled coffee on the saucer that then drips onto your dress shirt is I don’t trust this guy at all for next year. 18/18/.300 becomes 12/15/.275 very fast. Ask anyone that’s drafted The Big FraGu in the past. And 12/15/.275 is pretty much unusable in most mixed leagues. It’s the first guy off the team when there’s a hot pickup. So enjoy your Melk for now, but don’t throw away the non-dairy creamer. Hmm… That sounded better in my head. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Randy Wells - 4 1/3 IP, 5 ER. If you’re new to the site, you probably have no idea when I say donkeycorn, cyclops with a monocle, Cust kayin’, Sparky Anklebiter or a whole array of other gibberish. But, more importantly for this, you don’t know about my previous love affair with Randy Wells. During my Blue Period, I drank nothing but blueberry milkshakes and talked of nothing but Randy Wells’s eventual turn around. The same mood can also be found in some of my early Jeremy Guthrie posts. Then Randy Wells started pitching well recently. I grew excited. Not in that way. Then I thought about picking him up. Luckily, I didn’t. He’s the devil.
Please, blog, may I have some more?I usually like to wait a couple of months into the season to look at some of the catchers that couldn’t throw out your grandma even if she loses the tennis balls off her walker. (What is the deal with those tennis balls? I feel like that’s the kinda nonsense thing that would have a Facebook Fan Page. Everyone who likes tennis balls on walkers! Yay! BTW, what did people do before Facebook? Oh, yeah, Myspace. BTW II, The Return of BTW, is there anything sadder than getting an email from Friendster. Hey, come check out the new Friendster! Sure, as soon as I get on the internet with this dial-up modem.) Or some of the catchers that are quite agile — hey, it’s Italian! I wait a few months because new catchers come into the league and I like to see a decent sample size — that’s what she said! Anyway, here’s some of the best and worst catchers for fantasy baseball:
The Bad
Jonathan Lucroy – Has only thrown out 6 baserunners out of 33. And he doesn’t even get to try and throw out Prince Fielder. “Pretend 2nd base is a vegan muffin…Now run!”
John Jaso – 7 caught out of 35. And John Jaso Jingleheimer Schmidt doesn’t have to try and throw out Upton.
Please, blog, may I have some more?At least that’s the creed that Francona and Epstein keep repeating to themselves as they sit in the fetal position on opposite corners of the clubhouse shower. Carl Crawford seems like a nice guy. Something about the name Carl. So innocuous. “Hey, sis, what’s your new boyfriend’s name? Carl? I’m gonna like him on Facebook.” That’s you jibber-jabbering with your family. Because Carl seems like a nice guy could be partially why it’s so sad to see him struggle this much. Doode better not stand too close to the Pesky pole in a lightning storm cause he will get struck. That’s been his luck so far. Franconian measures were taken to get Crawford going by openly mocking him with a lineup switch. That never helps. It’s like when you’re a teenager and your Mom makes an appointment for you to see a dermatologist. Suddenly, you realize you’re not hiding your acne as good as you thought you were. Crawford is really doing nothing wrong other than getting extremely unlucky. That luck will turn around and he’ll suddenly look like the 2nd round pick he was in the preseason. To misquote a cliche, get in now while the gettin’s not good. Anyway, here’s some more players to buy or sell this week in fantasy baseball:
BUY
Justin Smoak – I just went over my Smoak fantasy. I wrote it riding on the back of a bicycle through downtown Milwaukee while Shirley steered.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Jonathan Broxton blew his first save because of an error and he’s out as closer. Hmph. The Dodgers’ GM Colletti said the Dodgers would turn to Padilla and Broxton with Kuo joining the mix when he returns at the end of the week. Hmph. Hmph. Mattingly then said last I checked Colletti doesn’t have a goatee and Broxton is still his closer, no committee. Hmph. Hmph. Hmph. Whatcha gonna do with all those hmphs? All those hmphs up in your trunk? Then Mattingly called Colletti a dwarf brain and shaved his goatee to reveal a cold sore. Got all that? Glad one of us does. I’d own Broxton and Kuo. Wouldn’t mess with this Padilla or this Padilla. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
James Loney – 4-for-4 with a steal. I almost wrote the other day how there’s no way Loney stays hitting .200, but then I grew bored and fell asleep… Snooze…
Phil Hughes – Underwent four hours of tests on his arm. Towards the end his arm just started answering C for everything.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Not that there’s anything wrong about being from NJ. Both Rudy and I are proud to be from NJ, though not in NJ. NJ ex-pats are great. We spread our love of high-haired women and capicola around the country. As for Jay Bruce, he’s sucking on the ol’ suckhole. You can say that again, but please don’t just say it again cause that’s lame; I really don’t like when people do that.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Josh Hamilton left the game with a fracture to his humerus bone, which isn’t connected to the funny bone. He was going down the line head first into home and… Well, he’s Mr. Glass, so what do you expect? Ron Washington can’t believe anyone could ever get hurt going down a line head first. “Nothing but fun to be had there!” That’s Washington talking about the devil’s dandruff. I think Kinsler, Cruz and Hamilton share gloves so one of them must always be on the DL. This opens up playing time for David Murphy. I’ve long been a fan of Murph. Has 15/15 potential and won’t kill you in any categories. I’d grab him in all leagues. Yeah, even yours. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Chris Davis – With the injury to Hamilton, Davis was recalled. Somewhere, Bill James can now wear his cut-off, denim shorts and proudly show off his tramp stamp tattoo that reads, “I love Chris Davis.” Without an injury, I can’t imagine Davis gets much playing time, but he’s still worth a pick up in AL-Only leagues for the off chance of him pulling magic out of his hat.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
The top 50 fantasy baseball prospects list aims to provide a list solely for fantasy baseball purposes. Due to fantasy baseball’s immediacy of statistical production, players are not necessarily ranked based on tools or projections far into the future, but instead, current production.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
