Fantasy Baseball Advice

Jhoulys Chacin was walking more yesterday than my grandfather on a treadmill behind a hot number (his words).  Yo-leash’s line 6 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners (6 walks), 7 Ks.  Am I worried that Chacin isn’t going to have a sub-3 ERA all year?  Yeah, of course, I’m worried.  What, am I delusional?  Am I wearing wearing a pirate costume and dictating my blog posts to homeless people behind a Consumer Value Store?  No, of course, I’m not.  I’m behind a Walgreens.  I do not wish to talk about Chacin’s eventual regression.  Yes, I am not using contractions to show how serious I am.  I own Yo-leash all over the place and…Ugh.  We might be at his peak value.  This is sorta like when I told you to sell Matt Joyce a week before he started washing his hands in the urinal and peeing in the sink.  I don’t think Chacin will completely collapse but he’s more of a 3.50-3.75 ERA pitcher.  Trust me, I wish he were going to be this good all year too.  Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Seth Smith – 3-for-4, 3 RBIs as The Lisper’s Nightmare hit his 7th and 8th home runs.  He’s fine for a fifth outfielder in a deep league, but, man, owning him is the fantasy baseball equivalent to watching paint dry.  Rub Wiggy’s head and get crazy hot for a week once in a while, would ya?

Madison Bumgarner – 1/3 IP, 8 ER.  Eight scored so fast on this Bum even Ron Jeremy was amazed.

Eli Whiteside – 2-for-3 with his 2nd home run.  In honor of the homer, Katz’s Deli is giving thirty cents off every stuffed derma purchase.

Alexi Casilla – 2-for-5 with his 2nd home run in as many games after hitting one home run in his previous 400+ at-bats.  Give Jose Bautista back his bat!

Chad Billingsley – 5 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners, 6 Ks.  Part of me thinks he pitched well so you put him back in your lineup for his next start only to have him crush your hopes again.

Zack Greinke – 7 IP, 1 ER, 4 baserunners, 10 Ks.  Member after his last start I said run out and buy him?  Can you still?  Rhetorical!

Jonathan Lucroy – 3-for-4 after hitting a home run on Monday.  Ebb and flow of the season and it looks like he might be flowing again.

Wily Mo Pena – 1-for-4 with a home run.  Short term power add.  Or in leagues that count Pedro Serrano lookalikes.

Krispie Young – Hit his 15th home run yesterday.  Haven’t talked much about Krispie this year, but he’s having another solid year.  15 homers, 8 steals and, even more encouraging, his average is up to .253.  You’d take that from Krispie and like it.

Mike Moustakas – 0-for-4, average down to .219.  Hosmer went 0-for-4, average down to .276.  They’re rookies, ya’ll.  Sometimes you get lightning, sometimes you get cloudy with a chance of crapballs.

Paul Konerko – 2-for-3 with his fifth homer in five games to bring his season total up to 21.  He blew my expectations for him out of the water about a month ago and now he’s riding a magical dolphin around in the sky and beating up those expectations with its fin.

Carlos Pena – Now has homers in back-to-back games.  Will homer at least three more times in the next week.  You can put it on the boooooooard–Sorry, wrong side of Chicago.

Brett Wallace – 0 for his last 16, hasn’t hit over .300 in two months.  Maybe the Astros can trade him back to the Jays…Or A’s…Or Cards.

Michael Young – 3-for-5 with his 4th home run.  Hey, maybe his power might come around, but I think he’s still gonna top out around 12 homers and his name carries more value.

Brandon League – Gave up a few unearned runs and then was hit by a comebacker and limped out of the game.  David Pauley, which sounds like a made up name, was then called on to close it out.  He didn’t do so well, but he has recently been solid.  Oh, who am I kidding?  This is a mess if League’s not closing games.  You can grab Pauley or Jamey Wright or Jamey Pauley, but only in the deepest of leagues where you really need saves.

Doug Fister – 8 IP, 1 ER, 4 baserunners, 3 Ks.  I think he’s been in Smokey’s weekend 2 start pitcher post like 8 weeks in a row.

Roger Bernadina – 1-for-3 as he got to Fister in the two hole.

Brian Roberts – Won’t be back until after the All-Star Game.  Can backdate that news to 2008.

Cory Luebke – Will join the Padres rotation.  Luebke has a 9+ K-rate in middle relief, but I imagine that’ll come down to around a 7+ in the rotation.  Still totally usable if nowhere else except in Petco.  Wonder Twin powers in the form of…a Hodgepadre!

David Ortiz – 0-for-5 with a steal.  How’d he get a 89 foot lead off of first?

J.J. Hardy – 2-for-5 with his 9th home run.  Not sure if he gave the signal, but he’s unleashing hell, Maximus.

Javier Vazquez – 5 1/3 IP, 0 ER, 10 hits, 4 Ks.  No earned runs, but he’s still fooling no one.  I mean, he’s doing that age-old trick where you pull your thumb apart and five-year-olds are rolling their eyes at him.

Ervin Santana – 5 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 6 Ks and pulled after 76 pitches as the Sciosciapath decided to start managing his NL-style-baseball-that-is-usually-kept-at-bay-in-the-AL.  Can imagine what a nightmare he’d be if he managed in the NL.  He’d double switch every inning and run out of pitchers by the 7th.  “NL’s where it’s at, hooooo-mees!”  That’s Scioscia talking through his auto-tune app.

James McDonald – 4 2/3 IP, 3 ER, 11 baserunners, 3 Ks, now has an ERA of 4.86 and a WHIP of 1.62.  I’ve seen peg boys put together better stretches.

Mike Minor – 7 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 8 Ks.  After the game, Minor’s bags were sent to the, um, minors.

Jonny Venters – Pitched a random insignficant inning yesterday.  Not for nothing, which is my mom’s favorite expression, the Braves are ruining Venters’s arm.  Every time Venters enters a game, Scott Proctor shudders.

Jason Bay – 3-for-3 with a home run and he just missed a 2nd one.  I don’t think he’s suddenly rediscovered 2009, but he looked locked in yesterday.  Worth a quick flyer to see if he can stay hot for a week or so.

Dillon Gee – 4 IP, 4 ER, 9 baserunners (6 walks), 1 K.  Prior to this start, Gee looked like he was composed almost entirely of phat, but yesterday Gee looked like butter without the ‘er.’  Here’s a proper visual aid.  The preceding sentence was for our one reader in India.  Hey, Bhishma!

Wilson Betemit collided with Albert Pujols and… Why is Wilson Betemit playing?!  He never plays.  Doesn’t your Quad-A Beer Pong Tournament partner, Shelley Duncan, need you for a tourney?  Manzo!  (Which is my new favorite exclamation that means nothing.)  Another tough break (strain?) for a high draft pick.  You high draft picks remind me of my shoe closet — I got one penny and a bunch of loafers!  (Thanks, Lil Penny.)  Pujols supposedly only has a sprained wrist, but will be reevaluated on Monday.  If it’s any more serious than a strain, I suggest Betemit enter the Witness Protection Program.  Your deity of choice willing Pujols will be back on the field in a day or two.  Luckily, Pujols has severed elbow tendons in the past and only missed one game.  Manzo!  Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:

Lance Berkman – Didn’t start on Sunday because his back and leg were “barking.”  Sounds like someone has figured out how to appeal to La Russa’s PETA leniencies.

Carl Crawford – Heads to the 15 day DL with a hamstring injury.  Manzo!  Crawford is now starring in “Hammy Dearest.”  Maybe J.D. Drew got in Crawford’s ear.  Drew, “Do you know they pay you the same amount whether you play all the games or take 30 of them off? Muahahahaha…Hey, you gonna finish that kale smoothie?”  The Sawx will turn to McDonald, Cameron and Reddick, which is enough to remove the pleats from Dan Shaughnessy’s dockers.  The good news, if there is any good news — why must there always be bad news first?  Why?! — the hamstring strain isn’t serious and Carl should be flapping his gums back on the field with the minimum time missed.

Brian Matusz – Left his start on Saturday with cramps.  Must be that time of the month.

Francisco Liriano – 7 IP, 3 ER, 10 baserunners, 8 Ks.  Of course you want slightly better vs. the Padres in the Hubert H. Homerfree Retrodome, but 8 Ks vs. 2 walks tells me he’s still headed in the right direction.

Aaron Hill – 1-for-4 with his 2nd home run this week.  I’ll bestow on you a very lukewarm “Go ahead and pick him up if he’s on waivers, but I don’t think any major corner has been turned.”  And that’s me bestowing on you!

Carlos Villanueva – 7 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 3 Ks.  Chuck Newtown has a 3.17 ERA on the year, but that’s being buoyed by a solid run in middle relief earlier in the year.  As a starter, he’s been just a’ight, which is less than a’ight and way off from a’ight a’ight.  AL-Only leagues is about the only place I could see adding him for right now.

Bronson Arroyo – 8 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 5 Ks.  Guess what time it is, ya’ll?!  No, not 8:28 AM.  I mean, it might be, but that’s not what I meant.  It’s time to add Arroyo to your teams.  In the last three years, his post-All-Star Break ERA is 3.09.  Yup.

Brandon Lyon – To undergo season-ending surgery.  If I said I was sad, I’d be Lyon.  And, as we learned from Semisonic, every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end, so Melancon will take over the closer job.  It’s closing time… BTW, if you’re at a bar where they play that at the end of the night, find a new place.  However, if your girl suggested the bar, then consider yourself lucky, you got a good one.

Hunter Pence – Missed Saturday and Sunday’s games because of a sprained elbow.  Sounds like he should be okay.  Let’s hope so because I need him for my teams and I’m sure that’s his biggest concern right now.

Bud Norris – 7 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners, 5 Ks.  Noob Hint Alert!  If a guy has more strikeouts than innings, he’s good.  When the pitcher is doing that and has a 3.26 ERA, he’s very good.

Ty Wigginton – 1-for-3 with a home run.  When Wigginton hits one home run, what’s his over/under for homers for the week?  I feel people in H2H leagues might want to know this.  3 homers this week?  4?

Wily Mo Peña – After hitting 21 home runs in something like 18 games in Triple-A, he’s getting called up this week to play DH.  That’s the good news.  Bad news is he’s not yet in Yahoo and by the time he’s added he may no longer be playing in the majors.

Vernon Wells – 3-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 7th home run.  He hit two home runs earlier this week, then everyone and my mother came out of the woodwork and said he’s a buy then he went 2-for-16 over his next 4 games then, to continue this run-on sentence, he hit a homer yesterday.  At this point, you throw him in the pile of Carlos Lee, Carlos Beltran and Chipper Jones.  There will be times of decent fantasy value but don’t field the entire 2003 All-Star team.

Tyler Chatwood – 7 IP, 0 ER, 8 baserunners, 4 Ks.  Besides having a last name that sounds like it would open up seven pop-up windows on your browser, he has way too many walks.  Don’t bother with him, not worth the ulcer.

Brandon Belt – Had the cast removed from his left wrist.  Inside, he found a metal hanger, a remote control and a coat check receipt.

Alex Rios – 1-for-4 with homers in back-to-back games.  People kept asking in the comments if Rios would ever turn it around.  Looks like he’s providing an answer.

Mike Stanton – Missed Saturday and Sunday’s game with an eye infection.  My guess is Hanley farted on his pillow.

Chris Volstad – 7 IP, 1 ER, 10 baserunners, 4 Ks.  I highlighted him in the post the other day about pitchers who should be better.  And he was better yesterday.  See how that works?

Roger Bernadina – 3-for-4 with his 3rd home run in the last four games.  The one game he didn’t go deep, he stole a base.  In the last week, he’s hitting over .405, it’s Bernadina Bounty!  He’s owned in less than 2% of all ESPN leagues.  Sure, 95% of ESPN leagues are abandoned already, but it’s still too low.  In 39 games, he has 4 homers and 10 steals.  Over the course of the season, that’s better than that other guy you own.  And him too.

Danny Espinosa – This weekend, 2 steals and a home run.  Whatever, you don’t need that.

Clay Buchholz – To the DL with a lower back strain.  Geez, lots of injuries this weekend.  Reminds me of the time in 3rd grade when Little Joey Stanicky came to school with lice and knocked out half of our class with the head bugs.

Jair Jurrjens – 5 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 9 baserunners, 4 Ks vs. Alexi Ogando (5 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 3 Ks) in a battle of the seemingly stoppable force meets an immovable xFIP, illustrating the Irresistible Sell High Paradox.

Hong-Chih Kuo – With his anxiety disorder at bay, he was activated from the DL.  You think the Dodgers are gonna put him in a tie game in the ninth inning?  Scully, “Kuo’s first pitch is a ball.  Looks like he’s pulling a samurai sword out… The first samurai sword was used in the 13th century.  Its popularity was fueled by the rise of close-combat warfare.  Wow, and there goes Loney’s head… Did you know some animals can survive decapitation?   A cockroach, for instance.  Guess we can safely say Loney is not a cockroach.”

Javy Guerra – The last time the Dodgers had a closer, Kuo saw a pile of baby powder and thought it was Broxton dehydrated like in the original Batman movie.  Hopefully things work out better this time.  Three ladies and gentlemen, Guerra recorded a save!

Jesus Guzman – 1-for-4, utility man who sounds like a character actor was called up by the Padres and started over Rizzo vs. a lefty. (Liriano, “I have a name.”)  Hopefully, the Padres don’t sit Rizzo vs. many lefties cause that could hurt his value.

Alcides Escobar – 2-for-3 with a home run.  Prior to that, 5 steals in 6 games.  Potatoes to chips, he could steal 40 bases.

Casey McGehee – 1-for-3, not much to say here other than to say there hasn’t been much to say all year with McGehee.  Last year doesn’t look as fluky as this year is making it look.  I think he will turn things around a bit, but he’s not giving you anything besides some occasional power, so if he’s a .260 hitter with 15 home runs, it’s really not that great anyway.

Shaun Marcum – Left Friday’s start with hip inflammation.  He was throwing butter with the ‘er’ up until this point in the season, so hopefully this isn’t that big of a setback.  If you want, touch your computer screen with your hand and we’ll hold hands hoping Marcum can bounce back quick… Did you just put your nuts on the screen hoping I’d hold them?  So juvenile.

That’s right. It’s awful. Just as I wanted it. Why? Because this team is for the inaugural Fantasy Razzball League. The idea is to have a team that sucks. Draft the worst possible team and watch them flail/fail. Is it an exercise in futility? You bet. My co-conspirators in this were:

RotoProfessor.com
Greener on the Other Side
Mop Up Duty
Herb Urban
Cards in the Attic
Lou Poulas (Fantasy Insider Online, Sweet Lou’s Baseball Lab, Razzball.com)
Fantasy Baseball Generals
Josh, the Non-Blogger
Razzball.com (Rudy Gamble)
Razzball.com (Grey Albright)

Come with me as I take out the trash:

1. (10) Akinori Iwamura 3B
2. (11) José Vidro 1B,2B
3. (30) César Izturis 3B,SS
4. (31) Chone Figgins 2B,3B,OF
5. (50) Shawn Chacón P
6. (51) Rajai Davis OF
7. (70) Chris Denorfia OF
8. (71) Brian Giles OF
9. (90) Carlos Silva P
10. (91) Juan Pierre OF
11. (110) Miguel Olivo C
12. (111) Josh Fogg P
13. (130) Mark Redman P
14. (131) Kip Wells P
15. (150) Félix Pié OF
16. (151) Willy Aybar 3B
17. (170) Lenny DiNardo P
18. (171) Joel Piñeiro P
19. (190) Kyle Davies P
20. (191) Wily Mo Peña OF
21. (210) Willie Harris OF
22. (211) J.P. Howell P
23. (230) Mark Reynolds 3B
24. (231) Tony Gwynn OF
25. (250) Ronny Cedeño SS
26. (251) Geoff Blum 2B,3B,SS
27. (270) Jon Leicester P

Random thoughts about various rounds of the draft:

1. I picked tenth and grabbed Iwamura. He might have second base eligibility soon, but I’ll be playing him at the hot corner. A few picks that went before that I thought were dreadful, which is to say I liked, were Aurilla (who’ll inexplicably get at-bats at first) and Taveras (remember steals don’t count in this league). Best, which is to say worst, pick of the first round? Lou took Alex Rodriguez. I thought he heard something of an Arod/Wilson Betemit platoon, but it turned out Lou arrived three minutes late to the draft. Not the kind of league you want Y! autodrafting for you.

3. The Treanor/Rabelo blah-toon jumped off the board this round to two different teams. Sorta like when you draft Borowski then the next guy grabs Betancourt. It’s just not right, but it’s the smart move. Be interesting to see who gets to suck for the majority of the playing time behind the plate in Florida. I was happy to grab Cesar Izurtis at 30. LaRussa gave Aaron Miles, Eckstein and Adam Kennedy, like, 3000 at-bats last year. He’ll think he upgraded with Izurtis. Steal of the third round: Adam Everett; full-time job and he’ll make Twins fans miss Punto. (Interesting side note: Both Cesar and Maicer Izturis went in this round. They’re sorta like the Aaron brothers if Hank didn’t exist.)

4. I almost went Livan Hernandez, but I figured he’d last until the fifth round. I underestimated how hyped he was going into the draft and Herb scooped him at 32 right after I took Chone Figgins. Figgins’s at-bats/lack of HRs was too much to pass up, but I hope this doesn’t come back to haunt me. Who knows, maybe I can work out a deal to send Carlos Silva and Joel Pinero for Livan? We’ll see.

11. You’re probably wondering why I waited so long to grab a catcher. Simply, there’s a deep pool of crappy catchers. Lots of great names already jumped off the board: Kendall (1), Paulino (1), the blah-toon of Rabelo/Treanor (3) and Brian Schneider (8, great inverse value, btw). So I went with Miguel Olivo. Here’s hoping for a speedy (partial) recovery from his injury so he comes back with lingering pain and swinging at everything. (I think there’s a good chance he’s going to be even worse this year without Miguel Cabrera around to hug him every couple of innings.)

20. Wily Mo Pena was a bit of a reach on my part, but I’m hoping his oblique never fully recovers and he’s simply a K’ing machine. Another pick I love in this round, Mike Mussina. From potential HOF’er to Fantasy Razzball draft steal in two years. Don’t cha love baseball?

26. Geoff Blum will help serve my Fantasy Razzball strategy (Basically, punt runs, load up on top of the order/speedy types and then substitute Blum, Cedeno, Harris in when I can afford it with the at-bats limit.) In this round, loved Mop Up Duty’s (appropriate site name, don’t ya think?) Brad Ausmus pick. JR Towles might be billed as a future All-Star, but rarely do catchers succeed in their rookie year. Ausmus is just too lacking to pass up on. Also, great flier by Fantasy Baseball Generals with Brian Burress. Here’s hoping he snags that fifth spot in the Orioles rotation then proceeds to pitch a mediocre 150 innings, doing just enough to neither succeed or be demoted.

Overall thoughts: My team is designed how I hoped it would: high at-bats, low home runs, middling average. The juggling to lessen my runs will be the difficulty. But it’s only appropriate that I should be juggling with a team filled with clowns.