Welcome back for another star-studded event! Assuming you hack into your favorite online dictionary and replace the definition of ‘star’ with “guy who lives in his mom’s basement and screams when someone finishes his Doritos,” and next to the definition of ‘stud’ you put a picture of yourself. The Razzballies are the only award show where it’s totally fine to show up in sweatpants and for your fingers to be orange from Cheetos. We don’t judge. We will occasionally mock. Mock-judge, tomato-tomahto. Get over it! So, without further ado (cause I have to do a doo), here’s the year-end awards for the best and worst of fantasy baseball:
Fantasy AL Most Valuable Player – Before we announce our first winner, I just want to introduce the accountants from Lobstein, Kipnis and Uribe. Without them, I’d be counting the votes all on my own and I have a hard enough time counting Mississippis before rushing the QB. For the AL MVP over the past few years, we had a repeat champion, Mike Trout. Today, the fish has left the tank (totally a saying!). Your AL MVP, and a guy I like to personally thank for helping my offense in a few leagues, the one, the only…Sorry, having a hard time opening this envelope…. Josh Donaldson! We have no time for speeches, but Josh would like to thank his insanely stacked lineup.
Fantasy NL Most Valuable Player – I gathered up the votes for this, then threw out every Arrieta, Kershaw and Greinke vote due to a technicality. That technicality is called the “Pitching is So Deep” technicality, so the winner was Bryce Harper! Bryce Harper would like to say, “Ggarmurph mumgargle pffting wharfer.” What the hell does that mean? Oh, when he was saying his acceptance speech, Papelbon was choking him.
Fantasy AL Cy Young – This was between Dallas Keuchel and the field, and the field, while packed to the gills with talent like a no-longer-hungry Mike Trout, just couldn’t edge out Dallas. Keuchel winning this perplexes me with the utmost flummoxing, but I won’t go into that until I recap all the top 40 starters in the next week or so.
Fantasy NL Cy Young – As of September 1st, this award was going to Zack Greinke with the quickness of a Jamaican in a bobsled that is chasing another bobsled filled with ganja, but Greinke didn’t lose it, our winner won it — crazy how that worked. Five ladies and gentlemen, Jake Arrieta! He singlehandedly won pitching in fantasy leagues like I hadn’t seen since Jim Abbott was in the league.
Fantasy AL Least Valuable Player – This is interesting (to me). Last year’s AL Least Valuable Players were Prince Fielder and Chris Davis in a photo finish. Too early to give up on them, I guess. This year’s AL Least Valuable Player was the douche of spades in a hand full of broken hearts. This player was the guy in the background of the strip club yelling, “Yo, you gotta see this girl’s knockers!” as you tell your wife that you’re working late. The one, the only… Hanley Ramirez. Wait, where’s the laminated poop award for Hanley? Oh no, Sandoval ate it. How fitting!
Fantasy NL Least Valuable Player – Again, interesting to me is last year’s winner was Carlos Gonzalez. This year, there was one guy who played in both leagues that was straight doo on the morning grass that you accidentally step on with bare feet, and we’ll get to him, but for the strictly NL Least Valuable Player, here’s a guy that was so bad for so much of this season, you likely forgot he was drafted high this year. Like, “Was that this preseason he was still good? It feels like he’s been bad for years now.” He was the uptown funk when garbage men are on strike and don’t pick up garbage from the uptown neighborhoods. The 2nd round pick that sunk teams from April on…Ian Desmond! Say a few words…No, actually, shut up, you suck.
Fantasy POS – Luckily, every couple of days someone is required to do an x-ray or MRI on Sandoval so we can just ship the x-rays of the award in Sandoval’s stomach out to the winner (loser) of this award. Adam Jones and Miggy had some troubles this year, but they weren’t nearly as bad as this 1st round schmohawk. The worst 1st round draft pick and overall POS? Carlos Gomez. He was so bad, he decided to do it in both leagues.
Fantasy Hitter You Most Likely Dropped and Picked Up A Dozen Times – This was a 20-way tie with two-thirds of the league’s shortstops. “Hey, I’m really liking when Andrus is doing, should I drop Alexei? Dot dot dot. You know, Andrus hasn’t been great, what do you make of Brandon Crawford? Dot dot dot. Crawford’s hurt, should I grab Alcides? Dot dot dot. Alcides blows and he sounds Greek, can I grab Jhonny? Dot dot dot. Oh, wow, Alexei is heating up, how about I lose The Superfluous H?” And so it went for six months straight.
Player You Had Forever and Most Likely Should’ve Dropped – “Jose Reyes is now on the Rockies, that’s gotta be good, right? Right? Right? Damn, I shouldn’t ask these questions in a cave.”
Player On The Top Of Your Waivers That You Just Couldn’t Bring Yourself to Pick Up – “There’s no way Khris Davis continues to hit home runs at the rate of, well, Chris Davis.”
Pitcher You Streamed So Much You Ended Up Owning Him – “Okay, I’m going to give a Whirlybird Streamer Streamstein to J.A. Happ, but if he’s bad, I’m losing him so fast it’s gonna hurt him.” And that’s the story of how you ended owning J.A. Happ for three months.
Player You Were Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop From, But Thankfully It Never Did – “So, they’re calling him Just Dong Martinez, but he can’t keep just donging, can he? Who do I even ask this question to? Ugh, forget it, I’m just going to return to watching Narcos.”
Player You Were Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop From and It Ended Up Kicking You in the Groin – For the better part of two months, Shelby Miller got dragged through West Hollywood by the Regression Fairies. And when I say dragged, I mean 6-foot men in four-inch pumps.
Player You Were Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop From and When It Did You Were Okay With It – Bryce Harper was never going to keep up his torrid 1st half pace, but, while he cooled off a bit in the 2nd half, he still was very valuable. Plus, he made the world hate Papelbon just a bit more!
Player You Traded Away That You Most Regretted – “As long as Chris Davis doesn’t hit 25 homers in the 2nd half, I’m fine trading him for a closer.” *cut to three months later* “Oh, eff me.”
Player You Traded For That You Most Regretted – Jason Kipnis‘s 2nd half looks a lot like Yunel’s only without the power, average, RBIs and…Okay, Yunel was much better in the 2nd half.
Top SAGNOF – Jeurys Familia/Billy Burns. Remember, the essence of SAGNOF is cheap saves and steals. No one came close to Familia for cheap saves and Burns had some contenders for cheap steals, but he ended up winning because we wanted to hear him thank Semien for making Burns so good.
Remember That Feeling You Had When You Walked In On Your Parents Having Sex, This Pitcher Gave You That Feeling Every Fifth Day – Jeff Samardzija. May he accidentally have a tub of mayonnaise dropped on him, then get caught in an elevator with Sandoval and Billy Butler.
