Jorge Soler is likely done for the year with a strained oblique. This is one of those injuries that comes with a sigh of relief. Yay, I don’t have to keep running Soler out there and being disappointed. Disappointment, you are the mistress of expectation, aren’t you? Soler fascinates me in a car crash that you rubber neck while you pass sorta way. Here’s a preseason tweet from Peter Gammons, “John Mallee (Cubs hitting coach) says Jorge Soler hasn’t swung at a pitch out of the strike zone all spring. Scary good. May be best of Cubs lot right now.” Cubs committed to playing him, and, by the end of the year, you had to wonder if they should’ve just been committed. If his year is over, he ends with 7 HRs, 3 SBs and a .265 average in 278 plate appearances. Worse (yeah, it can get worse), his strikeout rate zoomed, and not in the fun way like Aretha Franklin’s zooming. On our Player Rater, he was about as valuable as Will Venable, Brandon Moss and Jeff Francoeur. Or make that, as craptastic as those guys. In 2016, Soler will be one of those guys that goes in the 150 range that could be as valuable as Pollock this year, or as valuable as the Pollock that parked so close to your car you couldn’t get in your door and needed to climb through the trunk, knock down the backseat and crawl through to the steering wheel. Time, not the magazine, will tell. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Jason Motte – Likely done for the regular season with a shoulder strain. “Motte’s is apple sauce, and apple sauce is awesome, so this can’t be!” That’s Guy Fieri looking at his fantasy team.
Addison Reed – Day-to-day with a tight groin. Sounds like me in junior high.
Kris Bryant – 1-for-4 and his 20th homer. His home run was the difference in the game like Lost In Love was the difference in Air Supply’s early career. You really make some cool references. Thanks, Random Italicized Voice. I was being sarcastic, you gooftard.
Jon Lester – 8 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA down to 3.44 vs. Corey Kluber 7 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 4 baserunners, 11 Ks, ERA down to 3.43. If a third pitcher, threw 6 2/3 IP and left with a 3.42 ERA, the world would’ve exploded, said the Mayans.
Derek Norris – Expects to return on Tuesday. In related news, brother Chuck Norris invented Tuesday to kick Monday’s ass.
Marcus Stroman – Said he felt great after throwing a simulated game. One robot in the simulated game said, “I must kill the Queen.”
Denard Span – Should return Tuesday. Hey, that’s today! Wow, when did that happen?!
Drew Stubbs – Signed a deal with the Rangers. That’s perfect. Just what the Rangers need. The Rangers are like Ellis Island of the 1930s. Give them your tired, your poor, your .220 hitters.
Greg Holland – Wasn’t available yesterday due to his shoulder being cranky. Did it eat? Cause a lack of food always makes me cranky. Cougs says I get crungry.
Kris Medlen – 6 IP, 3 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks. He settled down and ended up looking decent in his first start, which is awesome for him to build off of for next year. For this year, I wouldn’t go near him unless I was wearing the cologne, Desperation.
Mike Moustaskas – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 14th homer, and 2nd homer in the last two days. Moistasskiss! If someone grew tired of his antics during the previous two months when he reverted to Mostsuckass and dropped him, I could see grabbing him again.
Alex Rios – 2-for-4, 1 RBI, hitting near-.350 in the last week. Definitely seems like a hot schmotato, and, on the year, he has only two homers. He can’t even sniff Bum from there. I mean, he can, but not Bumgarner’s five homers.
Steve Pearce – 0-for-1 as he was activated from the DL. The DL said, “Just glad to get him off me.”
Adam Jones – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 24th homer. Didn’t he already have his 24th homer? C’mon, if he’s going to get to 30 homers, he can’t be hitting multiple 24th homers.
Kendall Graveman – Hit the DL with an oblique strain. Looks like we have the epitaph for him.
Josh Reddick – 3-for-5, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and a slam (15) and legs (6). You know the weather map with the yellow, orange and red shades for raising temperatures? They should have those colors on a phallus for when Reddick’s heating up.
Mark Canha – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs. Doode’s about as hot a schmotato as I’ve seen since the days of Ty Wigginton.
Danny Valencia – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 12th homer. Valencia seems to get hot super fast, and cool off as fast. So grab him…and drop! Grab…drop! Grab…well, you get the idea.
Tom Wilhelmsen – Lloyd Christmas McClendon announced that Wilhelmsen would’ve got the save on Monday night. This made me laugh. Christmas is now announcing who will get a save each night? Is it too much to just say, “He’s our closer?” Will that send the wrong message? Like it’s too, I don’t know, decisive.
Hisashi Iwakuma – 4 2/3 IP, 7 ER. Hisashi my dashi, burp, burp. I would prefer no no-hitter and no games like yesterday. Just a bunch of 7 IP, 2 ER games is fine with me. For fork’s sake.
Ketel Marte – 3-for-4, 1 run and his 3rd steal, and 2nd steal in two games, hitting near-.325 in the last week, and leading off. Ketel is a decent on-base guy with 25-steal speed. Ketel One is a vodka.
Mark Trumbo – 2-for-4 and his 17th homer, and 3rd homer in the last four games. Heating up just as the M’s vacate the playoff race. Somewhere, George Steinbrenner’s talking crap about Dave Winfield.
Lucas Duda – Expected back right when his DL stint ends. Too bad his DL stint doesn’t end tomorrow. Faulty logic points!
Wilmer Flores – 3-for-6, 3 runs, 5 RBIs and two homers (13, 14). Someone needs to bottle Wilmer’s tears and sell them to teams that can’t find team chemistry. Can call the bottle of tears, “Naive,” but maybe spelled it backwards so no one knows.
Michael Cuddyer – 3-for-4 and his 9th homer. Pretty much everyone on the Mets hit a home run yesterday, and that includes those guys that should’ve retired two years ago, like Cuddyer and…
David Wright – 2-for-5, 3 runs and his 2nd homer as he was activated from the DL. Kevin from ESPN’s “Get Him In Your Lineup” Department said, “I just got an email that says I inherited a millien dollars from a Nigerian uncle! I’m outta here! Millien is spelled with an E, right?”
Travis d’Arnaud – 3-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 8th homer. Yet, another Met who touched up Philly pitcher, Adam Morgan, who looked like Craptain Morgan.
Daniel Murphy – 3-for-6, 3 runs, 2 RBIs and his 10th homer. Thundersticks were in full effect yesterday in Philly like the city hadn’t seen since Ben Franklin contracted an STD in a torrential rainstorm.
Yoenis Cespedes – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 24th homer. There will likely be some people who say the Mets clicked yesterday due to the return of Wright. Don’t be one of those people. If they had 54-year-old Howard Johnson playing third base, they would’ve clicked yesterday due to Craptain Morgan and the rest of the Phantastic Phillie phitching.
Jacob deGrom – 2 2/3 IP, 6 ER. Okay, so Philly’s experiment pumping helium into the stadium was a success and failure.
Cameron Rupp – 1-for-3 and 6th homer, and 2nd homer in as many games. Prior to this, Rupp’s claim to fame was being passed on the all-time college basketball win list by Dean Smith. (You might be thinking, “I thought Grey didn’t know anything about any other sports.” Yes, that’s true, but as a Jew they force you to know every Adolph in history, no matter the spelling.)
Ryan Howard – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 20th homer. Keep it up, Howard, and soon you’ll be the 2nd guy behind A-Gon on the Dodgers.
Domonic Brown – 2-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 5th homer. “See, I told you guys!” said Tehol as tried on mankinis.
Matt Adams – Could return on September 1st. That’ll coincide with the rosters expanding, really no other way of fitting Adams on the team.
Kolten Wong – Member when he was the starting 2nd baseman for the Cardinals? Wha’ happened?
Welington Castillo – 2-for-4 and his 17th homer, and 2nd in as many games. The boeuf’s back!
David Peralta – 4-for-5, 1 RBI and homered in the game before. 2nd verse, same as the first. Hot schmotato alert!
Nick Castellanos – 1-for-4 and his 14th homer. Can I draft him for 2016 and be disappointed already?
J.D. Martinez – 2-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 33rd homer. What do you expect? His name is Just Dong, not Just Don’t Dong. There’s no Don’t.
Jason Bourgeois – 1-for-3, 1 run and his 2nd steal. Bourgeois, no relation to Puig, has 30-steal speed and has replaced Billy Hamilton in center and as a guy with speed and terrible on-base ability. If you need speed and a guy with some middle class roots, I could see trying Bourgeois.
Eugenio Suarez – 3-for-5, 3 runs, 3 RBIs and his 9th homer, hitting .308. Has three homers in the last ten games, hitting near-.350 in the last week and is owned in 18% of leagues. Y’all a bunch of Eugeniuses!
Joey Votto – 1-for-2, 3 runs, 2 RBIs and his 24th homer. If you drafted Joey, you don’t ‘roo that day. Pun points!
Brandon Phillips – 2-for-5, 4 RBIs and his 10th homer, hitting .286. This season for Phillips feels like a dead cat bounce, which is the most overused expression by people trying to sound smart.
Carlos Gonzalez – Day-to-day with a sore knee. In other words, the uze.
Ben Paulsen – 2-for-3 and his 10th homer. On a more important note, I look at his player page picture, and it’s like I’m looking in the mirror. How handsome is this man?
Charlie Blackmon – 2-for-4 and his 15th homer. Blackmon keeps doing work like that in Atlanta and he’s gonna get signed by Jermaine Dupri.
Christian Bethancourt – 0-for-3 as he was recalled by the Braves. Braves fans with a lisp groan, “Thit, that thucks!”
Jonny Gomes – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 5th homer. Fantasy Overlord, everyone was asking about dropping Carlos Gomez. Gomez! Not Gomes! “My bad.”
Jean Machi – 1 IP, 2 ER and his 2nd save. Saves ain’t got no face, which is too bad because I’d like to punch the Red Sox relievers.
Rusney Castillo – 3-for-4, 5 RBIs and his 5th homer. Sadly (maybe happily depending on how much risk you like), he’s going to be about as much a wild card going into 2016 as he was going into 2015. In fact, all hitters from Cuba — Puig, Rusney, Yoenis, Alex Guerrero, Alexei Ramirez, Leonys and Jose Abreu — are in that same grab bag of “I have no idea what I’m getting from year-to-year.” We should have a glossary term for Cuban raftees that are hitters that are completely unpredictable. Please suggest in the comments.
Jose Abreu – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 24th homer. See what I said 1/8th of an inch above, then see whatever the term is that we came up with 7 to 15 inches below. That’s what she said! Huh?
Jeff Samardzija – 5 2/3 IP, 5 ER, 10 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 4.75. For every pitcher you weathered a tough stretch with in April or May or June, there’s a Samardzija that you’d like to stranglezija.
Scott Feldman – 8 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 6 Ks. Last night, Feldman was Goonies-esque and the Stream-o-Nator and everyone else expected anything post-Dream A Little Dream.
CC Sabathia – Could be done for the year. Back date this to 2012.
Nathan Eovaldi – 8 IP, 0 ER, 7 baserunners, 7 Ks. I saw Eovaldi’s 2nd start this week vs. the Red Sox, so I benched him in a weekly league. Which meant, I was sonavabenched by a reverse Double Down. That’s a sentence one more glossary term away from not even being understandable by me.
J.A. Happ – 6 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 2.08…on the Pirates; ERA at 4.21 overall. This start was vs. the Marlins, and his next start gets even cushier taking on the Rockies. That’s not a start containing more Kush, that would be a high start in Colorado.
Gregory Polanco – 4-for-5, 1 run, 1 RBI and his 21st steal. Polanco’s gonna end the year around 10 HRs, 27 SBs, which will put him in prime “Gonna Be Marte” territory next year. The GBM field doesn’t feel as wide as it was once, but could birth Twins, Hicks and Buxton.
Mark Melancon – 1 IP, 0 ER and his 40th save, ERA at 1.50. Member when you dropped Melancon in April because he was struggling with a 5+ ERA? Oh, that’s right, you’re not reading this anymore, you’ve moved on to fantasy football.
Christian Yelich – Aiming to return on Tuesday. He should put one of those urinal flies on Tuesday. Those things really help with aiming.
