You know they say, every Blue Jay fan has his Price, and every dog has his day and what does the cat say? Me-ouch. Is that a well-known idiom? Sounds like something Pol Pot would’ve said. “You look like a clown because you’ve applied too much Khmer rouge. Now what does the cat say? ‘Me-ouch!'” That was Pol Pot at his most disarmingly charming. You ever look at pictures of dictators and think to yourself, “He looks like a total tool. What kind of a-holes followed this guy?” Any hoo! David Price was acquired by the Blue Jays for Daniel Norris (who I’ll get to in a moment). The Blue Jays GM, Alex Anthopoulos doesn’t believe he gutted the farm system to deliver Price and/or Tulo. No more than, say, a Greek farmer needs to gut a lamb to make shawarma. As they say on the lamb farm, sacrifices need to be made. I don’t think this changes a thing about Price’s value. Comerica was actually more offense-friendly this year, and the Blue Jays will provide more run support, but Price is essentially the same pitcher whether he’s in Toronto, New York or Boston, in Philly, Miami or Houston; in Detroit or– Is this a Kid Rock song I’m singing? Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Roberto Osuna – 1 IP, 0 ER and his 6th save, ERA at 2.18. There’s been some speculation that Aaron Sanchez could share the ninth inning with Osuna. If he does that, John Gibbons should get a year-long pass to Disney, cause he’s straight Goofy! In every league I own Osuna, I’m not backing him up with Sanchez.
Josh Donaldson – 2-for-3 and his 25th homer. Him and Arenado are neck and neck right now in fantasy value while I neck Arenado. Any guesses who will finish with more value? Who will finish with more hickeys?
Russell Martin – 1-for-3 and his 15th homer as he DH’d. How is it that the Blue Jays are stacked like Morganna at IHOP and Martin is DH’ing and it makes sense?
Michael Pineda – Hit the DL with a forearm strain. Alas, once again he has arm troubles. Pineda isn’t filled with candy, he’s filled with broken promises and dashed hopes. In most redraft leagues, I’d drop Pineda if I didn’t have DL room.
Dustin Ackley – Acquired by the Yankees to shuffle between the outfield and 2nd base. “The Blue Jays, Dodgers, Cardinals…Even the Mets have been involved in more deals than America’s team, the New York Yankees! Think fast, little man!” That’s Cashman talking to himself in the shower.
Mark Teixeira – 3-for-4, 3 runs and two homers (25, 26). Does anyone ever age on the Yankees?! “C’mon, man, no screaming, I’m trying to nap.” Sorry, Beltran, my bad.
Josh Hamilton – 2-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 4th homer. I bet you five imaginary dollars someone will ask next March about Hamilton bouncing back. It’s a preseason rite of passage.
Shin-Soo Choo – 1-for-3 and his 13th homer. Texas seems like the anti-New York, where everyone gets old. Maybe it’s the heat…or Republicans…or cattle…or lack of Puerto Ricans…Okay, they are completely different in every way.
Matt Holliday – Hit the DL with a quad strain, the same injury that forced him to miss the previous six weeks. Holliday could be done for the year, and since this is the last time I may get to point this out, I told everyone in March to avoid Holliday. Is there anything we can do for those that drafted Holliday? Don’t ask Stephen Piscotty because Piscotty doesn’t know! Piscotty doesn’t know! Piscotty doesn’t know!
Brandon Moss – Did someone say you’re lacking a corner outfielder with old man injury problems? Don’t fear, Moss is here! He was traded to the Cards and will likely move between a corner outfield slot and 1st base. Knowing the Cards, Moss will become a 2nd half All-Star. More likely, he’ll be an iffy bet for power in deeper mixed leagues. I guess that is Moss likely.
Carlos Martinez – 5 IP, 5 ER. Finally, someone changed the calendars in his place to April. On a related note, he had 100 IP last year and is now at 124 IP. Standard is about thirty to forty innings over the previous year for pitchers under 25. I don’t see the Cards shutting C-Mart down in the next two weeks, but if he continues to struggle due to fatigue, he could get shut down in the landmark case of sooner vs. later or simply skipped. (For those wondering, the Cardinals have said they will limit C-Mart’s innings but not Wacha’s.)
Matt Carpenter – 4-for-5, 4 runs, 4 RBIs and two homers (11, 12). Carpenter…nailed ’em!
John Axford – 1/3 IP, 2 ER and his 5th (!) game in a row giving up runs. This game wasn’t even over yet and I had already picked up Rafael Betancourt. I suggest you do the same.
Alex Wood – The Dodgers traded Hector Olivera, Paco Rodriguez and Zach Bird to the Braves, and the Dodgers got half of the NL East back in Mat Latos, Michael Morse, Bronson Arroyo, Alex Wood, Jim Johnson, Jose Peraza, Luis Avilan and the Marlins forgot to get anything. “Aw, c’mon, guys, this isn’t cool!” That’s the Marlins GM getting noogied. This sounds like a keeper league trade that would have people furious. “You traded an unknown property in Hector Olivera for a closer and a top 40 starter?! I hate this league!” *shoots TV with gun* Holy crap, I really need a new outlet. *inspects electrical outlet* Yup, it’s gone. So, Wood’s value skyrockets. No place I’d prefer for him to play than maybe Petco or Metco, and, in those parks, he still wouldn’t have as much run support. This won’t change his K/9 plummeting or rising walk rate, but he could easily have top 25 SP value for the final two months.
Mat Latos – Also traded to Dodgers. Conspiracy Theory Alert! Have you noticed Dallas Latos has been a lot more reserved this year on Twitter? Meh, you don’t have to know, but take my word for it, she has. Prior to this year, she’d walk into a place in Cincy and be at worst the 2nd best looking person in the establishment. Then in Miami, she was likely around the 12th to 15th most attractive person in any one place. Now, with the trade of her husband to the Dodgers, Dallas Latos will walk into a Carl’s Jr. and be less attractive than the person behind the counter. I’ve seen females drying cars at the car wash that are hotter. As PUAs would say, Dallas has been getting negged for the last nine months and feeling a lot less confident. With less confidence, she’s not taking on all “haters” on Twitter, thus she’s not bringing that stress back home to Mat and he’s throwing a lot slower, because he’s not all charged up from Dallas’s stress. Zapruder film it’s not, but c’mon, there’s something there! Mat Latos has a 1.80 ERA in July, and has looked more like himself from previous years, even previous to last year when he definitely had some iffy peripherals. This year his 8 K/9 and 2.6 BB/9 look on par with his low-3 ERA years on the Padres and Reds. Dodger Stadium won’t do him wrong (as long as he doesn’t get caught checking out the popcorn concessions girl — she’s hot too!), and the NL West may be better than the NL East, but it’s still the NL. Just avoid Coors. So, this feels like a positive move for Latos.
Michael Morse – To the Dodgers in case Kershaw’s injury is serious and they need to call in an SOS.
Bronson Arroyo – To the Dodgers, but since he’s on the DL, it could be a few before the Dodgers use him to warm-up the catcher between innings.
Hector Olivera – Glad to see the Dodgers had to give up one player to get back fifteen. “Hello, this is Commissioner Manfred calling for Bud. Stop with the ‘Will I hold?’ He’s sitting right there! Put me on speakerphone. Bud, you said there was parity in this league. The Dodgers’ Triple-A team looks better than the Marlins major league roster and, in every drawer I open in your old office, there’s a toupee. Come get these racoons!” Olivera didn’t make it in this afternoon’s Buy column, because he’s currently hurt, but I bet we see him within a month. I could see stashing him now.
Mike Leake – Traded to the Giants. His ERA in July was 1.25. He’s on Leake! So, he won’t suddenly become a 9 K/9 pitcher. Shoot (not you Dick Cheney!), he won’t even become a 7+ K/9 pitcher. This year he’s at 6 K/9 with an xFIP of 3.64, i.e. a matchups guy that can help with ratios. Again, his ERA in July was 1.25! In that giant(s) park, he can have a solid final two months.
Arodys Vizcaino – Will take over the closer role with Johnson off to setup Kenley. I trust Vizcaino as far as I can throw him, and since I started pumping iron in the 12th grade and have taken approx. 6,000 days off since that first workout, I can’t throw him very far. I would handcuff with Aardsma and Frasor, not in the order. Stupid dyslexia! By the by, can they find a harder word to spell for dyslexics?
Shelby Miller – 6 IP, 4 ER, 12 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA up to 2.44. The Regression Fairies were split on their reactions to the premiere of I Am Cait, but can they get on the same page and damage Shelby Miller?
Domonic Brown – 2-for-4 and his 1st home run. Gross, I just thought about how that made Tehol feel.
Joakim Soria – Traded to the Pirates. Not sure what’s sadder, that he was traded to become Melancon’s setup man, or if it’s sadder it makes sense that he’d be his setup man. Speaking of sad, let’s go to another blurb for this…
Alex Wilson – 1 2/3 IP and the save. The Tigers bullpen is left with Bruce Rondon, Al Alburquerque, Wilson and Feliz. Alburquerque is Santa K, New Mexicloser, and Rondon has been used primarily as the setup man for Soria, so Alex Wilson, who is a control guy, and not your prototypical closer, got the 1st post-Soria save. It’s basically a shituation closerousel of biblical proportions if Jesus played fantasy baseball. Right now, I’d own Wilson and Rondon, in that order.
Jeurys Familia – 1 IP, 3 ER and has three straight blown saves. Yesterday, was far from a run-of-the-mill blown save, since there was a 45-minute rain delay between his first two outs and his third out, but it was still a blown save. Earlier this week, I said I hoped Clippard would be traded to the Mets and take the job from Familia because I had traded Familia to Sky for Chris Davis. Sky said, “Your hope for that is cute, Grey. Like ‘I hope I accidentally wake up with my face buried between Kate Upton’s boobs’ cute.” I said, “I think mine might have slightly better chances.” He said, “I’ll give you that. Like, if we were talking lottery numbers, you’d totally have one less zero in that string of .00000 until you saw a number.” I wonder how he thinks my chances are now. Also, in that stream of a conversation, JFoH was telling people to pick up Fernando Rodriguez. Here’s the whole exchange.
Jon Niese – 6 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.63. Sweet, and I wouldn’t touch him unless the Stream-o-Nator gave its permission.
Juan Uribe – 1-for-4 and his 9th homer. When he gets a home run, he never not doesn’t get another home run within a few days. Triple negatives be damned!
Curtis Granderson – 2-for-4, 2 run, 3 RBIs and his 16th homer. As always your Curtisy reminder.
Andrew Cashner – 5 1/3 IP, 5 ER, ERA up 4.13. Cash rules everything around me, if there’s nothing else around me and I’m stuck with a mediocre streamer.
Derek Norris – 5-for-5, 2 runs, 4 RBIs and his 12th homer. Derek’s been almost as bad as Derek on Netflix, but five hits in a game goes a long way to coming out of a slump. More of a slumpbuster than sleeping with Billy Butler’s sister.
Justin Upton – 1-for-5 and his 18th homer, and 2nd in as many games. As I said the other day, Upton is the type to go from ice cold to hot in a blink and then ride the hot streak for a month. And that’s me paraphrasing me!
Carlos Gomez – The Astros traded four prospects for CarGo and tears for Fiers. Gomez will take over the middle of the order for the Astros and will likely become a .220 hitter again through transitive properties. Miller Park is always at the top of the best offensive stadiums and the Juice Box has moments. Really, in two months, anything can happen and I wouldn’t bet against Gomez having a nice final eight weeks, but, according to our Player Rater, Gomez has been on par with Melky so far this year, so it’s not like he can do terribly worse. Oh, and don’t worry, Mets fans, you still have Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe.
Mike Fiers – As mentioned, he also goes to the Astros, and if anyone can lure you into a shellacking, it’s Fiers. I’d leave my keys in a fish bowl with only those two British clean-up nannies in the room, before relying on Fiers to match his potential, but, alas, it is there, and his home stadium gets a bit better.
Scott Kazmir – 7 2/3 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 5 Ks. People were asking about whether they should start him yesterday in a home game. Wait for it…this is good…where did I put that?…Oh, it’s in the car…Hold on…Okay, here it is…He has a 2.10 ERA on the year. This is who you want to bench?
Jed Lowrie – 0-for-3, 1 run as he was activated from the DL and played 3rd base. This moved Luis Valbuena to 1B. Whew, the Astros definitely needed another .180-hitting, power 1st baseman.
Matt Shoemaker – 7 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 4.24. The Cobbler, appropriately, has cobbled together a few good starts. Still don’t like him as much as in the preseason, but I’m warming and could see owning him again in mixed leagues.
Khris Davis – 0-for-3. With Gomez gonzo, Davis has an everyday spot. Exclamation mark, plus sign, emoticon, emoticon, emoticon! He hasn’t done much with everyday playing time in the past. Emoji playing bingo, coming up an N-42 short of bingo. Sigh.
Domingo Santana – One of the prospects the Astros sent to Milwaukee. I love me some Domingo like a priest in Venezuela. He could be a young CarGomez. As of now, he doesn’t appear to have roster room on the Brewers, but I’m sure it won’t be long before Davis is shoved back to the bench.
Gerardo Parra – 2-for-4, 1 run and two steals (8, 9). Own. Now. Anagram points!
Anthony Rizzo – 3-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 18th homer. HR to the Rizzo!
Hector Rondon – 1 IP, and his 14th save, and 2nd save in two days, lowering his ERA to 1.76. Maddon seems to have settled back on Rondon as the Cubs closer, and that will stay that way until Maddon randomly wakes up one day and decides to mix it up. Maddon: You can count on not counting on him.
Ryan Zimmerman – 2-for-4 and his 6th homer. Not too late for an MVP run from Zimmerman. If he hits 25 homers in the 2nd half and throws seven complete game shutouts, it would be hard for the BBWAA to deny him.
Michael Taylor – 2-for-2 and his 12th steal. He’ll be in this afternoon’s Buy column, but here’s a pregunta for you, why wait for that? Grab him!
Jonathan Papelbon – 1 IP, 0 ER as he recorded his 18th save and 1st for the Nats. Also, after taking Storen’s job, he likely didn’t want to ruffle anymore feathers, but maybe just a few, so he took Fister’s uniform number from him. Papelbon: There’s no I in team, but there is a me.
Brandon Phillips – 4-for-5, 7 RBIs and his double slam (6th and 7th homers) and double legs (12, 13). I’d have to ask Rudy, but I think this was the biggest fantasy day of the year for a hitter. The 2nd home run call went like this, “This is Brandon Phillips, I just hit my 2nd home run, and I’m rounding 2nd base. C’mon, Mets, you know you want me and Bruce.”
A.J. Burnett – 4 1/3, 7 ER. Well, you guys had a good run. Friend him on Facebook and you can see all the tattoo parlors he likes, but you can’t keep holding him in shallower mixed leagues. His shizz went pear-shaped a few starts back.
Carlos Carrasco – 9 IP, 1 ER, 3 baserunners, 7 Ks. Do you see how good he can be if he can just get out the 1st inning without giving up multiple runs?
Francisco Lindor – 2-for-4, 1 run and his 2nd steal. Hate to sound like a broken record but pick him up. Hate to sound like a broken record but pick him up. Hate to–Sorry.
Aaron Hicks – 3-for-4, 2 runs and a slam (5) and legs (9). Hmm, where have I heard his name before? Oh, I know! I’ve told you to pick him up every day this week. That’s right.
Austin Jackson – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 6th homer. He’s been hot for about a month now and owned in about 16% of leagues. Oh. Chicken Florentine Pause. Kay.
Daniel Norris – Went the other way in the Price trade. Will start for the Tigers on Sunday. Any surprise that they’re starting him immediately? The Tigers are also the same club that promoted a 20-year-old Porcello and a 21-year-old Castellanos. Are we sure the Tigers have a minor league system? Not to answer, but to knowingly nod. Norris has great stuff — there’s that word again, Carlin! — and he’s someone that intrigues me. I’m intrigued, y’all! But he also has a 4.27 ERA in Triple-A this year in 90 2/3 IP with a terrible walk rate (4.1). I wouldn’t touch Norris outside of AL-Only leagues.
Yoenis Cespedes – 3-ofr-5, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 18th homer, and his fifth homer in the last ten games. Someone has one hundred legs, plays for the Tigers and is scalding hot? Anyone want to guess who that is?
Jose Iglesias – 3-for-5, 3 runs as he was moved to the two hole, hitting .318. It only took him four months 0f being in the top ten in the majors in batting average to get moved out of the bottom of the order. Trump tell Ausmus what’s gonna happen to him in October, “You’re fired…now vote for me.”
Chris Davis – 2-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 25th homer, and, like, his 12th homer since the All-Star Break (6th, but who’s counting. Okay, I am. Maybe I leave this parenthesis now. And…Out! And…Out! Someone help!)
Adam Jones – 1-for-3, 3 runs, 2 RBIs and his 16th homer. Love to see Mr. Jones give me something to believe in.
Adam Eaton – 2-for-3, 1 run and his 8th steal. Hot schmotato alert!
Jose Abreu – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 17th homer. Did he give any Red Sox players a concussion on this homer?
Chris Sale – 5 IP, 7 ER. Big news day for Price, and a day to forget for Sale.
Rusney Castillo – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 2nd home run. Sonavabench! Yup, he’ll be in this afternoon’s Buy column, and, yup, I’d grab him in all leagues until his playing time shakes out. Shake it like a Polaroid picture! “Polaroid? Is that a bear?” asks the 17-year-old.
Pablo Sandoval – 0-for-2. Red Sox manager, John Farrell, said that Sandoval’s weight has been an issue this year. *dead-eyed stare* Really? *faux flabbergasted* C’mon. *mouths the word “Wow”* I’m shocked. That’s like saying “dehydration was an issue” when you come upon a skeleton in the desert. That’s like saying “the darkness was an issue” when you come upon a person with night-blindness that has driven a car into the side of a house at night. That’s like saying “heroin was an issue” when you see Amanda Bynes. ARE YOU SERIOUS?! His weight is an issue? Wow, that’s insightful!
