Okay, there won’t be a Wander Franco (2-for-4, 2 runs, 3 RBIs) lede after every game he plays. It’s like when FTJ, Acuña, Vlad Jr. and others were called up. You need to bask in the GLORY. Yes, capitalized. When the game started, I was like, “If Wander Franco doesn’t homer in his first at-bat, is he still a 1st ballot Hall of Famer?” I questioned that deeply, like a monk. Then when he walked in his 1st at-bat, I questioned him. “Who does Wander Franco think he is, Jackie Bradley Jr?” Then as Ryan Yarbrough (2 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 4.59) stretched the third inning into a two-hour affair, I thought, “Wander Franco, began his career on June 22nd, 2021, then ended his career 20 years later, during the very same game.” Finally, Yarbrough was yanked, er, um, Red Sox’d, and we went to at-bat number two and I was eating dinner. So, no report on that. Then, came his first major league home run, a golf shot without a Tiger Woods fist pump. I’ll always remember where I was when I saw Wander Franco’s 1st home run: the toilet. God bless Wander, and chicken parm sandwiches. The Rays calling up Wander Franco was worth it just so I could look at the left side of their infield and say, “Anyway, here’s Wander/Walls.” So, on actionable fantasy advice: A top five team — one that made the World Series — calls up their top prospect, plants him in the most important slot in the order, according to analytics. What does that say? It tells me Vidal Brujan (and/or Josh Lowe) are coming up very soon. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
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Top 30 College Prospects for the 2021 MLB Draft
June 22, 2021 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | Leave a commentby: Hobbs
Omaha! Omaha! Either Peyton Manning just put together a quick game of pick-up flag football in my backyard, or the College World Series is officially underway in Nebraska. *editor buzzes into my earpiece* Manning is in fact in Canton learning how to properly construct a Super Bowl trophy out of a Wheaties box for the next incredibly average Peyton’s Places segment, so it must be the latter — which is good for him, because my backyard is currently infested with slime mold and being treated for turf diseases, so that simply wouldn’t be advised for the local neighborhood youths. But alas, the CWS is here, and we have the luxury of scouting an excess of 2021 MLB Draft talent from June 19-30. Six players in my top 30 were able to advance to college baseball’s ultimate event, but countless others such as Arizona’s Ryan Holgate, Vanderbilt’s Isaiah Thomas and NC State’s Luca Tresh made the Omaha cut as well. This not only means that these rankings are fluid and will undoubtedly change prior to the July 11-13 draft, but also that I recommend taking the below intel and doing some of your own personal scouting over the course of the next week-plus. So, who has made the cut as we inch closer to the release of the complete college top 100? Check it out below, as there are a handful of new names previously excluded from the preseason list that utilized excellent 2021 campaigns to springboard their stock — such as Washington State’s Kyle Manzardo and Florida State’s Matheu Nelson. Where they’ll ultimately fall in the draft, nobody knows! For that reason, I like to refer to such players as this year’s “unsupervised children flying off trampolines at the annual Memorial Day reunion.” There’s always bound to be one or two.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Is Grey my Winnie Cooper? Perhaps. The truth is how many of you even understand that reference? Probably not too many. As you can likely take away from the title of the podcast we talk about Wander Franco’s promotion to begin the show. We then follow that with more prospect talk as we discuss Matt Manning, Jesus Sanchez, and others. We briefly discuss potential trade deadline movers like Trevor Story before finishing the show with a handful of waiver wire adds to make in your leagues. It’s another glorious episode of the Razzball podcast.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Rolling In The Deep: Who Will Bail(ey) Us Out This Week?
June 22, 2021 | Rolling In The Deep | 1 Commentby: Laura Holt
Hello friends, and welcome once again to the deep league corner of Razzball. As our teams continue to get hit by injuries, demotions, and inconsistent play, it gets harder to plug those lineup and rotation holes, but plug away we will. While I actually saw a fantasy site suggest that you might want to check your waiver wire to see if Wander Franco is still available in your league after news of his call up broke a couple of days ago, most of us, of course, will have to get a bit more creative than that. In my leagues the free agent pool is as dried up as I’ve seen it all year, but let’s see if we can manage to stumble upon a player or two that could be of interest to those of us in AL-only, NL-only, and other deep leagues.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
RCL Update: The Week That Was, Week 11, 2021
June 22, 2021 | Razzball Commenter Leagues | Leave a commentby: MattTruss
With so much talk of sticky stuff, the state of the game of baseball, and how many runs are or aren’t being scored these days, I thought I’d take a look at our very own data sample and see what our average ERA in the Razzball Commenter Leagues looks like this year versus years past. One of my favorite things about keeping all the RCL data over the years is being able to look back at it for things likes this. Let’s start with 2016 where our average ERA was 3.72. Not too shabby. 2017 saw a bump to 3.88 but 2018 fell back down to 3.79. 2019 got ugly and we had an average team ERA of 4.07. A shortened 2020 season was even worse with an average of 4.18. We’ve been slowly creeping up over time. So, how are we looking this year? As of right now, we’re looking at an average team ERA of 3.51. I’d say they sure deadened the ball alright. What will the hot, humid summer months and umpires patting pitchers down do to these numbers? I’m going to guess we end up somewhere right in the 3.85 ERA range, in other words, get ready for some offense.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Welcome back my fellow Razzies. We have a near-full slate on the docket tonight and we’re going to have to sift through the games to find the arms, stacks, and value we need to make this Tuesday our most profitable to date. It’s Wander Franco night in Tampa! Tune in to watch him crush his first MLB home run off Eduardo Rodriguez.
Last week we had almost no aces on the board and the pitcher who ended up winning tournaments for people is back in action tonight. It’s not Wheeler, Cole, Scherzer, Kershaw or Giolito. It’s the almighty bringer of rain; the golden god of the mound; you all know who I’m talking about… It’s Mr. CHRIS FLEXEN! That’s right, last Tuesday, Flexen fired 8 scoreless vs the Twins and racked up 56 FanDuel points on a full slate where he cost just $1,000 more than the most expensive hitter. Sadly, his price has gone up and now he’s $1,300 more than Vladdy, the priciest hitter. Seriously though, his matchup is great and you’ll see why down below.
On a 14 game slate like we have tonight, it’s going to be fairly easy to differentiate your lineups even if you choose to stack the chalky spots like the Astros vs Lopez. Houston was a part of many winning lineups last night and they were the extreme chalk on such a small slate. Tonight, they’ll be chalk again, but we have 27 other places to go for stacks as opposed to 11 last night.
Good luck tonight, and remember to stay positive and visualize that bankroll spiking like Bitcoin in April. Visualize your success! You HAVE to believe it to be true before it can happen. Go with your gut and do it with confidence. Let’s go!
New to FanDuel? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!
Please, blog, may I have some more?
O’s Like Their Goose Eggs Odorizzi
June 22, 2021 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 404 Commentsby: Grey
Liked Jake Odorizzi (5 IP, 0 ER, zero hits, 1 walk, 9 Ks, ERA at 4.75) going into this year, but lost enthusiasm for him. Of course, I totally saw this game coming:
Just reminding people of how accurate my takes are pic.twitter.com/7UTy5OmB2f
— Razzball (@Razzball) June 22, 2021
The accuracy of my big-ass brain astounds even me. Yo, is anyone sure I’m not a time traveler? Are you? I’m going to go to the past right now and have sex with your mom nine months before you’re born. That’s right, I’m your daddy! Take out the trash, by the way. Right now, boy! I don’t care if garbage day isn’t until Thursday and you’re 52 years old, which is much, much, much older than me! I am your daddy! Okay, so I didn’t foresee Odorizzi’s start yesterday. Didn’t think he could go more than 3-4 innings, because the way the Astros have been using him. For now, I’d use the Streamonator on Odorizzi, and be careful, because of how wonky his usage has been. This is coming from prior experience, which is very extensive due to time travel. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Top 100 Starting Pitchers for 2021: Week 12
June 21, 2021 | Top 100 Starting Pitchers | 43 Commentsby: everywhereblair
It was Father’s Day, and Grey held close to his heart a framed picture of Eric Karabell. He’s not my real father, Grey thought, Just the father of fantasy baseball. A tear dropped from his eye, landing on his T-shirt emblazoned with Gritty, the beloved mascot of the Philadelphia Flyers. His phone rang, and Grey placed the picture frame back on the headboard of his bed, where it stood as a beacon of inspiration and hope. Reaching into the pocket of his Bermuda shorts, Grey pulled out his cell phone and flipped it open. “Fantasy Master Lothario Grey Albright speaking.”
“It’s Wander season,” the voice on the other end said, before clicking an end to the call. Grey dropped the phone from his hand, his jaw slack. He ran to his personal calendar — a Huey Lewis and the News calendar — and flipped to July. In bold letters it said, “WANDER SZN” and had arrows pointing everywhere, as if depicting wind directions for a hurricane. “This can’t be,” he muttered to himself, flipping back to June, where the album cover to Sports greeted him. “It’s Schwarbs SZN right now!” he said, eliminating the vowels. He fetched his phone from the floor, flipping it back open. The 3G indicated it was disabled, likely broken in the fall. “My lineups!” he shouted, more tears falling upon Gritty’s ecstatic visage. Would Grey get Wander on any teams? Would Eric Karabell ever recognize Grey? Stay tuned for the next installment!
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Avoiding the Blurbstomp – Clap Back (sorry, sorry)
June 21, 2021 | Avoiding the Blurbstomp | Leave a commentby: C.A. James
On Sunday, Nathan Eovaldi had a start against the Kansas City Royals. The Royals have been screwing over my fantasy pitching for years, friends. I forgot to bench him, and he gave up seven hits in four innings, including a homer to Whit Merrifield and some doubles to Adalberto Mondesi. I had a feeling that my curse would be continued though, and I checked replays. There they were: Run scoring bloop singles from the likes of Jarrod Dyson. One hit split the infield perfectly with the bases loaded. A blurb might tell this story, but in a way that’s not as painful.
I tell this story to illustrate the relationship we have with our fantasy teams and how it influences our behavior. Hittertron had Eovaldi’s start as a neutral one, but my curse acted as a hitting buff on the Royals like I got a bad roll with the RNG and baseball is a role playing game. I take this sequitur that firmly lives in the non world because sometimes you have to ignore fantasy advice. I keep waiting for my curse to be lifted. Not that day friends, and never again. Never will I start my pitcher against the Royals.
Or I’ll ignore my own advice, and do it anyway so I can write another introduction wherein I create a Russian nesting dolls of self-inflicted humiliation and regret. On to the blurbs!
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Patreon Podcast: Grey Gets Rejected By Whale
June 21, 2021 | All Podcasts | Leave a commentby: Donkey Teeth
Razzball Patreon members receive our weekly podcast where Grey cackles about the funniest news stories we’ve found over the past week, plus you get that warm fuzzy feeling of supporting your favorite fantasy sports site in all the land.
It’s your favorite hour of the week! I Can’t Believe It’s Not Not News is back again with all the Billy Hurley jokes and Grey Albright cackles you can handle. First up, a woman is shocked to discover a deep fried towel in her chicken order. Then a Boston man is shallowed by a humpback whale only to be spit out; same thing that happened to Grey. Finally, for the grand finale NBC halts production of their slip and slide show due to explosive diarrhea!
Tune in now for all the laughs and Albright cackles you can handle by signing up for the exclusive Razzball Patreon Club for only $5/month, or upgrade to receive the weekly podcast plus early access to all of Grey’s 2021 fantasy baseball buy/sell posts for just $13/month!
Watch our teaser video from this week’s episode below, just a little taste of what you’ll receive by subscribing to the weekly hour long show:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
