Week six marks the approximate spot where we can stop saying, “it’s still early” in the Razzball Commenter Leagues. This is the point where I assess and cut bait on all those underperformers. Some might say it’s too late for that. These would be the people who have already dropped Ryan Mountcastle. I’m the sucker who has picked him back up everywhere he’s been discarded. I’ve noticed Mike Yastremzski getting tossed to the curb this week as well. Personally, I’ve cut ties with pretty much all catchers at this point, there are so many over-performing catchers to choose from, there’s always one on the waiver wire who is in a lineup. I like to think I’ve mellowed in my old age and have better self control with the rage-drops, but Nick Madrigal has started to wear me thin. The batting average is great and all, but one steal and no homers doesn’t warrant a roster spot for a .270 average. Sorry Mads. (Naturally, as I type this Monday night Madrigal is having a career night) I also managed to cut bait on Kyle Schwarber, finally, only to see him have a two homer week. (and yet another one tonight, again, as I type. I feel like a moron typing this right now.) Figures. Who have you been rage-dropping across your leagues? Has it burned you like Kyle Schwarber has me? Who are you scooping and holding hoping for a turnaround? Come on Mountcastle, get hot! Let’s commiserate in the comments, misery loves company and with any luck our complaining will jump start some of these guys. Now, for the rest of the week that was, week 6 in the RCLs:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
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Welcome to another Tuesday edition of FanDuel MLB DFS. We have a packed slate today and not too many studs on the mound. That could mean offense will be plentiful.
There’s a few spots I like tonight for starting pitching. One spot is the down right filthy Brandon Woodruff taking on the Royals. Another? Well, that’s my guy Andrew Heaney. Every other start for Heaney has had a return of 50+ FanDuel points. That means he’s due for another today, right? I know, I know. This isn’t great analysis or reason to use a guy in DFS, however, Heaney is capable of a slate winning outing and I just don’t see that many places tonight. I do like Julio Urias ($10,000) at home vs the DBacks, and I’m sure I’ll have him in some places, but I’d rather pay way down to Heaney and get some juicy bats in the lineup tonight.
The hitting portion today is going to be quick and to the point. Lotta places to go. I tried to give a high, mid and low priced guy at each position. Though sometimes it doesn’t work out that way and I’m not going to force a guy into this list solely based on $$$. Good luck tonight. Be positive and 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!
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Please, blog, may I have some more?
Mad Huascar Smashes His Way To Be His Own IL-Land
May 18, 2021 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 241 Commentsby: Grey
Huascar Ynoa fractured his hand and he will be out for a couple of months. He hurt himself when he punched a bench. I wonder if he exclaimed, “Sonavabench!” How now Kevin Brown. Blergh, I’m a big dummy, my name is Huascar Ynoa. By the way, the title refers to Madagascar, the island nation that accounts for 80% of the world’s natural vanilla. The other 20% is Larry Bird, Tom Arnold and Tim Allen. Ynoa’s tanked so fast after my Friday Sell, that I didn’t even get a chance to bust out my pronunciation of Ynoa so it rhymes with quinoa. Bye-bye, Yeewah, was nice Ynoa’ing ya. Starting tomorrow in Ynoa’s stead will be Tucker Davidson, who sounds like a game show host. Tucker, show them what they won…A mid-90s MPH fastball that he throws 75% of the time? That can’t be right. Looks like he’s got a wipeout curve, and is seen as a middle reliever long term, but for now he’s a streamer, though Ynoa anyone can surprise. 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 7
May 17, 2021 | Top 100 Starting Pitchers | 52 Commentsby: everywhereblair
I’ve been working on my new script, which is largely a ripoff of Lars and the Real Girl, except put into context for the Covid era. Can I try out the plot on y’all? It’s about a middle-aged man — let’s call him, say, Greyson Albertson, — who has his cardboard cutout returned to him after fans return to the parks. Except, he didn’t receive his own cutout, but the cutout of a staggeringly handsome Gritty, the mascot for the Philadelphia Flyers. At first, Greyson puts Gritty at the kitchen table as a joke, saying, “Avocado toast again, Gritty? No wonder you’re homeless!” Over time, Greyson learns to trust Gritty, but a harrowing encounter with Donkey Teeth’s Kerryon Johnson Fathead changes everything. How’s that sound? Let me know in the comments if I should keep writing it. Or, if I should just stick with pitchers. To the Greinke graphic!
Please, blog, may I have some more?
There was a time in the mid-2000’s where only some of my friends had found daily box score websites. This was when ESPN and Yahoo were the only fantasy platforms that I knew of that weren’t some dude’s excel spreadsheet. Yahoo had their own player updates that were separate from Rotoworld, and I think ESPN had their own blurb system? Rotoworld existed, but you had to look for it. I’m sure there were others (Rotowire, etc) but they existed [Vincent Price voice] BEHIND THE PAYWALL. As a younger person, I had more important things to spend my money on. Like ramen. Or a dozen eggs, most of which I over-fried and over-salted. Let me tell you, I smelled great those days.
To be clear, I don’t want to go back to those halcyon days, and not only because of the funky scents. For every site, even the dying phoenix of Yahoo that seems like it’s on it’s last rebirth cycle, there are blurbs, and Research Assistants, and Match Up Ratings, and now there are Prop Bets too. It behooves you to figure out which update site serves you best, but it also serves you to figure out what tools your league mates are using. Do they use whatever blurb system defaulted to the league site? Do they read multiple sites? How do they have time to do that? Are they one of those tab hoarders that lifehack sites write about, and then they feel personally attacked, so they open ten more tabs out of spite?
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Last week I gave you my top 99 hitters for points leagues. This week I will shift to pitchers. After all, pitchers are generally the bread winners in points leagues as scoring systems tend to be skewed towards starting pitchers. Like my rankings for hitters, this list is based on a formula that combines year-to-date performance with preseason expectations. The primary metric I am using is points per start as I feel like that is the best stat to use to evaluate a how a pitcher is doing in points leagues.
Here are my top 99 pitchers in points leagues:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Patreon Podcast: The Gang Goes Down Some Worm Holes
May 17, 2021 | All Podcasts | Leave a commentby: Donkey Teeth
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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, Gwyenth Paltrow reaches a new low during the pandemic: she ate bread. Then Ben Affleck is shot down by a young lady on a dating app, and a mother is nearly arrested at Six Flag for wearing short shorts. Finally, Billy reports on the newly discovered worm with 100 butts.
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Please, blog, may I have some more?
Come one come all to your favorite stop on the road to potentially hitting that jackpot we all yearn for. Some simple clicks of some names and good fortune await, right? Well, I wish it was that easy but as we all know by now it is certainly not that right. I hope you had a productive week and had some fun along the way. I had a pretty good week and even got a ticket to a FanDuel tournament and did pretty well so I’m still playing on that so I’m feeling pretty snazzy. We have a pretty light slate today as Mondays and Thursdays are travel days for a lot of teams going forward so we will have to make sure we are choosing wisely. I will keep a close eye on road teams traveling on Sundays after their game and playing on Monday as well as pitchers pitching on Monday who get a full night’s rest in their own bed. I mean how nice is it to sleep in your own bed right. We have a top echelon of starters today ( Cole, Darvish, Buehler and even Kikuchi will get lots of ownership against the Tigers today).
I’m targeting Mr. Yu Darvish here who brings quite an extensive toolbox to today’s matchup. Yu has a 6 pitch arsenal in which he fires away at will and commands all six pitches well. His slider to right-handed hitters is downright nasty and is his best pitch. He is throwing his cutter less which is a good thing and throws a rising 95 mph fastball mixing in a curveball as well. Hitters are constantly having to guess which pitch is coming and often are wrong. Darvish goes deep into games and seems to have found a comfy home in San Diego after a disappointing stay in Chicago after he had some injury woes during his time there and was ineffective at times. The mood in San Diego is an upbeat one even with the loss of some key players due to COVID concerns but hopefully for them, it will pass and they will get back on track. I think Darvish will go deep into this game against the Rockies going at least 7+ innings with 8 k’s and 1 ER.
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?First off, it was against the Tigers. Let’s be clear here — hey, I’m a poet and aware of it! — the Tigers are laughably bad. Yet, again with some stank, YET! Kyle Hendricks (8 IP, 1 ER, 8 hits, zero walks, 8 Ks, ERA at 5.27) looked fix. Hendfixed? Hmm, will work on that. Kyle Whenfixed? Okay, they’re getting worse. He(ndricks) had a season-high 30 called strikes and the most called strikeouts (7) by a pitcher in the majors this year. He looked exactly like what we expect from him, just hitting the same outside corner, over and over and, well, you know. Call him Dutchboy because he was just painting! Also, the good news gets gooder (better?) the digger you deep–Uh oh, GreyBot3000 is breaking down, must recharge…*fills mouth with boba*…Let’s go! Hendricks’s ‘luck’ should continue to get better too. Terrible BABIP of .338, when his career high is .296, which was way back in 2015. His home runs are also out of control for his career, and, brucely, for the entire league. There’s no way he’s dealing with a deadened ball and giving up his worst number home runs, unless his command is bad, and it was. Until yesterday. It looks like the Hendfixed might be in. By the way, saw Ryan Hendrix pitch yesterday, and how many goddamn ways are they going to spell that last name? Hendrickx is next. Only requirement is you have to pitch and have an Irishy first name (Kyle, Ryan, Liam). Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Injuries are the story of last week. Two of the best pitchers in the game have gone down. Jacob deGrom is still not throwing due to an inflamed lat muscle, but he’s said to be progressing. It remains to be seen when he’ll start throwing again. What is more concerning is the injury to Zac Gallen. Gallen suffered what they are calling a “minor sprain” to his Ulnar Collateral Ligament. Let us pray he does not need Tommy John. Gallen has said he doesn’t think he’ll need Tommy John surgery, regardless he is shut down from throwing for two weeks and will be re-evaluated after the two weeks. Jose Urquidy also left his start with shoulder inflammation, he is shut down from throwing for now as well.
Returns to the hill are the story of this week. Stephen Strasburg is set to make a rehab start this week. David Price has already thrown a batting practice session and is set to return from the IL at some point this week. Both Astros pitchers Jake Odorizzi and Framber Valdez are set to start their rehab assignments this upcoming week as well. Valdez particularly is of note, he is a really good pitcher and if you have an open IL spot you should roster him immediately. Also of note, Shohei Ohtani was scheduled for a two start week but his first start this week has been pushed back due to general fatigue. Joe Maddon has said this is just precautionary, so there is nothing to worry about there.
At the time of the writing of this, Shane Bieber did not throw a No-Hitter in his first start but he still has a start against Seattle. My weekly No-No pick of the week is…Yu Darvish!!! He’s been so good this year and has juicy matchups, we’ll be talking about him soon. With that said…Let’s go talk about him!!
Please, blog, may I have some more?
