The Itch

Prospect News: 50 Notes from Minor League Baseball’s Opening Day 

May 5, 2021 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 17 Comments

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The time has come. This is my moment. 

Perhaps you’re here because you feel a similar way about minor league opening day. 

As a prospect person who started the gig in September of 2019, I have been waiting on the world to change for as long as I can remember, partly because I can only remember eleven seconds at a time. It’s been a slow universe for the baseball-development fan with a fast-twitch mind, so let’s not waste any more moments here in the intro, you know?

Please, blog, may I have some more?

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Ralph Lifshitz

Fantasy Baseball Podcast: Does Grey Have Special Powers?

May 5, 2021 | All Podcasts | 4 Comments

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Does Grey have special powers? Can he see the future? Is he in your driveway with Christopher Walken and Todd Bridges? I can’t tell you but I bet Grey can! The man told you that Keston Hiura would be demoted and guess what? It happened. All praise FML! For you are all knowing. Don’t worry this is not a 45 minutes victory lap. It’s a 25 minute victory lap with some random fantasy baseball gems mixed in. Get on the good foot and hop on over to the latest episode of the Razzball podcast.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
 
Richardo

Top 25 First Basemen Rest of Season – Getting Out of a Funk

May 5, 2021 | Top 25 First Basemen | 12 Comments

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We’ve only known this MLB season four weeks and three days but to me, it feels like nine weeks and five days. The Luke Voit injury felt like a week and the Cody Bellinger injury felt like five days. The Mike Moustakas injury seemed like a week again and the Josh Bell COVID scare felt like eight days. If you’ve seen the classic Steve Martin movie “The Jerk”, you’ll understand that reference. If you haven’t, then I think you can relate to it if you’ve dealt with any of the myriads of injuries from the first month. Four weeks into the season and I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime of baseball this year. But today’s a new day, so let’s get out of our funk and enjoy the sport we all know and love. Let’s talk about some first basemen. Let’s take a look at the list and then we’ll talk about the movers.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
 
Kerry Klug

SAGNOF, Week 5: Deshi Basara

May 5, 2021 | Steals | 5 Comments

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When I started researching this article, I was aiming to list stolen base targets owned in less than 50% of ESPN leagues, but apparently, I could have lowered that number all the way to 7%. However, I’m basing that ownership on FantasyPros’s ESPN data. I don’t use ESPN myself anymore. I’m still waiting for them to reply to a customer service email I sent in 2008. 

But here’s the situation you find yourself in now — you’re dead last in SB in your roto league. “I planned it this way,” you say to your league mates. 

“Yep, I punted stolen bases — who cares about 1 category if I’m dominating the others?” You grimace as you look at Adalberto Mondesi’s 0 SBs on your IL, Jonathan Villar’s 0 SBs on your bench, Leody Taveras’s .160 OBP you had to drop after 3 weeks of garbage baseball. 

And you’re not dominating the other categories, are you Tommy? You’re not dominating them at all. And now you find yourself desperate. Kenta Maeda and Kyle Hendricks have forgotten how to pitch (until this week.) Luis Robert is basically done for the year and that can’t-miss, sure-fire, put him in the Hall of Fame now prospect Kyle Tucker is, in fact, missing all over the place! That’s where SAGNOF has your back. The players below are so low-owned they’re cheaper than free. Pick 1 or 2 of them up and start making that climb in your league’s SB column. Deshi deshi basara basara! Deshi deshi basara basara! 

Please, blog, may I have some more?
 
Barrelman

FanDuel: Fedde Got Fingered

May 5, 2021 | DFS, Fanduel | 1 Comment

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The first month of the season is in the books and we’ve seen some great baseball to this point. I expect tonight to be more of the same as we have a couple of established aces on the mound. An up-and-coming ace in Freddy Peralta, along with interesting stack options. Atlanta is the top stack choice. If you’re willing to take on risk, Brewers and Tigers are interesting options as well. Detroit has an interesting matchup against Martin Perez. However, it’s forecasted to rain leading up to the first pitch and could start in a delay. Milwaukee goes up against a familiar face in Chase Anderson, who seems to be on the decline.

 

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?
 
Grey

Dylan Ceases To Amaze

May 5, 2021 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 637 Comments

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With a two singles and a double, the White Sox big hitting star yesterday was Dylan Cease. Saying after the game, “With Lou Bob going down like a deflated beanbag — No offense, Mitch Haniger — it’s important we all step up like an 80’s aerobics teacher,” then he began to count off exercise moves, “5, 6, 7, 8, schlemiel, schlimazel, let’s see you burn, boys!” Then he did some step aerobics out of the room. Obviously, he’s being modest, and way more anaerobic. It wasn’t just his hitting people were doing the swoon for — 6 IP, 0 ER, 1 hit, 3 walks, 11 Ks, ERA at 2.37, and now his last 13 innings have been shutout with 20 Ks. That makes me want to sing (Keep Feeling) Fascination by The Human League. We’re all in that. The Human League. I’m saying that’s all of us. I will rock your world though if you say anything bad about boba. Cease looks to be going to his 96 MPH 4-seam fastball more than ever in his career, paired with an 86 MPH slider that has a .174 xBA, which is just goofy for a pitch he’s throwing 30% of the time. Don’t want to be caught with my shorts around my ankles because I’m wearing a banana hammock, but Cease looks to be emerging as an ace. Not a fantasy number two or three, but a number one. I don’t say that lightly, though I am writing this with a feather and 100 monkeys are typing it up later–Let’s go, Ling-Ling! Type faster! Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?
 
Coolwhip

Secret of Manaea

May 4, 2021 | Deep Thoughts | 9 Comments

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So I was sitting there on my porch drinking coffee this weekend thinking about a dream I had. In said dream, I was sitting at a small streetside cafe in Morroco, also drinking coffee. It’s a beautiful spring morning and the local street vendors are cooking the morning grub. The tasty aroma hangs like a cloud over the bazaar. I’m sitting there contemplating starting pitchers and who might be a surprise this season no one is talking about. Someone without a lot of flash that’s easy to spot, but low-key doing something different that doesn’t completely show up on the stat sheet. And while I’m staring at the clouds (debating this most serious of missions), a little Morrocan girl runs up to me carrying a bright turquoise bag and empties the contents on my lap.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
 
Laura Holt

Rolling In The Deep: In The Nick Of Time

May 4, 2021 | Rolling In The Deep | 6 Comments

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Happy May!  The first month of the baseball season has come and gone, and for better or worse we should be getting a pretty good idea of whether or not we’ve drafted competitive fantasy baseball teams.  In deep leagues, there may not be too much we can do to improve our teams’ weaknesses, but that shouldn’t stop us from trying.  Let’s look at another list of players — focusing almost exclusively on guys with minuscule ownership numbers according to CBS Sports, as we are wont to do here at Rolling In The Deep — that may be available and of potential interest to those of us in NL-only, AL-only, and other very deep leagues.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
 
MattTruss

RCL Update: The Week That Was, Week 4, 2021

May 4, 2021 | Our Leagues, Razzball Commenter Leagues | 11 Comments

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Before we take a dive into our weekly Razzball Commeneter leagues numbers and standings to see how badly Son is clobbering us this week, I want to take a little aside.  I want to chat about K/9 and its importance in the long game of the season.  Since we’re all capped at 1,400 IP, the strikeout category basically turns into a race for the highest K/9.  Once your innings are up, you are stuck with the number of strikeouts you have.  This makes those high K/9 relievers such as Aroldis Chapman and James Karinchak (even without the save opportunities) very valuable pieces.  Something I like to do is sort players by K/9.  You can do this by hitting “Extra” on the player page when viewing pitchers.  Then, just sort by K/9 and make sure you’re looking for players with a substantial amount of IP.  If only Jose de Leon could not give up an earned run every outing, that K/9 (17.28) would be delightful.  If you find yourself without a save vulture target for the day and your offense is full, consider grabbing a high K/9 reliever to help boost those stats.  It only takes a few 7 IP, 2 K performances to put you behind the pace.  It’s important to monitor and keep a balance.  Fortunately for you, and especially those that are bad at math, we’re tracking your K/9 for you on the Master Standings page.  There, you can see that among teams with at least 40 IP/week we have Team KumaDeviL with an impressive 12.4 K/9.  Bringing up the rear is Team Matbrekk77 with 7.7 K/9 in 245 IP.  Ideally, you’ll be looking at a K/9 north of 10.  You can see our current Master Standings leader, Son is a little behind, which could prove his undoing as everyone catches up in IP.  There’s still time to correct though, so fear not!  It’s also going to be important to monitor your innings usage.  You can click “MIN/MAX” on your team page to see your innings used and your pace.  I like to keep my pace pretty close to right on the money, but your mileage may vary.  Just don’t leave innings on the table if you can help it.  Let’s take a look at the rest of the week that was, week 4 in the RCLs:

Please, blog, may I have some more?
 
RyanStar

FanDuel: Do Ynoa Who To Throwa

May 4, 2021 | DFS, Fanduel | 3 Comments

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Welcome to the Tuesday edition of FanDuel DFS here on Razzball. It’s May the 4th! Congrats to those who’ve been cashing in on their DFS lineups so far, and for those of you who’ve yet to find that heater, let’s stay positive and turn it around TODAY! It’s the Jacob deGrom slate and I don’t care what his price is, he’s the best pitcher in baseball and is always atop the player pool when it’s his turn. Hopefully, the force will be with the Mets’ bats and they’ll put up some runs to get JdG a W.

There’s all kinds of spots to go tonight on this 11 game slate, but the key is going to be hitting on those salary-saving bats, OR, finding that lower-priced arm that goes off if you’re into that type of thing. I’m not an advocate of fading deGrom, but there are some juicy high-priced bats that would be fun builds if you can find the right guy to get you those 40-50 points out of the P slot. The top 3 SP on my board tonight are all in solid spots. We have deGrom ($12,500) @ Cardinals, Aaron Nola ($9,200) vs Brewers, and Nick Pivetta ($8,300) vs Tigers. I’ll say it now, if I’m not going with deGrom, there are only 3 other spots I feel okay/good about. And honestly, I’m only going there if the weather is still super shaky leading up to game time. There’s a sneaky pivot that I like, but it’ll take balls to do so. Let’s get down to business.

 

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?