LOGIN

NL West | NL Central | NL East || AL West | AL Central | AL East

As the resident save chaser, I feel it's my duty to give you some names that you maybe don't expect to get shots at saves this year. Bullpen's are more volatile than the fake friendships on the Real Housewives programs my wife watches to get back at me for monopolizing the TV during the NFL season. I did this exercise last spring and Wily Peralta was in there. I almost didn't publish it after including him, if that gives you an idea of what we're dealing with here. I'm not talking the closer in waiting or guy that got 30 saves two seasons ago. I'm going to do my best to write a name so repulsive you consider never reading my column again. We'll go division by division, starting with the NL East.

Learn more about our 2025 Fantasy Baseball Subscriptions!

The best daily/weekly player rankings/projections (hitters, starters, and relievers) for each of the next 7-10 days + next calendar week starting Friday. Kick-ass DFS lineup optimizer and projections for DraftKings, FanDuel, and Yahoo!.

I don’t have enough spam, give me the Razzball email newsletter!

Weekly Razzball news delivered straight to your inbox.

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

See all of today’s starting lineups

# MLB Starting Lineups For Fri 5/23
ARI | ATH | ATL | BAL | BOS | CHC | CHW | CIN | CLE | COL | DET | HOU | KC | LAA | LAD | MIA | MIL | MIN | NYM | NYY | PHI | PIT | SD | SEA | SF | STL | TB | TEX | TOR | WSH | OAK
This is about the guys you forgot existed or hopefully most guys in your league are not looking for. The goal is to snipe these guys on the waiver wire or late in your draft. In dynasty formats, it is crucial to find the value guys late after all the big-name prospects are taken. Your dynasty farm system can help you in many ways with trades and mid-season call-ups. Hopefully this helps you find some gems where people are not looking. Keep in mind ALL these players are looking at call-ups this year...
Ditka could’ve showed up at Spring Training and made the Baseball Hall of Fame without playing a regular season game. Ditka would’ve brought back the two-way player in baseball well before Shohei Ohtani. Ditka would DH in the NL. Ditka’s ‘stache would put such fear into hitters when he was on the mound that they would leave the batter’s box, never to return. Donkey Teeth and B_Don discuss the young Mets SS Amed Rosario in part 1 of the shortstop profile this week. Amed showed a little power, and in a game where stolen bases are harder to come by in bunches, Rosario stole 24 bases in 2018. There were some swing changes that the guys noticed during their review and look for some growth in 2019.

Want to take me on in the RCLs? Join now, free to play!

[brid autoplay="true" video="377153" player="10951" title="2019 Razzball Draft Kit Starting Pitchers"] Whole lot of reasons I never expected to be writing this schmohawk post.  I don't usually write a top 20 starter schmohawk post, because I would never draft some of those guys, so you know how I feel about them, but this got me ruminating.  I ruminate, y'all!  And I was thinking how I would never draft Jose Ramirez, Matt Carpenter or other schmohawks this year, so why wouldn't I write a Noah Syndergaard schmohawk post?  Just because I'm not drafting someone does not exclude them from being stamped schmohawk, it is the one requirement.  I only wish I wrote the Clayton Kershaw schmohawk post before he broke.  Man, was that shizz obvious eh-eff.  I mean, as eh-eff as eh-eff gets.  Another thing that nailed it home for me that I had to write this post was Noah Syndergaard's current ADP:  44.  In a slow draft I'm doing right now, he went 37th!  Have you people lost your mind?  Seriously, put your medulla oblongata on the back of a milk carton, cause shizz is lost.  He's being drafted in front of Patrick Corbin, Stephen Strasburg, Jack--Okay, he's being drafted in front of all but 13 starters.  Clayton Kershaw is another guy who's <biggest font the world has>still</> being drafted in an area of drafts where it makes me want to use a word that don't mean anything like loopid.  Just because you live in your mother's basement does not mean you need to be a cellar dweller in your fantasy league too.  C'mon, guys and five girl readers, boost up your self-esteem!  Turn to your mirror and tell yourself you're good enough.  You don't have a mirror because you threw it out after your last bout of self-esteem fail?  Then look at the reflection of yourself in the toilet and give yourself a pep talk!  You're better than drafting Noah Syndergaard (and Clayton Kershaw)!  Anyway, what can we expect from Noah Syndergaard for 2019 fantasy baseball and what makes him overrated?
Not Your Grandfather's Top 100 Starting Pitchers... Starting pitchers: You can't live with em, you can't win your fantasy baseball league and then use the championship trophy to score babes without em. I know, you won't be able to do that second part either way, but it's called fantasy baseball for a reason. Starting pitchers remind me of grandparents. Oh boy, where's Donkey going with this one? Don't worry Grey's random italicized voice, I won't get into my James Shields pants peeing analogy. When they're young, visits with gramps and granny are full of excitement and unexpected gifts; those times are as magical as a Walker Buehler vs. Jack Flaherty locker room sword fight. But as time passes, and our elders age, it's not all ice cream, pizza and 13 strikeout gems. Hips are fractured and ulnar collateral ligaments are severed. The pizza and ice cream is replaced by prune juice and fruit cakes, with a side of 8 earned runs in 2/3rds of an inning.  And of course there's the erectile dysfunction, brought on by another Tyler Chatwood misfire. In this biweekly top 100 starting pitchers column, I'll track developments of decreased blood-flow, fractured hips and, most importantly, those mythical GILFs (Grandmothers I'd Like to play Fantasy baseball with; what did you think it stood for?) as they rise across the fantasy pitching horizon. Here's a little GILF tease along with my preseason top 100 to hold all you grandmother lovers over...
Last week we covered why you should join an RCL, so this week let’s start covering what to do once you’re in there.  To be honest, most all of this has been covered somewhere on the site over the years, most often by Rudy. If you haven’t been playing in RCLs though, I could see how some of this has been glossed over, so I’ll try to consolidate some info for the newbies.  Last season we made the change from ESPN to Fantrax and with that we changed a few rules, most notably we added a 500 move limit and we changed from Games Started for pitchers to Innings Pitched. I’ll be frank, I didn’t notice a big change in strategy because of these changes, but feel free to change my mind RCL Vets.  We’ll cover this as well as the basics for anyone still timid about jumping in the RCL waters. QUICK NOTE: RCL drafts will start going off this coming Friday.  To avoid leagues drafting with less than 12 managers we’ve decided to just kill any league that doesn’t fill by 5pm EST.  We’re going to try our best to get everything filled, but if you are in a league where someone bails late or it looks like it won’t fill, let us know.  Jump in the comments or let us know on Twitter: @Razzball and/or @MattTruss and we’ll try to work some magic. We didn’t want to ruin someone’s night by waiting until an hour before a 10pm draft to kill it.  Hopefully, this won’t happen often, but help us help you.
Razzball is not responsible if you contract scurvy while reading this post. Ahoy readers! We're on the high seas! Feel the wind on your face, the salty sea air in your lungs, and the vomit in your upper esophagus. You should have told us about the sea sickness before we left port. I'll be guiding you through ten of the most notorious buccaneers in these waters. After a long night of cracking Jenny's teacup, you'll want to put up your peg leg(s), take a shot of rum, and enjoy a bit o' light reading. Blow me down! I see booty ye bilge-sucking grog blossom!

Want to take me on in the RCLs? Join now, free to play!

[brid autoplay="true" video="378040" player="10951" title="2019 Razzball Draft Kit Top 5 Busts"] When I think about people saying they're going to draft Matt Carpenter, I think of the old hypnotist's trick.  If you're going to draft Matt Carpenter, I want you to do this:  close your eyes and pretend to be shaking a salt shaker into your mouth.  Now, incredibly, you will taste salt.  There's no easier schmohawk post for me than a guy who has a career year at 32 years of age or older.  On the other hand, 31 years old?  Give me some!  (Kidding, please don't ask why 31 is okay.)  Does anyone drafting Carpenter expect to get the same again what he did last year?  I can count the guys who peak in their thirties, who are not on 'roids, on one hand and that's a hand of a high school wood shop teacher.  "Today, I'm going to show you how to make your mother a chair--Okay, don't be alarmed, it only looks worse than it is.  Place my thumb in your ice-cold Fanta, and call me a Lyft."  *blood from wound sprays teacher in his face* "Don't give the substitute a hard time, I could be out for a few."  So, last year Matt Carpenter went 111/36/81/.257/4, which is so goofy you can put that stat line from Carpenter on LinkedIn and get hired to don a Goofy costume at Disney World, sight unseen.  "Yo, moms, I just got hired by Disney."  "Bravo, Salvatore!  I-a didn't even know-a you applied."  "I didn't, I just wrote down Matt Carpenter's stat line on LinkedIn."  By the by, I wanna get a giant mastiff and name it, Salvatore Glands.  Anyway, what can we expect from Matt Carpenter for 2019 fantasy baseball and what makes him overrated?
It’s that time of year again, the one time of year when people are clamoring for a new spreadsheet. Draft season is nerds’ time to shine, and I’ve got you covered as usual. Looking to go beyond the copious 2019 fantasy baseball draft tools and online fantasy baseball war room? Do you yearn to have the ultimate drafting tool, to track goals and keep track of how other teams are doing? Want rankings based on points/OPS/etc instead of just plain old roto? Aiming to fill your roster with not just stars but also the occasional diamond in the rough, still available far beyond a reasonable ADP? Look no further – the downloadable 2019 fantasy baseball Excel war room is here! If you plan to skip most of the info below, take this one tip with you: bookmark and keep checking this page throughout the pre-season. A few bugs usually pop up, and I may add features too. The most up-to-date version will always be posted at the bottom of this post, before the comments.
Wait till you hear this week's opening. I'd like to say that our early show banter is a feature of this podcast, but you might disagree. After opening the show with the craziest work email I've ever received, we jump into some sexy, sexy outfield action. Grey as always tells you who to draft, who to avoid, and where to take them. Don't get yourself into a bind. Take off the chains that hold you down and jump into the latest episode of the Razzball Fantasy Baseball Podcast. Bee-T-Dubs, don’t forget to checkout the new Razzball shirts over on Rotowear.com!
If you enter a Yahoo Pro League this season, there’s a good chance you’ll see me in that league. I’ll be that stupid guy who has a meaningless team name that indicates who my best players are. This is just a way that a fantasy baseball addict like myself keeps track of my numerous teams. Some of my best team names in the past include Betts Bell Mop Sale, Mookie Dee Sco Votto and Scherzer’s Mop Story. While these are undoubtedly ridiculously dumb, this is just a means of categorizing who’s on which team. It’s surprisingly effective in terms of the other players on the roster too, as it tends to help me memorize the other players on each individual team. That brings us to our first key to winning a Yahoo Pro League...
Cougs' brother bought a place in Jackson Hole, Wyoming; I mentioned to Cougs at one point in the last five years of marriage I skied once twenty years ago, and that's the story of how I drafted a fantasy team falling graciously down the side of a mountain.  That's right, ya boy went skiing this past weekend, and was drafting from a ski lift!  Thankfully, Geronimo Berroa is no longer in the league, because I might've ended up with him on my team because I kept screaming out his name during each round.  So, I took on the monsters of the industry in an AL Only league that was hosted by Scott White of CBS and I came away with a team that is more imbalanced than your aunt after two cocktails.  This league is deep so hold onto ye old hat. (If you want a shallower league, play against me and hundreds of your closest buddies in the Razzball Commenter Leagues.  Or closet buddies, if you’re reading fast and/or experimenting.)  Anyway, here’s my 12-team AL-Only team and some thoughts: