RazzSlam Recap: Nostradonkus Predicts MLB Start Date

March 31, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, RazzSlam | 23 Comments

The slew of emails from every business under the sun regarding their comprehensive COVID-19 protocol continued this past week. I was on pins and needles wondering how Jiffy Lube, Bob's Discount Furniture and Cledus's Used Cars might handle this terrible crisis. Now I can finally rest easy. Anyway, you're probably tired of hearing about this virus stuff that's ruining all of our lives. So let's shift our attention over to one of my fantasy drafts which was only slightly more interesting than that bulletin detailing how often the garbage man is washing his hands. Last week you got Grey's RazzSlam recap aka Pete Alonso love letter. Now here’s my RazzSlam, 12-team best ball points league draft recap:

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#	MLB Starting Lineups For Fri 5/16
	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

Fantasy Baseball Podcast: Quarantine w/ Celebrity Chef Harold Dieterle

March 31, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, All Podcasts, Razzball Podcast | 16 Comments

by: Geoff

Week Three, still no baseball. Grey and I are just as bored as everyone else, so we decided to bring aboard our good friend Harold Dieterle, Celebrity Chef, Top Chef season one winner, and edible technician. We talk food, weed, baseball, quarantine, and discover the real meaning of friendship. Later in the show we talk a little Tiger King and how we're all dealing with the coming apocalypse. It's another week of the Razzball Quarantine Podcast!

Bear or Bull: Doh! Homer

March 31, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Bear or Bull | 16 Comments

by: Son

In 2014, the Cincinnati Reds signed Homer Bailey to a six-year, $105 million contract. Doh! He only pitched 145.2 innings that season due to arm fatigue. The following season was cut short due to Tommy John surgery. 2016 consisted of only 23 innings and in 2017, Bailey had elbow surgery to remove bone spurs and finished with 91 innings pitched. 2018 brought DL stints due to knee inflammation and a subsequent benching after posting a 1-14 record with an ERA of 6.09. Doh! But then last season showed a flicker of hope, as he made improvements after being traded to the Oakland Athletics. Now that he is in Minnesota, and being drafted as the 396th overall player in NFBC drafts, is there profit to be mined here? Or is it just more Doh! from Homer?

Top 20 1st Basemen for 2020 Fantasy Baseball: On The Corona Timeline

March 31, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Rankings | 209 Comments

by: Grey

How's everyone doing two weeks into a quarantine? I posed for an hour trying to take the perfect picture of myself for this tweet:

Call me Joe Neurotic pic.twitter.com/6Igr4FM8gO
— Razzball (@Razzball) March 22, 2020

Can you think of a better use of time? Whee! I just literally yelled, "Whee!" and did a little dance, then washed my hands. I'm batshizz crazy and I work from home. This quarantine made me realize my only real hobbies outside of baseball are going out to eat and spending money. I'm not just on day 17 of a quarantine; I'm also on day 17 of receiving nothing but dank toilet paper memes from my mom. I guess it's better than Pizzagate. Whee! I did it again. The Whee Dance, as I'm now calling it. Any hoo! The top 20 1st basemen for 2020 fantasy baseball were updated with new projections for a 100-game season. With this series, I will take a look around the 2020 fantasy baseball rankings to see if there’s any differences now that we might only play a 100-game season. Projections have been updated on all my positional rankings. Anyway, here’s thoughts on the top 20 1st basemen for 2020 fantasy baseball with the new Corona timeline:

2020 Pitcher Profile: Anthony DeSclafani

March 30, 2020 | Top 100 Starting Pitchers | 10 Comments

by: Pat

I’m back for another week of writing about a boring pitcher that nobody wants to draft, get excited! For the life of me, I can’t figure out why I’m leaning so veteran heavy on the pitching side this year. Instead of that sexy second year starter with a 10+ K/9, I’m here to tell you about Anthony DeSclafani. Disco needs to be a late round staple for your rosters (once we start drafting again). DeSclafani was an injury riddled mess for two years, from the end of the 2016 season through middle of the 2018 campaign. Though he fell off the radar for 2 calendar years, don’t forget the abbreviated 120 innings pitched in 2016 resulted in a 3.3 ERA and a 1.22 WHIP. These innings didn’t come with a sexy K rate at 26 years old, but DeSclafani was well on his way to solidifying himself solid mid-rotation starter. Finally making his return in 2018, DeSclafani struggled but held underlying metrics that continued to show a sub 4 ERA. He bounced back to meet those career metrics in 2019. A 4 ERA pitcher isn’t going to make readers fall in love, but there is more here that could make you swoon. There is another level for Tony D and I believe he is about to take it.

RCL Update: April Drafts Bring May(be) Baseball

March 30, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Our Leagues, Razzball Commenter Leagues | 3 Comments

by: MattTruss

We’ve now passed what would have been Opening Day, a somber event here at Razzball Commenter League HQ. On what would have been Opening Day Grimey decided we should draft, so we started our 76th league and got it filled for a late night draft. We’ve moved several unfilled RCLs out into April, so check out the sheet below and find a date that works with your new quarantine schedule. After April, we can start another league or two during the month of May if it comes to that. That decision will be based on demand. I’m not sure how I’m going to manage all these teams once the season starts, but it’s all I can do right now is draft away. In the meantime, we have plenty of RCL ADP data to dig through. Today I thought it would be fun to look at some of the biggest differences in high/low overall pick numbers. We’ll be able to see some of the more outrageous picks and maybe some outrageous deals people got. Let’s dive in!

Top 20 Catchers for 2020 Fantasy Baseball: On The Corona Timeline

March 30, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Rankings | 180 Comments

by: Grey

[brid autoplay="true" video="508696" player="10951" title="RZBL 2020 DraftKit Catchers 010320" duration="157" description="" uploaddate="2020-01-11 00:03:22" thumbnailurl="https://cdn.brid.tv/live/partners/9233/thumb/508696_t_1578701020.png" contentUrl="https://cdn.brid.tv/live/partners/9233/sd/508696.mp4""] Unless you've been living under a rock, you know the fantasy baseball season is delayed. For those that are living under a rock, stay there, especially if you have toilet paper. True story alert! Cougs and I are doing this thing called Shipt, where you get a remote personal shopper to go to the store for you. So, we sent them to the CVS to get me Suave deodorant -- Don't tell me it's a female deodorant, either. Do you often describe a female as "suave?" I didn't think so! -- soap, hand sanitizer, paper towels, and, of course, toilet paper. The shopper notified us from the store, they had nothing we ordered, but did we want anything else? We were like, "Sure, peanut butter cups." When the apocalypse came, we ordered someone to get us toiletries and when that failed, we got candies. Books will be written about the fall of the United States, and there will be a chapter on how we all just shrugged when we got dem candies placed on our doorstep. And, yes, I am now wiping with tiny gold aluminum foil. With this series, I will take a look around the 2020 fantasy baseball rankings to see if there's any differences now that we might only play a 100-game season. Projections have been updated on all my positional rankings. This is using the top 20 catchers for 2020 fantasy baseball as our guide. Anyway, here's thoughts on the top 20 catchers for 2020 fantasy baseball with the new Corona timeline:

Jordan Montgomery Isn’t Just Healthy, He’s Relevant

March 29, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball | 6 Comments

by: Jay

Still adjusting to the lack of baseball, one has to wonder when we can go back to watching homeruns and strikeouts instead of staying six feet away from everything and anything (including your mom). And because we are stuck in this perpetual state of doing nothing but browsing the internet and checking the fridge (what is a man to do at home for weeks on end?), one has to accept that we all have to do our part and social distance for quite a while. And that goes for MLB players too! (I think/hope?) Regardless, the concept I'm touching on here is the same I alluded to during my SEO baiting post on Baseball and COVID-19. In that post, I proffered that pitchers dealing with injuries or currently in recovery would benefit greatly, because basically, time is on their side. (Technically it's on my side if you ask the Rolling Stones.) And while there are a lot of pitchers that fit this criteria (and we might even cover them at a later point), I did want to focus on Jordan Montgomery, who may not just be healthy coming off his Tommy John surgery, but could also be ready to be an impact pitcher on day one. Even if day one looks more and more like year 2021...

Dynasty First Base Rankings for 2021 Fantasy Baseball

March 29, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Fantasy Baseball Rankings | 15 Comments

by: The Itch

On a recent spring afternoon, I hopped a DeLorean to go back to the future and discuss the top 100 prospects for 2021.

On Wednesday, we explored next year’s dynasty catcher crop. Today, we’ll stay on that future theme but continue our position-by-position focus, zooming in on first base.

Spring Training Battles: Mets Outfield

March 28, 2020 | 2009 Fantasy Baseball Draft | 10 Comments

by: Thomas Howland

The drumbeat of social distancing goes on. But as Rob Manfred says, baseball will happen....eventually. And the New York Mets will have a left fielder too. Or will it be a few left fielders? This whole quarantine thing is managing to make seasons possible that seemed impossible. In other words, those we thought would miss large portions of the the season are now in play. There was a time Yoenis Cespedes would strike fear into opposing pitchers. Then he signed with the Mets. Okay, that's not fair, he did hit 31 home runs and was an All Star two years ago. But that was two years ago. Now he's 34, and thanks to his lingering issues J.D. Davis, among others, got his chance. So what will happen in 2020?

Heads Up! H2H Categories Player Debate – Early Round Second Base

March 28, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Head-to-Head Leagues | 16 Comments

by: Richardo

By now, we were supposed to be talking about what was happening on the field. We were supposed to be over-reacting to this year's Matt Davidson (3 HRs on Opening Day 2018), but alas, nothing is right in the world. In an effort to push on, we'll continue to do draft research until the game we love returns to the field. Since second base falls off into the abyss, we'll take a look at the top four off the board - Jose Altuve, Ozzie Albies, Gleyber Torres, and Ketel Marte. We'll go through the pros and cons of each with our focus being on H2H Categories leagues. After checking out my opinion, let's keep the debate going in the comments section!

2020 Fantasy Baseball Team Preview: Cincinnati Reds

March 27, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Team Previews | 22 Comments

by: The Real Joey Bart

When picking what teams to write about, the Reds were one of the teams that really intrigued me. I really feel like this is going to be a sneaky team in the NL and they could be a team to watch out for late in the season. Developing their pitching staff and adding some hitters in the offseason has made this a really dangerous squad and there's a lot for Cincinnati fans to get excited about. With that in mind, let's take a look at their 2019 stats!