I’ve been looking forward to this post for a while.
The shut down threw the content-creation world one hell of a curveball. Many outlets have been using the dead time to catch up on unfinished 2020 organizational prospect rankings, but I completed Razzball’s back in January, so I moved on to another large project I didn’t have the winter minutes to complete but spun it forward to next season, ranking just about everyone across each position from a long-term perspective.
Got some push back early. “So we’re just skipping to next season? smdh”
But I kept riding through the Wild West of dynasty baseball’s future, mapping middle-aged aces alongside yet-to-be-drafted youngsters. This led to wonderful conversations with Razzball’s brilliant readers, who helped me build a set of rankings I hope we can all use to find fantasy fun and glory in the seasons to come.
I’m proud of this project, thrilled to be working with so many smart fantasy players, and eager to distill the past few months of work into this one post. Can't wait to keep chatting and building with you all! Happy scrolling!
Monthly Archives: May 2020
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Rudy’s Rotoworld Greatest League Draft
May 30, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball | 7 Commentsby: Rudy Gamble
Back before I started getting into girls (if they ever got into me is a different discussion), I fondly remember playing Earl Weaver Baseball on the family PC. The gameplay was awful but it was cool to cobble teams together from players of all eras. I looked through my Dad's Baseball Encyclopedia and printed out a list of player seasons for a hypothetical player draft on our dot matrix printer. Shockingly, this draft never happened. Where did I think I was going to find enough circle jerks to draft a simulated league of all-star players?
2020 Combo Meal Sleepers
May 29, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Sleepers | 9 Commentsby: Dan Richards
One of the most satisfying things in fantasy baseball is looking at your players' results at the end of the day and seeing a combo meal. For the uninitiated, a combo meal occurs when a player hits a home run and steals a base in the same game (Note from Donkey: AKA the Slam and Legs). Although the following belies real baseball, I'm ordinarily more excited by a 1/4 combo meal with one run and one RBI than a 4/5 two-run, 3-RBI performance.
Unfortunately, however, the players most likely to yield a combo meal are often selected in the early rounds of drafts. With stolen bases becoming ever more infrequent, an excellent way to gain an edge over your competitors is to select cheap stolen base targets who also won't set you back in the power categories. If you can't get Christian Yelich, rather than later drafting Dee Gordon, you should take a combo meal sleeper. To that end, I've identified a few names for you.
I very innocently searched Razzball for any mentions of Domingo Santana over the last two months. I wanted to make sure I hadn't missed anyone else talking about Sunday Santana. It was so super innocent, without a care in the world, a little click here and there, and, with a small little giggle like a schoolgirl, I happened upon a post by Big Magoo about late-round outfielders who could produce value in a shortened season. Lottery tickets he's calling them; I'm calling them Dart Throws, but tomato-tomato-with-a-different-pronunciation-emphasis. But, oddly enough, he wasn't talking about Domingo Santana, directly. He only mentioned Sunday Santana, while mocking me for my Delino DeShields 2016 sleeper post. I've been owned again.
It all began on March 19. Of this year, that is. Not March 19, 1918, when Congress passed the first-ever law establishing daylight savings time. Fast-forward 102 years and we're still acting like everyone's a farmer. Nor are we talking about March 19, 1953, when the Academy Awards were televised for the first time. The Greatest Show on Earth was named best picture that year. On the same date in 1966, Texas Western won the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship -- the inspiration for the film Glory Road.
But on March 19, 2020 -- I made my Razzball debut and began analyzing the best college prospects to pursue in fantasy baseball, beginning with the Top 10 College Prospects to Target in Dynasty Leagues. From there, that list expanded to a top 25 and then a top 100, at which point we began looking into which underclassmen might also be relevant to dynasty leaguers.
In this Complete College Top 100, I not only included prospects from the 2021 and 2022 draft classes, but also reworked my previous top 100 list to illustrate some changes in opinion I have mulled through leading up to the 2020 MLB Draft. The most notable moves occurred within the top 11, as I reshuffled much of what I refer to as "The Magnificent Seven" and also gave Heston Kjerstad a bit of a boost after getting some new intel on how MLB teams are evaluating the Razorback slugger.
Our Razzball Patreon Podcast from two weeks back was so good that we've decided to share it with the masses free of charge! If you enjoy this show, then we'd love for you to subscribe to our exclusive Patreon feed where you can enjoy all of our future Lenny Dykstra interviews and much more for the low low price of $5 per month. Here's what Grey had to say about this show when it was originally released a week and a half ago:
"So, I didn't expect much from this Patreon podcast, but, honestly, waking up Lenny Dykstra mid-nap to hear him say Ron Darling sucks d**k, well...I have to be honest here, this podcast is in the pantheon of nonsense. So, we get Lenny Dykstra on the show, for, I don't know, maybe 15 minutes. He's in the middle of napping-slash-having sex and he's also very, very angry with Ron Darling, but, other than that, it was a totally normal conversation where I say 1993 Phillies players names and Lenny says whether or not they did drugs with him. Ya know, standard stuff.
Then Donkey Teeth and I dive into how my grandfather picked up a girl in the last week during a pandemic and she's now moved in with him. Again, this is normal stuff. He's only 92 years old with more game than any of you. Next up (this is likely totally out of order), we talk about my love for Normal People on Hulu. There's no spoilers to say I think it's the best show of 2020. It's at least better than the shitshow that is the world. Finally, we discuss MLB's plans to return and Blake Snell's channeling of Vanilla Ice during contract negotiations. Maybe Vanilla should've had Blake Snell talk to Suge Knight about Ice, Ice Baby song rights. Who's to say? Then we pimp the YouTube fantasy football show that Donkey and Boof started. Bless them and everyone who listens to this Patreon podcast. It's five dollars per month to sign up, and every bit helps right now. Also, you can help us by subscribing to our Ad-free site." And that's a jackass quoting a lothario. Enjoy the show!
Alex Fast (@Alexfast8), with Pitcher List, joins the show to breakdown the Baltimore Orioles. We dive into their lineup to see which players can surprise people. Can Hanser Alberto, and Austin Hays keep up their .300+ average? What can we expect from Chris Davis in the future? As one of the premier power hitters in the past, he has struggled to make contact and show promise like he did in 2013 and 2015. Can the rotation keep their ERA under 4.50? John Means looks to anchor the rotation down and keep the Orioles competitive. The bullpen may be a strength of the Orioles and if given a lead could help the team win some games. The farm system is Top 15 in the MLB with guys like Grayson Rodriguez, and Adley Rutschman leading the charge.
In JKJ's universal DH: NL East piece, he mentions some guys who the Marlins might ask to DH for them if/when the universal DH is implemented. Jon Berti, Jesus Aguilar, Garrett Cooper and even Lewin Diaz, and all of those names seem well within the realm of possibilities for the Marlins' DH. Berti is obviously the most interesting and Cooper/Aguilar seem like strong possibilities too. I'd even consider Corey Dickerson there. So, JKJ is right, the Marlames will need someone. This isn't a clearcut situation of this so-and-so slides into the DH spot. Berti is a waste at DH; he can play all over the field. Prototypical DHs are Aguilar and Cooper. Maybe even Matt Joyce on occasion. What I think the DH does in Miami is open an extra spot for one guy to get rest (Cooper, Aguilar, Dickerson) and Berti to play the field more. So, Berti will see more at-bats now. I've already given you a Jon Berti sleeper, which was from 2019 and that feels like it was about 17 years ago. Berti, Berti, Berti! He's great! I love him! This post is surprisingly not about him. He can fill in for Dickerson, Aguilar, Lewis Brinson, Brian Anderson, everyone and no longer needs to take at-bats and play 2nd base over one guy JKJ didn't mention, who now becomes a full-timer, Isan Diaz, the Forgotten Man. FoMa is giving me FOMO. So, what can we expect from Isan Diaz for 2020 fantasy baseball and what makes him a great dart throw?
In Sunday’s introduction to the top 50 relief pitchers for 2021 dynasty baseball, I explored how Rolaids may have played a role in early analytics by assigning point values to relief pitching events in their quest to annually reward each league’s best pitcher in the 1970’s.
During these years, Rolaids commercials claimed that their company name spelled relief. Now I know it was just a bit for a commercial, and I appreciate Rolaids bringing shine to an oft-shadowed position (especially to that point in baseball history), but I don’t appreciate—as an English instructor and father of an almost two-year-old human—that a company can build its core marketing strategy around obfuscating the spelling of words. Morphemes matter, y’all. Mastering the English language is heartburn-inducing enough without Rolaids playing fast and loose with phonics. This reminds me of major league managers playing fast and loose with bullpens while the rest of us scramble to figure out how that team is going to spell relief for the next few weeks. But scramble we must, and relish the hustle I do, so let's get to the list.
How do the White Sox justify not starting Nick Madrigal from the first game of the season now that they're starting the year in the month of Who Knows When and on the date of TBD? Such firmness with the MLB, huh? All you have to know about whether MLB owners are negotiating in good faith is they had the month of May to come up with a proposal and they submitted it to the players on May 26th. MLB owners negotiate like Kevin Spacey in Seven mixed with Robert Redford in Indecent Proposal. "You have 48 hours to come to the table or we will have Avisail Garcia screw your wife." Well, whatever happens happens as they say say. Once baseball returns, it will come back with larger rosters. I've heard some describe this as taxi squads. The team will have, say, 30 men on the roster, but there will be another fifteen guys on a taxi squad who can be called up at any time for injuries. Nick Madrigal shouldn't even be on the taxi squad. He should be on the MLB roster. Back, during Spring Training 1.0, we were expecting Madrigal to get called up around the end of May. Well, that came and went, huh? So, back to my original question, how do the White Sox suppress Madrigal from the majors now? To get Leury Garcia time at 2nd base, where he's started eight total games since 2015? Don't be daft. Madrigal is the starter at 2nd base, when the season starts, and I've begun drafting him, as such. Yes, I'm currently taking part in fantasy baseball drafts. I have a problem! So, what can we expect from Nick Madrigal in 2020 fantasy baseball and what makes him a great dart throw?
....I sort of Long for him. How this website remains free is beyond me. Anyways, here's a thought experiment for you. Say you were out shopping for shoes and you see a pair of Nikes for $150, while the Mikes are right next for $15. Which do you buy? Even if the quality of the two products are similar? For those who buy shoes for the status symbol, then the Nikes are the obvious choice, but for the practicality-inclined, the Mikes are the no-brainer. For fantasy baseball, there are some who draft players on name value, which is fine, but sometimes the name becomes a blinder which prohibits the eyes from identifying similar, yet cheaper players. Shed Long of the Seattle Mariners may be just that player, as he is being selected as the 418th overall player in NFBC drafts from 3/1/2020 to 5/24/2020. You won't believe who the Nikes to Long's Mikes is.
Fantasy Baseball Podcast: The Resume of Grey Albright
May 26, 2020 | All Podcasts, Razzball Podcast | 2 Commentsby: Geoff
This week we were stood-up, forgotten, left for dead. They say never meet your heroes, and for Grey and I that will not be a problem. Where art thou Adam Richman, patron saint of hungry men! So, in other words no Adam Richman this week, but don't be upset, turn that frown upside down kemosabe. Grey and I are back and we tackle the tough questions like "what frivolous purchase would you make with $10 million dollars at your disposal?" We follow that up with one of the more fascinating topics we've ever covered on the show. Grey Albright's resume pre-Razzball, pre-FML, hell it's even pre-Cougs! So strap in and expect to laugh, expect to be confused, and expect to be Albright'd. It's the latest episode of the Razzball Podcast.
