Baseball is finally here as the regular season starts on Friday! In this weekly article, I'll attempt to bring to light lower-owned players that are adds to help you stay ahead of the competition and win your league. This is a sprint, not a marathon, so now is not the time to get attached to those slow starters. Normally, they'd have time to turn it around, but with a 60 game season, a couple of struggling bats or arms could drag your team to the bottom of the standings. With that in mind, here are some Week 1 options to get you started on the right path.
Shogo Akiyama, OF, CIN - 24% owned on ESPN and CBS - Akiyama is penciled into the leadoff spot for the Reds and they get six games against the hapless Tigers rotation to start the season. The other four games come against the Cubs, where they'll face Tyler Chatwood and Alec Mills in two of those games. Akiyama has been scouted with "above average plate skills", while most projection systems have him hovering around a 9% walk rate. With Joey Votto, Eugenio Suarez, Nick Castellanos, and Mike Moustakas batting behind Akiyama, he should score plenty of runs out of the gate. If Akiyama is still available in your leagues, now is the time to add him.
Monthly Archives: July 2020
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If I Didn’t Have Bad Lux, I’d Gavin None At All
July 22, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 271 Commentsby: Grey
I never really liked Gavin Lux. Never drafted him before. Not the kind of guy I buy usually. I want big power or speed upside from my rookies. Especially speed. Five category? Well, Luis Robert can canoodle my noodle any time. Nick Madrigal? Okay, fine, but his hit tool is insane. Carter Kieboom? More like a Kie-fizzle in that platoon. I want dem wheels or dem big muscles. Gavin Lux does what? Few homers and a few steals, and hits maybe .260? I never draft that! Dot dot dot. Usually. I can't believe I'm rostering that ess oh bee on my Tout Wars team. I think I was price enforcing, that's at least the story I'm going with and don't end sentences with with -- dah! If Chris Taylor really does get 60-games' worth of ABs over Lux, it doesn't make him a posh upgrade, but simply a good flyer due to lineup, i.e., counting stats vs. a Taylor H.A.M. sighting. I moved down Gavin Lux in my top 500 and top 20 2nd basemen. Hopefully, Gavin Lux is up after only six games to a week, due to service time. He must've ruffled some feathers when he complimented Lasorda by saying he really liked the “sauce” at the team’s quarantine spaghetti dinner. IT IS GRAVY!!! Anyway, here's what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
2020 Razzball Fantasy Baseball Staff Picks
July 21, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball | 24 Commentsby: Jay
Welcome to another season of Razz-matazz Fantasy Baseball. Now with more social distancing! (Jokes on them, basement social distancing is easy!) So despite the pandemic, here we are with another year of staff picks. So what’s the goal with this? Hashtag content, baby. (That’s the technical term.) There’s another goal though, one less self-fulfilling, unlike your mother. Despite the modern advancement of technology and science, we still have no way to have every writer provide their extended take on every single player in the MLB. We try though! And so we have this quick-and-easy (I regret burning my “yo momma” joke now…) presentation that provides you, the Razzmatazzball community a viewer-friendly and succinct breakdown of how we feel about the upcoming season. The general gist? WEAR YOUR MASK. True MVP's stay together people.
So without further ado, here are our Official 2020 Razzball Picks! (Be sure to share yours in the comments section!)
Fantasy Baseball Podcast: On The Eve Of The 60 Game Sprint
July 21, 2020 | All Podcasts | 1 Commentby: Geoff
Where will the Blue Jays play? Who will close for the Pirates? Will Yasiel Puig suit up in 2020? Will A.J. Puk and Jesus Luzardo ever pitch for the Athletics? Kieboom to Kie-toon with Asdrubal Cabrera. All this and a breakdown of the top FAAB bids in TGFBI this past weekend. There's a lot to cover and half of it won't be true by Saturday. The wackiness of the 60 game season is upon us. If you're like me you're strapping on your helmet (mandatory I wear one while using the inter-webs per my doctor), and getting ready for more twists and turns than any country road. It's the latest episode of the Razzball Podcast and I lost my car keys.
I usually have FOMO when it pertains to Japanese imports: cars, video games, sushi, anime, toilets, and baseball pitchers. I just learned that there's a concept called JOMO, which is the joy of missing out. L. O. L. Well, I get JOMO when it comes to Godzilla, radioactive fish, and baseball hitters from Japan. But, but, but....there are always exceptions to the rule. Hideki Matsui, coincidentally nicknamed Godzilla, was amazing and so was Ichiro, but the rest of the list is the aftermath of eating that five-eyed fish. So, where will new import, Shogo Akiyama, fit into the spectrum?
Akiyama is 31 years old, 6' 0", 190 pounds, and bats from the left side. He played nine years in the JPPL and put up some impressive numbers. In 2015, he had 216 hits in 143 games and, over the past five years, has always produced over 170 hits per season. Over the last three seasons, he's clubbed over 20 homers, stolen at least 10 bases, had a batting average over .300, and OBP hovering close to .400. He has five-category skills, but it's the JPPL, so that sort of production is unrealistic to expect his first season in MLB. So what can we expect?
RCL Update: FanTrax Adjustments
July 21, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Our Leagues, Razzball Commenter Leagues | 5 Commentsby: MattTruss
It’s hard to believe that there will be some real baseball being played in just a few days. I still feel woefully unprepared as I feel like teams have hardly any clue who is starting Opening Day. We’re still getting opt-out news for crying in the clouds! We just found out a couple days ago that the Nationals could play Opening Day in their park and we have no idea where the Blue Jays are going to be playing, AH! Regardless, we soldier on and make the best of what we get, I’ll be watching Thursday night because I’m a sucker for baseball and because I have about 30 Razzball Commenter Leagues to try and manage this season. Speaking of which, we have a league, drafting tonight at 9 PM ET and you can click HERE to join and draft one last team this season. What’s one more at this point? If you’re just coming out of your long spring stupor and starting to check your RCL team pages again, I have a few tips and tricks below on how you can customize your teams to make viewing things easier. Unfortunately, there is no way to copy settings from one team to another, so if you have many teams *raises hand*, you’ll have to do these steps on every one. Let’s get to it!
Scott White, Sr. Writer for CBS Sports, talks with B_Don and Donkey Teeth about the shortened 2020 season. The guys ask Scott about his expectations for his Braves for both hitting and pitching. We ask Scott about his thoughts on Mike Trout as he comes in at 5 among his rankings.
The guys then move on to discuss the recent CBS roto auction. Scott criticizes DT and B_Don's approach in the auction grabbing 3 top hitters in Ronald Acuña Jr. ($49), Cody Bellinger ($44), and Chrsitian Yelich ($56). The podcast hosts then explain their thinking toward the full stars and scrubs approach.
We move on to Scott's team and how he planned his team prior to the auction. We get his take on Francisco Lindor and his possibilities of being traded, and his expectations for Mike Soroka.
Corbin Burnes So Hot He Gave Brett Anderson A Blister
July 21, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 208 Commentsby: Grey
Brett Anderson hit the IL with a blister on his finger. Shame really. Super, super sad news. *watches two-hour VHS titled, "Fist Pump Like Tiger Woods," ejects the tape, stands up awkwardly, raises hand and FIST PUMPS* I'm doing it! I'm fist pumping! So, little ol' Anderson was willing to play through it but the coaches were worried the compromised grip would affect him. Little ol' Anderson said, "Gonna have to leave it to the other four horsemen." Corbin Burnes wasn't in my rankings, but if I were adding people, I would add him. (At this point, I'm only removing opt outs and seriously injured players, because it's too late in game to be adding guys for drafts. If you're following along, you know which guys I like more now.) So, Burnes works off three-point-seventy-five pitches. Not quite four, and operates in the fast lane with a 95+ MPH fastball, and a babymaking slider that produced a 52.1% strikeout rate and .188 BAA. The Milwaukee Burnes'ers' Burnes had a 12.9 K/9 last year and has great command, though he didn't show it. Looking for a breakout that is likely available in most shallower leagues? Burnes said, "Say goodnight, Bretty," and you say hello to Corbin. Anyway, here's what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
July 20-July 26, 2020
Well, hello everyone and welcome back to your favorite place to hear about split fingers, Razzball's Top 100 Starting Pitcher List! If you've been a good fantasy baseball manager, you've already bookmarked the previous article while you were drafting your teams and social media should be cheering your wise moves. If you've been a bad manager and Grey put you in his basement, well, you're probably sitting next to me right now eating from a hoarded supply of Pop Tarts. Leave me the strawberry! Before we get to the list, let's check up on a couple of important news bits. If you follow me on Twitter @everywhereblair, some of these updates are already old stories for you. In case this is your first time here, I'll catch you up: I update the Google Doc below daily in response to hearing about Covid news, rotation management, and summer training performances. Bookmark this page and check it out to get the most up-to-date pitcher rankings for your drafting needs. By following me on Twitter, you'll hear first when I update the Top 100 Starting Pitcher List.
Adam Aizer (@Adamaizer) from CBS Sports joins the show to talk about his favorite fantasy options for the 60 game season. Carlos Correa or Corey Seager? We find out about how his career got started and how he ended up working with CBS. We discuss the Twins/Yankees rivalry over the years and the wild card game he attended in 2017.
Rolling In The Deep: AL Late Risers
July 20, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Rolling In The Deep | 19 Commentsby: Laura Holt
Greetings, friends! It’s with both excitement and a bit of trepidation that I welcome you to my final post before actual major league baseball games are scheduled to be played. I don’t want to say I have an overly emotional relationship with fantasy baseball, but when I pulled up a player’s page this morning and saw his line of 2019 stats -- that I’ve been staring at for what seems like decades -- replaced with “2020” and a bunch of fresh, clean zeroes… well, I had a visceral reaction that is hard to explain but involved momentary shortness of breath and near-tears. If we’ve gotten this close only for things to go awry now, it will be quite the crushing blow… but at least I’ll have had several weeks worth of entertainment in trying to prep for this crazy thing we’re calling the 2020 major league baseball season. As we finish drafting and dot those i’s and cross those t’s on teams we’ve already drafted, let’s take a look at some players who have had a potential bump in value of late: deep-league, AL edition.
Did you hear this week's big news? No, not the story about the man who bit the seagull after it tried to steal his Big Mac. Even bigger news: Grey is now releasing his weekly buy/sell articles one day early to all our valued Patreon members! We're also raffling off two of the final RazzBowl fan spots to Patreon members this week. Shoot me an email at [email protected] if you're a Patreon member who would like to be entered into that raffle. And if you aren't in the cool kid's Patreon club yet, what in the name of Albright are you waiting for?! Join the Razzball Patreon now for just $5/month.
Anyway, on this week's episode of I Can't Believe It's Not Not News with world renowned comedian Billy Hurley, we talk about more offbeat news stories. What you heard about the man who bit a seagull was all true. And no, that man wasn't previous Patreon Podcast guest, Lenny Dykstra. Well, as far as we know.
