Thank god for the Padres huh? Just when we thought the baseball off-season couldn't get worse A.J. Preller shows up on a new scooter ready to get us to Aspen. Is it the Shaggin' Wagon? No, but it'll do. So Grey and I return to talk Blake Snell, Yu Darvish, Lance Lynn, Ha-Seong Kim, and all the other baseball players good enough to squeeze blood from a stone. The Razzball podcast is back!
See all of today’s starting lineups
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ATH | ATL | CLE | COL | DET | HOU | LAA | MIL | NYY | PHI | PIT | SD | SEA | TEX | TOR | WSH | ARI | BAL | BOS | CHC | CHW | CIN | KC | LAD | MIA | MIN | NYM | OAK | SF | STL | TB |
I sorted Steamer projections by home runs, and did one of those skimming jobs I'm famous for. You didn't know I was a famous skimmer? Oh, yeah, worked as a pool boy for five summers in my youth without the use of a net. I once skimmed the 729-tome A People's History of the United States, and fifteen minutes later, came away with a working knowledge that Taft was fat. Splendid, very astute skimmer, I am. Skimming the Steamer projections, notably by home runs, led me to find a few gems for sleeper posts, but I thought you'd throw tomatoes at me if I wrote one on Pete Alonso, and I didn't want to write one on Yordan Alvarez, because I think he's accurately priced considering injury. Which brings us to
Franmil Reyes, and the first time (at least that I can remember) that I've written a sleeper post for a utility-only hitter. As mentioned last week in my
position eligibility for 2021 fantasy baseball, not a ton (palindrome!) of guys have multi-position eligibility this year. So, natch -- snatch? -- there's a lot of guys with Utility-only eligibility. Speaking of snatches, maybe Franmil gets time in the outfield this year to make some, and get that eligibility. Where did you think I was going with 'speaking of snatches?' Oh. I see. I say he could see time in the outfield, because Cleveland currently has zero outfielders that have done anything of note, and they're supposedly sellers. Unless Google was right when I looked up UTIL., and found a Urinary-Tract-Infection-Lingering, and I need to rethink everything. So, what can we expect from Franmil Reyes for 2021 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?
Been a few big trades over the holidays, so it can’t hurt to take a quick jaunt around the league and update the lists for the teams involved.
On Sunday Night, Tampa Bay doubled down on its “decision” in game six of the World Series to pull its best pitcher after surrendering one hit in 73 pitches, selling that pitcher for minor league parts to a Padres squad with whom Blake Snell’s style should fit nicely. Might be weird for him to play for a human manager after working for TI-84 graphing calculators these past few years, but he’ll adjust.
Padres' great aunt passed away and left them with a fortune, but they had to spend it all by Monday at midnight. The way the Padres are going Chris Paddack is soon gonna be the long-man out of the bullpen. Okay, please comment below if the Padres have traded for, signed or spoke to you about acquiring your services in the last two days. I'm tracking all Padres' moves. There's only one team making moves this offseason, what an absolute mess. The only must-see MLB games this year are gonna Padres' split-squad games. Can the Padres sign George Springer and J.T. Realmuto too (Realmutoo?), so we get this offseason over and onto the real stuff? Half expecting Rob Manfred to announce divisions will be taking turns, and only the NL West is playing in 2021. Just had a solid laugh thinking about the Giants' lineup going into a four-game series vs. the Padres. Please, Alex Dickerson, don't hurt 'em! So, Yu Darvish went to the Padres, because of course he did. The Padres are rumored to acquire (insert name of best player for your favorite team).
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I Can’t Believe It’s Not Not News is back again with all the Billy Hurley jokes and Grey Albright cackles you can handle. After Grey updates us on his pastrami drama we dive on on this weeks stories, including a naked man rollerblading on an Ohio highway wearing only a panda head and an illegal winery operating out of an Alabama sewage plant. Later we investigate hyper-realistic masks in Japan, McDonalds new Spam/Oreo burger and cat poop coffee.
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Find all of this week’s hilarious stories here:
The Rays are Matthew McConaughey in Dazed & Confused with underpaid pre-arb rookie contract players being their high school girls. The Rays write the address a letter is going to where the return address is supposed to be, then don't put postage on the letter so it's "returned" to its destination. The Rays are NBC with their iconic The Hogan Family, then the Rays cut Valerie Harper, sign on Sandy Duncan and don't miss a beat. Someone needs to fold 15 MLB teams into one team that can actually afford free agents.
The rebuild in Rock City is coming along well enough, thanks in large part to an excellent 2020 draft class stocked with high probability bats to back up the might-be aces in waiting near the top of this list.
Merry Christmas, you giant nerds! Look at you, checking a fantasy baseball blog on Christmas like a bunch of giant nerds! That's why I love you. Seriously, I have love for you. Like someone who's never met someone else could love someone. Very, very intimate. I wasn't planning on doing a post today, but Josh Bell was traded to the Nationals and I really wanted to get out this update post of so many other signings, that I was like, "Meh, what the heck, put it out there for my over-the-internet friends since this Christmas is like none I've ever lived through." I miss my family, but I have you, my non-family family. So, Josh Bell was traded to the Nats, conspicuously within minutes of, well, we know what happened here. The Pirates' payroll needed to be slashed after the House was unable to increase the stimulus checks to $2,000. Now that Josh Bell is in Washington there's only one thing can we can be certain of: confirmed Josh Bell 2021 All-Star. Could see Josh Bell out-pitching even Tyler Glasnow. If he wants to, of course. He might just want to hit. So, getting out of Pittsburgh can't hurt anyone. He's also coming off one of the boringiest (totally a word!) 1st baseman seasons. How'sever, if 2019 was only two months long, Josh Bell would've been a top 20 overall player last year. What's my point? Meh, don't really have one, but Josh Bell was hurt by last year's small sample, and hurt by 2019's, uh, long sample. Who is Josh Bell in Washington? A better question might be how long is this season going to be and when will it start? Josh Bell is prolly somewhere between the two extremes of his 1st few months of 2019, and his 2020. For 2021, I'll give Josh Bell projections of 73/26/81/.257/1 in 512 ABs. Anyway, here's what else I saw this offseason for 2021 fantasy baseball:
On Dancer! On Prancer! On–Oh, I didn’t hear you come in. Welcome, reader! Grab some egg nog and brandy it up to the fire. You look festive. I love that Rudolph tongue ring. That’s the great thing about Christmas, no matter what your interpretation is, it’s all about commercialism. That’s unless you light the Munenori Kawasaki. The
2021 fantasy baseball rankings are not far away. Right now, January Grey is throwing darts at a board to figure out where to rank Randy Arozarena: rookie, customer of Big Bossman's Bail Bonds, and first ballot Hall of Famer -- a triple threat! In the meantime, let’s look at the players who have multiple position eligibility for this upcoming 2021 fantasy baseball season. I did this list of multi-position eligible players because I figured it would help for your 2021 fantasy baseball drafts. I’m a giver, snitches! Happy Holidays! Seriously, in a year as crazy as 2020, take a moment and thank those you truly love: Me.
For this system, the script gets a bit flipped. First, no pitching stone should go unturned in Cleveland. Whereas we’re typically ignoring teenage arms in our quest to stock dynasty systems with power-speed bats, we want all the arms we can hoard in Cleveland. I’m trying to think of another system that operates similarly for our purposes. In Tampa Bay and Los Angeles, we want the arms, too, but we want all the bats just as badly. Plus, those clubs bounce their pitching prospects around between the rotation and bullpen and minors even after they’ve demonstrated they can retire major league bats in order. Cleveland might be the last place you can count on a young pitcher to get a shot at six innings every time out. Take Aaron Civale for example. A third round pick in 2016 and not an elite prospect by any means, Civale lasted six innings or more in 11 or 12 starts in 2020, falling short in only his final turn, a four-inning, eight-run blowup that devastated his season-long statline and dropped him down some draft boards. It’s beautiful to get the sparkling ratios that come alone with the quick analytic hook, but we need Wins in our game, and despite their typically anemic offense, Cleveland is one of the few places to find double digit winners throughout the rotation.
Sleepers don't have to mean they put you to sleep, but in this case...Well...I mean...Yawns...Looks both ways at a red light, briefly dozes off...What were we talking about? Jorge Polanco! Right! Pure excitement! Exclamation mark after exclamation mark! Jorge Polanco came with large question marks prior to last year (in my mind, at least). Here's what I said about him going into last year, "I know by heart most of the main stats from the main guys within a couple homers and ten to fifteen runs or RBIs. If you asked me Polanco’s home run total prior to writing this blurb, I would’ve started at 10 and went up by one until the audience at The Price is Right would’ve stood up, booing, and left the theater. Then, finally, when I found out he hit 22 homers, I would’ve looked up his stats at three different sites, not believing it. Then, finally, I would’ve said his HR/FB% must’ve been at least 25%, only to find out I was, like a good linens sale, roughly 15% off. Wow, Polanco hits lots of fly balls. I had no idea. That doesn’t bode well for his .295 average. I don’t know how to figure this out, but I bet his season last year was in the top 5% of the statistical anomalous, and I don’t even know what ‘statistical anomalous’ means. I just made it up. I guess what I’m saying if you had a guy who hit 44.4% fly balls and finished in the bottom 5% of exit velocity, it’s statistically impossible for him to have a .295 average. Though, that brings another point up, Polanco makes a good case against Statcast’s “line drives,” which are different than Baseball Info Solutions (which are used by Fangraphs), because Polanco had the 6th most “line drives” from BIS, but finished hideously for exit velocity, according to StatCast. If you hit .295, you have to think BIS’s ‘line drives” are more accurate. Okay, could someone text me their coordinates, because I just went down a massive rabbit hole and got lost." And that's me quoting me! What I feared would happen last preseason happened. His 2020 numbers were .258/.304/.354 and he hit four homers and stole four bags. So, why have high hopes for him this year? Or rather...So, what can we expect from Jorge Polanco for 2021 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?
Razzball Patreon members receive our weekly podcast where Grey cackles about the funniest news stories we’ve found over the past week, plus you get that warm fuzzy feeling of supporting your favorite fantasy sports site in all the land.
It’s your favorite hour of the week!
I Can’t Believe It’s Not Not News is back again with all the Billy Hurley jokes and Grey Albright cackles you can handle. It was a laid back holiday show this week as Grey shares his famous Albright pastrami with the world. Off the top, we discuss the new Japanese pajama suits that are sweeping Toyko. Later we investigate lost Chinese martial art of Iron Crotch Kung Fu and then round the show out with a murder suspect who escapes prison transport with in a McDonalds drive-thru.
Tune in now for all the laughs and Albright cackles you can handle by signing up for the exclusive
Razzball Patreon Club for only $5/month!
Find all of this week’s hilarious stories here:
