Welcome back for another star-studded event! Assuming you hack into your favorite online dictionary and replace the definition of ‘star’ with “guy who lives in his mom’s basement and screams when someone finishes his Doritos,” and next to the definition of ‘stud’ you put a picture of yourself. The Razzballies are the only award show where it’s totally fine to show up in sweatpants, and for your fingers to be orange from Cheetos. We don’t judge. We will occasionally mock. Mock-judge, tomato-tomahto. Get over it! I hope you enjoyed the clip show where I inserted myself into various baseball clips from this year. How about the clip where I was Joe Maddon intentionally walking Bryce Harper? Hee-lar-e-US! So, before I’m talking to no one but a room full of seat-fillers, here’s the year-end awards for the best and worst of fantasy baseball:
Fantasy AL Most Valuable Player – Before we announce our first winner, I just want to introduce the accountants from Lobstein, Kipnis and Yunel. Without them, I’d be counting the votes all on my own and I have a hard enough time counting to eleven without dropping trou. Your AL MVP, and a guy I like to personally thank for helping my offense in a few leagues, the one, the only…Sorry, having a hard time opening this envelope….Mookie Betts! Whatever you call him — Mookie Ballgame, the Greatest Mookie Who Ever Lived With Apologies To Mookie Wilson and Mookie Blaylock, the Hamilton Musical In Baseball Form, the Unfrozen Ted Williams, or simply, Mookie Best — there was no one more valuable in the American League this year. We have no time for speeches, but Mookie would like to thank his stacked lineup.
Fantasy NL Most Valuable Player – The NL Fantasy MVP, like the AL one, doesn’t take into account team wins and “intangibles.” Nope, here as Razzball HQ, we look at tangibles! And those aren’t fungible! This is commonsensible. Uh-oh, I’m stick in an ‘ible loop, what can I do? Listen to the Bible on Audible? There’s only one man that can help, he goes by the name of Vie-R. That’s right! The NL MVP is a guy whose last name you can’t even pronounce…Jonathan Villar! This might be the first time in eight years of these awards a waiver wire pick is the MVP of a league. Too bad I didn’t tell you to draft him. Oh, wait, I did. About ten times, including my shortstop sleeper post that has Segura, Villar, Ketel, Semien, Tim Anderson, Story and Didi. Five out of seven ain’t bad, as a ‘roided-out Meatloaf would sing.
Fantasy AL Cy Young – The NL Cy Young is a slam dunk. The AL Cy Young is a dam slunk, as in it’s obvious but still makes no sense except in backwards world. Last year, it was Dallas Keuchel that won the fantasy Cy Young, and regular one, and this year’s winner will have a lot in common with him. Mostly because I won’t want (stutterer!) to be within five rounds of drafting him when he’s taken next year, but my flummoxing is best left to my recap of all the top 40 starters in the next week or so and the offseason. Today, we celebrate the unlikely Fantasy AL Cy Young, Rick Porcello! I’d give him a chance to say something but I used all his time by talking about how much I don’t like him.
Fantasy NL Cy Young – This was the slam dunk; Max Scherzer walked away with the award like he walks away from comments like, “What the hell is up with your eyes?” Too bad the Tigers didn’t keep Scherzer and Porcello to go with Fantasy AL Cy Young runner-up, Verlander. They might not have started Anibal Sanchez for 26 games.
Fantasy AL Least Valuable Player – Justin Upton looked like he was walking away with this award for the first five months, but, like Justin Upton is wont to do, he screwed this up too. I’d personally love to give the award to Sonny Gray, but he wasn’t drafted high enough to be truly unvaluable (Made Up Word of the Day!). Miguel Sano was shizzy on the stizzy, if you feelzie me, but, again, I told you to avoid him, and these are my awards. It’s not Carlos Gomez, because I hated him in the preseason and he was ranked after the winner, and still my awards. The player who won (lost?) was the guy in the background of the strip club yelling, “Yo, you gotta see this girl’s knockers!” as you tell your wife that you’re working late. The one, the only…Jose Bautista. He was ranked in the top 30 on most preseason lists and now he’s in the top 20s of the 200s on the Player Rater. I’d give Bautista his award but I can’t find him, oh, there he is, batting leadoff.
Fantasy NL Least Valuable Player – Bryce Harper wins in a landslide, a landslide caused by his owners stomping their feet and throwing hissy fits at his hitting. Harper made baseball fun again, for everyone that had a draft pick later than three overall and didn’t draft Harper. There’s hope next year though, since Ian Desmond won last year’s NL Least Valuable Player and the year before was Carlos Gonzalez. In other words, Shelby Miller wishes he could’ve won this award; would be his first positive in six months.
Fantasy POS – Because you have to get an award, and there’s none more fitting, Justin Upton, you are this year’s Fantasy POS. You made it impossible for people to carry you for the first four months, then made those same people regret dropping you in your final two months. We will be shipping an x-ray of Pablo Sandoval’s stomach to Upton, because a few years back Sandoval ate this award.
Fantasy Hitter You Most Likely Dropped and Picked Up A Dozen Times – “Michael Saunders is not only hot, but he’s in the middle of the Jays’ lineup!…Saunders is cold but still in the middle of the Jays’ lineup…Is Saunders now in a platoon?…Saunders is hot again, but hitting eighth…Saunders is being moved up…And day-to-day with his knee…Saunders is healthy but not hitting…Healthy and hitting…Healthy and out of the lineup…In the lineup, healthy, not healthy, out of the lineup, and Saunders is giving me a nervous breakdown…HELP!” Runners-up: Kevin Kiermaier and Leonys Martin.
Player You Had Forever and Most Likely Should’ve Dropped – “I’m really loving Nomar Mazara!” Three months later, “Is Mazara even still playing? Why do I own this guy? Hello? Hello? Damn, I shouldn’t ask these questions in a cave.”
Player On The Top Of Your Waivers That You Just Couldn’t Bring Yourself to Pick Up – “There’s no way Khris Davis continues to hit home runs at the rate of, well, Chris Davis.”
Pitcher You Streamed So Much You Ended Up Owning Him – “Okay, I’m going to give a Whirlybird Streamer Streamstein to Tanner Roark, but if he’s bad, I’m losing him so fast it’s gonna hurt him.” And that’s the story of how you ended owning Tanner Roark for three months. Close runner-up: Danny Duffy.
Player You Were Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop From, But Thankfully It Never Did – Jonathan Villar’s improbable season was improbably terrific, though you probably knew that.
Player You Were Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop From and It Ended Up Kicking You in the Groin – For the better part of three months, you loved everything about Drew Pomeranz, then he got dragged by the Regression Fairies, and when I say dragged, I mean 6-foot men in four-inch pumps.
Player You Were Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop From and When It Did You Were Okay With It – Mark Trumbo. Sure, he didn’t hit .350 after May, but he did continue to hit bombs and leaving you with a Trumboner.
Player You Traded Away That You Most Regretted – “As long as Brian Dozier doesn’t hit 28 homers in the 2nd half, I’m fine trading him for a closer.” *cut to three months later* “Oh, eff me.”
Player You Traded For That You Most Regretted – Bryce Harper can’t be this bad…Wow, no, he can be worse. Runner-up: mi novio, Giancarlo.
Top SAGNOF – Jonathan Villar/Jeanmar Gomez. Remember, the essence of SAGNOF is cheap saves and steals. No one came close to Gomez for cheap saves and Villar is going to need to talk to Meryl Streep about building extra award shelves.
Remember That Feeling You Had When You Walked In On Your Parents Having Sex, This Pitcher Gave You That Feeling Every Fifth Day – Shelby Miller. May he accidentally have a tub of mayonnaise dropped on him, then get caught in an elevator with Sandoval and Billy Butler.
