It’s Father’s Day weekend, y’all! Get out and watch some baseball with your dad! Or if yours is like mine, they don’t like baseball at all. I bet my dad couldn’t name Mike Trout. So for me, I have to go back one generation as it was my grandfathers who got me into baseball. One, a diehard Cubs fan. The other, a diehard Royals fan (with a place in Tampa so I’ve seen way more (Devil) Ray games than I’d like to admit, though…I guess I just did, so just don’t tell anybody, okay?). They took me to games as a kid and I was lucky enough to get to take them both to games as an adult.
I love that I still get to talk baseball with my Royals grandfather (as the Cubs grandfather has passed) who was so pumped they won in 2015 and then the Cubs won last year; it’s really been a good last couple years for my family’s baseball teams. So thank those people who got you into the game (especially if its your dad/grandad on Sunday), invite them to a game, be it the majors, minors, or even beer league softball, and celebrate!
Top OPS past 14 days (min 35 ABs as of this writing):
Top 5: Paul Goldschmidt leads the bigs in OPS with a 1.290 and four homers, followed by the 27-year-old former Yankee prospect current Padre Jose Pirela. He qualifies at second base and outfield in Yahoo! (only 2B in ESPN, wah-wah) and I’ll go with the site consensus and ride him while he’s hot; a .565 BABIP is wicked high, but he is walking at a 13% clip and goes to Milwaukee then Wrigley Field this week. I like those matchups so I added him where I needed him and would advise you do similar.
Mike Moustakas is number three with a 1.240 and has been solid all season with a line of 34/18/40/.882; sneaky good value out of where he was being drafted(or not drafted). Number four is much less shocking, Aaron Judge. He’s still rolling with a 18/5/12/1.237 line, walking 19% of the time while striking out 29%. I mean, he’s going to cool off at some point, right? Right? Doesn’t he have to? At this point I’m not betting on it. Trade him at your peril; though in yearly leagues you have to do whatever helps you win, so don’t get too tied to him.
Lead-off hitter Anthony Rizzo comes in at number five with a 1.213 OPS as we all wonder why he’s hitting lead-off but I don’t care. I don’t like it for fantasy purposes obviously (unless he’s going to start stealing bases again, because that I could get behind) but the Cubs won the World Series so if Joe Maddon wants to bat Bryant 9th he can. He’s earned it. Please though good god Theo/Hoyer trade for a lead-off hitter so Maddon doesn’t have to keep experimenting and put Rizzo back in the three-hole.
Others with numbers that POP:
Joey Votto is on fire and it’s not even the second half yet; he has a 10/2/10/1/1.116 line over the past two weeks along with a 5% K rate. If you’re unhappy with your first baseman or have two utility spots I’d make offers for him. Odubel Herrera and his 11 doubles over the past two weeks help give him an OPS of 1.061; if he was dropped snatch him up, but that window may be closed; one league that I did grab him in I have too many outfielders; such is life when you play in leagues that only start three Outfielders.
Multi-position eligible Diamondback (quick aside; living on the West Coast I watch a lot of late baseball and the Diamondbacks are on sometimes, and so as she listens in passing my wife says to me she doesn’t understand why there is a team called the D-Bags, and I tell her, no, it’s D-Backs, and she says it sounds like D-Bags, and…she’s not wrong. We don’t need to shorten everything, do we?) Brandon Drury has homers in three straight games this past week which contributed to his 1.112 OPS; he’s only 24 years old, had 16 homers last season and looks to get to 20 this season; qualifying at second, third and OF is great for fill-in days. I feel I’m going to like him a lot more next season but for this one he isn’t bad either. His D-Bags travel to Philadelphia, then to Colorado, then back to AZ to face the Phils.
Weekly Josh Bell & Ryon Healy update (Bonus Hunter Renfroe!):
Hunter Renfroe and Ryon Healy both went deep Wednesday night (when I started writing this, but neither did Thursday, so now I’m holding out hope for the weekend). I like Renfroe’s matchups this week in Milwaukee and Chicago if you need some homer power. Healy has a 1.109 OPS the past couple weeks along with six homers (so good) and zero walks (not so good); after his last week binge he’s owned at a greater rate, but still not above 90% (the imaginary goal I set for him in my head just now).
Josh Bell however, has been awful quiet lately, though an .824 OPS and two homers over the last two weeks could be worse; I’m holding him as a fill in on off days in Yahoo! with his 1B/OF eligibility but in ESPN leagues with only 1B eligibility I could see cutting bait; I mean, I’m not, but if you want to I won’t stop you. Promise.
Lastly: If you’re a Daily Show fan and missed rapper Vince Staples on there earlier this week let me tell you that he was possibly the funniest guest I’ve seen on the Trevor Noah show; his deadpan was so on point, I was just cracking up (and Staples is from Long Beach, where I now reside! Isn’t that crazy? Not really, since Long Beach is a 400,000 person city in a metro area of 13 million? Don’t rain on my parade with census data, ok? He reps the LBC, and now I do too!). Big ups to the Dads out there, and see you next week Razzballers and Razzballettes!
