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! But don’t mock Judge, that’s not all right. 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 Kris Bryant learning about launch angles from David Eckstein? 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 Zimmerman. 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 opponent’s offense in a few leagues, the one, the only…Sorry, having a hard time opening this envelope….Mookie Betts. Just Dong would you like to say a few words to teammate Mookie? “Just, uh, dong.” Inspirational like a cat poster! The AL MVP was tight until the last week with Betts, Martinez and Jose Ramirez all within a hair of each other. Thankfully, that hair isn’t ingrown, right, Jose Abreu?
Fantasy NL Most Valuable Player – The NL Fantasy MVP, like the AL one, doesn’t take into account team wins and “intangibles.” Nope, here at 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? What’s this in my pocket? A rookie card of Oddibe McDowell? Okay, I’m done. There’s only one man that can help, he goes by the name of Christian Yelich. This was another close fight, but not nearly as close as AL. Maybe if we’re lucky Yelich will celebrate by denying a video that surfaces with him and Baker Mayfield partaking in a Devil’s Triangle.
Fantasy AL Cy Young – This winner is shocking to me, but it won’t be to Kate Upton. It’s her brother during Flowers in the Attic cosplay…Justin Verlander! When I go over all the position recaps, I’ll get more into this, but Verlander isn’t just the best AL SP on the Player Rater, for fantasy — and I emphasis this — he’s been more valuable than Jacob deGrom. Shows you the amount of luck that’s involved in getting fantasy value from pitchers. Hitters have some luck, but pitchers have an entire category that they play very little hand in. That’s also what they say to Jose Altuve at the poker table, ‘he’s in with his very little hand.’
Fantasy NL Cy Young – Max Scherzer has almost five more fantasy dollars worth of, uh, worth than Jacob deGrom. Too bad the Tigers didn’t hold onto Scherzer and Verlander. They might not have had a 4.50+ team ERA.
Fantasy AL Least Valuable Player – So many great contenders for this award. Gary Sanchez did his owners dirty, and not a good Dirty Sanchez, but a bad one. Robinson Cano played dirty and produced the fantasy value of Jesse Lames Winker. Miguel Sano let pitchers eat him up, which is surprising since, when he showed up at camp, it looks like it would be the other way around. But our number one schmohawk in the AL is your friend, not mine — Josh Donaldson. Donaldson wasn’t here to accept the award because there was two steps up into the auditorium and his knees couldn’t handle them.
Fantasy NL Least Valuable Player – We have co-winners for the NL Least Valuable award, Corey Seager and Wil Myers. Guess you can say Myers won the popular vote and Seager the Electoral College. One caused consternation (no idea what that means) through an injury, and one generally missed bliss from sucking. May they both take a long walk off a short cliff.
Fantasy POS – Because Least Valuable Player doesn’t do one man justice. One man who ruined us due to an illegal use of trust. A guy who is still swinging at a curve ball in the dirt four months after it was thrown. The one and only (thankfully)…Byron Buxton! We will be shipping an x-ray of Pablo Sandoval’s stomach to Buxton, because a few years back Sandoval ate this award.
Fantasy Hitter You Most Likely Dropped and Picked Up A Dozen Times – “I’m over Stephen Piscotty, due to his previous year on the Cards….Hmm, he seems to be hitting, maybe I should grab him…I’m grabbing Stephen Piscotty! Wow, this guy is amazing!…Hmm, he seems to have cooled off, goodbye, Stephen Piscotty…Hello, Piscotty!…Goodbye, Piscotty!…I’m eating biscotti!…Now, I’m eating the computer screen where it says Piscotty!…Piscotty doesn’t know!…I don’t know!…He knows!…I know!…I’m in a waiver wire time loop!…Someone help me!”
Player You Had Forever and Most Likely Should’ve Dropped – Ryan Braun. You’re thinking to yourself there had to be worst hitters than Braun. There were, a bunch, but for guys owned in 90% of leagues for the majority of the year, he finished around 250 on the Player Rater. We’ve FedEx’d his award to him, hope it gets there.
Player On The Top Of Your Waivers That You Just Couldn’t Bring Yourself to Pick Up – Mike Minor. He was around a top 40 starter this year and was owned in 25% of leagues as late as September, and he had a sub-3 ERA in the 2nd half. Shame on us, though mostly shame on you. Honorable mention to Anibal Sanchez. This award was a toss up, and it’s also a fake award, so, ya know, whatevs.
Pitcher You Streamed So Much You Ended Up Owning Him – “Okay, I’m going to give a Whirlybird Streamer Streamstein to Kyle Freeland, 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 Kyle Freeland for three months.
Player You Were Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop From, But Thankfully It Never Did – “I’m fine, fine, fine, fine — FINE! — with Blake Snell not quite throwing as good in the 1st half. I know not to expect it.” Then in the 2nd half he had a 1.17 ERA.
Player You Were Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop From and It Ended Up Kicking You in the Groin – A.J. Pollock. In May, “He has 9 homers in April and next year I’m moving to Poland, starting a fantasy league and just going to say ‘A.J.’ and they’ll know exactly who I mean!” In September, “He hit the same number of homers in the entire 2nd half that he hit in April and only 4 steals. Ugh, now I need to find someone to AirBnB my Warshaw apartment.” Runner-up: Didi Gregorius
Player You Were Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop From and When It Did You Were Okay With It – Mitch Haniger. He started off the year with nine homers in April and appeared ready to take his place in the top ten outfielders, but that dream faded like a drunk middle-aged man karaokeing Crowded House’s Don’t Dream It’s Over. In the end, Haniger had a solid August and September, and a better year than expected year, just not otherworldly.
Player You Traded Away That You Most Regretted – Ronald Acuña Jr. “Meh, he’s hurt and I could use a closer. What’s the best Acuña can do in the 2nd half? Five homers and a few steals. Plus, I’m scared of worms and that thing on top of his N makes me frightened.”
Player You Traded For That You Most Regretted – Gary Sanchez. “I know you say never trade for a catcher, but I can get Gary Sanchez for Zack Wheeler and David Peralta. I have to do this, right?”
Top SAGNOF – Blake Treinen/Mallex Smith. Remember, the essence of SAGNOF is cheap saves and steals. No one came close to Treinen for cheap saves and Mallex wasn’t even owned in April, so if you grabbed a May Mallex you stole SAGNOF down by the seashore.
Remember That Feeling You Had When You Walked In On Your Parents Having Sex, This Pitcher Gave You That Feeling Every Fifth Day – Jon Gray. May he accidentally have a tub of mayonnaise dropped on him, then get caught in an elevator with Willians Astudillo.
