There was a time in the mid-2000’s where only some of my friends had found daily box score websites. This was when ESPN and Yahoo were the only fantasy platforms that I knew of that weren’t some dude’s excel spreadsheet. Yahoo had their own player updates that were separate from Rotoworld, and I think ESPN had their own blurb system? Rotoworld existed, but you had to look for it. I’m sure there were others (Rotowire, etc) but they existed [Vincent Price voice] BEHIND THE PAYWALL. As a younger person, I had more important things to spend my money on. Like ramen. Or a dozen eggs, most of which I over-fried and over-salted. Let me tell you, I smelled great those days.
To be clear, I don’t want to go back to those halcyon days, and not only because of the funky scents. For every site, even the dying phoenix of Yahoo that seems like it’s on it’s last rebirth cycle, there are blurbs, and Research Assistants, and Match Up Ratings, and now there are Prop Bets too. It behooves you to figure out which update site serves you best, but it also serves you to figure out what tools your league mates are using. Do they use whatever blurb system defaulted to the league site? Do they read multiple sites? How do they have time to do that? Are they one of those tab hoarders that lifehack sites write about, and then they feel personally attacked, so they open ten more tabs out of spite?
Like my tabs, I try to keep my resources streamlined. I go to Razzball and Fangraphs (BEHIND THE PAYWALL). Because of this article, I am constantly trolling Fantasypros, Ye Olde Rotoworlde, ESPN, CBS, Fantrax, and some other sites I can’t remember. Don’t do what I am doing. It is a fool’s errand, and suddenly you’re Carrie in Homeland, connecting dots that were never meant to meet, and you’re having sex with terrorists. It’s bad. “Wow, five of these sites wrote the word ‘potential’ in their blurb about Khalil Lee. That means he’s going to steal at least 35 bases and get called up tomorrow, and also play ever day!” You need less static in your life, so do yourself a favor and streamline your news feed. Also, use a read later extension you tab freaks, or admit to yourself that you’ll never read everything. I will fight you in the comments, though lord knows you’ll get halfway through your rebuttal, open 10 more tabs, and forget you about your brutal take-down piece.
A Blurbstomp Reminder
We will analyze player blurbs from a given evening, knowing that 1-2 writers are usually responsible for all the player write ups posted within an hour of the game results. We will look at:
- Flowery Diction – how sites juice up descriptions of player performance
- Q/Q – Combined with Flowery Diction this week
- Hex Enduction Power – where a blurb can make an injury much, much worse
- Bob Nightengale Syndrome – instances of updates that don’t update anything
- Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award – Given to the player blurb that promises the most and delivers the least.
The hope is that by season’s end, we’ll all feel more confident about our player evaluations when it comes to the waiver wire. We will read blurbs and not be swayed by excessive superlatives, faulty injury reporting, and micro-hype. I will know that I have done my job when Grey posts, and there isn’t a single question about catchers that he did not address in his post. Onward to Roto Wokeness!
Flowery Diction
Ian Happ went 3-for-4 with a solo homer and two RBI on Sunday as the Cubs took two of three games against the Tigers with a 5-1 victory in the series finale.
Happ was off to a frosty start at the plate before being injured in a collision with teammate Nico Hoerner, which sidelined him for nearly two weeks earlier this month. Yet, he appeared to break out of his season-long slump in this one, drilling a pair of extra-base hit off lefty Matthew Boyd, including an RBI double in the fourth inning, and a solo homer in the sixth inning. Given his track record of power and speed production, Happ is worthy of a speculative stash for fantasy managers in deeper mixed leagues.
I’d hate to think people use blurbs to avoid reading game recaps, and the first line in this blurb drives me bonkers. I’m like David Lynch scoffing at the idea of people watching movies on their phones over here. Time will not look kindly on my old-fashioned thinking, so I’m here to tell Time to give it a rest. We get it. You keep going, people take you for granted, you’re not just a measurement, you’re a dimension. Who cares? Most kids don’t know how to understand you until college! Boo yah Time! Face! [Time laughs at my outburst, checks its calendar, knows that he’s my master, goes back to hate-blogging about video games that aren’t RTS].
The wording I also want to focus on is this: “…he appeared to break out of his season long slump in this one.” I don’t know about you, but I think of a slump being busted after a seven game sample. Or in the case of Eddie Rosario, his slump is over once he hits five home runs a day for two weeks. That guy owes me. He’s not slumping when I say he’s not slumping! One game is great, but I need more baby, more!
This is a great example of hyperbole leading to you possibly selling Happ for more than you could yesterday. He’s still under 50% owned, but you have to assume those other leagues are abandoned ghost leagues, like the empty ships that apparently just float around in the Pacific Ocean, even in this year of our lord 2020, when we’re blessed with a Elon Musk’s cartoon villain satellite array that can take pictures of you flicking boogers in your living room from outer space. How are there still ghost ships at this point? Anywho, you can either buy or sell Happ citing this blurb. I’m buying, and not just because I’m a Northsider.
Q and Q
Marlins third baseman Brian Anderson went 1-for-4 with a run scored in Friday’s loss to the Dodgers.
Fantasy Impact: Anderson is still batting just .206 on the season through 26 games but does have at least one hit in five of his last seven games.
Source: Fantasypros
This sad little write up about Brian Anderson has a thumbs up/thumbs down “Was this helpful?” option at the bottom right of every post. I’ve gotta say, I did not see Fantasypros going the route of Google Help, Apple help desk, or any of those sites that offer six year old answers that don’t apply to the question you’re searching for. I can’t imagine the nightmare scenario where you’re writing these blurbs, and the head of the site is looking at your Thumbs Up/Thumbs down metrics. Internet user Random K. Normal should not have a say whether this Brian Anderson blurb is useful.
That being said, I’m interested in the nature of blurbs dedicated to fringey players with statistical offerings that would put amphetamines to sleep. I find there is a criteria that most blurbs fall under. Blurbs should detail:
- Players with great performance that day
- Players who should be performing well, but continue to struggle
- Injury-related
- Minor league updates of note, or call ups
- Players getting a day off
I don’t see the use of blurbs outside of this scope. This Brian Anderson blurb almost seems like a “Where are they now” Taboola clickbait, or an image of a woman holding a giant fish, with the caption “You won’t believe what happens next.” It would make more sense if there was some analysis describing what kind of leagues Anderson could be useful in (NL-Only leagues, bench option until he heats up). Here’s what happens next with Brian Anderson: You’re one of the 20% of people owning him, so he hits around .240 for a week, maybe a homer and a steal, and then you drop him for someone Grey recommended you pick up, but not before asking Grey in the comments. Brian Anderson is the snack food equivalent of lightly salted peanuts. You get an occasional burst of sodium, but otherwise you’re chewing and saying to yourself, “Oh, this is better as peanut butter.” This is a joke for my many American readers. I know everyone else thinks peanut butter is gross and weird.
Hex Enduction Power
Jeff McNeil’s early exit from Tuesday’s game against the Orioles was due to “body cramps,” according to the Mets.
That’s sort of a vague update, but it does sound relatively minor at least. McNeil tried to extend a single into a double in the bottom of the third inning and got thrown out. Jose Peraza replaced him at second base to begin the top of the fourth. Mets manager Luis Rojas should provide further information after the game.
Source: Rotoworld
There were so many examples of fantasy sites cursing players into IL stints. It was a bloodbath, folks, a bloodbath! I picked the freshest example I could find. The first blurb mentioning McNeil’s sore legs was posted on the 11th, mentioning he was pulled for a possible injury. The follow up ten minutes later repeated a Mets statement that he left with cramps. The thing I noticed was the unmistakable curse that followed up in the analysis: “That’s sort of a vague statement, but it does sound relatively minor at least.” Fast forward to this Sunday and McNeil has left the game and an IL stint is probable. It’s been five days since he first got hurt. I hope you already had a back up in place, or at least you picked one up off waivers before the inevitable. Teams may be able to backdate IL stints, but we as fantasy managers don’t have that luxury. Instead, we complain in the player notes comment section about players being soft, or whatever weird projection we’re doing that day to escape the oblivion of eternity.
Make the better choice. As soon as you see a post like the above, make sure you have a back-up in place. If you don’t have a back up, you’ll be SOL, FWIW. KWIM?
Bob Nightengale Award/Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award
“(Nick) Senzel hasn’t produced much this year and was caught stealing Tuesday for the fifth time this season, but there’s a lot to like moving forward….It’s also encouraging he’s already attempted to steal seven times.”
Source: Rotoworld
My friend clipped and sent me the highlights from this blurb, and my eyes bugged out of my head like I was Christopher Lloyd in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.” This is an incredible case of Optimism Bias. I tried to find the blurb yesterday…and it was gone. I had found it last Wednesday, but I searched on Sunday and it was gone. Reminds me a bit of Chad Ford, who got caught editing his old NBA draft board rankings so he could boost his clout. I’m wondering how many fantasy sites edit their pre-draft rankings as the season goes. This will be fun to dig into, but for now, back to Senzel.
This analysis is absolutely brutal. He hasn’t produced much. He’s 2 for 7 in stolen base attempts, followed by a kamikaze attempt to spin that success rate as “encouraging.” That is about as wrong as you can get in a blurb, though you could have used it to sell Senzel…nope. I can’t pretend there was anything redeeming about this blurb, and neither can Rotoworld after the blurb’s removal. I looked back at his previous blurbs to see if I could find a pattern of bias. Welp:
“He should remain quite valuable for fantasy purposes if he can stay healthy.”
“Don’t go dropping him in mixed leagues.”
“He still figures to be quite valuable in mixed leagues going forward.”
“…His Statcast numbers are much better than his actual numbers–but he should be very useful in mixed leagues going forward.”
These blurbs were followed by what you read above. To be fair, I liked Senzel too, but there’s a point where you need to cut bait, and Senzel smells like my egg and ramen filled kitchen.
On Sunday, Senzel was freshly blurbed on RotoEdgeWorld:
“The 25-year-old is batting .262/.342/.337 this season with one home run and four doubles over 101 at-bats. Senzel also has two stolen bases to his credit but has been caught five times already. Fantasy managers may not want to expect much speed considering both a heel injury and a poor success rate.”
Someone recognized they went looney tunes on the Senzel analysis. I will miss this specific lunacy, but it won’t be the last time it happens. As long as there are sports, there are takes, and where there are takes, there are cranks like me willing to consume and dissect them. Have a good week, and beware of the blurbs! They are not your friends, they are information you can choose to use! So, they’re kind of like your friends if you’re a jerk. Toodles!
