Maybe the funniest part of doing this gig is realizing how insanely destructive season-long roto fantasy baseball can be to one’s mental health. Whether you are in the basement, hunting for third place whilst languishing in the 6th spot, or even in a healthy 1st place, the grind gets to you. Reading the updates, maintaining your roster, trying to convince your cravenly obdurate league-mates to trade anyone who without them throwing in someone they just picked up off waivers; it’s brutal. In the fantastic work of the late and still great J Dilla, we find an artist who takes a beautiful, pristine 5-second loop of music, and chops it into an extremely moving aural collage that is both compositionally complex, and almost paradoxically dance-able. Meanstwhile, an engineer in a state-of-the-art recording studio would press play on a soul record and P Puff Diddy Daddy (he was the original rotosportsedgeworld) would slap “produced by me” on it and prepare to grunt and say, “Yeah,” maybe 30 times while Biggie turned his laziness into pure gold.
I say this because each year we approach fantasy baseball as if we are Dilla, reinventing the wheel, taking the “this will be our year” mentality and applying it to every draft and waiver move. By late July/early August, we are all P Puff Diddy Daddy, hoping someone else will figure out which scrippy middle reliever will take on closing duties when their team’s closer is traded to a contender. I also say this because no matter how much praise is lavished on Dilla, it is never enough. Ever.
Additionally, a warning: Trust not the closer blurbs that end with “…he most certainly will be dealt at the deadline.” Every year I hoard handcuffs, and either the closer doesn’t get dealt, or the handcuff gets dealt to a team where holds aren’t even guaranteed. That being said, am I currently holding Bednar in fear that Richard Rodriguez gets dealt? Does an owl not ululate their love for the music of Pete Townsend, Keith Moon, John Entwistle, and Roger Daltry on a daily basis?
The answer is yes.
On to the blurbs!
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 and Q – when a site contradicts a player valuation on back-to-back blurbs
- Prospects – Where some
- 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
Cubs’ Alzolay tosses five strong in ND vs Arizona
Alzolay worked in his new cutter during the contest but only generated a 14 percent CSW on the offering and swinging strikeouts. Perhaps in time, this new weapon will help the 26-year-old go deeper into games, but it is a work in progress for now. Alzolay is carrying a 4.59 ERA and 1.11 WHIP over 82 ? innings this season but will look to add another win to his resume when he takes on the Cardinals next week on the road.
Source: Rotoedgeworld.com
Five strong innings where the pitcher struck out two, allowed seven base runners, and gave up two runs? And then you don’t back it up with underlying statistics? Remember that scene in Inception where Leo DiCaprio is showing Elliot Page the concept of “Paradox” in dream architecture, only it’s really confusing and you pretended you got it while watching? That is this blurb.
Q and Q
J.D. Davis went 3-for-4 with a pair of two-run home runs on Saturday versus the Pirates
The 28-year-old was on a tear during his rehab assignment in Triple-A Syracuse and brought that momentum with him to Pittsburgh. Both long balls came off of Pirates starter Wil Crowe and traveled a combined 812 feet….
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
The top 75 Average Distance Per Home Run, or ADPHR, is 400 feet and above. Beyond the impressive and easily remembered acronym, this tells us that players hitting 800 feet of baseball when they hit two home runs is still not impressive. Jorge Soler averages 427 feet. That’s impressive, even though he’s reverted to Cubs Jorge Soler. I think it’s more impressive when Myles Straw hits a 353 foot squeaker. Never has a player’s name better lined up with an action on the field (besides every player named Homer, Slider, or LOOGY, that’s too obvious). Myles Straw is literally the first house in The Three Little Pigs that gets annihilated. Glad he was able to sneak that ground rule double over the wall before his brutal exsanguination at the hands of that butcher wolf. Too graphic for a Monday? Meh. I beg to defer…to an extra Q & Q!
Craig Kimbrel struck out a pair in a scoreless ninth inning on Saturday against the Diamondbacks to pick up his 21st save of the season.
The right-hander opened the ninth by walking David Peralta but responded by getting Josh VanMeter and Dalton Varsho to strikeout out swinging over the next three batters. Kimbrel has performed above and beyond what fantasy managers expected this season with a 0.53 ERA and 0.65 WHIP over 33 ? innings with 58 strikeouts. The Cubs closer is performing at peak levels with a 35.8 percent 0-Swing rate (swings generated out of the zone) and 18.9 percent swinging-strike rate, which is 7.5 points better than league average.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
We’re getting bullet points again, because this is a behemoth:
- He walked Peralta, but he then struck out VanMeter and Varsho…over…the next three batters? Is there a missing Diamondback in there? Did Pavin Smith get lost in the tunnel like Spinal Tap? Were there two outs and the game was canceled due its utter meaninglessness? Was this game actually a performance of Lou Reed’s Berlin?
- Strikeout out
- 0.53 ERA and 0.65 WHIP over 33 ? innings – HOW ARE HIS RATIOS NOT MICROSCOPIC?? Freaking 0% rostered Danny Coulombe got a Paternity List Blurb which mentioned his microscopic 1.13 ERA and 1.00 WHIP the same week?! I am apoplectic over here (though not while carefully typing apoplectic. Apoplectic is a word I both say and type very slowly, like an old man typing an email at your local library, only it’s every word for him, and even though he smiles at you and is friendly, you point to your earbuds and mouth the words, “Can’t hear” and move four computers away from him because you see your future and you are a scared child, but also, stranger danger)!
- Guess I should have used paragraphs?
Prospect
Angels recall OF Brandon Marsh from Triple-A Salt Lake.
The top prospect was batting .287/.389/.528 this season in the minor leagues with four home runs, six doubles, four triples, and two stolen bases over 108 at-bats. Marsh will be in the lineup on Sunday and play centerfield. He is worth a pickup in all formats if practical due to his well-rounded skill set and speed.
Source: Rotoedgeworldsports.com
“If practical.” Dang. Here are all the variables the analysis did not account for in an appropriately administered bullet point list:
- League Size
- H2H Weekly vs Season-Long Roto
- 5×5 Cats vs Points Leagues w/ Extra Cats (doubles, triples, cycle (why?))
- Redraft vs Keeper
- AL Only vs Mixed
Other things to mention: Mike Trout and Justin Upton will return. Joe Maddon will continually play Adam Eaton and Juan Lagares as if their prospects don’t exist. Jo Adell will eventually get called up. Marsh’s stats happened in the power-happy PCL parks. Or that Marsh’s career high is 7 homers and 18 stolen bases last year? I don’t know. That kind of stuff seems really important before stating “you should pick him up.” He seems like a Bradley Zimmer clone to me, only less Frankenstein’s Monster in appearance and more Jayson Werth’s simulacrum.
Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award
Luis Arraez went 1-for-3 as the Twins were shutout in the first game of Saturday’s seven-inning double header against the Tigers.
Clearly, the Twins’ lineup failed to get anything going as four Tigers’ pitchers combined on a two-hit shutout.
Source: Rotoedgeworldsports.com
Clearly. There truly is nothing to be learned from this blurb. I know less about Luis Arraez than when I started reading said blurb. This blurb is Anais Nin via Joe Buck. The poetry of Nin, not the erotica. I believe I may have conjured some kind of demon in my ramblings by creating the image of Joe Buck reading the collected erotic short stories of Anais Nin. We are beyond hope. I have cursed us all. Could you imagine his eyes while he read it? How he holds the book? How he would pause…I’M SORRY. I truly am.
The blurb is to be blamed, clearly. There truly is nothing to be learned from this blurb. I know less…about…Luis…oh god it’s looping. We’re trapped. I’ve doomed us all.
YOU HAVE TWO CHOICES:
You decide to listen to Joe Buck read the entirety of Anais Nin’s erotica (turn to page 76)
You decide to keep calm and blurb on, see you next week (turn to page 420 bro)
