Folks, the internet has declared we are no longer allowed to take “victory laps” when we correctly guess a baseball outcome. This is an incredible turn of events. The very foundations of FMLB are based on the amphetamine-like go-for-leather brain blast that occurs when someone like Aristedes Aquino births one half-season’s worth of statistics in less than two months. It’s a community-based game full of hopeful clairvoyants vying for a triumphant future-rainbow-of-numbers whose pot of gold might land on their doorstep. Congratulating yourself for getting it right every once in a while feels good. Don’t police feeling good! Feeling good is good, man!
Remember when Grey, Rudy, Blair, Keelin, and pretty much every member of Razzball tell you not to draft starters early? You should try it. I bucked the trend in my home league and ended up drafting Robbie Ray, just to see how it feels. My Big Beefy Boy should be okay in the long run, but I also drafted Manoah and Pablo Lopez for a lot cheaper. I could’ve drafted a speed guy and been better off.
If you hang your hat on telling everyone to draft Gerrit Cole in the first round, it should be okay if someone comments on the hat and hat stand. People shouldn’t call the hat nor the stand ugly, nor should they send threatening DM’s to the hat stand owner. Hats are hard! Not like a true hard hat, mind you. Finding a local haberdashery, finding something that circumnavigates your melon with both aplomb and style,
That being said, own the hat, even if it’s ratty, covered with “Mean People Suck” patches, or it smells like your grandfather’s passenger side back seat. Even if the hat has destroyed your ratios and makes you question your approach to FMLB, let it do the latter. One must adapt or die. Do you want to be the wooly mammoth or the house cat? The crypto bro or the oil baron? Jefferson Airplane or Jefferson Starship? Let me know, especially the last one, at [email protected]!
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
- Friendly Reminder – when a blurb insists upon itself
- Q and Q – when a site contradicts a player valuation on back-to-back blurbs
- The Blame Game – a player takes on the fault of the team as a whole
- Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award – Given to the player blurb that promises the most and delivers the least.
- Bob Nightengale Syndrome – instances of updates that don’t update anything
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
Corey Seager went 2-for-3 with two solo home runs and a walk Tuesday in a win over Royals.
With two men out in the bottom of the first inning, Seager hit a 103.5 mph solo home run off of Brad Keller — the game’s first run. Then, in the bottom of the third, he continued his onslaught on Keller and hit a 392-foot solo home run to right-center field. These were Seager’s first hits since May 3rd.
Source: Rotoworld
Listen. I am a confusing man who begs for consistency, concision, and clarity in all writing while naming the wrong drummer in an extended metaphor about the dangers of critique. Last week I also begged everyone to stop writing “slow start” for players, especially those not having slow starts at all. Before last night, Corey Seager had a 10/4/12/.240ish line. He is the poster boy of hype, as every year someone or other pushes him up the draft boards deciding that 2017 5.4 WAR Corey Seager is the true Corey Seager. No true anyone is going to stand up in this article, because it’s not 2013, and jokes about lyrics are going to be confined to XTC and/or Robyn Hitchcock. Not here though, not now.
Anywho, I appreciate the stiff, almost brusque mic drop of, “These were Seager’s first hits since May 3rd.” My own bias would like there to be a reckoning of sorts, a blurb that assails the hype. However, my bias imagines a silent militia of frogmen attaching mines to the hull of my Corey Seager Boredom Cruise Ship every preseason. I would now like this boat to exist. Please, someone, post video of you christening your new boat, “Corey Seager Boredom Cruise Ship.” It’s important.
He hit another home run last night. I’m still yawning somehow. It’s my loss, I suppose.
Q&Q
Aaron Nola allowed five runs (four earned) on nine hits and a walk over 5 1/3 innings on Tuesday against the Mariners. He struck out six and took the loss, falling to 1-4.
Nola was in trouble from the outset, allowing hits to three of the first four batters. Although he wasn’t at his best, he did allow just five hard-hit balls all night, and the velocity on his fastball was up nearly a mile per hour over what we’ve seen this year. As usual, Nola’s outing was greatly impacted by the sub-par defense behind him, as his FIP (1.39) and xFIP (2.38) in the game were far below his ERA (6.75). That is, unfortunately, just something that managers need to accept with Nola, and he remains one of the more reliable starters in the game. Continue to leave him in your starting lineup, including in his next outing against the Dodgers.
Source: Fantasypros.com
Reliability is something that Aaron Nola hasn’t enjoyed, to be honest. He had a few wonderful seasons, but last year wasn’t great, and for a pitcher who relies on defense when there is contact, he’s got a bunch of blitzed slow-pitch softball leaguers as his safety net. Every once in a while they’ll make an insane play, with everyone laughing and insisting that sobriety is the enemy of universe-channeled skill. Otherwise, the Phillies defense is going to yikes Nola straight to FIP Hades.
The cognitive dissonance in this blurb does a great job of representing the utter bewilderment one feels when owning Aaron Nola. You think you’re buying at a discount for an elite arm, but then you remember the last few seasons. Is the blurb saying he’s reliably mediocre? Unless you’re playing in a FIP/xFIP league, how do you call Aaron Nola reliable?
Granted, Nola is the hardest guy to peg. Keep your mind out of the toilet, even when it’s clean, there’s disinfectant or bleach in your toilet water, and you need your mind spry so you can stay vigilant regarding victory lap usage.
Q&Q
Jared Walsh homered and drove in three runs Monday in a rout of the Rays.
Walsh turned a one-run deficit into a 3-1 lead with a three-run homer off of Jeffrey Springs. The first baseman has homered six times, and plated 22 runs over 104 at-bats. Walsh has been just so-so to begin the year, but he’s starting to drive the baseball more, and should be just fine over the summer months.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
I wish I was so-so at anything the way that Jared Walsh is so-so at baseball, according to this blurb. This fine fellow is ranked 41st in all of baseball thanks to his wonderful production, even though he’s benched against most lefties. He could have even better stats, but Maddon keeps acting like all platoon splits are for the safety of his players. We can’t let you face a lefty, you’ll die out there!
This sounds like a good Hitchcock premise: A boy watches a roving gang of left-handed galoots kill his best friend, and no one believes him. As he ages into adulthood, he becomes a successful copywriter who works remotely and in seclusion, an eccentric who demands all grocery and mail deliveries be done by right-handed workers. THE TWIST: He finds an old letter from his dead childhood friend, detailing how they originally bonded. Upon reading that he was actually ambidextrous, we watch him choke himself to death with his left hand as his right hand tries to cut off his left hand.
So yeah. Jared Walsh is really great, despite what the blurb says.
Bob Nightengale Memorial Trophy
Rays OF prospect Josh Lowe homered and stole a base on Tuesday for Triple-A Durham.
Lowe also singled and drove in three runs. The homer is the third in seven games since the outfielder was demoted to Triple-A, and it’s the first steal in the minors for the speedy outfielder. Lowe didn’t have much success in his time in Tampa Bay to begin the 2022 season, but there’s no doubting his talent, and he can be a major fantasy contributor when the Rays recall him at some point this summer. Don’t give up on Lowe in the long-term, and keep him in mind for 2022 as well.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
Leaving out extraneous details is an important part of editing (unless you write purposefully obtuse run-on sentences to ironically prove points regarding the inanity of one’s own writing style and purpose). Here we have a selection of statistics that hit both recency bias (HR, SB, 3RBI’s) and confirmation bias (3 HR in last 7 games). What this blurb fails to mention is that Lowe has produced this frankly absurd ratio:
17:25
The first number is Josh Lowe’s number of May strikeouts since being demoted. The second number is his total at-bats.
I adore the positivity, but man does it take the largest suspension of disbelief since Colin Powell gave his WMD talk in Congress to just ignore 17 strikeouts in 25 at-bats.
Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award
Hunter Greene allowed two runs on four hits and four walks over 5 1/3 innings on Tuesday against the Brewers. He struck out six and took the loss, falling to 1-5.
The four walks are obviously troubling, but there were plenty of encouraging signs for Greene. His velocity climbed back up, as he averaged 98.4 miles per hour with his fastball and hit 100.5 miles per hour at one point. He also leaned heavily into his slider, throwing it 48% of the time and generating nine whiffs and a 33% CSW with the pitch. Greene is still walking too many batters and has an ugly 7.62 ERA and 1.81 WHIP. But if he gets his velocity back and continues to deploy his slider effectively, he can be a fantasy asset. He’ll take on the Pirates in his next start and is likely worth starting in that matchup depending on your risk tolerance.
Source: Fantasypros.com
You know what isn’t encouraging? When you have to dig really deep to find positive in a pretty meh performance, and you have to cut yourself off at the knees *twice* regarding the walks. Absolutely nothing has changed about Hunter Greene’s profile. The only positive is that instead of being obliterated, he was merely hit hard. Either way, he murdered your ratios, and I’m sure if you started him, reading this blurb made your blood boil hotter than FIP Hades.
Til next week, faithful blurbees!
