There are those among us pleased that Jacob deGrom is getting a second Tommy John surgery. I do not count myself among them, as I am not a complete monster. I am a partial monster. This little introduction is dedicated to those claiming a level of Fantasy Baseball Edge regarding Jacob deGrom’s draft position in regards to his injury history.
Almost every single person playing fantasy baseball in 2023 faded Jacob deGrom when drafting this season. There are always a straggler’s handful of self-harming humans willing to overpay for a guy no one wants. These are rubes. Sometimes I am that rube. It’s fun to go against the grain, and maybe years later you can laugh about throwing away your entire draft strategy to overpay for someone like deGrom. However, it didn’t happen. I didn’t draft him anywhere, and I’m in the very large majority. If he was drafted, it was at a steep discount hoping for a half season of brilliance.
Follow not the false idols proclaiming their expertise based on the injury of one of the most injured/talented pitchers of this current generation. If you’re hitching your cart to that horse, you’re already up to your ears in the glue factory. Just set your lineups to auto-populate and let others dictate your intelligence.
We’ll be here at Razzball, continuing not to insult your mind or your good looks.
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
Red Sox recalled LHP Chris Murphy from Triple-A Worcester.
Murphy has compiled a serviceable 5.50 ERA, 1.57 WHIP and 58/41 K/BB ratio across 75 1/3 innings (15 starts) this season between Triple-A Worcester and Double-A Portland. The 25-year-old left-hander figures to take the ball either Wednesday or Thursday against the Guardians in his major league debut.
Source: Rotoworld
I wish I could do anything that would be considered serviceable as much as this blurb portends the word “serviceable” to mean. He hasn’t pitched well. I don’t think LHP Chris Murphy from Triple-A Worcester would say he’s pitched well. It has that real “Did You Know That a C+ Is Actually Average and It’s Actually Good Guys?” energy.
Serviceable on any major league team would be an innings-eater, a 3.90 to 4.25 ERA 5-6 innings journeyman. A guy who walks backwards into 11 wins per season. Every team needs a number 5 0r 6 starter that looks like a half-remembered David Wells. That’s serviceable. If I’m Murphy, I’m not wanting people to tell me that performance is good.
I hate when people tell me I’m doing a good job at something I know I screwed up. Don’t tell me it’s serviceable when a carwash doesn’t remove all the bird glop off my windshield. It’s not serviceable when there’s still dried avocado all over my spoons after a run through the dishwasher. It’s gross. I mean, for my kid. I just scrape it off and rub it with a kitchen towel, which is also pretty dirty itself. I’m under the impression that literally anything used to clean anything in anyone’s home is filthy. You want clean? Go to a hospital. In this house, we scrape old food off of utensils and use ’em like new. We only have one life, and I’ll be damned if I don’t die of salmonella on my own terms.
Conjunction Malfunction
Josh Lowe went 3-for-4 with a RBI and run scored in a 6-2 win over the Red Sox on Sunday.
Lowe is having a breakout campaign because the Rays are not letting him face left-handed pitchers. Lucky for fantasy managers, most of the league’s starters are right-handed. The Rays are expected to face five righties in their seven games next week, so Lowe should see plenty of playing time this upcoming week.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
The “because” in this blurb is an absolutely loaded word. In my mind, it conjures a phrase I hear little kids say on the playground while promising myself I won’t look at my phone while pushing my kid on the swing (I do though, I get bored and look at my phone and I read about why they made a bunch of movies about driving across the country in the 70’s (Cannonball Run, Gumball, Speed Zone, etc) and the answer is because a journalist wanted to celebrate a guy who protested national 55 MPH speed limits. What, you think people are just insane about guns and their rights? Wait till you read about people protesting seatbelt laws, absolute Darwin’s Law nimrods). The phrase the kids say, by the by, is, “Yeah you beat me, only because blah blah.” Only because is an excuse, a cover for a rotten performance.
I know I’m projecting here, but I view this here Biological Log (Blog) as an extension of my interior dialogues. You know what it’s like having a Greek chorus arguing with three iterations of your ego death? I’m asking a lot of questions this week. Right Greek Chorus?
Chorus: The author knows not where any of this jagged nonsense is going. Fear not, fair reader. He is a real maroon.
Author: But am I asking a lot questions though? While we’re all here?
Chorus: The author creates further meta-confusion, allowing the shallow shield of irony to deflect any attempt at stringing together even two sentences that relate to one another. At what cost?
Author’s Ego: It’s pretty great though, isn’t it? All these questions? And everyone loves when a joke gets beat to death. When it’s just pulverized like a single Necco wafer under a steam roller.
Author’s Id: Could you DM me a pic of the Greek Chorus’s feet? It’s for research. I know those ancient Greeks wore sandals, and those feet were grimy.
Author: I feel like maybe I’m asking too many questions?
Chorus: We already have a page on Wikifeet.
Author’s Superego: Caught you breaking the fourth wall!
Author: The Greek Chorus is literally a fourth wall. And no one likes a snitch.
Author’s Superego: You do kind of have a thing for snitches.
Author’s Id: (makes a series of Jerry Lewis-via-Austin Powers-via-Rodney Dangerfield ululations)
Pete Alonso: (entering stage left) Throw it again!
His wrist is shattered by a pitch thrown from a pitch machine set up in the audience. Cue sad trombone sample.
Pete Alonso: (while exiting stage left) He did. He did throw it again.
Fin.
As I was saying, this blurb makes it sound like Lowe’s wonderful production is an accident. That’s not true. He still has to hit really well against right handers. In fact, if Josh Lowe were playing against LHP’s one might even just bench him against his weak-side platoon for fantasy purposes. Maybe the case is being made that restricting players from getting everyday at bats is actually good. But look back through baseball you’ll find hundreds of Rob Deeres. He is the father of Adam Dunn and Joey Gallo. Someone needs to lead the kingdom of Swinging Really Hard with One’s Eyes Closed.
Let it be Josh. Especially this season, the first I’ve had zero shares of him. I’m feeling generous.
Flowery Diction
Logan Allen tallied his third victory of the season on Saturday, limiting the Twins to two runs on seven hits over six strong frames.
The rookie southpaw struck out four on the afternoon while issuing a pair of walks. He served up a leadoff solo homer to Jorge Polanco, then kept the Twins off the board until Donovan Solano laced an RBI double to center in the fifth inning. Allen generated nine whiffs on 95 pitches in the ballgame — six on his heater — while posting a CSW of 28 percent. He now holds a tremendous 2.76 ERA, 1.34 WHIP and a 47/13 K/BB ratio over 45 2/3 innings through his first eight starts. He’ll look to keep the good times rolling when he squares off against the Astros at home on Friday.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
Have to add tremendous to the list of player descriptors. You’ll see the table below. I’ll use “tremendous as an example
| Player | Performance descriptor | Pitching Stats | Hitting Stats |
| Logan Allen | Tremendous | 2.76 ERA, 1.34 WHIP | x |
I am attempting to build a database this season of adjectives used to describe player performance, and the statistics used to back them up. On a non-silly-very-practical level, I want to see if we can all stop seeing these oft-employed yet vague words while reading blurbs. That’s a bigger project. Meanwhile, I don’t view a 1.34 WHIP as tremendous. Maybe I’m a WHIP supertaster, but the ratio correction gods tend to smile upon such WHIP and see a pitcher ending the season with VERY SERVICEABLE 3.85 ERA. I prefer that correction to occur on someone else’s team.
Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award
According to Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat, the Cardinals are recalling top prospect Jordan Walker from Triple-A Memphis on Friday.
Walker will rejoin the Cardinals ahead of Friday’s series opener against the Pirates. The 21-year-old top prospect struggled to a .274/.321/.397 triple-slash line with two homers and two steals in 20 games to open the regular season before being jettisoned to the minors in late April. He’s taken a step forward over the last two weeks for Triple-A Memphis, batting .292 (14-for-48) with three homers across 12 games since May 18. He’s clearly talented enough to make an immediate five-category impact for fantasy managers.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
Much like Chris Murphy’s rather unfortunate blurb, but in the opposite direction. On the same website we find a 5.00+ ERA/1.50+ WHIP “serviceable” while a .274/.321/.397 triple-slash line with two homers and two steals in 20 games for a 21-year-old rookie a “struggle.” The variance is incredible and speaks to a continued trend in blurb writing where certain players receive the benefit of statistical context while others do not.
When did 10-30 at bats equal a sample large enough to qualify a slump? Does every player have to be Elly De La Cruz right out of the gate? Is a struggle hitting below .290 and not averaging a 3 HR+SB a week?
So many rhetorical questions this week. The answers are right there. I’m keeping a separate list of when players are deemed to be “struggling.” We’ll check in on it next week.
Bob Nightengale Memorial Plaque
Randal Grichuk is in Thursday’s lineup against the Diamondbacks.
He’ll take a seat against right-hander Zach Davies. Nolan Jones will make the start in right field and bat seventh while the returning Charlie Blackmon will DH.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
This blurb’s a real pickle. A good FMLB player checks their lineup and might use blurbs to make sure players weren’t scratched at the last minute (and by whom??), or the game postponed so one could swap in a player accruing stats. A bad FMLB player relies solely on blurbs to make their line-up choices. And absolute brick bag uses Twitter to follow blurb sites, wherein they then click the link to read the blurb on a page they probably have open in another tab.
Just kidding, everyone enjoys their content differently. Some people find comfort in extra steps. Some find comfort in driving a nail deeply into their own palm. I find great comfort in using the secret Razzball Cabal (the Razzcabal) DM thread so that others will consume blurbs and translate for me. I think everyone on the RB crew will acknowledge the self-imposed brain damage I’m incurring from writing this piece every week, especially since I’m sleep training a one-year-old. We all make choices every day to prolong or shorten our rather brief lives on this miraculous orb. I’d like to think people find blurbs for me because they know that it’s a reversed “It’s a Wonderful Life” situation. Every time I find a blurb to stomp, maybe an angel has its wings torn off with God’s cruelest tweezers. Or perhaps a demon gets its horns.
What I’m saying is feel free to find me on Twitter (@hugedays) and send me anything you want me to stomp. I’ve been requested to stomp one of my favorite weekly Razzball features, and by god’s holy rollers I’ll do it.
Thanks for reading, and if I don’t answer your comments, know that it comes from a place of having the internet PR savvy of a 14-year-old labrador retriever mixed with terrible executive functioning and imposter syndrome. Hey, at least I’m not fun at parties!
Kidding, I’m one of those Extroverted Introverts whom you will enjoy giggling around with, and if you’re still reading we’re already best friends. I love you. Be well.
