Three weeks out from going on vacation, one tends to start making lists. A packing list, a house cleaning list, maybe even a list of things to do (unless it’s one of those all-inclusive resorts I used to hate on until I crossed the threshold of 30 years of age and realized that paying to lie around in luxury with no itinerary, no travel-anxiety, and lots of sleeping and swimming in those pools right next to the ocean that are made out of glass for some reason). Those lists are a good starting point, a rush of accomplishment endorphins that temporarily sate our senses.
Two weeks out and you’re reminding yourself you still have time to slowly attack the lists. It is a week of deep, gratifying procrastination. “What time should we be at the gate?” you ask yourself as you download yet another image of your boarding passes from your email address. By the end of the week, you will have three copies of your boarding passes in your photo library and nothing done on your lists.
A week out and the lists are attacking you. They scream at you when you’re not actively attending to them. “HAVE YOU SET UP THE AUTOMATIC CAT FEEDER?” they might say. They might also say, “YOU STILL DON’T KNOW WHERE YOUR DOP KIT IS?” Yet another voice may also ask, “What is a dop? I get the kit part of it. Is this a military term that was adopted, some kind of shortening or acronym?” You may think about looking it up, but you remember that your actions are being dictated by a writer living many miles away, and he’s telling you it’s more interesting to know nothing these days.
A day out and you have accepted that you are leaving having accomplished half of your list. You are at peace, and nod politely as flight attendants attempt to get you to hurry up with your carry-on. You don’t mind them. You have goal, and the goal is to vacate and my friend, so you have.
While the above describes my preparation for my vacation this week, it also stands in nicely as a metaphor for the trade deadline. There were a lot of ideas and names thrown around by the press, but it seemed that many teams hung out and relaxed (besides the Mets of course), and took life as it came.
It was a wet noodle of a deadline, but I was pleased that Scott Barlow was moved, as I owned several shares of Carlos Hernandez. Who immediately gave up a home run in a tie game Tuesday night upon inheriting a decent share of the Royals closing job.
He did vulture the win!
I wrote those proceeding paragraphs before leaving on my trip and forgetting to complete this article. Vacation brain is bad for the readership! I’m still on vacation, but there were blurbs good enough to warrant the completion of this week’s Blurbstomp.
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
Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award – Given to the player blurb that promises the most and delivers the least.
Bob Nightengale Memorial Plaque – 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
Spencer Torkelson had two home runs in a 9-5 victory over the Twins on Wednesday.
Torkelson was 2-for-4 on the day with two RBI and three runs scored. He took Bailey Ober deep in the fifth inning before cranking a 415-foot shot in the seventh for his 17th home run of the season. Both were solo shots, which moves his season RBI total to 61. The second-year pro had been hitting just .120 to start August, so the strong effort on Wednesday could get him back to his mini July hot streak. He’s hitting .225/.304/.406 on the season and has yet to live up to his draft pedigree.
Source: Rotoworld
What hot streak? When? For how long? Was it a month-long? Could it still be called a hot streak, or a good month? I’m losing track. If it’s a mini-streak, are we talking five games? Can you die due to acute exposure to semantics wankery?
I generally agree that Torkelson hasn’t been the game-changer Detroit had hoped, but I he may end the year with 25+ homers and 90 RBI. Let’s stop writing as if we are a week away from the end of the season and give dude’s a chance to compile more late August and September meaninglessness.
Q&Q
Matt Vierling went 3-for-5 with an RBI in Wednesday’s win over the Twins
Vierling has settled into an everyday role for the Tigers playing 3B, LF and RF over the last week alone. In the pre-season, he was seen as a reserve who would mainly play against left-handed pitching, but he’s had a solid first season with the Tigers, hitting .272/.330/.394 with seven home runs and five steals in 90 games. He’s a solid deep league fantasy player.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
Solid is the new boring. What’s a deep league now? Are we talking 15 to 20 team? AL-Only? I have so many questions based on the vague assertions alone.
If anything, his profile could best describe him as “A Baseball Player.” I know “league-average” is a thing, but I’m into honorifics that make you pause before finish speaking them aloud. “You know, Matt Vierling. He’s fine. He’s…A Baseball Player,” you say while pursing your lips in a slight frown and raising your eyebrows. Heck, you might even have your hands on your hips and do a little upper body shrug whilst speaking the aforementioned words.
Anyways, I can see Vierling being useful in the last two weeks of the season when starters are being rested. He is, after all, A Baseball Player.
Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award
Nick Castellanos had two home runs and three RBI in a win over the Nationals on Wednesday.
Castellanos hit a 413-foot two-run home run at 105.7 mph off MacKenzie Gore in the first inning and then followed that up with a solo shot in the third. He now has 19 home runs and 70 RBI on the year while slashing .277/.317/.467. While he may not reach the heights of 2021, the 31-year-old remains a solid fantasy producer.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
C’mon now. Castellanos is about .080 slugging percentage points above Matt “A Baseball Player” Vierling and he is also described as “solid.” What does a guy have to do to escape such a tag? We here in the Fantasy Baseball Community do not care about our hitter’s defense unless it affects playing time, so what we’re left with is a blurb factory lacking even the remotest style guide.
If your job is to describe baseball box scores using flowery language, one would assume that a hierarchy of descriptors would have emerged. We all have friends who use the same descriptors for almost all situations. Growing up in Central New York and having the word HUGE burned into my memory by one of the greatest local hucksters to ever do his thing, that word could mean anything.
I know many of you may be rolling your eyes at me at this point through your computer screens, straining to ensure that I, a strange bent old man, can feel the pointy judgment of your eyeballs as they rotate away from my gaze and arch their rainbows of motion to their pots of gold. And good! I should be held to the same ridiculous and arbitrary standards I hold for others. No one shall escape their worst critics. Help me build resilience until even the most barbarous slander feels like not even the smallest snowflake falling on a dead Earth.
Bob Nightengale Memorial Plaque
Lars Nootbaar went 2-for-5 with a solo homer and a stolen base on Wednesday, leading the Cardinals to a 6-4 victory over the Rays.
Nootbaar singled and stole third base in the third inning before scalding a solo shot — his 12th round-tripper of the season — off Rays reliever Robert Stephenson in the seventh inning to complete the combo meal performance.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
Combo Meal vs. Grey’s Slam and Legs
Slam and Legs wins every time. It’s not even close. The fact that the former is a punny reimagining of the latter makes me sad. It happens every time I see it in print. I will not check to see which one came first, because right now my one year is scooting around, babbling, and attempting to satiate an inborn urge in trying to locate and play with every single outlet in my his grandparent’s home. Does he do so with his tongue hanging out, like a potent mixture of troublemaker Dennis the Menace and Michael Jordan? Yes. Yes he does.
He just knocked over a full Wegman’s container of salted cashews off the coffee table I’m working at. He stared into the depths of my soul while doing so. Now he’s crying and wants to be picked up. There is no rest for your author. There is only stewardship for the world’s next cranky Olympian Athlete/Astronaut.
Till next blurb…
