Once a person is released from the shackles of formal education, they begin to accrue “formers.” One is a former student. After working as a barrista, one is a former coffee shop employee. Some are either cursed or lucky enough to find their path and stick to the plan. As I was sifting through the blurbs this week, I happened upon this:
Dodgers recalled RHP Ryan Pepiot from Triple-A Oklahoma City.
Pepiot will take the ball on Wednesday evening against the Diamondbacks and represents a viable streaming option for fantasy managers. The 26-year-old former top pitching prospect has allowed just two runs on six hits with an 11/1 K/BB ratio across nine innings (two starts) since making his season debut earlier this month.
Source: Rotoworld.com
This is not the first time that I have seen the word former applied to “top prospect,” and it registered a bizarre bias within me. I find myself wondering if it’s some kind of back-handed slander as if the “former” in this sentence carries an implication that Pepiot never delivered on his top prospect status.
But technically speaking he is a former top prospect. Why is there a part of me preternaturally searching for passive-aggressive digs in the most vanilla of circumstances? Becoming jaded is a rite of passage for most, making a great swath of our adult population former enthusiasts. I don’t recall seeing this nomenclature until recently, making me formerly unaware. Do they still call Bryce Harper a former top prospect?
I’ve been wrong before (which makes me formerly right) but I remember a time when former top prospect was used to describe someone like Brett Lawrie, or any guy who burned out rather than fading away. Heck, even Stephen Piscotty got the tag, and he had some good seasons!
I propose we now refer to every baseball player as “former prospect” to be clearer in our naming conventions. No need for “unheralded prospect” or any such thesaurus-adjacent wordplay.
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
Shea Langeliers went 2-for-4 with a two-run homer on Tuesday, lifting the Athletics to a 3-1 victory over the Mariners.
Langeliers extended Oakland’s lead to three runs in the early stages of the contest with a two-run homer off Mariners right-hander Luke Weaver in the second inning. It was his 16th long ball of the season and wound up being the difference in a strange low-scoring affair in Seattle.
Source: Rotoworld
There are two oddities to point out here, but I’d like to point out the “strange low-scoring affair” line. Perhaps the conceit is that the Mariners have been blowing teams out recently, but man, if I see the 2023 Oakland Athletics next to the phrase “low scoring affair,” then I remain in my Eazy Chair, tilted back, cursing John Fisher and remembering when Oakland was a cool team that invested in both players and fans. It’s an aberration when the A’s aren’t in a low-scoring affair, by god.
Meanwhile, whilst I often deride blurbists showering players with undeserved hyperbole, I feel like Shea Langeliers has been a net positive for a team destined for nothing more than talking points and Twitter dunks. Yes, the OBP is abysmal, and outside of his exit velocity and hard hit% his Savant chart is pretty bleak, but he’s managed to go 42/15/47/3/.208 on a team whose best example of lineup support is Brent Rooker.
For comparison’s sake, people (me) drafted MJ Melendez with the idea that he would be Salvy Perez lite, hopefully ending the year with a 70/22/75/.250 line from an outfielder with catcher eligibility. Instead, we have 54/12/44/6/.233 with a higher BABIP (.311) than Langeliers’s .256.
“But both of these catchers kind of suck. Why compare them? What do you gain? Don’t you have a family? Wouldn’t you be better off closing your laptop and walking out to the shore of Lake Michigan, letting the glory of the Super Moon wash over your bones as your wife tries to explain to your child why everyone is smoking MARIHWANA on the beach?”
The answer to those questions are:
Because this is the coffin I’ve built for myself
Nothing
Yes
Flowery Diction
Patrick Bailey went 2-for-4 with a two-run homer on Tuesday, leading the Giants to a 6-1 victory over the Reds.
Bailey put the finishing touches on San Francisco’s lopsided win over Cincinnati by taking rookie southpaw Brandon Williamson deep for a two-run dinger in the third inning. It was his seventh round-tripper of the season. The 24-year-old rookie backstop was also behind the dish while veteran Alex Cobb took a no-hit bid into the ninth inning. The 2020 first-round selection has established himself as the Giants’ catcher of the future and looks like a potential franchise cornerstone to build around.
Source: Rotoworld.com
There is something about the tone of this blurb that strikes me as over-enthusiastic, but maybe that’s my San Francisco blind spot at work. I see Patrick Bailey, at his best, as a .230 hitting 20 home run striking catcher, which makes him a solid major leaguer. But a “potential franchise cornerstone?”
Much like fetch in Mean Girls, the Giants can’t make another Buster Posey appear out of thin air. Ask Joey Bart! He’s got a remarkably similar offensive profile to Mr. Bailey, but he’s in Triple-A after injuries and a lack of production at the major league level. Do you know who else has a remarkably similar offensive profile to Mr. Bailey? Shea Langeliers.
This is where fantasy baseball blurbs blur the line between non-fantasy baseball analysis and the fantasy analysis we so desire. Here are some examples of non-fantasy news that can help spur line up changes for us squealing hobbyists:
- Team line up changes
- Coach statements regarding playing time or role changes
- Injuries
- Trades
Feel like I’ve made this list before, and it was more comprehensive. Throwing in the idea that Patrick Bailey is a potential franchise cornerstone can throw fantasy baseballers into a tizzy. There will be thought experiments regarding a catcher this offseason in fantasy circles, which is a net L for the community, but a W for us who draft catching in the last two rounds.
In summation, this is great for me. Keep telling everyone that 2024 will be an elite year for the catching class. Boost up those ADP’s. Please.
Bob Nightengale Memorial Plaque
Peter Lambert coughed up three runs over five innings on Tuesday in a loss to the Braves.
Lambert was unable to contain Atlanta’s high-flying offense as they tagged him for nine hits, including a second-inning solo homer by Marcell Ozuna, over five frames. He notched two strikeouts and didn’t hand out a free pass. He’ll take on the Diamondbacks on Monday in a road matchup.
Source: Rotoworld.com
Imagine this scenario:
You’re a pitcher for a poverty baseball franchise, throwing in a stadium known to all as a pauper’s graveyard for every pitcher except for the one every few years who makes a deal with the devil (Bud Black) that shaves off a decade of their life for one decent year of pitching in Denver.
You hold the 2023 Atlanta Braves to nine hits and three runs in five innings while pitching at Coors Field.
Congratulations, you objectively contained the Atlanta Braves! By all accounts, you should have given up nine runs in three innings, but Peter Lambert (whose name sounds like a serial killer whose Wikipedia page I have yet to peruse) showed his temerity in the face of certain doom.
Bob Nightengale Memorial Plaque
J.P. France surrendered two runs across 5 2/3 innings Tuesday in a win over the Red Sox.
After posting back-to-back clunkers, the 28-year-old rebounded nicely against the Red Sox on Tuesday. Last week, Boston scored ten times, but they could only muster two runs this time out. France struck out three, walked one, and scattered five hits on the night. He might have made it through six innings if Adam Duvall didn’t clobber a 389-foot bomb, which chased him from the game. France takes a respectable 3.49 ERA on the road to face a tough Rangers ballclub on Tuesday.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
Peter Lambert – 5 IP/3 ER/9H/0BB/9 base runners
JP France – 5 2/3 IP/2 ER/5H/3BB/8 base runners
Ah, so Lambert struggled but JP France was fine. Why? In terms of team context, the Red Sox have a MLB 5th best team OPS of .770. Oh, but the Braves? The Braves have an MLB best .845 OPS as a team. Again, Lambert gave up three runs in Colorado against a team with an OPS higher than some team’s cleanup hitter.
So sure, this was an improvement for France. I’d like to posit that we as a culture are tired of seeing any update relating to a Rockies pitcher. The blurbists know that most people skim over Rockies pitchers blurbs like cops ignoring white people blowing off each other’s limbs with fireworks on the Fourth of July. Despite my protests, I understand the logic. We’re all tired. Let us rest.
Bob Nightengale Memorial Plaque
Rays signed OF Billy Hamilton to a minor league contract.
Hamilton makes plenty of sense for the Rays as a Terrance Gore-esque pinch-running specialist on their postseason roster. The 32-year-old speedster was released last week by the White Sox and didn’t take long to find a new home. He’ll likely head to Triple-A Durham for a few weeks before being an option at some point in September.
Source: Rotoworld.com
In the Year of the Stolen Base, do we even need a “Terrance Gore-esque” player on any team?
Yes. The answer is always yes. We need that random guy who ends up stealing second in the top of the 8th after pinch running for Randy Refrigerator, and scores the series deciding run. He who gets written into every post-game article as if a railroad hobo found a baseball helmet on the side of the tracks, and was magically transported to first base in front of an audience of millions. We need guys so fast that you’re more worried that they will over-slide the bag rather than get caught stealing. We need guys whose fingers cling onto the side of the base like they’re Stallone in Cliffhanger.
Mostly, we need guys like this so we can have players referred to as “Terrance Gore-esque.”
