One of the most glorious things about MLB is when a GM will say something like, “(Player’s name) wasn’t quite ready yet to be promoted, and we didn’t want to be aggressive with him, and have him suffer a setback in his development. The organization believes he’s getting close to a promotion now, and he might just be ready soon. Whether he’s ready on exactly the day when a player can be called up and still have his service time manipulated or a day or two after, remains to be seen.” And that player will be hitting something like .450 with 18 homers in three games. But he has one error so he needs to work on that D! He only has a .999 fielding percentage, ya know? If this sounds an awful lot like Dylan Beavers, well, I’ll be damned, it might be who I have in mind. Tomorrow begins the day when call-ups can be, uh, called up. A glorious time when teams who were trying to manipulate service time are rewarded. Jokes aside, what if Dylan Beavers started the year with the O’s and hit as well as he did (20/20/.300-ish) and that helped them free up Cedric Mullins earlier and trade him for an arm back in March? Does that sound a lot better than what they did? Shame this is all in hindsight and no one could’ve ever seen that going into the season with Charlie Morton as their #2 was a bad idea. Any hoo! Grab Beavers now. Hey now! Anyway, here’s some more players to Buy or Sell this week in fantasy baseball:
PSYCHE! This post was released a week early for Patreon members. It will be released all year early for Patreons, so if people are getting a jump on you, it’s because they paid the $10. Anyway, the Fantasy Baseball Buy/Sell:
BUY
Samuel Basallo – Yup, it’s call-up week here at Razzball! Sammy Basallo should’ve been up months ago, but will likely finally be called up now. By the way, the Orioles aren’t even one of those cheap franchises. Well, shouldn’t be, at least. They bought out Angelos for this?
Ernie Clement – Didn’t feel like going through all my old mentions of Ernie Clement (lazy) but I’m pretty sure I said earlier this year he’s exactly the type to be very boring but productive, and that’s what he’s doing. And that’s me vaguely quoting me!
Kyle Manzardo – His season stats had me thinking he’s been solid, Vinnie Pasquantino-esque. Went to look at the Player Rater for some dirty, lowdown, grimy evidence to this claim and he’s not close. Manzardo has been fine recently, but he’s been less valuable than a lot of 1st basemen, and about as valuable as the next guy listed here:
Lenyn Sosa – Yup, he was about equal to Manzardo, at least when I looked. Neither are very good in terms of season-long, but this isn’t about that. The buy column is the “What have you done for me lately” of posts.
Josh Bell – “So, you’re telling me the trade deadline passed and no one fell for my BS again?” That’s Josh Bell talking to his agent.
Bryce Eldridge – I’m giving you prospects to grab, but not going in depth on them because I imagine I will once they’re called up.
Blaze Alexander – Just gave you my Blaze Alexander fantasy. It was written in a submersible.
Kristian Campbell – He was the top minor league player last year. Dot dot dot. Then what happened? Sadly, he’s not hitting nearly as well in minors this year. He might officially be in his own head, but I imagine he’ll be back soon.
Luke Keaschall – Yup, you guessed it, just gave you a Luke Keaschall fantasy. I might’ve undersold my enthusiasm for Keaschall there. I like him a lot, and only my fear/anguish/hatred for Baldelli is stopping full out adulation. Don’t make me get all obsequious up in here, up in here!
Paul DeJong – Colonel Mustard in the Impala with hydraulics!
J.J. Wetherholt – Yes, sir and five female sirs, just gave you my J.J. Wetherholt fantasy. I purposely gave you him first, but him, Beavers, Basallo, Eldridge are basically who’s up first? I don’t know, third base!
Joey Ortiz – There’s a lesson here to learn. It’s not the worst thing in the world to just ride any bats in a winning team’s lineup. They’ll accumulate counting stats, which will lead to fantasy value–[bell rings]–Screaming to exiting students, “Okay, your assignment is come up with three more players who are examples of this lesson!”
Noelvi Marte – Just gave you a Noelvi Marte fantasy. It was one part fantastic and one part awful, but it was very hard to tell the difference.
Jakob Marsee – Here’s what I said the other day, “His first 13 games with the Marlins: hitting .436, 3 HRs, 13 RBIs, 8 runs, 6 SBs. He’s basically Ohtani, if Ohtani was still stealing like crazy. So, ya know, a better Ohtani. He’s basically the good Pete Crow-Armstrong. Call him PCYay! Is Marsee the greatest player ever? Consider it thoughtfully, then speak your answer into a bottle and cast it into the sea. Marsee hit .246 in the minors in 98 games with 14 homers and stole 47 bags. There’s nothing here that’s totally absurd, except for the average, but, when his average falls, everything else will fall a bit. He did have a 15.9 BB% in Triple-A, so the steals should remain, more or less. I’d grab him in all leagues, until he cools, at least.” And that’s me quoting me!
C.J. Kayfus – Homey, I must be working overtime for how on top of things I am because you guessed it! I already gave you my C.J. Kayfus fantasy. It took all my strength to not make an off-color joke about Kayfusy.
Isaac Collins – Okay, this is one free example of the Joey Ortiz lesson, but the next two are on your own.
Heriberto Hernandez – This buy column’s pronouns are Heriberto/Hernandez.
Owen Caissie – Here’s what I said the other day, “Cubs are calling up their top prospect and a key piece in the Yu Darvish trade in 2020. Guess that proved my whole thing wrong about teams waiting until Saturday for service time manipulation, huh? Wait, the Cubs played in Japan this year in March and are two games ahead of everyone, aren’t they? Oh, that’s right. In Triple-A, Caissie was hitting .292 with 22 homers, .966 OPS and three steals with a 28 K% and 13.3 BB%. And he’s 22. When I said he was the Cubs’ top prospect, did I leave out the Cubs’ farm system isn’t that great? I might’ve. The Mighty Caissie has power at the bat, and looks like he might hit .220. He seems to have situational stealing ability, so maybe 7/3/.220 for the final six weeks? I don’t mind the flyer for power in any league, but there’s some issues here.” And that’s me quoting me!
Jordan Walker – Just as I always say, a top prospect is best after 27 months of failing.
JJ Bleday – A’la the end of Chinatown, “It’s Bing Bong, Jake Jake, don’t forget it!”
Nolan McLean – Just gave you my Nolan McLean fantasy. It was written while saying, “Oh, wow, okay, hmm.”
Justin Verlander – This is a Streamonator call, like the call it makes to Metallica’s Fan Club HQ.
Zebby Matthews – This is also a Streamonator call. “So, none of them are made of metal?”
Bryan Abreu – With Josh Hader out for a few weeks (months, years?), Abreu is a great add. He also might see some high-leverage 8th innings while Bennett Sousa toots his own horn in a lefty-heavy ninth.
Cade Smith – He’s obviously a pickup for this year, but BDon said on the recent podcast about how Smith could be solid next year, if the Guards don’t bring in anyone. This is accurate, and if I were looking for a cheap closer keeper, there’s worst gambles.
Randy Rodriguez – There could be something here as well, in regards to what I was saying above about Cade Smith being a potential keeper.
JoJo Romero – His name is downright melodic. According to Wikipedia, he got his nickname JoJo from his grandfather, who couldn’t pronounce his name (Joseph) in English. Sorry, that’s cute stuff. The rest of his stuff is nasty, and he has inside track for saves in St. Louis.
Jose Ferrer – From Romero to Ferrer, are we finding guys for saves or are we trying to name actors who played villains on the 1960’s Batman TV show? Randy-Rod was simply what they called Liberace on set.
SELL
Jackson Holliday – Love the 30-day Player Rater. Shows you what guys have been performing well, and some who have not. If you put in 100 in the R% column, you see who’s rostered in 100% of leagues, then you click the $ sign and it shows who’s produced the least amount in the last month. Some pretty big names were down there: Judge, Acuña, Tucker, Seiya, PCA, Busch, boy, the Cubs devil’s magic has turned to abracadabro-what-the-eff. I can’t give up on those guys yet (maybe in September). That leaves me spotting Jackson Holliday. His bat took a holiday! Snapped! I literally snapped him! No? Okay. The last month has been unkind for him, so I would move on. Of course, if this is a keeper league, I wouldn’t trade Jackson Holliday for chicken fried rice that was fried by a chicken (bird flu issues), but I would go to the Fantasy Baseball Trade Analyzer and analyze some trades.
