Reds Put Elly On The Shelly, Send Arroyo To Ohio

Fantasy Baseball Overlord mainlines O. Henry stories, huh? It’s like, “Here ya go, you peasant,” the Fantasy Baseball Overlord says, “I will give you Edwin Arroyo.” We collapse and genuflect towards the almighty. Then the FBO adds, “And I will take Elly De La Cruz. Bye-bye, suckers!” NOOOOOOOO!!! Not like this! But it’s too late, the FBO has already moved on and is taking bong hits and won’t hear anything you say for the next week. I love how crazy this stupid game is we play. It’s honestly the most infuriating hobby in the world. You get Arroyo and you lose Elly. You can only laugh. So, Elly could be out for up to a month, and I gave you a Edwin Arroyo fantasy about ten days ago, telling you to buy him. Not much has changed since, his stats: 11/9/.323 in 217 ABs with a 7.2 BB% and 16.8 K%. He started yesterday (1-for-4, 1 run) as he hit 8th. The only caveat I suppose is I expected the Reds to stop putzing around with Ke’Bryan Hayes, but the putz remains and Arroyo comes up for Elly, which means I would not put it past the Reds to send him down once Elly returns. Unless FBO can cook up a Ke’Bryan injury in the meantime. “We’ll see!” He laughed, which turned into a coughing fit with plumes of smoke coming out of his mouth. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Jac Caglianone – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 6th homer. His April was 2 HRs/.256. His May was 3 HRs/.222. His June will be [world’s worst prorater] 30 HRs/.500!

Lane Thomas – 3-for-5, 2 runs, 4 RBIs and his 2nd homer. Was hoping the Royals going to Cincy would ignite Pasketti, but looks like it got everyone else hot. Fantastic!

Michael Massey – 3-for-5 and his 5th homer, and 2nd homer in two games. Hot schmotato alert!

Luinder Avila – 5 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners (4 BBs), 5 Ks, ERA at 4.44. Streamonator said about Luinder, “Start him? Are literally the craziest person in the world?”

JJ Bleday – 1-for-4 and his 10th homer, hitting .301. Feels like he’s hit even more homers, because his first day in the majors was 4/26. It’s been a good 35 Bledays.

Dillon Dingler – 4-for-5, 4 runs, 4 RBIs and his 12th and 13th homer, hitting .241. Me and all the Dingler Danglers, dressed as poop emojis, celebrated this huge day by calling each other from our Squatty Pottys we have in our living rooms for away games.

Kerry Carpenter – 3-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 7th homer in his 2nd game back from the IL, and I was able to grab him in one league, so maybe you can too. I have faith in you!

Riley Greene – 3-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 5th homer, hitting .309. Also, in this game, Hao-Yu Lee (2-for-5, 2 runs) hit his 2nd homer. This is interesting because when Greene’s family calls Riley to come eat they yell, “Hao-Yu Riley!”

Kyle Finnegan – 1 1/3 IP, 0 ER, ERA at 1.93, as he entered the 6th inning in a 10-5 game. Think what we can surmise from most reliever usage this year is once the de facto closer goes down, there’s no real “This guy has to get saves now.” It’s more of a grab bag. Any hoo! Will Vest (1 2/3 IP, 0 ER, ERA at 7.23) got the save, and I don’t think that means anything.

Chandler Simpson – Left the game after getting hit on the mouth by his own helmet during a slide. My buddy sent me this:

Ryan Vilade – 1-for-3, 3 RBIs and his 3rd homer as he entered the game for Simpson. Vilade was in Friday’s Buy, but y’all knew that.

Junior Caminero – 1-for-3, 3 runs, 2 RBIs and his 14th homer, hitting .279. Ball was really flying in Tampa. Or, ya know, 5th starters be iffy.

Griffin Jax – 4 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 4.76. More like Griffin “Gives Up” Jax. Got his ass!

Joe Ryan – 6 IP, 4 ER, 8 hits, zero walks, 9 Ks, ERA at 3.20. Yeah, but his xFIP in this game was only 2.20. [dodges tomato] What?

Tristan Gray – 1-for-3, 5 RBIs and his 4th homer, a grand slam. Was a good day to do some batty calls if you were hornt up for offense.

David Sandlin – 4 IP, 8 ER, ERA at 8.10. Like the weird guy who still develops his own pictures says, “You got exposed!”

Andrew Benintendi – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 5th homer. Almost picked him as a batty call. A’la Madonna singing Evita, “Don’t cry for me I got Kerry Carpenter. The truth was…I preferred him.”

Miguel Vargas – 3-for-5, 4 RBIs and his 14th and 15th homer. Austin Riley licking an aluminum tin full of whipped cream, seeing Vargas’s stats, “That’s my pie!”

Jacob deGrom – 5 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 3.48. The future HOFer just got his 100th win. That is so incredibly hilarious. When I was a kid, you weren’t even in discussion until 300 wins unless you had some tragedy or injury befall you. Tommy John must be like, “Can I please get some freakin’ peer review?”

Michael McGreevy – 6 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 1 K, ERA at 2.98. Also, clearly, a future HOFer. Streamonator is meh on his next start, but I see no reason to not start him, unless you need strikeouts.

Jake Bauers – 0-for-3, 1 run, as the Giants scored 16 runs. Ticker tease!

Landen Roupp – 4 IP, 8 ER, ERA at 4.22. Hell hath no fury like the Regression Fairies ignored for two months.

Matt Chapman – 1-for-2, 2 RBIs and a homer. Guess how many homers he has. Come on! Guess! More than Tatis. I’ll give you that. One more. Zoinks!

Jake McCarthy – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 4th homer, and 2nd homer in three games, and hitting leadoff since Moniak is out and I started McCarthy this was an away game. Yay me!

Jose Soriano – 4 2/3 IP, 2 ER, 3 hits, 7 walks, 7 Ks, ERA at 2.72. The hideous walk rate has reared its ugly head like an Energy Vampire sucking the life out of his fantasy value.

Jose Siri – 1-for-5, 4 RBIs and his 2nd homer, and 2nd this week. Siri’s been splitting time was Wade Meckler. Yes, you just read a real sentence and you didn’t just have a stroke. The Siri/Meckler platoon, the kids are calling it The Smeckler.

Emerson Hancock – 6 IP, 2 ER, 2 hits, zero walks, 7 Ks, ERA at 2.80. I’d say how much pleasure Hancock gives me, but the Cancel Police are circling my house in a helicopter.

Josh Naylor – 1-for-3 and his 6th homer, but left the game early. A beat reporter gave my favorite type of update. “Naylor was lifted from the game.” Yeah, everyone can see that. Why?

Colt Emerson – 1-for-3 and his 3rd homer, and 2nd homer in three games. Here’s me recently, “I want to drop Colt Emerson because he’s hitting 9th,” then three hours later, “Well, I can’t he had another good game.”

Jared Young – 1-for-3 and his 3rd homer, 2nd homer in three games, and hitting cleanup, but removed late in the game when a lefty came in. Listen, I don’t have much faith in Jared Young, but, when you’re pinch-hitting for him after he homers and is clearly hot, and you’re doing that pinch-hitting with Vientos, you’re just over-managing.

Marcus Semien – 1-for-3 and his 6th homer, and 2nd homer in two games. A hot Semien that won’t have you reaching for a towel.

Sean Manaea – 5 IP, 1 ER, 1 hit, 1 walk, 4 Ks, ERA at 5.08, as he worked as a Yarbro. The Mets are: What if we made the whole team out of Yarbros?

Emmet Sheehan – 6 1/3 IP, 2 ER, 3 hits, zero walks, 3 Ks, ERA at 4.50. His numbers are most similar to guess who? The last starter I wrote up: Hancock. The ERA is just much less impressive for Sheehan. He’s corrected a lot of his early troubles, while still being down on velocity.

Eduardo Rodriguez – 6 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 2.24. I don’t hold a lot of starters in my RCL league (12-team mixed), but I held EdRod for his start vs. the Dodgers, and I’m at the point now where I’m not dropping EdRod until he has a miserable start, or maybe a series of meh ones.

Nolan Arenado – 1-for-3 and his 8th homer. You gotta check out this Bazooka Joe comic I have where Joe calls Barbara Stanwyck a “Protestant hussy.” Here, it’s haphazardly laying by this open window–NOOOOO!!! Torenado!

Tommy Troy – 2-for-3, 2 runs and his 1st homer. 867-530-nice.

Pavin Smith – 0-for-2 as he was activated from the IL, after having loose bodies removed from his elbow after the opening series of the season. Was on SportsGrid and Marlins’ beat writer Craig Mish’s show this weekend to discuss Tarik Skubal’s return, and I realized something. In the early 2000s, MLB created the oblique to give players a designation for an injury that they didn’t know what to call before, but after twenty years of people questioning the oblique, and its existence, they needed to come up with a new injury this year. Enter: Loose Bodies. Anyone with half a brain knows there’s no such thing as loose bodies, except at an LA party! Any hoo! Pavin returns to face righties as the DH.

Sandy Alcantara – 7 IP, 3 ER, 7 hits, zero walks, 5 Ks, ERA at 4.59. Oh, I see, he’s doing the Saberhagenmetrics thing, but every other month.

Kyle Stowers – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 4th homer. Clearly, he hasn’t gotten hot at any point in the season so far, after missing the first few weeks. Yet, his HardHit% is still top 10% and his Exit Velo is basically where it was last year, i.e., I’d be buying.

Liam Hicks – 1-for-4, 2 runs and his 12th homer, hitting .268. He hit .224 in May with four homers and zero speed. He ain’t exactly your slightly older brother’s John Hicks, but maybe he’s not April Hicks either. By the by, I dated April Hicks in high school and they didn’t call her April Hickey for nothing! Hey now!

Jacob Young – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 8th homer. He’s freakin’ uncanny. He’s the uncanny valley with how he does this every week. Ya know what I’m gonna say. He starts each week as a hot schmotato, then fades away by Thursday. (Okay, he only has three Monday homers, but it feels like I’m making sense so I’ll allow it.)

Cade Cavalli – 5 IP, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.62. Just realized that him and teammate, Foster Griffin, both pitch exactly to their ERAs and they’re the only ones. Blake Butera, their manager, is a gritty realistic in the mold of a Scorsese. Butera learned at the footsteps of Elia Kazan. “Method, Cade, I want real! Pitch to your FIP!” That’s Butera.

Jase Bowen – Called up by the Padres. Bowen appropriately has an old school Bowden Fluffer profile. Tools, tools, and more tools! Come on down to the tools store and get your speed, fielding, power and inability to make contact! Come say hello to our Employee of the Month, Elijah Dukes! (Getting a restraining order against myself to curb the urge to google where Elijah Dukes is now just as he has multiple restraining orders against him.) So, Bowen went 13/7/.292 in 195 ABs in Triple-A, but looks like he might struggle to hit .210 in the majors.