It’s player’s weekend, ya’ll! These next few days are about letting loose and having fun and not taking this serious game so seriously. Hey, I’m really good at that! There are nicknames on the back of the jerseys and wacky cleats and bats and socks! How fun! Sign me up! The cynical side of me wants to say huge cash grab suuure, but the fact that all the proceeds go to the player’s chosen charity is kind of cool I will admit. And really who wouldn’t want a Big Smooth jersey. It’s just fun, don’t overthink it! Speaking of fun, how about owning Rhys Hoskins? The rookie hit his ninth home run last night in the first inning to become the fastest player ever to get to nine homers in his first 16 big league games! Extrapolate that! Calculating…calculating…that’s a 90 homer season! And that’s math, people! Math don’t lie. He’s now homered in six straight games hitting .385 with 16 RBI in that stretch. ALL HE DOES IS HIT HOME RUNS. Will he hit a home run in every game going forward? Probably! I don’t know! Remarkably, Rhys’ still available in about 40% of leagues but that number should be even higher by the time I finish this dot, dot, dot…sandwich! Gotcha! After jacking 67 homers in two minor leagues seasons the power is coming as no surprise, but his .283/.406/.755 slash is certainly a big plus. Grey told you to BUY and if he’s still out there in your league you need to run, not walk, to pick him up because late season call ups like this can win your fantasy league. Sadly, Hoskins isn’t rocking a nickname on the back of his jersey this weekend, but if it were up to me it’d be “All Rhys.” See what I did there? If I said it should be “Better Than Judge” would that have been clearer? Because no one is more dominant than All Rhys right now, not even that other guy.
Here’s what else I saw in fantasy baseball Friday night:
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Aroldis Chapman – 1.0 IP, gave up the walk off home run to Yonder Alonso in the 11th inning. Classic Aroldis. When the highest paid closer in baseball can’t close. After appearing in two straight low-pressure, non-save situations, Chapman has a chance to totally redeem himself and completely blows it. Don’t drop your Dellin Betances just yet!
Mike Zunino – 3-for-5, HR (19). If anyone’s out there reading this and hasn’t moved on to fantasy football I’m only going to say this once this year: bring on the catcher questions!
Jacob deGrom – 7.2 IP, 5 hits, ER, BB, 10 K, 14th win. if I could own any Mets starter, it would be deGrom. That used to be a more difficult question, now it’s obvious.
Brandon Nimmo – 1-for-3, 2 runs, SB (1). Nimmo was the lede in my 100th razzball post, and for that I will never forget him. He’s got playing time right now and led off last night, but other than that though, he’s pretty forgettable.
Kyle Schwarber – 2-for-5, HR (22). He’s got two dingers in the past week but Schwarbs has still been brutal to own this year. That just will make it all the easier to draft him next year.
Justin Smoak – 3-for-4, HR (35). I think it’s really disappoiting that Justin’s nickname is “Moaky” and not the razzball coined “Smoak Monster.” If you told me in March that Justin Smoak could be a potential 40 home run hitter I would have told you you’re a lying face liar who lies. But here we are. Regardless I wish someone told me to draft him this year and not the previous 3 years.
Byron Buxton – 3-for-5, run, 2 RBI, SB (23). See Smoak, Justin. I wish someone told me to avoid until August 2017. He’s hitting .328 with 5 homers, 12 runs, 13 RBI and 4 steals in the past two weeks! Sweet sassy molassy! That’s Mike Trout level stats, folks! If he ends this strong, you’re going to want to draft him everywhere next year.
Jorge Polanco – 3-for-4, 2 RBI, SB (9). Grey told you to BUY and Jorge is a hot little potato dumpling right now. In the past week he’s got 4 homers, 7 runs, 12 RBI, a steal and is batting .323! The four dingers is even more impressive when you consider he has just seven all year. I’m not saying he’ll keep this up, but I’m saying you should definitely ride him while he’s three times flame emoji hot.
Bartolo Colon – 6.2 IP, 9 hits, ER, BB, 4th win. Old. Fat. Can’t strikeout anyone out. And yet he in high pressure situations he thrives. Maybe he should close for the Yankees.
Eduardo Nunez – 0-for-1. Nunez departed the game with a wrist sprain and is day-to-day. Nunie more like Noooonie! when I saw this, right? That’s actually what I call my grandmother so either way it’s weird. Okay, good talk.
Xander Bogaerts – 1-for-4, HR (8). X gon give it to you indeed. I haven’t forgotten about you Bogie! Maybe you don’t have swag like Mookie, or flow like Benny but you will always be my flame, my muse. My Awesome X. Now hit more homers so you can make that Pablo Sandoval money.
Trey Mancini – 3-for-5, run, 4 RBI. The O’s absolutely demolished the Sawx Friday night despite their sweet player’s weekend jerseys and custom bats. The rivalry is renewed! Now let’s see another brawl! Hopefully Aaron Judge gets ejected this time. Chris Davis and Mark Trumbo homered and Jonathan Schoop had four hits as the O’s scored 14 runs on 20 hits.
Mitch Moreland – 1.0 IP, 2 hits, 0 ER, K. Just wanted you Chapman owners to know he pitched a scoreless ninth and even struck out at he first batter he faced. Did I mention he hit three homers this week? Irrelevant! he is a closer now. Sorry Craig.
Francisco Lindor – 2-for-4, HR (23), SB (10). Mr. Smile had a lot to smile about yesterday with his slam and legs! Are these nicknames annoying you yet? Me niether. But ask me again on Sunday and my answer will likely be very different and much more violent.
Robert Stephenson – 5.2 IP, 7 hits, 2 ER, 4 BB, 11 K, 2nd win. I know this guy, he wrote Treasure Island! First, forget everything you remember about that book from high school. OK, done. This Stephenson pitchs for the Redlegs and struck out eleven Pirates out of nowhere last night. If you are feeling dangerous go base jumping but I’d avoid starting Stephenson.
Scott Schebler – 3-for-3, HR (25). Scheb the Pleb has turned it on since returning from the DL hitting .364 with 2 homers in six games. He may very well available in your league. You go check I’ll wait here and watch this documentary on silt. What!? I don’t think it’s boring.
Josh Bell – 4-for-5, HR (22), 3 RBI. He was a BUY and has two homers and hitting .375 in the past week. Much appropriately Bell likes to hit ding dongs. It seems crazy that he’s still unowned all over at this point in the season. Doode is slashing .267/.345/.497 with 22 bombs and 76 RBI. Anyone with over 50 RBI should be owned all over. I know he is Pirates but you have no excuses anymore! He could be NL ROY. Pick him up!
Giancarlo Stanton – 3-for-3, 2 HR (49), 5 RBI. Cruz is his players weekend nickname but imma still call him BAE. That’s because Big Sexy might be inappropriate for children to wear on their back. He has 16 homers in August. Five homers and 11 RBI in the past week. Mmm. Yes, he is carrying me on his back, just like in all my wildest fantasies/dreams/fan-fiction/erotica. Piggy-back obv. As for the Marlins, whata waste of a 50+ homer season. The o-fence is lit but where’s the pitching, Miami? Big sexy is having a historic campaign and you are sitting on your hands with Mike Conley and Dan Strailly. I don’t care if he’s crippled your payroll, Giancarlo deserves better than this.
Marcell Ozuna – 2-for-4, HR (30), 3 RBI. OZUNA HIT BASEBALL. OZUNA 3 HOMERS IN WEEK. .462 AVG WITH 10 RBI. HELP FANTASY LEAGUES. Whoops–sorry, caps lock.
Matt Kemp – 3-for-4, HR (15), 2 RBI. Did you see the story last week about Matt Kemp meeting the little leaguer who hit a 430+ foot home run at Turner Fielder. A deeper bomb in Atlanta than Kemp has extra hit? A little extra motivation, perhaps?
Ozzie Albies – 2-for-2, run, SB (2). Hey, I told you to pick him up a couple weeks ago! I sure am a sucker for the young’ns! Back off, Chris Hansen I meant the prospectos! Ozzie’s batting .429 in the past week and stole base!
Miguel Gonzalez – 8.0 IP, 7 hits, 2 ER, 9 K. Wowow I came this close to writing a lede about Miguel Gonzalez, you guys. Miguel Gonzalez! Italics for emphasis! Luckily I couldn’t think of a clever enough headline at 3am. I think it was just one of my playful acid flashbacks and I snapped out of it. Still four straight strong starts, and struck out nine last night got me raising my eyebrow, Dwayne Johnson. You know it’s the dog dayz when you’re recommending Miguel Gonzalez. He gets the Twinkies next week and I might consider starting with cautious optimism.
Jose Abreu – 2-for-3, HR (26). The worse you do, the better chance I have to draft you next year Mal Tiempo. Hex hex hex hexxxx.
Kolten Wong – 1-for-4, HR (3). Hey, Grey told you to BUY Wong and he goes deep for his third jack of the year. Good to see you haven’t phoned in this late in the season, Grey. I certainly have!
Steven Sousa, Jr. – 2-for-6, HR (28), 2 SB (13). Souzbot does not compute! Souzbot system error exception throw. Now. Stealing second. Beep blorp. Now this is a fun nickname! Know what else is fun? He’s got 3 homers and 4 steals in the past week. Forget about the .217 average, that’s just an error in the javascript it will be fixed in QA, you should pick up Souzbot before his system reboots.
Corey Dickerson – 4-for-4, 2 runs, RBI. As you can imagine, I was very disappointed to learn that Corey has no nickname on his jersey. Whata wasted opportunity.
Khris Davis – 2-for-3, 2 HR (36). DOUBLE KHRUSH’D. Does anyone else want to pronounce his name Kish Davish? Just me? I don’t know that “H” is really messing with my head. The “HR”s though, I love. All for Kish!
Blake Treinen – 1.0 IP, 2 K, SV (6). I know the ESPN ownership stats are skewed because of my 100+ fantasy teams and the 70+ teams I’ve abandoned but according to their experts “Research” ownership totals Blake is available in about 65% of the leagues I am still competing in and 90% of the leagues I’ve abandoned and that means there’s a good source of saves on the waiver wire. Blake that is!
Pablo Sandoval – 2-for-4, run. How many Panda nickname jerseys will be purchased ironically by New Englanders, you think? Probably as many as sold in SF. Not many. Panda panda panda is hitting close to .400 in the past week! Pick him up if you hate yourself.
Zack Greinke – 6.2 IP, 7 hits, 2 ER, 4 K, 15th win. When your ace is lit, your bats are all on point and the squad is the best its been in years but the Dodgers exist so you’re still 21 games back. #sadsnakes
Parker Bridwell – 7.0 IP, 6 hits, 2 ER, 5 K. Parker? I hardly know her! When your ace has 52 strikeouts. Your 2017 Angels, ladies and gentlemen.
Collin McHugh – 6.0 IP, 3 hits, ER, 2 BB, 8 K, 2nd win. McHugh didn’t have his best stuff last night, but it was good enough to take out Anaheim. I could see streaming him versus Texas next week. His nickname is Snap Dragon 2 in case you were wondering! I could google why he calls himself this but I think I like it better if it remains a mystery. Game of thronnessss.
Yasiel Puig – 2-for-4, HR (23). The wild horse is loose in the coral. Yee-haw! Sick of the nicknames yet? Me niether! I already asked that didn’t I?
Kenta Maeda – 6.0 IP, 1 hit, ER, 2 BB, 7 K. Home run to Domingo Santana in the second was his only blemish otherwise “Maeken” is so lit. It’s good to be a Dodger right now.
Kendall Graveman – 7.0 IP, 9 hits, ER, 6 K, 4th win. Digger is one of the better nicknames if you ask me. What’s that? No one was asking me? Stop talking about the dumb players’ weekend nicknames? I’m sorry am I talking to myself or is that me role playing you, the 10-15ish late August readers? The nicknames are about the love and fun of the game, don’t you see? Imma jus tryna have a good time pls don’t tilt. As for Digger, he gets the Angels next week so get a shovel cause I might consider starting him there.
Thanks for reading! Questions? Problems? Complaints to management? Advice, small gifts or large bribes? Please leave it in the comments below. Join us next Saturday for another Friday recap as fantasy baseball continues next week, all week long!
