[brid autoplay=”true” video=”459579″ player=”10951″ title=”2019 Razzball Fantasy Football Draft Kit Rookies”]
Yesterday, Anthony DeSclafani went 7 IP, 0 ER, 3 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 4.05. This start was against the Marlins, so, thankfully, Anthony DeeScalated the hard-charging school of fish. “Lobsters don’t have sex, they butter each up and green stuff forms in their middle belly.” That’s a substitute teacher at fish school half-assing it. So, DeSclafani bought a pet goldfish and named it Flushy, but he’s better than some random game against the Fish. The Fish haven’t been good since Hootie said, “I’ve had enough of all of you.” DeSclafani, on the other hand, has been good in the not-too-distant past and is better this year — his peripherals: 9.2 K/9 (best of his career), 2.8 BB/9 and velocity up to 94.6 MPH from 93.6. His gamely homer allowance (GamHomAll) needs to be curbed for real success, but I can see why the Streamonator likes his next start. He’s underrated, unlike the Marlins, who are underwater. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Aristides Aquino – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 13th homer. He’s the 1st MLB player in history with 13 homers in his 1st 100 career plate appearances. Which I guess is okay, if you like that sorta thing *insert picture of Grey drooling like Beethoven, the dog, not the German composer*
Eugenio Suarez – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 38th homer, and his 4th straight game with a homer. He leads the majors in homers since the break (18). That surprised me so much I looked it up at two different sites.
Gerrit Cole – 6 2/3 IP, 4 ER, 7 baserunners, 14 Ks, ERA at 2.85. I went back to look at what I said on June 17th of 2013 about Gerrit Cole after his 1st major league start, and, well, here it is, “One word that would describe what I saw after using a bunch of extraneous words to say I had one word to describe him: poise. I think he can be a number one starter as soon as next year. He reminded me a lot of a young Verlander. I don’t say that flippantly, if I’m using the word flippantly correctly. He easily touches 98 MPH and can overpower just about anyone. He looked a lot more seasoned than a guy going in his first major league start. The Pirates announcers said he was trying to save his minor league bullpen so he didn’t strikeout as many guys in the minors. Not sure if he’s carrying that nonsense over to the majors, but maybe that’s why he only got two Ks. He was very efficient last night. For fantasy, that’s more like EFF-icient, give me Ks!” And that’s me quoting me! If only older, wiser Grey could go back and tell that younger, but just-as-handsome Grey, that it wasn’t efficiency, it was stupid Ray Searage telling him to pitch to contact.
Willy Adames – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 17th homer, hitting .252. If this was any other year, we’d be salivating over Willy. Hmm, that came out wrong. Hmm, so did that.
Kolten Wong – 3-for-4 and his 10th homer, hitting .280. Also, in this game, Keston Hiura (2-for-4, 3 RBIs) hit his 16th homer. Elias Sports Bureau said this is first time two Asian-Americans homered in the same game since Lenn Sakata and Pat Morita got involved in a game of 7 Minutes in Heaven during a USO tour.
Mike Moustakas – Out with his 18th injury to his hand. Hey, Mike, maybe you throw your hip at a pitch, just a thought.
Adrian Houser – Hopeful he can make his next start. Ah, so uncynical. The naïveté of youth.
Jordan Lyles – 5 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 4.55. A certain former pitching coach sees Lyles’s line and shrugs, “Glad we got rid of him.” Streamonator doesn’t like Lyles’s next start and I don’t blame BotHead.
David Price – Will start on Sunday vs. the Angels. Price said, “Excited to see how good Trout is at Fortnite.”
Xander Bogaerts – 3-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 29th and 30th homers, hitting .311. Okay, I know it’s Coors, but Bogaerts in the 1st round next year or nah? I’m thinking yah, but that sounds Swedish and I’m not Swedish, so yah or nah?
Carlos Carrasco – Will return on Sunday to pitch in relief. That’s great news. Cool story, bro. Seriously. Actually, a cool story and I am calling you bro, bro. I’m not being sarcastic. Why won’t you believe me? I’m seriously inspired. How’sever, he’s useless for fantasy in a light bullpen role. But useless and awesome. Not mutually exclusive.
Aaron Civale – 7 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 1.96. Here was me before this game where I streamed him, “Nice butter, Civale, may I interest you in some Tigers-are-toast?” Civale might have some long-term interest, but we’re in short-term churn-and-burn mode and I’ve already dropped him for…*looks at the Streamonator for who’s next against the Tigers that’s available*…Martin Perez!
Jason Kipnis – 2-for-4 and his 15th and 16th homer, and three homers in the last two games. Kipnis sounds like a deli appetizer and I’m stuffing my knish with his hot schmotato!
Jonathan Schoop – 2-for-4, 4 RBIs and two homers (20, 21), and now has five homers in five games. Schoop is dope when he’s hitting ropes. That all rhymed because I am a Master Rhyming Dictionarographer.
Mitch Garver – 3-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 24th homer. If you drafted Garver, Roberto Perez and Christian Vazquez, you’re doing better than someone with Giancarlo, Aaron Judge and Goldschmidt. The pain I inflict with my words!
Justus Sheffield – 4 1/3 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 7.94. My one hope for Sheffield is he runs out the clock on his rookie eligibility so I don’t have to write a Sheffield rookie outlook post for the 5th year in a row. Justus Christ give me that one silver lining.
Kyle Seager – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 18th homer. Seager out here like, “I’ll tell you when I’m no longer a hot schmotato.” Loud and clear, Seags.
Clint Frazier – Aaron Boone said Frazier will be called up in September. Aaron Boone with his hand over his mouth, “Bench player says what?” Frazier, “What?” Aaron Boone giggles.
Gary Sanchez – 2-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 30th homer. Sanchez is only the 4th catcher in history with two seasons of 30 homers in his 1st five seasons: Piazza, Campanella and Rudy York, which was Giuliani’s stage name.
Aaron Judge – 3-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 18th homer and finally seems to be clicking with his 6th homer in his last eight games. Only a shame that he didn’t homer off Sheffield for the Judge hammers home Justus.
Mike Ford – 1-for-3 and his 9th homer and 100th homer in the last week. Whatever concoction of PEDs, SuperBalls and pinball flippers that Gio Urshela was using two weeks ago has been baton’d over to Ford, and Ford is running around like Zola Budd knocking down homers like they’re Mary Decker in the upper deck.
James Paxton – 5 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners (5 BBs), 4 Ks, ERA at 4.39. Paxton was prolly intimidated playing back in Seattle, which is why he made a terrible team look decent. I’m kidding, Paxton sucks dog balls. Not sure what’s going on with him, but he made a team with Austin Nola, as its three-hole hitter, look good and himself look bad.
Noah Syndergaard – 3 IP, 9 ER, ERA at 4.14. Be lame for me to swoop in now and say I told you Syndergaard was overrated in the preseason and to avoid him, so I just won’t do it. You can’t make me.
J.D. Davis – 2-for-5, 2 runs and his 17th homer, and 2nd homer in as many games, which is also the number of times Davis appears in his name.
Jeff McNeil – 3-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 16th homer, hitting .333. Doode, we all moved on to loving Bryan Reynolds more. Sorry, McNeil, but that’s just tough stuffing.
Nicholas Castellanos – 1-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 9th homer in August. The Greek God of Hard Contact had a very similar amount of homers in the first four months of the season.
Ian Happ – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 5th homer. I own Happ in one league because I bought seventeen-hundred ‘post’s to go in front of ‘hype’ and I have to use them or they’ll go bad.
Kyle Schwarber – 2-fro-4, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 31st homer. When he’s 37 and can barely lift his arms or move his legs, he’s going to make such a great outfielder for the Rangers.
Kyle Hendricks – 4 2/3 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 3.47. I don’t even own him and I’m annoyed that he couldn’t go five innings with a nine-run cushion.
Mike Foltynewicz – 4 2/3 IP, 2 ER, ERA at 5.59 vs. Jacob Waguespack – 3 IP, 3 ER, ERA at 3.93. Their last names are longer than their outings.
Freddie Freeman – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 36th homer, hitting .297. Freeman homered off Boshers, who got his name when a man reached climax while watching Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco bash forearms.
Vince Velasquez – 5 IP, 2 ER, 5 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 4.86. Streamonator liked this start, and it was a (mild) success, and likes his next start mildly, which means…I’m not sure. It feels risky to me.
Corey Dickerson – 1-for-5 and his 9th homer, and 2nd homer in the last three games. Hard for me to give a full-throated hot schmotato alert on a 1-for-5, but could be something here.
J.T. Realmuto – 3-for-5, 2 runs and his 20th homer. Jerry Tomato is walking away with the number one catcher spot in the Player Rater, and I’m honestly not sure when the last time was that a number one catcher coming into the season ended the year in the same spot. Maybe an early Posey year? Not sure, tee bee aitch.
Starling Marte – 3-for-4, 2 runs and his 23rd homer. He’s a good bellwether for how juiced balls are. He should be a 20-homer hitter. So, balls are 13% juicey. Math holds up.
Josh Bell – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 34th homer. “Partly cloudy.” That’s Josh trying to be a good bellwether too.
Mitch Keller – 4 IP, 8 ER, ERA at 8.62. After the game, Ray Searage said, “You love to see a guy groove pitches like that. But he could’ve easily thrown 75 pitches and gave up 12 earned, so we’ll work on it.”
Hunter Dozier – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 23rd homer, hitting .282. Prepare the part of your brain where my sleepers go, because Dozier’s gonna be living in there for about four months this offseason.
Ryan O’Hearn – 2-for-4 and his 10th homer, 3rd homer this week. Tommy O’Hearns is famously known as The Hitman *intern whispers in my ear* I mis-googled? I never mis-google. That’s amatureish. What, I mis-googled how to spell amateurish?
Brad Keller – Royals shut him down for the year. Royals had previously said they were going to wait for two to three more starts, so I’m not sure Keller saw this coming.
Mark Canha – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 23rd homer, and 45th homer this month. Yo, is Canha running for Mayor of Hot Schmotatoland? Because Ty Wigginton has a lifetime appointment and can’t be removed from office.
Marcus Semien – 2-for-5 and his 24th homer, and his 2nd homer in three games. On one hand, Semien is so hot; on the other hand, gross.
Sheldon Neuse – Called up by the A’s. He’s on the older side for a prospect (24), because he played college ball. So, I will call him Old Sheldon. OS (I’ve now shortened it) hits for power and looks like he eats and/or is called Chunky Monkey. CM (I’ve now shortened Chunky Monkey) was originally being called up to fill-in for a few days for Khris Davis on paternity leave — if that kid isn’t born at 2:47 AM or PM, send it for DNA tests — but now Matt Chapman had his melon struck, so Neuse may stay up longer. Didn’t run out to grab Neuse anywhere, but I could see it for upside on power.
