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Hey hey! We have actual, stat-accruing baseball happening now through November. Finally, the calendar feels like it’s real, and not some Sophon-induced San-ti delusion. Wait, is that the countdown to the end of my season flashing through my head? No worries — we’ve got 6 months!

My role in 2024 has shifted away from pitching and is now focused on hitting. I’ll cover pitchers as well as their stats become more interesting down the line. But we are in serious small sample size territory right now.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

I know, I know. Nobody cares about your fantasy team. Except you, dear reader, actually do care about my team, right? Or, at least you care to read about Grey’s teams, and you care to read about Rudy’s teams, and you care to read about other people’s drafts like it’s some literary genre.

It’s not the next War and Peace or even the next Fourth Wing, but I think there’s stuff to be learned from draft analysis. That said, I’m going to be harsh on myself because I think there’s too many fantasy analysts that say, “I just drafted the best team in the universe, I’m making bank on this, I’m perfect.” I’m not perfect and no team is perfect. You can literally rearrange the draft order of a fantasy baseball draft something like a quintillion times. But here’s a team that I’m happy with, and put thought into, and will try to win with. If that helps you, then read on.

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People ask me: EWB, what’s the best thing I can do to level up my fantasy skills? Right now, I’d say “Get off of Twitter, I don’t know WTF those guys are fighting about, but it’s dumb.” But you’re probably on to 20chan or something else deplorable already, so you’ve seen worse than grown men fighting over imaginary sports management.

There’s no single path that will bring you fantasy glory. I mean, other than starting up a league by yourself and inviting nobody else. You’re gonna be so embarrassed when you come in second place behind a team that didn’t even draft!

There’s no single thing that will make you the best fantasy lothario on the planet because you can’t control everything. And when you realize how little control you have, that’s when you level up your fantasy game and become a better player.

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[licks finger, puts it in the air] It’s best ball weather, folx. That wind from the north bringing the chill warns not of failure, but of luck and opportunity. There’s fun to be had. For some players, there’s a bunch of money on the line too. Right about now, you’re probably fending off ads from DraftKings, Underdog, NFBC, Fantrax, and a legion of other providers that are advertising best ball leagues. Sign up bonuses! Overlay! Just 2 more needed to fill this league that drafts at 1AM! 

Oh, and RazzSlam starts on March 4 (that’s today!). We’re still working on making it a national holiday, but so far only Kiribati recognizes the sanctity of this holy day. 

Personally, best ball is my favorite fantasy format. As a middle-aged corporate worker who has duties to family, animals, civic society, and video games, I have little time to log in and meticulously manage baseball rosters. That’s where best ball comes into play: I draft a team, and then the provider tallies only the top scores from eligible players and discards the rest. I don’t need to worry about 12PM vs 6PM starts, or late scratches, or day-to-day injuries, or, or, or. If you like worrying about that stuff, then great. Me? I’ve got 3 hours in the time where work ends and kids bedtimes begin to do a bunch of stuff, and looking at my fantasy roster usually doesn’t make the cut. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?

In our ultra-premium, ultra-secret Razzball Discord (which is only for writers and those people who podcast enough that they get called writers), Rudy wrote the following about his Draft Champions decision-making process: 

Now, aside from that killer avatar that Coolwhip made for Rudy, there are a few takeaways we can make from Rudy’s statement. 

Nolan Jones lacks desirable individual metrics: his career average K% hovers near 30%, a rate which is unsustainable for producing above-average fantasy hitters. 
Nolan Jones lacks track record: he has a notch over 500 MLB at bats, which worries Rudy. Clearly, 500 AB doesn’t worry the field about Corbin Carroll’s repeatability, but you do you. 
The Rockies suck. “That god awful offense” refers to the Rockies, not Nolan Jones, bee-tee-dubya. 

Per Fangraphs, the Colorado Rockies are projected to have the largest run differential in MLB in 2024, and an average overall runs scored per game rate. 

Who did Rudy choose instead? Adley Rutschman, the catcher for the Baltimore Orioles. Rutschman has twice the MLB sample size of Nolan Jones, a 10% lower K rate in that experience, and bats on a team that’s projected for a bit more runs than the Rockies. Good choice, Rudy! 

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Marketing hates me. When I pitched a new series to Truss, I said, “I’ll make it drool with SEO syrupy sweetness. People will click on it without even knowing it. We don’t even have to install the RazzTrojan.exe file on people’s computers anymore!”

Truss responded, “Dude, half our views are on mobile. We’ve elevated to .apk. People will put their Apple Vision Pros on and wake up to 24/7 Razzball Content from the Razzie News Network, powered by HIMS.”

Trade secrets aside, I really doubt this is true. First, if any Razzball reader had enough money for a Vision Pro, they would have chucked it at a Main Event entry already (now with 95% less cousin involvement!). Second, our astute readers would never, ever fall for AI thirst trap articles.

Rather, we fall for human-generated thirst trap articles. This is an article about that.

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Welcome champs and chaps! For the first time since 2021, I’m switching gears and writing about something other than pitchers.

How can that be, EWB, you say while rhyming into your Tutti-Frutti Frappucino Blast. I thought you were the Razzball Wiffernaut? It’s OK. Two things can be true at the same time. At least that’s what the current political discourse tells me.

At some nebulous point in the past, I held the esteemed position of “Second or Third Bestest Sports Player of the Razzers” when combining overall standings from RazzSlam, RazzBowl, and RazzJam. Who was first best? Dalton Del Don of Yahoo. Of course it’s Triple-D. ENYWHEY. I assume my utter dominance of the Razz better ball series of sports is why the confirmed Touts never asked me to be in their fancy leagues. That’s OK. They get to win their leagues and I get more time to meditate in the woods!

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When I asked Grey to change formats for this year, he had one condition: crippling flatuence. He also had one stipulation: “Crank up the drama, mama!” With that in mind, it’s time to save your team and bait your clicks with my Hall of Fame takes. 

Here’s my thinking. For the past three years, I’ve been telling you who the “Top 100 Starters” are/were/would be/could be. Given that only like 35 starters actually produce positive fantasy value and the rest are just Win fillers, knowing who not to draft is critical. This year, I’m handing off the Top 100 Starters to Marmos, who I suspect is related to Oli Marmol. 

Marmos starts the Top 100 Starters soon — next week, I think? ENYWHEY. To welcome him to his new role, I’m introducing y’all to the WORST starters to draft for 2024. 

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You know how it goes by now. Open Chrome. See AMP articles. Scroll past the ideology telling you that Lisa Frank’s unicorns have turned Cleveland into socialist rocketeers. Arrive at the fantasy baseball hype articles. Titles like, “Best 2024 Starter” and “Hot Starters for 2024” fill your feed. Your breath hastens. Your parasympathetic system engages. You think of Suzie or Stacy or Bill or Jamie from high school prom, and how great they looked under the disco ball. You’re set adrift on memory bliss of top pitchers of the past: Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw…and R.A. Dickey. Who could it be this year? you think to yourself.

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ADP is the dumbest way to draft a fantasy sports team. But EWB, you shout through a nougat-filled mouth, what if I miss value? Drafting by ADP (average draft position) is like going holiday shopping and choosing the presents nobody wants. Kids, gather round the Festivus Pole and look at this snow blower I got for 50% off! Doesn’t matter that we live by the equator and it hasn’t snowed in a decade — nobody else wanted it and it was a value! 

ADP is a social construct. ADP is the draft price that people expect to pay for a player; it’s not an objective rating. Maybe you’ve seen my previous Bible-length essay about ADP. I wrote it while contemplating the holographic principle. Is a baseball even a ball? I digress. 

The best use of ADP is to know where the rest of your league is heading. When you see them take the lure, you cut away from the pack and draft the league winner. The easiest way to deploy this tactic is to realize the worst ADP values on the board when you’re drafting. If there are players you know that you’re avoiding, it makes it easier to identify your desired targets and compose a superior team. 

Here are the top Starting Pitchers to avoid at current ADP values. ADP values are taken from National Fantasy Baseball Championship drafts that have completed in January — 61 drafts at the time of writing. 

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It’s that time of year folx — I just turned another year older, the “feels like” temp is -30 outside, and everybody in my creche (a word I learned from Baldur’s Gate 3) is sick. Our minds turn to happier thoughts, of a world where green grass proliferates and a cool breeze caresses my cheeks (use your imagination to choose which cheeks!). It is the time where EverywhereBlair emerges from hibernation to bring you his delicious and spicy takes on fantasy baseball. 

Welcome to Fantasy Baseball 2024. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?