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In my never ending quest to overturn every stone, and scour every corner of fantasy prospectdom; I’ll be going through all of the MiLB leagues over the next couple of weeks. Each post will touch on a handful or so, of the most interesting prospects in each circuit. For our purposes, these lists are always with a fantasy slant, because intangibles, defensive prowess, and leadership, ain’t winning nobody no fantasy title. Unless you play in a league where the scoring is created by Yadier Molina. Any the who, today we go to Carolina….in my mind. Our minds? James Taylor anyone? Okay no Sweet Baby James fans eh?!?… Okay then, we go to the Carolina League, and finish off the reviews of the High-A circuits for our weekly Sunday Prospect sermon. On Wednesday we’ll then begin our look at the Class A Leagues, with the exciting Midwest League. This may be the first time exciting and Midwest were used in the same sentence.  So let’s get into the names of note, and the juicy prospect booty that lurks. I meant Prospect Booty the pirate way….. You don’t believe me do you?

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God really doesn’t want us to have nice things as prospectors, so he’s blessed us with his other begotten son, Tim Tebow! That’s right it’s a Tim Tebow-centric pod today, as we open up this week’s show discussing his immaculate connection with a batting practice fastball in instructional ball. Michael Halpern and I have a much longer discussion of The Tebow’s baseball prospects, then either of us ever hoped to have. The conclusion: I think we may have a superstar brewing in the NL East……and his name is Kevin Maitan. (See what I did there?) We talk about the top international signing, since the last top international signing, and where we’ll be ranking him come February. We then run wild with the theme of this week’s show, the Top 10 Prospect Disappointments of 2016. So we spend most of the hour dumping on players we expected to have big seasons. It’s just the level of negativity I thrive in. Hold on tight y’all it’s the latest episode of the Razzball Prospect Podcast.

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I don’t know where you’re from, by where I’m at everyone is getting High-A. I have no idea why I find this funny, it’s not. Then again they don’t pay me to be funny, actually they don’t pay me for anything. If I was paid for anything though it would probably be this, writing about prospects. Particularly those in the low minors and a few years away. Today, we’ll take a long look at the breakout players in two of the three High-A level leagues, the California League and the Florida State League. Though they share the distinction of being even in terms of level, the two circuits couldn’t boast more divergent offensive profiles. As the California League is known for its hitting and power friendly environment, the Florida State League is known for the opposite; low scoring games, and pitching friendly statistics. On Sunday we’ll dig into the numerous breakouts and players of note in the third High-A syndicate, the Carolina league. We’ll also touch on some of the top performers in the A level Midwest League. If there’s anyone else you feel I neglected to include that’s on your radar in the Cali or FSL, post it, I’d love to discuss them. You know what the old timers say, Prospecting takes a village.

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Each week over the next couple of months, I’ll be profiling a few players that you need to own in all of your dynasty leagues. Wait, did I just more or less repeat the title in the first sentence? I think I did. I must be really trying to drive the point home, eh? Well of course, I mean after all, what’s the point of reading along if you don’t want to be brow beaten with points. Amirite? You’re here to spend your coffee sipping hours on Sunday morning with your old buddy Ralphie. I’m like a dynasty/prospector Charles Osgood, but with less joker face, like a lot less…Now that the space filling mumbo jumbo is out of the way, let’s get into the crux of the matter at hand. We’re going to look at four players each week. One major leaguer I feel you can get on the cheap compared to where I see his value. A top 100 type bat that I just need to own. A pitching prospect with some upside you won’t pay through the nose for. Then we’ll touch on a young low minors player you can snag in the later rounds of your 18-30 team dynasty league’s first year player draft.

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The minor league season is over, so allow your favorite Prospectors to light the hot stove. It’s like an outside fire pit on an autumn night type of stove. You know, hoodies and shorts. We’ll save the pellet stove for the December doldrums, whatever those are. Enough about heating units! This week yours truly, and Michael Halpern of imaginarybrickwall.com kick things off with some Padres talk, as they called up the quartet of Manuel Margot, Hunter Renfroe, Carlos Asuaje, and Austin Hedges. We then touch on top playoff performances from Billy McKinney, Jason Martin, “King of the North” Tyler O’Neill, and Braves pitching prospect Max Fried. We then get into our top 5 sleeper/breakout hitters, and top 5 sleeper/breakout pitchers for 2017. Never mind the bollocks, it’s the latest episode of the Razzball Prospect Podcast.

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For today’s post I draw my inspiration from the spirit animal of this post, the incomparable Corey Feldman. There’s a couple of reasons for this; first and foremost his recent viral-worthy Today show performance. The general message of the performance was be yourself, dance like no one’s watching, and go for it. Yes, ladies and gents, I’m the Tony Robbins here at Razzball, looking to get you up and out there, getting yours. Seriously, be yourself Corey. Be. Your. Self…….That goes for you too Angels, even if the look in your eye is one of a captured animal who’s freedom has been stripped of them one Lost Boys themed orgy at a time. The other reason Mr. Feldman is such an inspiration for this post, his career. It started out bright, and successful, but quickly spun out of control, as the remainder has been a trainwreck. Sorry dude, but 80’s drug use is no excuse (cough, cough Charlie Sheen and Robert Downey Jr. did okay, if only for a little while). This narrative is not much different than the prospects we’ll discuss today. They too started their seasons with a spectacular run of success, rubbing elbows with the Michael Jackson’s of the minor leagues (That’s Tito BTW), on their way to great first halves. But that’s where the plot thickens. As they hit the second half they faltered, and the results weren’t anywhere close to their previous levels. So today let’s talk about some of these first half heroes, the ones that went full Cinderellay, as their production went pumpkin. Here are this year’s Corey Feldman’s.

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A large part of success in fantasy, and dynasty leagues in particular, is identifying player trends. It’s a matter of knowing when to move on from a player before it’s too late, and it’s knowing when to buy a player before his stock explodes. In the coming weeks we’ll have a few posts dealing with who I’m targeting in dynasty leagues, and players I’m moving on from. In mid-September it’s still a bit too early to get into those discussions. So, let’s continue to look back at the year that was in prospects, shall we? In this vein, today we’ll discuss the players that broke out in the second half after bad first halfs; and on Wednesday we’ll speak on the lads that faltered in the second half after starring roles in the first. To add a bit of the tomfoolery Razzball is known for, let’s christen each post with the name of a like minded spirit. We’ll call the second half breakouts Samuel L. Jackson’s, and the second half stumpers Corey Feldman’s. There couldn’t be two stars with divergent career paths. I mean have you seen Feldman lately? He’s pretty much a novelty EDM act cult leader, but seems completely oblivious to this unlike the rest of the world.

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We’re back, and this time with 100% less cracking mics, and Candy Crush breaks! Do people still play Candy Crush? Anywho…This week on the Prospect Podcast Michael Halpern of Imaginarybrickwall.com and I talk the recent callups of Roman Quinn and Dan Vogelbach. Touch on Chance Adams 2016, the return of Benintendi, and the end of Aaron Judge’s season. I promise I won’t gloat. From there, we discuss next season value for the big three rookie catchers, Sanchez, Contreras, and Murphy for those of you not in the know. Then again, you’re listening to a fantasy prospect podcast in September, so you know. We round out the episode with our top 10 prospect catchers, and follow that up with some interesting sleepers. Ladies and Gents it’s episode 7 of the Razzball Fantasy Prospect Podcast!!

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This is one of those posts where I feel like I’m writing as much for guys researching their minors draft in early January, as I am the few hardcores still checking out prospect blogs in the throws of Fantasy Football season. Hardcores, excuse me if you will, while I direct a few questions at the January readers. January readers, here are my questions:

  1. Did the Cubs win the World Series?
  2. Did the Red Sox win the World Series?
  3. Has Strasburg had TJ yet? How about Salazar?
  4. Is Trump President?

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk a little about why we’re gathered here today. Dearly beloved….Wait, sorry! I was about to read the notes from the last wedding I did. BTW Prospector Ralph is a fully licensed Justice of the Peace. Imagine hiring me to do your next wedding! I could talk specs, oogle at your wife’s cans, and the best part is you can pay me in scotch! Sounds like a win-win-win. Right? Anyway, I’m actually here today to finish off my 2016 All-Prospect team, and with the help of our very own bullpen specialist Smokey. Who just so happened to be nice enough to throw me three bullpen specs he’s excited about. So I’ll give you my top 10 minor league pitchers of the year, and Smokey will give you his 7th, 8th, and 9th inning guys for our imaginary farm team. Do Smokey a solid, and go read some of his stuff over on Razzball Soccer. Do me a solid while you’re at it and subscribe to the Razzball Prospect Podcast.

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Many consider the break between the Super Bowl and the beginning of Spring Training, to be the most boring weeks of the sports calendar. For us Prospectors it’s probably from the end of the MiLB regular season until the beginning of the Arizona Fall League. This is a time for us to put our pick axes, and helmet lights down, and reflect on the year that was. So in that vein, today we embark on the first part of a two part series, detailing my 2016 All-Prospect Team. Today’s feature, focuses on the position players, or the lineup for our Minor League dream team. Wednesday’s post will look at our rotation. I’ve eliminated players I view as graduated, whether MLB guidelines agree or not. So no Alex Bregman, Joey Gallo, Andrew Benintendi, Gary Sanchez, or Ryon Healy etc. I’ve also provided a runner up for each position, listed as bench options. These bench options deserve considerable acclaim, but unfortunately for them, I deemed the player ahead of them to be more deserving. Obviously these picks can’t be argued with, because what I say goes, and should be accepted as fact. So if you try and argue with me in the comments about my choices, I’m going to head to your house and pummel you while wearing foam Hulk mitts.

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Happy Thursday everyone! I hope you’re all shaking off the dust from a productive Burning Man, and are looking to fine tune your offseason dynasty strategy. Actually I don’t really wish those things, it was just the first thing that popped into my head. With that said, welcome back to another episode of the Razzball Prospect Podcast with myself, Prospector Ralph, and Michael Halpern of Imaginarybrickwall.com. This week on the pod we talk Byron Buxton‘s resurgence, Rockies rookies Raimel Tapia and Tom Murphy (of course!!), and the curious case of Shohei Otani. Then as always we get into this week’s edition of “Lists w/ Prospectors”, as Halp and I take your through our Outfield Prospect ranks. We discuss in painful detail, such luminaries as Austin Meadows, Victor Robles, Lewis Brinson, Bradley Zimmer, Eloy Jimenez, and several others. Enough with the words! Subscribe, tune in, and tune out. It’s the latest edition of the Razzball Prospect Podcast.

And be sure to check out the newest episode of the Razzball Football Podcast with Tehol, Zach, special guest Ramona from SportsGalPal, and Jay going over the first week of the NFL!

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There’s an old African expression that I just made up, it goes “A hippo in the Bush is more dangerous than a pack of lions”. Whether anyone in an actual African country has ever whispered that phrase I don’t know. What I do know is, that in the Razznasty a Hippo is more dangerous than all the other Lions combined. After leading by the slimmest of margins entering August, the Matt Truss led Hippos has put his foot on the gas, switched on the nitrous, and left the rest of the league in the dust. In the past 30 days he’s gone from 121 points and a half point lead over Raskals, to 137.5 points and an 11.5 point lead over his rival. With good across the board production, and a slight edge in pitching, Hippos is doing it all. Seriously he’s top 5 in every category but RBIs, where he ranks 6th. Way to come on Matt, you’re both a Czar, a scholar, and a Maine resident. That means you’re Russian royalty, know how to spell deductible, and love a good Skowhegan whoopie pie. What, you don’t understand why whoopie pies and Maine, particularly Skow-Vegas, are synonymous? What can I say there are just mysteries that can’t be explained. This isn’t one of those, I just don’t feel like uncovering why the two are related. The whoopie’s are amazing though….Hey it’s the final Razznasty Update for 2016!

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