Language is such an important aspect of society yet we underrate how difficult it is. One can learn the fundamentals of any language yet change the intonation, add a punctuation mark, spell it differently, and/or tweak the context and the Tower of Babel arises. Tell the homies that you’re going to go out and ball? No one bats an eye. Tell them you’re going out to bawl, then everyone loses their mind. When I’m an idiot and pick up the phone from an unlisted number, hello? The crush calls? Heeeeeeelllllloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. You see the ex on the street and hello can mean many things. If someone just started playing fantasy baseball this year, then it’d be all about heeeeeeellllllllllllloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo to Jo Adell of the Anaheim Angels (I refuse to acknowledge that the Angels are from Los Angeles). In 25 plate appearances, he has a .304/.360/.478 slash with a 20% strikeout rate and .174 ISO. For the grizzled veterans of the game, then it is hellsno to Adell as they remember last season’s appearance in The Show: .161/.212/.266 slash with a 41.7% strikeout rate and .105 ISO in 132 plate appearances. So, which hello is it going to be going forward for Adell?
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Bear or Bull: Will Farmer Continue Producing a Bountiful Harvest?
August 5, 2021 | Bear or Bull | 4 Commentsby: Son
My better half created a truly local Farmer’s Market in our backyard. Avocados. Strawberries. Green peas. Cucumbers. Those are just to name a few. At first, the harvest was middling as both the quantity and size were underwhelming. Need more light, she said. More fertilizer. More water. Maybe the plants are what they are, I said. Well, as you can imagine, no sexy time for quite some time after that. So, I did what any normal sex-starved man would do. I went out and “fertilized” the plants with my internal bodily fluids. And what do you know? Happy wife, happy life! Kyle Farmer of the Cincinnati Reds has been added in 33.4% of ESPN leagues over the last seven days as a result of three home runs and 25 hits in 62 plate appearances since the All-Star game. Is this harvest legit or has it been due to outside factors?
Please, blog, may I have some more?I’ve been taking my daughter to the pool to learn how to swim. Yes, your Son isn’t just a son of a Son who has a son himself. #GirlDad and proud of it! Anyways, she is so far from swimming, the same way I have no chance of replicating the feats I see while watching the Olympics. Gotta start somewhere, though. Getting into the water is no problem but dunking her head underwater or floating on her back is not on the agenda. So, the teacher just says to have her wade around in the shallow end to just get her comfortable being in the water. And wade we did and wade we do. It’s been about a week and she can now put her head underwater for a sec and float on her back a little bit with assistance. Incremental improvement which will hopefully portend for great things ahead. LaMonte Wade Jr. of the San Francisco Giants has been a sneaky source of fantasy production and has been added in 13.3% of ESPN leagues recently. Shoutout to Vlad Sedler, high-stakes guru over at Elite Fantasy who’s been on Wade for a few weeks now. Will this Wade lead to more or is it time to exit the pool and take a shower?
Please, blog, may I have some more?I went glamping last week with a few families from my son’s school. Yes, your Son is the son of a Son and has a son himself. We decided to split up meal duty so my wife decided to make a shrimp boil. Whatever the opposite of Top Chef is, that is me so bear with my forthcoming description. Boil water. Sprinkle in the seasoning with some leaves of some kind. Insert corn, potatoes, lemon, and sausages. Let it marinate and percolate then toss in the shrimp at the end. Open the lid, free the steam, then chow down. Mmm, mmm, mmmm. Delicioso. Luis Urias is a “shrimp” at 5′ 9″ and 186 pounds but he’s been all meat, potatoes, corn, lemon, and whatever else you want to throw in this season. In 346 plate appearances, he has 13 home runs, 47 runs, 45 RBI, and five stolen bases. He’s been added in 13.8% of ESPN leagues. Will the pot continue to produce a heavenly mixture or will there just be shrimp left?
Please, blog, may I have some more?I always support and root for my Asian brethren in professional sports. Hee-Seop Choi! Hee-Seop Choi! I still get chills screaming the chant in Chavez Ravine. Was he great? Far from it. But he looked like me. I know that I shouldn’t take pride in their accomplishments but I do. Even after Chan Ho Park served up two grand slams in the same inning to the Fernando Tatis, I still felt pride. I may have thrown some remotes and entered a mental state of disbelief for a while but it was still there. Someone that looked like me and came from the same place as my parents was able to reach the highest level of professional sports. That said, when breaking down players for fantasy, I try and stay as objective as possible. Keston Hiura was born to a Chinese mother and a Japanese father. He looks like me and I always root for him. He’s also been added in 13.3% of ESPN leagues over the last week because he hit three home runs in the past two weeks. Trash or treasure?
Please, blog, may I have some more?Oh my my my. I’m felling high. My voice is gone but I’m not alone. Too much “he ain’t real”. The world keeps turnin’. Oh what a day. What a day. What a day. Hits and homers manifest. With every passing game. If my belief were my wealth. Then I would be filthy rich. If I were made in his image. Then I’d be one sexy dude. Most analysts do not believe. Cuz they fear regression coming. Oh on and on and on and on. The hits keep coming like the morning dew. Whew on and on and on and on. All night until the break of dawn. I go on and on and on and on. The hits keep coming like the morning dew. Ooo on and on and on and on. God damn it. Imma sing his song.
I usually don’t like to write up a player more than once in a season but sometimes the universe demands it. Back on April 15th, I wrote up Akil Baddoo because he had produced three home runs, nine RBI, and one stolen base in 21 plate appearances. I thought that pitchers were going to find weaknesses and exploit it, especially since the plate discipline numbers weren’t great.
Please, blog, may I have some more?“I *am*…in a world….of shit”
These were the famous words uttered by Austin Gomber when he was given the news about the trade to the Colorado Rockies. Then the words were uttered again when he set foot in Coors Field. He had spent his entire professional career in the friendly confines of Busch Stadium with an organization that valued pitching. Now he was being sent to the Siberia of MLB, a place where, in the infamous words of Drago, “If he dies, he dies.” Gomber is coming off a gem in Colorado and has been added in 19.8% of ESPN leagues. Is this Gomber a Pyle or should we promote him with distinction?
Gomber is 27 years old, 6′ 5″, 220 pounds, and throws from the left side. The Cardinals selected him in the fourth round of the 2014 MLB Draft.
Please, blog, may I have some more? One Man’s Trash: Should We Refrain and Show Some Wisdom?
June 10, 2021 | One Man's Trash | 27 Commentsby: Son
I was clicking buttons on YouTube last night when I came across Freerunning. Man, those videos are so mesmerizing, especially with the music and slow-motion graphics. After the third video, I considered myself a Freerunning expert. I knew how to run. I knew how to jump. I understood that E=mc2. I was good at math so I could calculate the proper angles and such. After tying my shoes, I kicked open the screen door and jumped on top of the porch fence to vault myself onto the sidewalk. Beep….Boop……Bop……”911, what’s your emergency?” I’ve fallen and I can’t get up. The amazing things we see being done on tv are the result of years of practice and honing a craft. What makes them more fantastic is the effortless nature with which they are done. To the point that you and I often think that we could pull off the same feats. For most things in life, though, patience and persistence are good guides. You want to practice and/or perform due diligence before committing to anything. Fantasy baseball is no different. Patrick Wisdom of the Chicago Cubs has taken the league by storm recently. He’s hit seven home runs in 40 plate appearances and has been added in 44.3% of ESPN leagues. Refrain and show some Wisdom or is the Wisdom in riding the horse until it rides no more?
Please, blog, may I have some more?If you paddle out into the ocean to kayak or surf, there’s a chance you could encounter a shark. Will the shark attack you every time? If it’s hungry or feels threatened, then you will get attacked. Some will view that as a shark just being a shark while others will want to kill the shark for being a threat despite the fact that something is infringing upon its domain. If a shark walked on its fins into someone’s home, then an argument can be made. The same thing happens in fantasy baseball. A player’s stats can fluctuate for a variety of reasons, which causes the perception of said player to change, but more often than not, a player is who he is. Avisail Garcia of the Milwaukee Brewers has been added in 16.6% of ESPN leagues over the last week to take his roster percentage to 56.3%. Who is Garcia?
Please, blog, may I have some more?When the San Francisco Giants were winning chips in 2010, 2012, and 2014, it was all about pitching and defense. Or was it? During those three magical years, the Giants were 12th, 12th, and 17th in runs scored, 10th, 30th, and 17th in home runs, and 14th, 14th, and 17th in OPS. Offense, defense, and special teams! Then the malaise hit as the Giants morphed into a slap-hitting, station to station offense that even had the BART blaring its horns. From 2016 to 2018, the Giants were 19th, 29th, and 29th in runs scored, 28th, 30th, and 29th in home runs, and 20th, 30th, and 29th in OPS. After the 2018 season, the Giants hired Farhan Zaidi and the small-ball offense has become a remnant of the past. The renaissance has helped the Giants to a 28-19 record to compete with the big dogs in the NL West and, as we learned from the 90s, chicks dig the long ball.
Please, blog, may I have some more?I was famished. I had just written 10,000 words on why this column is named Bear or Bull. The joints in my fingers were popping due to the self-induced arthritis. I was staring at the computer monitor so long that my glasses absorbed so much light that oncoming drivers became disoriented as I screwed with their depth perception while walking on the sidewalk. As I opened the door to my local Mexican restaurant, the intoxicating smell transformed me into Pepe Le Pew as I floated to the front counter. Wolfing the tacos down, I thought to myself, “This is heaven. I’ve never tasted anything so delicious in my life before,” even though I had been there last Friday, and the Friday before, and the Friday before that, and every Friday for the past two years. Sometimes, things just hit the spot better or worse, depending on a confluence of factors. The same thing goes for fantasy baseball. Dylan Bundy was great in 65.2 innings last season during his first season with the Angels. This year? Not so good. He’s the 629th player on the Razzball Player Rater and has been dropped in 16.7% of ESPN leagues.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Grey told you to buy Harrison Bader last week. Listen to Grey and emulate him. It’s been a good strategy for me over the years. When I first became a reader of Razzball, Saves Ain’t Got No Face became a mantra and way of life. Not only did it help me navigate the relief pitcher market but I’d go to the club and the success rate exploded exponentially. When I first started writing for Razzball, I had no voice. I wasn’t a professional writer and there was much apprehension. Then I just emulated Grey. I think it’s worked out okay because I haven’t gotten fired yet and the editors still ask me to write pieces. See? I don’t just write bullshit. I live what I write. Alright, back to Bader. I was scrolling through the ESPN add/drops and he was added in 12.4% of leagues, but he’s still only rostered by 16.9% of owners. I wanted to dig in a little closer on my HarriSON.
Please, blog, may I have some more?