This is going to be less on the flowery introduction, and more on the blurbs. This will be a mega blurbstomp, and I hoped you packed a big lunch, and something to drink, maybe a kettle and a convection oven, some cast iron skillets, a gas range, a refrigerator, a sink and garbage disposal, custom Ikea cabinets with a marble countertop, maybe an island unless it’s going to be a small space, a herringbone backsplash, sealed linoleum floors, fan for the range, a Danish Modern dining room table with 4-6 chairs, candles for mood, flower petals, a heart-shaped hot tub, and finally, a roll of quarters for the vibrating bed.
Now that we’re all set, let’s catch up to a bit of last month’s blurbs!
A Blurbstomp Reminder
We will analyze player blurbs from a given evening, knowing that 1-2 writers are usually responsible for all the player write-ups posted within an hour of the game results. We will look at:
- Flowery Diction – how sites juice up descriptions of player performance
- Wishful Thinking – a blurbist tries to explain away a bad performance
- Q and Q – when a site contradicts a player valuation on back-to-back blurbs
- The Blame Game – a player takes on the fault of the team as a whole
- Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award – Given to the player blurb that promises the most and delivers the least.
- Bob Nightengale Syndrome – instances of updates that don’t update anything
The hope is that by season’s end, we’ll all feel more confident about our player evaluations when it comes to the waiver wire. We will read blurbs and not be swayed by excessive superlatives, faulty injury reporting, and micro-hype. I will know that I have done my job when Grey posts, and there isn’t a single question about catchers that he did not address in his post. Onward to Roto Wokeness!
Flowery Diction
Robbie Ray surrendered one run over six innings on Thursday in a no-decision against the Athletics.
Ray was simply outdueled by Athletics’ ace Frankie Montas, who came within four outs of a no-hitter and settled for eight shutout innings. He finished with six strikeouts and only issued a pair of walks. An RBI single from Christian Bethancourt in the opening frame was the lone blemish in an otherwise excellent outing. The 30-year-old reigning American League Cy Young Award winner will carry a pedestrian 4.07 ERA, 1.18 WHIP and 97/31 K/BB ratio across 90 2/3 innings (15 starts) into a favorable home outing on Tuesday against the Orioles.
Source: Rotoworld
Calling Robbie Ray’s ratios and K% pedestrian seems a bit drastic, but based on his draft price, I recognize that this isn’t too huge of a stretch. However, compare it to this blurb written about Tarik Skubal in the same time period:
Tarik Skubal surrendered three runs on four hits over 4 2/3 innings in Tuesday’s loss to the Giants.
Skubal was wild in this one, handing out four walks in addition to the four hits allowed. An Evan Longoria RBI single in the first inning and a Mike Yastrzemski two-run single represented the whole of the run-scoring damage on his watch. Skubal wrapped having struck out five. He will carry a 3.75 ERA, 1.17 WHIP and 89/21 K/BB ratio (15 starts; 84 innings) into a home showdown with the Guardians in his next scheduled start.
Source: RW
It’s interesting to see how little separates these two pitchers, and which fella gets the little derogatory snipe.
Ray: 4.07/1.18/97K per 90.2 IP
Skubal: 3.75/1.17/89K per 84IP
Again, Ray’s line is “pedestrian,” and they weren’t factoring in Wins. This has more to do with expectations versus the New Cool Thing, but I didn’t draft Ray expecting him to continue pitching exactly the way he did last year. He’s on a new team, with gruesomely looser pants. Only buffoons draft players in a given year expecting carbon copy stats from years previous. Keep your expectations in check people, please!
Wishful Thinking
Mark Melancon retired just one batter and took a loss in a non-save situation against the Giants on Wednesday.
Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo turned to Melancon with the score knotted at three going into the bottom of the ninth. It didn’t go well, as he surrendered a hard-hit single to Brandon Belt and a one-out double off the wall to Mike Yastrzemski before Brandon Crawford hit a walk-off single (it should’ve been ruled an error on Daulton Varsho, but the winning run was going to score even had he caught it). Melancon has mostly pitched well since a really rough stretch in early May, but he’s now been scored upon in two of his last three appearances.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
I love a good blurb that argues about a scorer’s decision because it either screwed over the blurbist’s fantasy team or their parlay. He’s not going to sleep with you, dude! There’s a terror when your scrappy closer blows a save because even if the world is screaming at the manager, that same manager will find a reason to remove him from his closer role. He’ll give him some time to cool off in “lower leverage situations,” which means he’ll get bombed in the 7th inning, and then he’ll get a blister and be put on the IL.
Do I own Joe Barlow and I am using my little corner of the internet to vent my spleen, much like this blurbist? Yes. I never said I could do their job better. Don’t look at me that way. Don’t make me use two exclamation points again!!
Q&Q
Manny Machado Back in action Thursday
Machado missed nine consecutive games due to his ankle injury, but he’ll serve as the designated hitter and bat second in Thursday’s series opener against the Dodgers. Over his five games prior to his absence, he went 0-for-18 with two homers, a double, eight RBI and five runs.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
This is immaculate inception levels of grandiosity. I can imagine only one other player who could manage to hit two homers and double while going 0-for-18: Shohei Ohtani. The best thing about Ohtani is that he could somehow do this, and people will still insist that he’s not that special. I get it when someone like Cody Bellinger or Justin Morneau freak out and win the MVP; haters can point to a giant body of evidence saying that luck was the sole factor in elevating their games. With Ohtani, the refrain I continue to see in 2022 is that his pitching doesn’t matter, that Trout is the better hitter, so he’s the better player. It makes me wonder what Ohtani would need to do to win over his most ardent and deranged sayers of nay.
- Win a batting title – Nope, this wouldn’t work. The imbeciles would pile in to say that he doesn’t hit for enough power.
- Win the Cy Young Award – Nope, haters don’t acknowledge that he even pitches.
- Win the Triple Crown – Nope, haters would say that Trout faded on purpose to help his teammate, which would again make him a “better team guy.”
- Break the Home Run record – Nope, haters would point out that he sold out for power and his batting average was in the .250 range.
- Hit 5 Consecutive Grandslams One-Handed – Nope, haters would insist that he should have used his other hand.
- Hit 5 Consecutive Grandslams with only his weak hand – Nope, haters would insist any form of ambidextrousness is performance-enhancing because it has the word “dex” in it.
- Hits a homer out of the ballpark that ends up knocking the hater’s least favorite politician into unconsciousness, making a loud coconut sound that someone filmed and posted for all to see – I would hope this would do it, but I have no faith in mankind.
Bob Nightengale Memorial Plaque
Willi Castro went 2-for-5 and homered against the White Sox in Monday’s loss.
The homer was Castro’s second of the season, but also, incredibly, the first hit by the Tigers in 2022. Castro’s .664 OP doesn’t seem like much, but it’s about 70 points higher than Detroit’s on the whole. The team needs to keep playing him for now.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
Blinking guy GIF
Flowery Diction
Gabriel Moreno is expected to join the Blue Jays on Saturday — where he’ll start behind the plate in his big league debut.
At least that’s the tentative plan, as laid out by Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo on Friday. With Danny Jansen sidelined with a fractured finger, Moreno will have an opportunity to share the load behind the plate with Alejandro Kirk. One of the best pure hitting prospects in recent memory, Moreno has slashed .324/.380/.404 with on homer, 23 RBI and three swipes in 36 games at Triple-A Buffalo. He should hit right away — though the power production may not surface initially.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
One of the best pure-hitting prospects in recent memory? “Pure hitter” is one of those nebulous phrases that myself and other baseball miscreants throw around without really having any kind of conformed idea of what makes the hitter so dang pure. I imagine a hitter who drives the ball consistently, regardless of power. If he hits homers as well, so be it. So while I do see a bit of ink on Moreno’s hit tool, I saw a few sites list Toronto’s best “pure hitter” prospect as Leo Jimenez. The guy had twice as many walks as strikeouts in 59 games last season. He had a .550 OBP!! That’s so crazy that I used two exclamation marks, and also because I have problems!!
Anywho, Moreno went 3/0/4/0/.276 in 60 PA’s, so it would appear that he did not, in fact, hit right away. 60 PA’s don’t make a player, but I don’t know how helpful being excited about a prospect like Moreno is for fantasy purposes. During his peak, I could see him being Yadier Molina lite, a guy who could hit .290 with around 12 homers. Is he worth the hype? Is this a Treasure/Trash blog? Is it even a blog anymore? Is it morally and ethically ‘okay’ for me to tell my kids I’m a writer if this is one of my jobs? Is it morally and ethically ‘okay’ for me to tell my newborn child that I’m America’s first Surfing Astronaut, the MCU doesn’t exist, and that every Yankees player was born with a facial hair deformity?
Flowery Diction
Eduardo Escobar blasted his 10th home run of the season as the Mets took care of business against the Braves on Wednesday afternoon in Atlanta.
Escobar opened the scoring in the contest with a mammoth 426-foot blast off of Braves right-hander Charlie Morton in the second inning. He finished the day 1-for-4 and is now slashing .217/.273/.387 with 10 homers and 38 RBI on the season. Escobar has been on a power binge as of late, hitting five home runs over his last 19 games.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
Five home runs in his last 19 games is such a bizarre statistic, it raised my spidey senses that are useless beyond trying to find Mets bias on blurb sites. I then decided to see how many homers he’s hit in normal, non-bizarre increments:
| Eduardo Escobar | Extra Base Hits | Home Runs |
| Last 5 games | 2 | 1 |
| Last 10 games | 2 | 1 |
| Last 15 games | 5 | 4 |
| Last 20 games | 6 | 5 |
In those twenty games, Escobar slashed 6/5/13/.179. It is not good, and no, hitting a home run today is not part of a binge either.
Escobar did go on a power binge from the 1st to the 3rd of May, hitting a solo home run each of those days. He had gone six days without hitting a home run. It was a power binge from July 1st through the 3rd. This is just trying to put lipstick on Rougned Odor. The Mets have a Rougned Odor in their infield. This is an intervention, and we’re here to help. Will it make you feel better in the short or long term? Absolutely not. That’s why it’s an intervention.
To soothe most Mets fans, Austin Riley has hit 4 home runs in the past 5 days. That’s a power binge, friends.
On that note, I must now return to diaper duty and telling sweet lies to my newborn because he knows not yet the carnage of growing up in a world where 10 adult men, with access to the best healthcare in the world, still decided that the risk of killing themselves or other people was not important because they “know their bodies.”
Based on the Royals anti-masturbation symposium held in the preseason (which is a real thing and not a joke), I would assume that these 10 Royals don’t know a thing about their bodies, and that’s the way Dayton Moore, despite his name, likes it.
Can one team hold all the bad views? pic.twitter.com/eGresTPtMJ
— Razzball (@Razzball) July 13, 2022
