The All Star Break is both a necessary breather for everyone in fantasy baseball, and also the worst thing that could ever happen to the gray matter that I dedicate to visiting fantasy blurb sites and line up posters. I will now read some books, perhaps finally transfer belongings from one storage space to another. I may even clean some bathrooms. Not my own, mind you. I’ll probably break into some people’s houses and give them a taste of my special brand of “cleaning.” This entails almost finishing cleaning every surface, but getting tired and giving up. Also, I will use all of your paper towels out of spite and try to flush them down the toilet. That’s class!
On to the 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
- Q and Q – when a site contradicts a player valuation on back-to-back blurbs
- COVID Hi-Jinx – self-explanatory
- Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award – Given to the player blurb that promises the most and delivers the least.
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
Josh Staumont picked up his sixth save of the season as he worked a scoreless ninth inning against the Twins on Saturday.
It was a nice bounce-back effort for the 27-year-old right-hander after giving up three runs against the Red Sox his last time out. Greg Holland — who had been functioning as the closer-de-jour in Kansas City, allowed a run in the eighth inning of this one. It’s anyone’s guess what Mike Matheny will do the next time the Royals have a lead to protect in the ninth inning, but in the meantime Staumont should probably be scooped up in mixed leagues where he’s available.
Source: Rotoedgeworld.com
This wasn’t a save opportunity, so it wasn’t a save. They then go on to say that Staumont should be picked up based on the False Save. This is pretty brutal, especially since it happened on July 3rd and it’s still up on the website. I hope no one wasted a pick up on Staumont based on this recommendation. I liken this to me switching to Oat Milk, believing it to be a healthier, tastier solution than gassy animal juices (how I describe cow’s milk to my parents to create best possible looks of masked horror while smile-grimacing). After a few months of believing I had finally found the answer, I read the label and see the 12 grams of added sugar and realize that I’m pouring a delicious milkshake in my coffee. Curse my inability to make better health choices in other areas of my life!
Q and Q
Ke’Bryan Hayes getting day off Sunday
Rodolfo Castro will take over at third base for Pittsburgh while Hayes gets the afternoon off. The Pirates likely want to handle Hayes with care following his lengthy absence earlier this season with a wrist injury.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
Above this blurb in the Yahoo app was the following analysis:
“Hayes is batting just .056 over the last 5 days.”
Hayes is batting .333 over his last five games. Please do yourself a favor and ignore the Yahoo/Rotoworld Matchup Recommendations. The five star rating system for match-ups on Yahoo is about as accurate as Pitchfork’s out-of-10 ranking system. Arbitrary and yet so ingrained in our zeitgeist that we end up trusting a system we don’t understand and kind of hate. I have a simile lined up here, but I’m waiting for a better metaphor. What’s meta commentary regarding metaphor usage? Metametaphor? Nah. That has to be someone’s Goodreads handle. Probably the type of person to criticize overuse of similes and adverbs. Wait. Is this person…me? Am I in Fight Club again? Or is this Twin Peaks? I’d like to think I’m more Dale Cooper than Tyler Durden. There’s only one to find the answer: I will enter the Octagon and battle myself. Wish me luck, but make sure it’s the right me!
COVID Hi-jinx
Alec Bohm removed from game due to COVID-19 protocols.
Bohm went 2-for-3 with a homer before the game, but then was removed in favor of Didi Gergorious. There’s a good chance that Bohm will head to the COVID-19 injured list at some point, but that won’t be known until Sunday, most likely.Source: Rotoedgeworldsports.com
With the way Bohm has not been hitting this year, I would not be surprised if all of his extra base hits came either before or after the actual game. If you want to be transported straight to your uncle’s Facebook timeline hell, open up Bohm’s player page on Yahoo, wander into the discussion page, and watch as “Wuhan Virus,” “Snowflake MLB,” and “Hoax Vaccine” propagate like a rabbit family having lots of rabbits, which television and books have told me is a classic simile or metaphor. Shouldn’t have used like or as. Writing and editing over the years has ingrained some real shame about using similes. “It’s lazy!” I tell myself, just like using adverbs lazily, creating sentence fragments and not using the Oxford Comma.
Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award
Cody Bellinger rocks three-run homer in victory
Bellinger ripped a three-run home run off Caleb Smith with two outs in the first inning. AJ Pollock would make it back-to-back home runs with a dinger of his own to follow and the Dodgers were off to the races at that point. On the season, the former NL MVP owns a .183/.299/.313 triple-slash with four home runs and 18 RBI over the course of 1115 at-bats. Injury concerns have limited Bellinger to just 33 games played this year and for fantasy purposes, he could swing league titles with a healthy second half.
Source: Rotoedgeworldsports.com
This one feels kind of cheap, but there’s so much here that I’m going to bullet point heaven.
- Bellinger did not hit a three-run home run. He hit a two run homer.
- Why did AJ Pollock get a full sentence in this blurb about Belly?
- You throw Belly’s triple-slash up there with no descriptor? No abysmal? No disappointing? How about a paltry? Nope. However…
- 1115 at-bats. Imagine that triple slash hitting your offense in more than 1,000 at-bats. There would be no recovery, my friend. It would be Weekend at Bernie’s, only the entire premise is blown and everyone in the movie reacts normally to you and a friend dragging a costumed corpse around town.
- “Injury concerns have limited Bellinger…” If they were simply concerns, we’d have a situation like Tatis. He’s got serious concerns about his shoulder but has played through it. Bellinger has been injured, no modifiers. I’d write full stop, but it’s a bit over-saturated in the internet age. See? That’s both the pudding and the proof.
Despite all of that, there’s not a shred of predictive analysis. At the very least check out his BABIP, which is pretty low (.218) so he should hit over the Mendoza Line moving forward. His ISO is also below his career average. Pitchers are throwing him more splitters and sliders, but the biggest issue is he is his reverse-Paul Bunyan swing. Dude swings almost as violently as Gary Sheffield, and he does so as if the ball is coming at him from a 45 degree angle. While he has the break to fix his swing, he’ll probably be pulling tubes and staring at Grubhub on his phone for hours on end without making a decision. This man.
Giving that strong “sitting at the dinner table and denying to his parents that he’s kipped” feel. You know the one. On that note, blurbs will also be rather blunted over break. They’ll be full of trade deadline rumors, MLB draft blurbs of teenagers that will make you feel like young Benjamin Button, and All-Star game blurbs that will make you wish the stats counted. Good luck and god blurbing!
