I have a cat that won’t stop staring at me. The minute that I wake up in the morning, she is there, dolefully glaring, sure that this will be the morning that I give her breakfast the very second I wake up. The gaze follows me into the kitchen, and it becomes laser-focused. It creates a creeping anxiety, and yet I could end it by simply feeding said cat when I wake up. However, I refuse to capitulate, as if doing so would render me weak of constitution, a mere servant to my new master.
Saying goodbye to a player you should have dropped months ago is much the same experience. Variance tells us that if we hold onto a player for a few months, and they do not produce, that there is a good chance that when you drop them, the player will immediately begin performing well. For instance, I dropped both Cedric Mullins and Tyler O’Neill at the beginning of the season for Hawt Waiver Action. That being said, making moves is one of the greatest things about fantasy baseball. I judge the success of my teams based on how mutated my lineups look at the end of a roto league. If I contended, by the last day of the season I should have my stars, but also a giant pile of waiver fodder with great last week match-ups, SAGNOF scripsters, and wins/saves vultures. If my lineup is mostly intact from midseason, I will have failed myself.
I hope most of you have disgusting, utterly perverse lineups this week. Your success is important to me, as I am your parent and this is report card pick-up day. I live vicariously through your victories, vampirically tasting the fruits of your success. It was only a decade ago (or so) that one of my league mate’s final-week-pick-up of Lew Ford won him the league. Remember Lew Ford?
On that note, let us blurb forward!
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
- Friendly Reminder – when a blurb insists upon itself
- Q and Q –
- Back-Handed Hype – When a blurb seems to undervalue a player, which creates future helium
- Objection to Interjections – Boo, ew, yuck, ugh, shoot, whoops, rats, etc
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
Andrew Benintendi went 2-for-5 with a double and an RBI on Sunday, helping to lead the Royals to victory over the Tigers.
Benintendi opened the scoring in the ballgame with a run-scoring single that plated Whit Merrifield in the first inning. With the two-hit attack, the dynamic outfielder is now slashing .275/.317/.436 with 16 homers, 68 RBI and eight stolen bases on the season.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
There are a lot of elements at play here. Benintendi went from a hyped prospect to a legit 5-tool fantasy guy. However, his launch angle went wonky, and unless you played in a league that counted doubles rather than the classic 5×5 format, he was a waiver guy through and through. This creates a spectrum of diction in his blurb write-ups. When he’s struggling, blurbs describe Benintendi as a disappointed parent speaking of their child during a Parent/Teacher conference: “We always tell him he’s got all the potential in the world, he just refuses to prove it!” I do not miss being a teacher.
When he has a good day, blurbs will then talk him up, as this one does, describing him as “dynamic.” This is not a word I would apply to Andrew Benintendi. Perhaps “workmanlike,” or maybe “consistent.” On Rudy’s ranker, he’s the 44th ranked OF, and he’s ranked 146 overall. This is not the work of a dynamic player. Sorry Andrew, I relegate you to the world of 2nd tier descriptors, as you are a good fourth outfielder, maybe even a decent third outfielder on a given fantasy squad.
That’s just it though. We take what we are given. When life gives us Bellinger, Story, Eloy, Moncada, Ke’Brayan, and Eddie Rosario, we make lemonade. As another year of fantasy baseball comes to a close, I find myself waxing on the totemic nature of FMLB. As a six-month affair, it is a mathematically satisfying endeavor to enjoy/suffer. FNFL absolutely ruins Sundays for some, let alone Mondays. After four or five weeks in an H2H league, one can feel like Morrisey in every single lyric he’s ever written.
Some would bemoan the sheer length and girth of a full season of rotisserie fantasy baseball, but I see it as a life lived. This season was a bad life for my team, but I made some friends along the way, and my rebirth next season will be just as exciting, exhilarating, and utterly naked.
So yeah. Benintendi is yawnstipating, in Grey’s word.
Even More Flowery Diction/Q & Q
Nick Anderson gave up one run in the ninth inning on Sunday, but managed to protect a two-run lead against the Marlins to record his first save of the season.
Anderson was called upon to protect a two-run lead in the ninth inning and managed to hang on after giving up a colossal leadoff homer to Lewin Díaz. It was his first save since September 21, 2020. The 31-year-old righty has given up just three runs over six innings since returning from a partially torn UCL in his right elbow on September 13.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
“Just” is a word I’ve attempted to excise from my rhetorical sling, but I still find myself editing it out of every piece I write. No matter my diligence, I still find them in the final draft. In this case, “just” is used in a way that I would consider a bit back-handed. “The 31-year-old righty has given up just three runs over six innings….” How can that be considered a compliment? That’s like saying William Shatner has been successful in his marriages, having divorced just 3 out of his 4 wives. Or that we’re doing alright with World Wars, because we’ve had just two in the last 100 years. I hyperbolize to point out the absurdity of the adverb.
Also, when you read the Personal Life portion of William Shatner’s wikipedia entry, you’ll recognize just how dark and tasteless that comparison is. You’re welcome.
Back-Handed Hype
Myles Straw went 4-for-5 with an RBI and a stolen base on Sunday in Cleveland’s loss to the White Sox.
Straw matched a season-high with four hits, including an RBI single off hard-throwing righty Michael Kopech in the seventh inning. He also picked up his 28th stolen base of the season in this one. The 26-year-old speedster owns a solid .272/.350/.347 triple-slash line with 77 runs scored, four homers, 46 RBI and 28 stolen bases across 604 plate appearances.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
According to Rudy’s Player Rater, Myles Straw has returned $11.00 this season, with $12.10 per game coming from his stolen bases alone. That’s insane value for a guy most people drafted towards the end of most drafts, only to drop him once Houston did to Straw what I do to household tasks: Say I’m going to do (play) them, but then do something else instead. That came out dirtier than I wanted it to. So did that sentence. Ah, finally, wiped clean!
Speaking of clean, this take has been wiped clean of any hype whatsoever. Imagine Myles Straw knowing he’s got a spot in the lineup every day for a rebuilding Indians team. Now imagine he’s got the green light, and one of the best SB/CS ratios around. Imagine a world where Nick Drake received the attention he rightfully deserved, and he was on tour with Richard Thompson right now. Imagine all the people…I don’t remember the rest of the lyrics, which I am telling myself is metaphorically significant. I can remember every lyric of “Dear Prudence,” a song about Mia Farrow’s sister being coaxed out of her living quarters by John Lennon, but not a lyric about changing the world (I assume?).
Anyways, we’re all going to fancy Myles Straw a sleeper next year, only to watch your league mates grab him in the 10th round after a decent spring and the promise of speed in a league slower than the overarching plot of Twin Peaks: The Return.
Objection to Interjections
Triston McKenzie allowed three runs over 2 ? innings on Sunday in a loss to the White Sox.
Ouch. That’s two consecutive clunkers for McKenzie, who has coughed up 10 runs over 6 2/3 innings across his last two starts. The 24-year-old righty has recorded a solid 3.91 ERA, 0.91 WHIP and 75/15 K/BB ratio across 73 2/3 innings (13 starts) since returning from the minor leagues on July 9. He’s in line for a tasty road matchup against the Rangers on Saturday night to close out the 2021 campaign.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
Throwing an interjection like “Ouch” into fantasy baseball analysis, especially as its own independent clause, is as jarring and unnecessary as including game recaps within blurbs. I’m not sure why I have a personal bias against the use of interjections. I certainly disdain the overuse of adverbs, and then employ them constantly. I criticize others’ diction whilst flagrantly constructing labyrinthine run-on sentences that the English teacher in me wants to eviscerate, even if the purpose is to dizzy my readers into a tizzy.
When I see the word “ouch,” I think of someone not knowing what to say when you’ve told them that your dog died. You can see them screw up their face a bit, check your eyes and the corners of your mouth to ascertain the level of trauma sustained, and then still drop the flyball and say either, “Ouch,” or, “That’s brutal.” I don’t hold it against them, as it’s hard to figure out the level of sympathy one should level in any given circumstance. Especially if the circumstance is me lying to my mechanic about a dog I don’t have, who didn’t die, and I’m trying to get him to go lower on the price because he doubled his initial estimate, and I while I don’t have the cash, I do need the breaks. He sees the sewage in my soul, but the Spectre of Empathy looms over him and prods him to knock a couple hundred off the price tag.
So yes, I wager that the word “ouch” is disingenuous. Irony has taken whatever the monosyllabic idiom it used to be and rendered it the rhetorical gravity of an off-mic cough before the first words of any given press conference is uttered. Ouch indeed.
Happy blurbing you beautiful friendos. Next week I’ll look to mine a whole season of blurbs to whet the appetites of our ravenous Hindsight Biases. Till then, I justly bid you a fond arrivederci.
