One would be best to avoid most internet chat groups, especially larger public forums Reddit or Twitter, full of idiots like me drawn into conversations we hate with people we’ll never know. I previously wrote about Yahoo deleting message boards on all leagues, to be replaced with their useless “Chat” function, which serves to shove even more advertisements down our collective throats (a disgusting image).
Yet Yahoo! still has a form of the message boards active for phone and tablet users: Yahoo comments.
Every player has a little sticky note next to their name, and once you click it, you’re sent to a player’s individual commenting page. Beneath is a forever expanding chronologically listed message board dedicated to that player. They’ve cleaned it up somewhat this year, but it remains true to this poster’s profiles I devised last year. On any given page, you will find a variation of the following:
- Addressing the player: “Dropped you loser, get bent”
- “I picked him up when he was 1%, let’s go!”
- “Can’t believe he’s not 100% owned”
- “Can’t believe anyone still owns him”
- “Picking you (the player) up for the spot start, don’t let me down”
- “Drop him for ” (uses the thumbs up/thumbs down system to tell what the general public thinks)
- “Pick him up and drop “
- “I’m dropping you after the next 0-fer, figure it out you’re costing me money!”
- “Dude can’t pitch. Goodbye.”
- “Dude can’t hit. Goodbye.”
- “You’re dropping him after x amount of games?” Clown emoji
- “Anyone know if this guy is for real?”
- “This man is a God walking on Earth, who are we to behold his splendor?!”
- Responding to 13, “Ur g aaaa e dood lol”
Having perused this function for a few years, it all starts to fade into a slimy oneness. That being said, there are diamonds in the rough. Like Jeff Goldblum states in the documentary Jurassic Park, “Life finds a way.” Weird subcultures emerge. A poster named Laura emerges as the champion of a player unlikely to succeed, and factions break out of the discussion. Lines are drawn in the sand. It’s beautiful classic internet chat as it was meant to be.
Then I notice that you can see when someone is typing about a player before it’s even posted. You see the cylindrical bubble with three dots that one recognizes from text chains. It is truly a step too far.
So feel free to stay as far away from player discussion pages. While they’ve found better moderation tools to catch most slurs and troll content, I’m reminded more and more that we are approaching the singularity, and I find myself pining for bespoke-Geocities pages.
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 – when a site contradicts a player valuation on back-to-back blurbs
Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award – Given to the player blurb that promises the most and delivers the least.
Bob Nightengale Memorial Plaque – 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
Chris Taylor went 2-for-4 with a double and an RBI as the Dodgers triumphed over the Cardinals 6-3 on Sunday afternoon.
Taylor drove in a run with an RBI double off of Jake Woodford in the fourth inning — giving the Dodgers a 3-2 lead. He then singled in the eighth inning, swiped second base, took third on a wild pitch and came around to score on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Will Smith. The 32-year-old’s bat has come to life in recent weeks, but he’s still hitting a paltry .167/.222/.409 with five homers, 11 RBI and a pair of stolen bases on the season.
Source: Rotoworld
I’ve always enjoyed the idiom of a bat being brought to life, strapped to Dr. Frankenstein’s operating table, being lifted towards the heavens as lightning strikes and the mad doctor cackles into a doomed night where the man reached beyond the pale, into a world forbidden.
So has Taylor done that? Has his bat truly come back to life? Welp.
6 for 30 with a 3/1/4/2 in the two weeks preceding this blurb from April 30th (my approximation of “recent weeks,” a silly statement itself roughly one month into the season).
He had a good game, sure. But would it surprise you that the bulk of the 3 runs, 1 homer, 4 RBI and 2 steals came in two games over those two weeks? How about this: Over the previous two weeks of this blurb, Chris Taylor had gone hitless 6 out of the 9 games which he logged an official at bat. One of those games he went 1-for-3.
Is this the pickiest nit I’ve ever chosen to unearth? Probably. But it’s absolutely jarring to see that his bat has come life, while then citing his “paltry .167/.222/.409” triple slash. That evidence does not fit the crime, as they say. And lord, do they say.
Semantics Mixer
Yandy Díaz (shoulder) has returned to the Rays’ lineup for Tuesday’s series opener against the Pirates.
Díaz is back atop Tampa Bay’s lineup after being was lifted from Friday’s game against the White Sox due to left shoulder soreness, which has been a lingering issue for him dating back to last season. The 31-year-old on-base machine is in the midst of a breakthrough season, batting .319/.420/.585 with seven homers and 16 RBI across 112 plate appearances.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
Fine, here’s a pickier nit. I would argue that while he’s an on-base machine, the bigger story with Yandy is that he’s changed his launch angle and approach, and Statcast thinks his breakout is for real. If I’m anyone, which I’m told I am, I’m sending trade proposals and telling people his homers are fluky. Most people are not as diligent as you or I. I can see your browser history, I can see the tab groups of Statcast, Fangraphs game logs, Razzball player rater, Rotoworld, Rotowire, FTN, MLB.com, and finally your gmail that you always have open, but never check, because it is repulsive and should be shunned by society. I can see that you always click “Opt Out” when given the offers to receive newsletters and discount offers from whatever Wirecutter-recommended ethical/humane REI-alternative you’re signing up for – and still the newsletters and discount offers pile into your inbox. I see you. We are one.
And like 30 Helens, we agree that Yandy is legit.
Q&Q
Anthony Volpe went 2-for-4 with two runs, a homer, an RBI and a stolen base in the Yankees’ 4-2 win over the Guardians on Tuesday.
Volpe lofted his homer to the short porch in right field, cutting the Yankee deficit to 2-1. He also was robbed by Will Brennan on a liner to right field leading off the game. He then singled and stole a base in the ninth before scoring on a Harrison Bader single. Volpe is not helping in average at this point, batting just .230, but the stolen bases and dingers have paid off managers who took a chance on him in drafts to some extent and hitting leadoff is a good sign for his future fantasy value.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
Some players get a ton of helium during draft season, and everyone knows the risk of failure. I knew there was a chance the Cardinals would be clowns, I just didn’t know when it was going to happen. The fun of drafting a Jordan Walker or an Anthony Volpe is knowing that you’ll either look like a fool or a genius, in its most simple terms. People were quick to pile on Walker when the Cards sent him down (I’m still hate-tracking Burleson, Nootbar, and Carlson for ground outs because I’m normal men), but a weird thing has happened to Volpe.
Perhaps because he is a Yankee or insistence that he deserves a top-150 pick in the draft, we get blurbs like the above. Volpe has a good game, and the blurb makes sure to mention that he should’ve had another hit as well! That’s good! The rest is bad! How bad? Let me introduce the Hedgiest FMLB Hedge you may read this year:
“Volpe is not helping in average at this point, batting just .230 (Yes, correct)
but the stolen bases and dingers have paid off for managers who took a chance on him (seems like it to this point)
to some extent (well…hmm…what?)
and hitting leadoff is a good sign for his future fantasy value (unless that means he gets more AB’s so his .230 avg hurts more)
According to the Razzball Player Rater, Volpe is now the 14th best SS in fantasy baseball, making him a good profit for people with the stomach to withstand a Statcast page so full of blue that Joni Mitchell wrote an album about it. The short porch will give him some help, but his Expected Batting Average is lower than his current .230. He went from being blurbed as the “21-year-old rookie sensation” to “he’s pretty good, to an extent” in 10 days. And that’s after taking into account his 3 homers and 10 steals!
What is an extent? Is it good or bad? Can we for once live in a binary world, the concrete visions of toddlers dancing in our heads instead of hedging against any possible solid conviction?
My prediction: Volpe eventually hits 9th, and finishes the year 70/14/46/36/.225. That’s a pretty good year! My extent looks downright Jorge Mateo-ish!
Bob Nightengale Memorial Plaque
Ramon Laureano back to running
Laureano (groin) ran around the bases with Triple-A Las Vegas on Wednesday, Martin Gallegos of MLB.com reports.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
There is more to this blurb, but I could not get two ideas out of my head:
- Naming the IL-related body part that put the player on the IL is always an incredible choice. Not sure who decided this formatting would become the rule of writing law, but they need their own Nightengale Memorial Plaque.
- The moving image, in slow motion, camera positioned in front of the players, of Ramon Laureano and the entire Triple-A Las Vegas organization running the bases together as a seething mass of churning legs and pumping arms. I can’t thank this phrasing enough. I keep thinking there would eventually be a Tour de France-style pile up, as a one of the A’s many scrippy little middle infield prospects tries to squeeze his foot onto second base amidst the chaos. Beautiful.
Beyond that, I enjoy the vapidity of this kind of update. How did he run the bases? Was it game speed? How does that usually fit into the progression of a player’s return? There’s nothing. No answer.
That’s it for this week in blurbs! See you next week!
