In the dawn of blurb time, there were single-celled blurbs. They were a simple organism that regurgitated relevant counting stats and percentages, and they survived by eating game scores in the spring and summer months, only to hibernate during the winter. As the eons marched on, the first blurb crawled from one of the oceans onto dry land. These blurbs were more organically complex, including recommendations to pick up or drop certain players, dependent on certain conditions. Some blurbs even survived during the winter months on a diet of trade rumors and roster moves.
And then one day there was an explosion.
The great asteroid, named Draftkings SportsBets, hit the earth and blurbs were changed forever. There were now links to Twitter accounts and betting websites embedded into the text, a mutation that has persisted. Blurbs eventually gained consciousness, and began to form opinions on the player’s performances that they had once depended on for sustenance. Players were suddenly awful, brutal, nagged with injuries, or they were brilliant, on fire, or even unconscious.
This is the world that we have inherited as readers of daily baseball blurbs. It is really, really hard to figure out what to make of websites that use adjectives to influence hype surrounding certain players. For example, let’s have some fun with adjectives, slash lines, and hidden identities. And no, we’re not doing a true crime thing.
| Descriptor | Slashline | |
| Player A | Abysmal | .233/.273/.507 with 12 runs scored, six homers, 17 RBI and five stolen bases in 19 games |
| Player B | Not Typical | .262/.328/.442 with 24 runs scored, five homers, 23 RBI and seven stolen bases in 46 games |
| Player C | Unlucky | .222/.349/.472 with 25 runs, nine homers, 27 RBI and 1 stolen base in 39 games |
If you’ve been reading Blurbstomp, you perhaps have a small sliver of a memory regarding the identity of player A. The player’s identity isn’t the point. Player A has more homers, almost as many RBI’s, and only two less stolen bases in TWENTY SEVEN less games. That’s insane. And yet, due to the capricious nature of the blurbist, Player A is “abysmal” and Player B is “Not Typical.” Player C is even more incredible. A 39 game sample is a lot of information, and those stats are pretty dang nice. However, he is considered unlucky. All of these examples came from the same source, for what it’s worth.
I’ve often thought of compiling these descriptors in this fashion to see if I can get any sense of editorial bent, but that is a lot of work and I am a lazy boy. The conclusion I’ve reached using this thought experiment is that there is no rhyme or reason to blurbists descriptions of player performance. Try to ignore the hyperbole and focus on the numbers alone in context. I will say that all three of these samples came from the same source. As I will continue to say as I kick sand onto your beach towel, “Trust no one, context is everything, and The Soft Boy’s “Underwater Moonlight” is the best album released in 1980.” 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/Q – Combined with Flowery Diction this week
- Prospect FOMO – the latest in blurbs making you overbid on a guy who won’t get called up
- Hex Enduction Power – where a blurb can make an injury much, much worse
- Bob Nightengale Syndrome – instances of updates that don’t update anything
- 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
Red Sox purchased the contract of INF/OF Danny Santana from Triple-A Worcester.
The 30-year-old is in the Red Sox lineup and batting leadoff and starting at first base in his team debut on Friday. Santana is coming off of a brutal 2020 season where he hit just .145/.238/.273 with a 24/7 K/BB ratio in 63 plate appearances with the Rangers, though he did smack three home runs in eight games while on his minor league rehab assignment. If he’s going to see regular playing time, he could be worth a look in deeper mixed leagues.
Source: Rotoedgeworld.com
Danny Santana did have a brutal 2020. He played in those games, but he also had an injured shoulder which eventually necessitated Tommy John surgery. I think when a hitter gets TJ surgery, they should name it after the first hitter to get the procedure done. I’m sure Grey will add “Paul Molitor Surgery” to the glossary, because Paul Molitor is awesome, and Tommy John gets too much cred. Anywho, you go and pick up Dannys Antana because you’ve seen his ceiling. Granted his floor is waiver dreck, BUTT when you have adds to burn and 50 players on the IL, set fire to the imaginary cities that facebook keeps telling me burned down last summer. Ignore this blurb and grab him, he plays every position besides catcher, and he had Paul Molitor Surgery so he’ll rake!
Q and Q
Nick Solak struck out in all three of his plate appearances Wednesday versus the Yankees
Solak was hitting second for the Rangers in this one but only got three at-bats as Corey Kluber faced one over the minimum in a no-hitter. He homered on Tuesday, but Solak has been scuffling a bit of late overall in hitting .190 over his last 11 games. his strikeout rate for the season sits at 26.3 percent, which is up a bunch from last year’s 18 percent mark.
Source: Rotoedgeworld.com
It’s a tad cruel to point out my baby boy Sick NoLack indeed lacked on the night his team was no hit by the dead ball. No one else got a hit, not even Cardinal Away Award winner Adolis Garcia (last season’s Cardinals Away winner was Randy Arousal, for context). Solak has definitely scuffled after hitting above his weight in April, and he is definitely striking out more than he has at any level. Teams got some tape, pitchers are challenging him, and NoLack is now YoLack. Sad but true.
My bias should be apparent regarding my baby boy, but I’ll mention that I predicted that he wouldn’t keep up his torrid pace. I’m hopeful this is a lull and we’ll see him raking and maybe even stealing a goldarn base or eight in the coming months. I’m buying wherever I don’t have him. Regardless, I see this write up the same way I see blurbs saying that players had a terrible 2020. Everyone had a terrible 2020. People lost family members. Parents home schooled. There was no baseball until there was, and then it was weird. Don’t be ridiculous. The sample size was smaller, some dudes played hurt, all younger players lost crucial development time. Don’t forget about the children!
Hex Enduction Power
This is a play in 3 parts:
Act I: “Giancarlo Stanton overhauled his stride during the offseason in an effort to run more efficiently and improve his chances of staying healthy this season.” May 8th, Rotoedgeworld.com
Act II: “Giancarlo Stanton has been scratched from Friday’s lineup with left quad tightness.” May 14th, Rotoedgeworld.com
Act III: “Yankees placed DH Giancarlo Stanton on the 10-day Injured List, retroactive to May 14th, with a left quad strain.” May 17th, Rotoedgeworld.com
I saw that first cookie on the 8th and immediately canceled my trade negotiations for Stanton. It’s a positive update on the 8th, but it’s also a “he’s in the best shape of his life” blurb in the second month of the season. And they fixed his stride?!? That’s more extremely unsettling compared to the supposed comfort that blurb was supposed to provide. The room darkened, the dry ice machine I keep by my computer kicked on, and Dr. John’s “I Walk on Gilded Splinters” drifted through my computer’s garbage speakers. It was a sign that was hard to ignore, mostly because of the dry ice machine.
All in all, you could have used that Act I blurb to try and deal for or deal away Stanton. I hope you dealt him away, especially after that sweet hot streak. I don’t trust his giant Frankenstein’s monster body to hold together for the rest of the season, DH be shizzled.
Prospect FOMO
Jon Heyman of MLB Network reports that the Rays are deep in talks to trade shortstop Willy Adames.
Well, that’s one way to open up a spot for top prospect Wander Franco. It’s unclear who they’re talking to — or what they may receive in return — though the Reds are one team that is in desperate need of a shortstop. It looks like Franco — and perhaps Vidal Brujan as well — could be on their way to Tampa Bay before the end of the weekend. Stay tuned.
Source: Rotoedgeworld.com
Baseball media went ahead and built a wicker man and threw Taylor Walls inside, chanting “YoU’rE nOt WaNdEr,” as they set it aflame. I feel pretty bad for Walls, as the reaction on social media/Yahoo Player Discussion threads were laced with sorrow, cynicism, and zealotry. You know, the kind of thing usually reserved for one of your heroes getting #Metoo’ed, or when an NFL draft pick gets booed by their own team’s fans on draft day.
Poor Grey and everyone on this site (besides me) are going to get Wander questions until June 10th, when Super-2 hits. That’s when the Rays call up Vidal Brujan, and wait until September to call up Wander. Wanderlust is very real, and if someone hasn’t already coined this in fantasy baseball, then call me the patron saint of obvious punnery.
I don’t see the financial advantage of calling up Wander for those bedeviled Rays. Would it bring more buttocks’s into seats? Nope. Would more people tune into games in the Tampa area? There might be a small surge, but it would be negligible and then die down. The Marlins are doing more for their fan than the Rays for god’s sakes. I hate to be cynical, but I would sell Wander if you can get a productive bat back. Better to get guaranteed counting stats now than wait for a future that may not come. Just ask those parents fist-fighting over Pokemon cards. Sometimes the wait only gets you a court date, viral embarrassment, and a national chain of stores changing their entire policy on the sale of playing cards.
Bob Nightengale Award
Rockies activated INF Brendan Rodgers from the 10-day injured list.
Rodgers had been on the shelf with a hamstring strain since mid-March. He is in the Rockies starting lineup on Friday, starting at second base against Seth Frankoff and the Diamondbacks. The 24-year-old is a career .196/.235/.227 hitter with a 33/4 K/BB ratio in 102 plate appearances at the big league level.
Source: Rotoedgeworld.com
This could have gone in the diction section, but I think it is plain wrong to look at 102 injury-marred at bats over two seasons (including COVID szn) and say he’s a “career [slashline] hitter.” That’s like a woman starting her first job, only to become pregnant after six months and have to go on leave. She comes back, and her boss fires her because of her lack of results. Oh wait. That’s a real thing that still happens, and who cares about baseball when we live in a society that treats women like they’re only able to do ¾ of what a man can do. I’m a dang shlub, you can’t tell me that any woman is worth ¾ of me. That would make women maybe ¼ of a person, which would make me half a man in this example. Jose Altuve just entered the chat: “Hey, low blow!” Nice self own, Altuve.
Regardless of your feelings regarding gender equity, Brendan Rodgers’s sample size is a garbage indicator of his talent. I’m all for giving heads statistical context, but why neg him completely. He’s an unknown quantity. He had a nagging shoulder injury in 2018, then had labrum surgery to correct it. Dude gets hurt. His exit velocity numbers suck, and he swings at pretty much everything.
BUTT.
He’s a middle infielder on the Rockies. Pick him up in NL-only leagues, even deep mixed leagues and play him at home, see if he fixed his trigger happy ways. Heck, maybe Bud Black will…oh, never mind. Here, I fixed the blurb:
Brendon Rodgers was activated from the injured list.
Bud Black. Don’t even think about it. Bud. Black.
Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award
Fernando Tatis Jr. went 2-for-4 with a home run, two runs scored, four RBI, and a stolen base against the Mariners on Friday.
Tatis Jr. is just incredible. Hitting out of the leadoff spot today, he got on base with a fielder’s choice in the first inning and stole his ninth base of the season. The next inning, he launched his 11th homer on the year off of Chris Flexen to score three runs. He later added a walk and a base hit to drive in one more run. The 22-year-old superstar is up to 11 homers, nine steals, and 20 RBI over just 117 plate appearances despite missing time with both the shoulder injury and COVID.
Source: Rotoedgeworld.com
“Hitting out of the lead off spot today, he got on base with a fielder’s choice in the first inning.” Tatis Jr. really is incredible! Being the lead off hitter and getting on with a fielder’s choice is like the immaculate conception of hitting. It is the equivalent to having read Infinite Jest, and then telling no one you have accomplished said task. It’s impossible because Fun The Jewels hit clean up on the 22nd, not lead off. This blurb is infectious in its (deserved) joy at Tatis’s continuing ownage of all Olde Skoole Cardinal Way fans and players. However, slow down. Read the box score instead of the player profile page. Take one of these. How do you feel? Why are we in a car? Don’t ask who I am. Yes, give me your keys. I’m driving away now. Why are you still hearing my voice? Are you still sitting at your computer, writing about Fun The Jewels? But I left you in a field in the middle of the night in Iowa. Explains why you wrote that FTJ was hitting leadoff.
That’s it for this week’s installment of the Blurbstomp. If you’re digesting these blurbs, make sure you don’t make the same mistake as your friend above. Slow down, make sure you’re not getting swept up into the zeitgeist, and look for signs that a guy is getting a ton of coverage on all of the sites. If you look under the hood, check out his next 14 days, analyze pitching match-ups, look at home/away and vs. lefty/righty pitching splits, and also day/night splits……or you just use Rudy’s tools which saves you hours upon hours, you too can sell high on Giancarlo Stanton before his brand new walking mechanics go awry.
