Getting “blurbstomped” is realizing after the fact that a fantasy baseball blurb has caused you to change your view on any given player, no matter the amount of change. In days of yore, there were only a few fantasy baseball blurb sites, and one could control the flow of information. Projections seemed to be gut calls on major websites, the fantasy baseball world yet to be conquered by the legacy of Alan Turing.
Now every fantasy baseball website has at least three people who are smarter, younger, and generally math better than you or I. Some of these people write blurbs, and it’s through these windows of perception the human experience of biases and luck is transmitted, unfiltered by the strictness of data. Having conservative estimations of every player of baseball is a soul-crushing proposition, and I’m glad that scribers of blurbs show the entire spectrum between optimism and pessimism. However, it is our job to parse how these biases shape our own perceptions of players.
Throughout the season, I’ll be analyzing any given blurb’s diction, qualitative/quantitative analysis, its overall purpose, and micro/macro context. I’ve put some categories down below as general explainers, though these in no way cover all the categories I’ll be using this season.
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 – (Qualitative and Quantitative) when a site contradicts a player valuation on back-to-back blurbs
- The Blame Game – the blurb assigns blames to one play for his entire team’s loss
- Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award – Given to the player blurb that promises the most and delivers the least.
- Bob Nightengale Syndrome – blurb that either directly contradicts reality or is entirely fictitious
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
Corbin Carroll is in center field and batting sixth in Monday’s series opener against the Padres
Carroll has gotten off to a phenomenal start this season at the dish and the Diamondbacks are going to let him continue to face left-handed pitching at the outset of the year. He’ll square off on Monday evening against Padres lefty Ryan Weathers
Source: Rotoworld
This was written on Monday April 3rd, a day after Carroll had a hit and three stolen bases. His start here, namely his first four games, is referred to as “phenomenal.” Let’s see if this lines up:
1/0/0/3/.214 with no walks and a 26 wRC+. One run. Zero home runs. Zero runs batted in. Three stolen bases. Three hits in fourteen at bats. Phenomenal?
We will find all types of fantasy baseball blurbs written by wonderful people who are doing this as a second or third job (unless we find a site using AI for blurbs, which we should immediately burn to the ground). They are working a 10pm-3am shift. We must not be cruel to those who provide the sweet sweet player boxes with updates. They are doing their best.
All that being said, this blurb is phenomenal.
Flowery Diction
David Robertson slammed the door on the Marlins in a non-save situation on Saturday, working a scoreless ninth inning to protect a four-run advantage
Robertson did surrender a leadoff single to Luis Arraez, but no damage came from it. There had been some thought that Brooks Raley or Adam Ottavino could share the load with Robertson in the ninth inning, but they worked in the seventh and eighth innings to set him up in this one. It would have been a save chance had the Mets not tacked on an insurance run in the top half of the ninth. His level of security in the closer’s role is growing.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
We’re focusing on the phrase “slammed the door” for this blurb. My knee-jerk reaction (while I am mostly a jerk, my knee is especially so) was that I couldn’t remember that idiom used for a non-save situation, especially on Rotoworld. I googled NBC Sports Edge and “slam the door” because I have problems, and decided the first 15 baseball-related searches would serve as a decent sample. Every single mention of the door-related phrase described a save, usually one made in emphatic fashion, or questioned a closer’s ability to slam said door.
One can take this information and manipulate your league mates to your heart’s content. Propose a trade and mention Robertson as the Mets closer. They’ll read the blurb, and see the phrase “slammed the door.” Their lizard brain uncoils and stiffens, pert and alert, regardless if the rest of the blurb is conjecture.
“He slammed the door?” they’ll say, and imagine how many saves a guy could get on a 90+ win Mets team.
Robertson may end up as the closer for the full season, but my point stands: When there’s language in a blurb that hints at a truth not yet realized, you should propose trades, selling, or buying depending on the context. There will always be a rube…ahem, a really nice league member prone to propaganda and ego stroking. Be that Cold War spy. Stoke away! Make them even more prone!
Q&Q
Yandy Diaz went 3-for-4 with a homer, a double and three RBI as the Rays crushed the Tigers 12-2 on Saturday.
In part because of his lack of homers, Diaz has never offered enough in the run and RBI categories to offer much to fantasy leagues. Perhaps that will change this year if the Rays offense as a whole steps it up.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
A quibble with this Yandy Diaz blurb is that a lack of home runs limits his potential in runs and RBI’s. I’m not sure I understand the math behind that statement. I understand that the lack of HR’s limits anyone’s ability to be a four-category contributor, but there are plenty of dudes who are solid in R/RBI’s without smoking 25+ homers. Every few years there’s even a few sad cases where a guy hits 35 home runs but only drives in 70-ish RBI’s because his team sucks at being on base. This brings me to the last point.
“Perhaps that will change this year if the Rays offense as a whole steps up.” Wait, what? Let’s explore the logic.
If the Rays offense as a whole steps up,
Then Diaz will compile enough Runs and RBI’s to be valuable in fantasy leagues
Because he will hit more home runs
It’s like a haiku married a ChatGPT response. Not even sure how end this one. I guess Yandy could be good, but he needs to hit more homers, which he is doing in a tiny sample. Non-home run counting stats are team dependent, so that’s cool too? Moving on…
Q & Q (Quantitative and Qualitative)
Yu Darvish gave up one run over five innings on Tuesday in his season debut against the Diamondbacks
It was a bit of an abbreviated outing for Darvish in which he threw just 91 pitches (51 strikes) over five frames. He battled some control issues in this one, issuing four walks and also hitting a pair of batters. He finished with three strikeouts. He’s in line for a road tilt on Monday against the Mets.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
Sandy Alcantara threw another of his complete game gems yesterday (Tuesday) and did so in 100 pitches. He’s thrown the most pitches in the majors through two games, and he’s averaging 98.5 pitches. Yet Yu Darvish threw (just) 91 pitches? How is this abbreviated? Are we dealing in tiny integers here? If 91 pitches is abbreviated, does that make a 96 pitch outing an acceptable number of pitches?
I get calling a 91 pitch performance like this “abbreviated” in 1946 when someone named Paint Hossburger would throw 176 pitches a game, and also sell concessions while the team hit. Now? It’s perfectly fine. I think the issue is that sometimes Yu doesn’t pitch deep into games, and he’s a bit rusty after the WBC. Wonder what they’ll call it if he throws less than 85 pitches? Will it count as a game pitched at all?
Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award
Garrett Mitchell hit a walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth to give the Brewers a 7-6 win over the Mets on Wednesday.
This comes after the rookie hit two homers on Tuesday. Mitchell didn’t start today against the lefty, but he came off the bench in the sixth and homered in his second at-bat. The power is legit, though he has enough swing and miss in his game that the homers might only come sporadically. Still, he should make up for some inconsistency by stealing a whole bunch of bases.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
“The power is legit.”
Like many of the blurbs this week, one struggles to decipher such a phrase. One has to imagine themselves as their multiverse selves to try and understand it:
Wildly Optimistic Mitchell Owner: (in/on ecstasy, running through a meadow barefoot) They aren’t wrong Garrett! If the power is legit, that means we should expect at least four home runs a month from you! We’re talking about you going for the big 30! To the moon baby!
Enthusiastic Mitchell Owner: (riding a bicycle on a nice autumn afternoon) My man has got some legit power. Whatever extra he can pile on is gravy!
Agnostic Non-Mitchell Owner: (looking up from folding the laundry) I mean, we don’t really have a big enough sample to say anything is legit. It’s super fun to watch him play though, maybe I’d think of selling high right now.
Disgruntled Non-Mitchell Owner: Legit? Dude’s got a 20th percentile Average Exit Velocity, and his two homers were “mostly gone” on Baseball Savant’s home run tracker. Not a single projection system has him above double digit homers, and all signs point to him playing in a quasi-platoon in a confusing and extremely talented group of OF’s (besides Yelich, he hasn’t looked the same since he broke his leg). Saying his power is “legit” is a tad vague.
Absolute Disaster of a Human Taking Life’s Misfortunes Out On Baseball Players and Writers: (shrieking on the showroom floor off their uncle’s used Nissan dealership) LIES! MISDIRECTION! YOU OBVIOUSLY OWN HIM IN FANTASY AND ARE TRYING TO ARTIFICIALLY INFLATE HIS VALUE!!!
Saying Garrett Mitchell’s power is legit can mean a whole lot of different things. Find the guy that thinks he’ll hit 30 homers and sell high based on the word “legit.” They’re out there.
Final Stomp
It was nigh on three years ago that I sent an errant missive to Rudy, wondering if Razzball was on the lookout for new writers. I was then asked to provide a sample, and after writing a few very boring Waiver Wire Diamond Gem-type articles, I trashed it and wrote the first Blurbstomp article in an evening. After a second draft, I submitted Avoiding the Blurbstomp with the assumption that my writing voice might sell better than reproducing any single fantasy baseball article. This is not with the assumption that “anyone can write a waiver wire article, pah, it’s easy!” Instead, I chose a path of madness: an article examining how we digest fantasy baseball blurbs through the lenses of developmental psychology, game theory, pop culture tropes, and esoteric knowledge written in such a manner that every time I open my browser I have to reinstall Grammarly. I thank Grey, Rudy, Truss, all my other editors and writers, and friends for the opportunity to spill my sauce all over the fine linens of Razzball.
That’s all for this week’s edition of the Blurbstomp. May your blurb reading be exciting and wary!
