How did we all begin reading fantasy baseball blurbs? Was it the little yellow post-it notes next to player names on ESPN? Maybe you managed to find Rotoworld or Rotowire on message boards? Perhaps you remember a time when Yahoo! had their own blurbs, presumably written by the staff of Funston, Pianowski, Behrens, and the rest of the staff (hallowed be thy name)? Do you remember any other paragraph containing only questions? Is this a bit I’m repeating from last year, but can’t remember due to decaying mental capacity brought on by Remembering Blurbs?
Whatever the case may be, if you find yourself using Yahoo! for fantasy baseball, you may have noticed a ripple in the space blurb continuum. Yahoo! is now sourcing blurbs from both NBCSportsEdge (Rotoworld) and Rotowire. That means when you notice your player has a fun little mark on their post-it denoting a new blurb, it may be for the same game performance you already read about or saw. Here’s an example where I’ve only left the final clauses of each blurb’s Advise for reasons you’ll see after reading (I have to assume you’re reading this unless you’re doing text-to-speech, in which case HELLO. I have a background in record engineering, a decent mic with a pop filter even, and am a tenor whose high school theater resume went like this:
9th grade: Lighting crew/substance abuse
10th grade: Oscar the piano player in 42nd Street, got a line written in for me due to my pure chops
11th grade: Lead tenor in Hello, Dolly absolutely smoked it
12th grade: Some random pirate in Pirates of Penzance due to theater politics and the lead was a bass part, he was my buddy, so it was chill whatever
Hire me, I do voice-over, video, and editing too like almost everyone on the internet nowadays. Anyway, here are the two examples we’re comparing).
4/12/23 at 9:27pm
Rotowire
A.J. Puk notches extra-inning win
Puk (1-0) picked up the win in Wednesday’s 3-2 extra-inning victory over the Phillies, giving up one hit and striking out two over two scoreless innings.
Advice: …while manager Skip Schumaker figures to play the match-ups to an extent in the late innings, Puk has been his top high-leverage option so far.
4/12/23 at 9:30pm
NBCSportsEdge (rotoworld)
A.J. Puk picks up win in relief against the Phillies
A.J. Puk fired two scoreless innings on Wednesday to pick up a win in relief against the Phillies.
Advice: “He’s converted Miami’s lone save opportunity this season and figures to continue serving as their primary closing option.”
The issue is pretty clear. Rotowire’s blurb very clearly states they don’t know whether Puk is the sole closer. Three minutes later, Rotoworld clearly places Puk as the closer for the Marlins. I have no idea who is correct, but my blurb gets stomped real hard by Rotoworld’s example. We spend hours of our lives trying to sort out closer situations all over the league, and for every free closer grid you can find, there’s two more behind a paywall promising you an edge (the Razzball one is worth it though, whatever we’re doing for closers, I’ve given up speculating at this point).
One becomes angry when a blurb states that someone has staked a claim for the role, one pays 15% of their salary for the fellow, only to watch a guy someone snagged for a buck get the next 25 saves for that team. One begins to feel honest resentment towards a website whose content claims no authorship. The floating, listless rage of fantasy baseball is truly something to behold.
All that being said, use the unholy congress of Rotowire/Rotoworld blurbs in Yahoo! leagues at your own risk. No one knows what managers or general managers are thinking besides the owners, unless they’re the “Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget” owners who merely pet their cat while plotting a new way extend beer sales ensuring extra innings via booby-traps on the field of play.
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
The Blame Game – a player takes on the fault of the team as a whole
Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award – Given to the player blurb that promises the most and delivers the least.
Bob Nightengale Syndrome – blurbs that happily get it all wrong
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 – Triple Take Edition
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters on Saturday that Evan Phillips would be utilized in the ninth inning more often that the rest of the club’s relievers.
He didn’t actually come out and name Phillips as his closer, but it looks like at a minimum Phillips will continue to lead the committee there. The right-hander recorded saves in consecutive games on Tuesday and Thursday and looks like the preferred option in the Dodgers bullpen.
Source: Rotoworld
This was posted on April 9th. I wonder if you know what’s coming next…
Per Rotoworld after the game on the 11th:
Evan Phillips was lit up for three runs in the eighth inning on Tuesday in a relief appearance against the Giants.
The newly-minted Dodgers’ closer…
That’s right. The “newly-minted” Dodgers closer. This is a bizarre 1-2 blurb punch, worthy of a simple slapstick double take. We go from an extremely hedged “he’s basically the closer, but not really because it’s still a committee” to “the newly-minted closer.” One would think this sudden and forceful shift in language resulted from a save, but this is where the double becomes a triple take. Rotoworld has decided that Evan Phillips is the Dodgers closer…after he allowed 3 runs in a non-save situation. The rest of the blurb offers a rehashing of his stats thus far in 2023. Nothing else. Not even a single “he looked shaky tonight, but…” Not even that!
I’d ignore any HE’S OUR GUY postulation unless the manager himself says it on record. No shrugs. No quiet little, “Basically….”
Rocky Mountain Sigh
Rockies recalled INF/OF Nolan Jones from Triple-A Albuquerque
After a miserable spring cost him a spot in the team, Jones hit .359/.479/.872 with six homers in his first 10 games in Triple-A, splitting time between the infield and outfield corners. It’s unclear whether he’ll get much of a chance to stick right now — it doesn’t seem to bode well that he’s not starting today — but he definitely has some long-term upside.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
Every time a Rockies prospect gets called up, we are greeted with a question and many answers. The question is always, “How much will Bud Black play this prospect?” and the answer is an ouroboros tangled in a labyrinth inside of an abandoned Mall of America.
This year Bud is playing Elehuris Montero almost every day (before his “hand injury,” yeah I’m not buying it Bud) to give me the slightest pause that things might have changed. But did you know that the Rockies front office has a new slogan, one that they’ve affixed above the door of said office? Like Ted Lasso’s ‘Believe’ pennant but with Dick Monfort’s unique team-building culture influencing the word choice. It’s the word “HOWEVER” in comic sans printed on dot matrix paper from Monfort’s personal Tandy 1000, which is also used as the team’s analytics hub.
What I’m saying is Bud Black you son of a dog biscuit, you’ve reeled me back in. I’m into pain, and I’m willing to let the world know that my freak flag is black, purple, and silver, and my t-shirt has three Dante Bichette Sr’s howling at the moon instead of wolves.
Q&Q
Josiah Gray was charged with two runs over 5 2/3 innings on Tuesday in a loss to the Angels.
Gray surrendered four hits, including a fourth-inning sacrifice fly to Anthony Rendon and a sixth-inning solo homer to Logan O’Hoppe. He struck out three batters and also issued a pair of walks. The 25-year-old righty is in line to face the Orioles on Tuesday in his next outing.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
While I often aim critiques at blurbs overflowing with ebullient hyperbole, there is a sterile tone to this blurb that strikes my heart with unease. The facts of his outing are laid out coldly, with not even an eraser’s smudge of human interest. The Angels are a pretty good offense, and the fact that only Rendon and O’Hoppe got to him is burying the lede: He managed to get through Ohtani and Trout twice. How’d he do that? He’s dropped his 4-seam usage again while the cutter is being employed more, resulting in slider/curve dominance with only a ghostly whiff of his change up.
All that to say that even I don’t think he’s putting it together this year, but I just need a touch of flavor in my posts. Reading that was like eating Maruchan Ramen without the flavor packet, or taking Iggy Pop away from the Stooges.
Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award
Juan Soto hit a two-run homer to give the Padres their only runs Wednesday against the Mets.
He also doubled for the team’s other extra base hit. Good things are happening when Soto gets the ball into the air. He just needs to do that more often.
Source: Rotoedgesportsworld.com
Oh.
Thanks.
See you next week friends, and keep on supporting the blurbists that help our hearts sing, and our brains lapse into apoplexy over an adjective or two!
