Trevor Hoffman has been lights out all year. Maybe he jumped in the Cocoon pool. Octavio Dotel? The post office said they’re going to a five day week because of cutbacks and the amount of fan mail coming in for Dotel. Now hold the preceding up to a mirror. Dotel as a Pirate has done nothing except plunder his fantasy owners’ goodwill. Even Roger ain’t Jolly. The Hoff looks drunk. And Trevor too. The pickups for this duo of dud is Carlos Villanueva, Joel Hanrananananan, Brendan Donnelly, Evan Meek, Hawkins, Coffey, Shelley Duvall, the guy at Subway that kinda skeeves you out, the Polish Sausage in the 7th inning stretch race and Cher. Pick them up in that order. For full disclosure, I grabbed Hanaranananan because Villanueva was taken in all of my leagues. I didn’t go deeper than that. Some shituations just aren’t worth the ulcer. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Garrett Jones – 2-for-7, 1 RBI. After his first four at-bats yielded 4 Ks, Robot really turned it on. Fool him 5 times, shame on Robot.
Andrew McCutchen – 4-for-7 and 2 homers for The Dread Pirate. Now has 3 homers and 10 steals as he bats .303. This might come as heresy, but The Dread Pirate could be a 3rd rounder next year.
Juan Gutierrez – Converted his first save. Qualls was unavailable even though he hadn’t been used in two days. I’m suspicious. And, yes, I’m wearing a monocle. Closers don’t just turn up unavailable in a one run game. There’s something here. I’d own Gutierrez over the Villanueva crapfecta that was listed in the lead-in.
Kelly Johnson – Hit his 8th homer of the year to lead the major leagues. I pushed everyone to draft this guy from the moment he was traded to the Diamondbacks. Where’s the love?!
Carlos Gonzalez – Hit his third homer and stole his third base. It’s weird, it’s almost like he wants to get to 20/20 in the same game.
Dexter Fowler – 3-for-6, homer and a steal. Love that, love the Rockies. I am Eskimo kissing my fantasy baseball team.
Chris Coghlan – 2-for-4, I don’t even like him, but he appeared in last week’s Buy/Sell as a Buy and he’s now hitting, like, .300 for the last five days. BTW, Rudy just traded Cody Ross for Coghlan in his NL-Only league. Rudy also traded in his Winger CDs for a previously worn Band-Aid. Doode’s a trading machine!
Jorge Cantu – 1-for-3 with his 5th homer as he took the lead in the National League in RBIs. He’ll be in tomorrow’s Buy/Sell on the right side, which is oddly enough the wrong side. Speaking of Sells…
Max Scherzer – 3 2/3 IP, 6 ER. Yup.
Brandon Inge – 2-for-5, 3 RBIs with a homer. He hits ’em in bunches. Now has a bunch of three in the last 3 games.
Scott Baker – 4 IP, 5 ER, 12 baserunners. Last year, his 1st half ERA was 5.42 compared to 3.28 in the 2nd half. Maybe he just takes forever to get going. Whatever the case, I’d look elsewhere. Not that you need me to tell you, but Baker’s cooked.
James Shields – 7 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 12 Ks. Shields pitches well in Florida. He do what he do. In the preseason, I absolutely refused to own Shields because of his soul-crushing 2009. I figured I could get out without any regrets. Of course, Shields has pitched well and threw a wrench in those plans. Sonavawrench!
Jon Lester – Threw a seven inning one-hitter with 11 Ks. Last Friday, I wrote, “If (Lester) doesn’t bounce back this week, he’ll probably have the lead-in of the Buy section next Friday. Go and get Lester now!” Too late.
Jake Fox – Caught his 5th game yesterday. I haven’t talked much about him because he’s hitting .175 with one homer. Worth noting though in AL-Only and 2 catcher leagues.
Cole Hamels – 6 IP, 4 ER, 10 Ks, 13 baserunners as he took your WHIP for a ghost ride.
Ryan Madson – Blew the save and got the Win. Such a Cuddle Boy move.
Jimmy Rollins – Began a running program. The name of the program is, “J-Roll Rolls.” Some discarded titles were, “Hurry, Juan Castro Is Starting,” “You Were Drafted In The 2nd Round In Fantasy, Doesn’t That Mean Anything To You?” and “It’s Always Runny In Philadelphia.”
Luis Atilano – 6 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners. He has 5 walks and 2 Ks in 12 innings. Don’t even think about picking him up.
Matt Capps – Capps has been quite possibly the only closer to, ya know, convert a save all year as he picked up his 10th save yesterday. SPOILER ALERT: In next week’s Closer Look, Capps is crowned a Donkeycorn.
Ryan Zimmerman – Hey, I ain’t mad at cha, but how about you just go on the DL?
Jaime Garcia – 7 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 5 Ks. Now has a 1.04 ERA on the year. No reason why he shouldn’t be owned in all leagues at this point.
Mike Leake – 7 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 5 Ks. I’m not as bullish on Leake as I am on Garcia. Leake’s walks are a mess. Currently, he’s rocking a 18:15 K:BB. Rocky road ahead, use caution.
Ryan Dempster – 8 IP, 3 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks. Now has a 2.78 ERA on the year. He’s been a tad lucky with men on base. (BTW, Tad Lucky would be an awesome male porn star name.) Dempster’s probably closer to a mid- to high-3 ERA guy. He’s no Carlos Silva, that’s for sure. Take that however you want.
Chris Young – Had his rehab start pushed back due to achiness. Uh-oh, someone call the giraffe doctor.
Robinson Cano – 2-for-5 as he hit his 6th homer and bats near .400. Not to totally flip you out, but this great April is coming from a guy who’s usually a slow starter. Yo, Big Chief Lambreaux, let’s start a parade!
Jorge Posada – After getting hit on the knee, Posada was lifted from the game by Girardi. Weird, cause Girardi doesn’t even look that strong. Posada will probably only miss a game or two.
Gordon Beckham – Got the night off to get his head straight. Ozzie announced the move on his Twitter account by saying, “Something stinks. Not fingers. It’s Beckham. He sits.”
Rich Harden – 6 IP, 3 ER, 9 baserunners with 5 BBs and only 2 Ks. Since you read Razzball, you probably don’t own Harden. Good for you, because even the starts where he limits runs don’t look right. If you can somehow confuse someone in your league that this was a good start, trade Harden.
Neftali Feliz – 1 IP, 2 ER and the save. This save actually makes me want to own Frank-Frank more.
Matt Kemp – In the NL, he’s tied for 2nd in homers with 7. He’s tied for 3rd in RBIs with 20. He’s batting .292. Why am I telling you this? Because yesterday Dodgers GM Ned Colletti said, “(Kemp’s defense is) below-average. If this is the last day of the season and people are voting for the Gold Glove, his name is not even on the ballot.” Yeah, he’s no ex-Colletti signee, Juan Pierre. What a putz.
John Ely – 6 IP, 5 ER, 9 baserunners, 4 Ks. He looks pretty average. Dropped about a K/IP as he moved up in the minors, which puts him around a 6 K/9 in the majors if the trend continues. His control should be better than he showed in yesterday’s game, but still he’s an avoid outside of deep NL-Only leagues. On the bright side, he has better hair than Dennis Farina.
Ike Davis – 2-for-4 with his 6th RBI and now is batting .355 since his call up. Maybe Ike is a slap hitter.
John Maine – 6 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 9 Ks. Well, it is blueberry season in Maine. I don’t buy this start. Have Maine call me in 2011 and I’ll reevaluate.
Jose Reyes – I was watching the Mets game yesterday and Pagan and Cora came up and then Reyes came up and I was like, “Where’s the pitcher between Cora and Reyes?” Interesting experiment, Mets. Now fix your lineup! I mean, I’ve heard of batting the pitcher 8th, but I’ve never heard of batting the bottom of your order at the top. Stop making me think there was a double switch in the 1st inning.
