When I was younger, I played for a Little League team, the Teaneck Yankees, our manager, who went simply by the name John Doe, would spend most of his days stealing the other teams’ signs, but when he gave us advice, through a translator hired by our sponsor, Halliburton, he’d say, “The most important function of the baseball hitter is to get the base. The second most important function of the baseball hitter is to get the WMDs.” I searched Fangraphs for a stat abbreviated WMDs but wasn’t able to find one. Walk-Off Moonshot Dingers? Windup Mechanics Delivery? Weapons of Mass Ducksnorts? Whatever the case, I want to focus on Coach Doe’s first function, get the base. Since the All-Star break, there’s been few hitters who are getting the base like Ender Inciarte. In that time, he’s hitting .360 with 35 runs. That’s the 5th best average and 8th best runs. This is a guy who last year hit .303 in 524 ABs, so it’s not a fluke, or hirame if a sushi chef is reading. Will he give much power? Will a llama do a NY Times crossword? No, he won’t. But for average and runs, you can do much worse. Now, is it a coincidence that Coach Doe was a ringer for Saddam Hussein and you can’t spell Ender Inciarte without CIA? I don’t know. Anyway, here’s some more players to Buy or Sell this week in fantasy baseball:
BUY
Welington Castillo – Headed to Coors, or as the Hitter-Tron likes to say, “I’d snake that clogged pipe.”
C.J. Cron – For full disclosure purposes, or porpoises if you work at Sea World and are killing marine mammals on the reg, I almost made Cron this week’s lede, but I had a pic of Saddam in a Yankees cap and had to roll with it. You think I’m joking.
Josh Bell – From ESPN, “Bell has been too good for the Pirates to keep him out of the lineup. His season line is now up to an absurd .407/.541/.704.” Don’t take this wrong way, because I do like Bell, but that was from two games ago, and now his line is .314/.457/.543, because, ESPN makes it sound like Bell had this huge sample size. Common mistake for those trying to overcompensate.
Trevor Plouffe – Hitting .321 with two homers in the last week. Fun fact! If you say “Plouffe’s hot” in France, it would mean when you’re sitting on the toilet, the water that splashed up on you was warm.
Wilmer Flores – Mets are getting hot at just the right time, huh? *diverts eyes away from Mets pitchers putting police caution tape around their arms*
Xavier Scruggs – If he wasn’t the name of an actual player, Scruggs sounds like it should be the nickname for every Marlins player who they acquire for a ‘playoff run.’ They pay nothing for them, they won’t sign them to any sort of contract and they are guys no one else wants. Your basic Scrugg.
Jefry Marte – Jefrey is no longer the guy you pay $20 to cut what remains of your hair, he’s also a hot schmotato.
Yoan Moncada – He’s going to be up today, playing and making Prospector Ralph drool so much he’s going to rust his gold fronts. Here’s my Yoan Moncada fantasy. It was written after a Stranger Things marathon. Y’all need to watch this shizz. It’s set in the 80s and better than most actual 80s movies.
Joe Panik – He sounds like the worst Marvel comic book character ever. “My cat’s in the tree, please help.” “WHAT IF A METEOR STRIKES THE TREE?! WE’LL ALL DIE!!!”
Jose Peraza – He has 13 steals in only 44 games played. You know, your basic 52-steal pace. See, 44 multiplied by 4 is 176 games, and 13 multiplied by 4 is 52 steals. (If he played 162 games, and the Reds played one 126-inning game to account for the extra 14 games. It’s math, guys and five girls, it doesn’t lie.)
Jose Reyes – The signing of Reyes turned out to be a coup for the Mets, and if harmless housewives attempt to take over the country, they can fight off the coup without any worry about how awful it looks.
Asdrubal Cabrera – He hit .405 in the month of August. That’s not a typo. Or tipo, I always confuse those two.
JaCoby Jones – Now starting at wide receiver, JaCoby Jones, from the College of East Memphis. Go Wild Jags! To read more about fantasy football, click that linkie-ma-whosie. Jones has been filling in for Maybin and Castellanos, while hitting a cool .500 (in two games, hey, it’s something).
Randal Grichuk – I just gave you my Randal Grichuk fantasy. It was written high on Pixy Stix sugar.
Scott Schebler – He had six homers in August and hit .258. Why couldn’t he have done that in April when I owned him in an NL-Only league? That’s a question best left for me and my desk that has cracks in it from the banging of my head.
Yasiel Puig – 8 HRs, .400, 5 SBs or 1 HR, .256, 1 SB and one putout at third that makes him trend on Twitter the night of the game, and on Facebook two days later. There’s likely some in-between, but I can’t fully picture it. That’s the only two outcomes I see for him in September.
Byron Buxton – I just dropped on you my Byron Buxton fantasy. Siri wrote it.
Jim Johnson – This is fun (for me). In 19 2/3 IP that I’ve had Johnson, 2.29 ERA, 1.17 WHIP and 12 saves with 25 Ks. Like the quarter of Harrison Ford that is Jewish, not too shabby.
Tyler Thornburg – For guys with 50+ IP, he has the 8th best K/9, just behind Jo-Fer and Kenley Jansen. Bee tee dubya, Kyle Barraclough has the third best in the majors (14.4), just behind Betances and Andrew Miller.
Daniel Hudson – How badly do you need saves? I ask, because Hudson has a 6.10 ERA. If that ERA was a librarian, it would not know alphabetical order.
J.C. Ramirez – I’ll save you the scroll, here’s what I said this morning, “Salas should be the first in line to get saves. His name is not short for Jesus Christ SAGNOFstar. It’s not even, Jimmy “I was Jesus’ Brother” Christ SAGNOFmediocrity. Deolis Guerra could even see some saves, who is more like Delottery Ticket.” And that’s me quoting me!
Tyler Skaggs – The Stream-o-Nator is caca-cuckoo for his next start. It’s also crazy for dressing up a pillow and pretending it’s a friend. Stream-o-Nator is lonely!
Ivan Nova – Another Stream-o-Nator pick like when it asks to pick strangers’ scabs. No wonder it has no friends!
SELL
Wil Myers – Gonna be hard to pinpoint what to make of Myers next year. In the 1st half, there were a lot of butt pats and well-choreographed handshakes. In the 2nd half, he’s hitting below .200 with next to no power. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay on my fantasy team either.
Brandon Belt – This was his year to break out. Instead, we have a better chance of him breaking out with acne like Brandon Belt‘s Jewish doppelganger.
Marcell Ozuna – OZUNA never want to see name in Sell column. OZUNA embarrassed at recent play. OZUNA hide face in mask that looks just like OZUNA so OZUNA can still get in clubhouse.
