Buying Cortes Is Something Worth Exploring

‘Member that show Unplugged? I got another show for you, Uncorked. It’s when a near-29-year-old player, who has been in the minors so long that when you open their minor league stats on FanGraphs, you get a pinwheel on your browser and your shizz time’s out. Ten years worth of baseball chops ready to fly! We’re talking Brady Anderson and Nick Swisher’s worth of baseball chops ready to fly! You know when the bull is in the pen ready to kick the ever-loving crap out of someone who even blushes? That’s what happens when players are in the minors for ten years. Then they get UNCORKED! Coming up on MLB Network, Carlos Cortes has been UNCORKED. Cortes struggled to make himself valuable enough for a bunch of years in the minors, but he was in the Mets’ org (they don’t know what they’re doing). Once he made his way the SacTown A’s his power was unleashed — 17 HRs in only 267 ABs, and now he’s got home games in Bing Bong. So, stop you’re whining for power, or being a wino, as it’s not colloquial known, and get UNCORKED with Carlos Cortes. Anyway, here’s some more players to Buy or Sell this week in fantasy baseball:

PSYCHE! This post was released a week early for Patreon members. It will be released all year early for Patreons, so if people are getting a jump on you, it’s because they paid the $10. Anyway, the Fantasy Baseball Buy/Sell:

BUY

Luis Campusano – Has anyone ever sounded so much like the area of the country where they play? If his middle name was San, he may as well start ticketing people in the batter’s box to help pay for the police department.

Pedro Pages – Jim Henson would’ve loved a puppet called Petey Pages as an instrument to teach kids to read in a fun and innovative way. On a side note that’s actually related to Pages, lot of part-time catchers with good fantasy value this year, right? Herrera, Basallo, Hicks, Moises, Campusano, Rushing, just off top of head. Some of those guys clearly get a decent number of DH at-bats (Herrera, Basallo, Hicks) but even they have number one catchers in front of them.

Ildemaro Vargas – Fun to see Ildemaro having a good week on the 7-day Player Rater as he sounds like a little ristorante with great clams in red sauce and he’s having a career month at 34.

Nathaniel Lowe – This is funny (to only me). Last week there were very few 1st basemen to grab off waivers, and this the cold corner cup runneth over with a bunch of options.

Ty France – Been hot but hopefully France isn’t as good as it baguettes on your waivers.

Edouard Julien – If he’s hitting leadoff 75% of the time for the Rockies, and he is, he’s rosterable in 100% of leagues.

Miguel Vargas – Has pretty interesting underlying numbers. He doesn’t strikeout at all, and has a .205 average for his career. That sends me to his HardHit% and that’s average. So that sends me where? Any guesses? To Oregon? No, what? It sends me to look at his Launch Angle; he’s either hitting the ball directly into the ground or 285 feet into the air. Any guesses which it is. Like a teamster smoking, lean on the latter. His stats look like they could be 25/15/.230, which isn’t nothing in most leagues. Those are likely his ceiling stats.

Travis Bazzana – Already gave you my Travis Bazzana fantasy. It was Bazzanas! B-A-ZZ-A-N-A-S!

Angel Martinez – Ya know what’s kinda funny? He could easily be better than Travis Bazzana, but I agreed with your strong impulse to want Bazzana over Angel. When this boring, upside always.

Nasim Nunez – Wanna say he’s appeared in more Buy columns than he hasn’t, though he is also SAGNOF and not much else.

Nick Gonzales – Nicest thing I can say for him is he’s doing much better than I thought he would be. *Much* not just a little bit. Likely a high BABIP product, though.

Brooks Lee – Be Water, young prematurely balding man. Be at one with the waiver wire, and your middle infidel weakness.

Luis Garcia Jr. – It hasn’t made sense why he’s in a platoon for his whole career. He has a career average of .237 vs. lefties in 532 ABs. That’s basically the league average nowadays with people hitting .180 like en bee dee. It’s also weird how I’ve liked Lu-Ga-Ju more than his own team. I also like Lou-Gu-Ju better than most. Might be something to them sounding like anime characters. Hmm.

Casey Schmitt – “Schmitt happens” a phrase uttered when Casey is rosterable for roughly six to twelve days a season.

Jose Fernandez – Was so happy he got 1st base eligibility in one deep league of mine, because I was playing Curtis Mead there (I said it was deep), and now that I look at Jo-Fer’s stats I’m making the Larry David Meh Face.

Masyn Winn – Went to look at the Player Rater to see if Winn has been more valuable than Witt, and do you know how much courage I needed to do that since I have Witt and not Winn? I’m basically the bravest man in the world. Witt was still ahead. Lowercase yay.

Isaac Paredes – If Jeremy Pena was going to be out a very long time, I’d have Paredes as the biggest buy in the history of buys, but I don’t know his playing time once Pena returns. Sadly singing, “If you like Jeremy Pena playing, and making love in the rain…”

Caleb Durbin – Kinda surprised a 10/15/.250 hitter at 3rd base wasn’t the great coup the Red Sox thought he would be for their team. /sarcastic font

Nathan Church – Snoop Dogg would call him Tha Chuuuch. Important to know that. Now that you do, what else you need? Nothing really.

Jung Hoo Lee – It’s Janky City this week for which outfielders have been hot. Church, Lee, Thomas, Collins? Sounds like a Tom Collins with a splash of red wine.

Alek Thomas – Speaking of Tom Collins, there is a chance that there’s a little bit of a hangover in this week’s Buy column from the Mexico series boosting DBags and Padres hitters’ numbers.

Isaac Collins – Actually, liked Collins a bit coming into this season. And still do. He’s been more hot than breaking out, but I am monocle in case the latter happens.

Foster Griffin  – This is a Streamonator call like the call it makes to the roller skating rink.

Mitch Keller – This is also a Streamonator call. “Instead of renting skates, can I just use my feet that are wheels?”

Tanner Scott – Was floating around my room on a cloud of joy, when I saw I won Scott this past Sunday in FAAB for only $7 out of a $100. That’s a great deal, I thought. Then he entered the 7th inning on Monday and I Lisa Simpson’d grumble the word “bullpens.” This could also be Alex Vesia, Blake Treinen, and I still sorta believe Will Klein could see opps.

Jack Perkins – A’s are going for a new record for Buy column appearances of a new possible closer. They still have a long way to go to match some of those late-2010’s Phillies pens. You need a Hector Neris badly!

Brad Keller – He’d fit right in some of those Hector Neris-led pens.

Tyler Phillips – Was my first middle reliever buy of the year is still cooking thanks to that new stuff, and now he might get saves thanks to Fairbanks’s noive! [smacks head Moe-style] This could be Calvin Faucher, Andrew Nardi, Anthony Bender, literally anyone in the Marlins’ pen.

Antonio Senzatela – Victor Vodnik sounds like a MF DOOM nickname, and been Coffin Nails Accordion to my ratios. So, maybe Senzatela gets some shine and That’s That.

Louis Varland – I wonder how much Cora and Thomson’s firings affect John Schneider’s thought process on going with Varland over Hoffman. Not overtly, but has to be subconscious.

Jacob Latz – His peripherals are so hilariously awful, but guess what, Jakob Junis hasn’t been much better.

Juan Morillo – Morillo is why it’s impossible to rank or draft middle relievers. They always come out of nowhere. His peripherals are gorge. Were they previously? Never, nuh-uh, at no point. Which leads me to believe it may not continue, but maybe Morillo willo.

SELL

Fernando Tatis Jr. – One word: Scared. Two words: Uh oh. Three words: Fun the Jewels. Four words: Run from the Jewels. His Statcast has me shook. How quickly can he fix his Launch Angle? Because shizz is broken. He looks like worms should call one of those park bench attorneys and sue him. (By the way, I googled “Can worms sue” and my google replied, “Do you have brain damage?”) Fun The Jewels is hitting the ball as hard as anyone in the majors, but when you drive the ball into the ground and hit four-and-a-half foot 110 MPH grounders, it’s not great for your fantasy value. There’s some optimism here because of how hard he’s hitting the ball, but his ground balls have been trending up (ironically) for the last few years, and he’s looking a lot like Christian Yelich, That’s not an unusable player, but a 20/20/.280 hitter is a lot different than a top 12 overall player. I wouldn’t sell Tatis for five minutes on the Mad Hatter Teacups a ride after a kid got sick, but I would go to the Fantasy Baseball Trade Analyzer and explore options.