Nice to see a team (the Jays) that has to play well actually play well. Feels like a rare thing this final week. It’s been like teams have been taking must-win as a challenge and saying, “Prove it!” Or like a spiteful child saying, “I don’t want to must win, you must win!” Chris Bassitt (7 2/3 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 12 Ks, ERA at 3.60) went out and must-won’d his behind off, and, from what I know of Bassitts and their rear porches, there were some dramatically wide swings and they smelled some other dog’s butts. Maybe that analogy got away from me, but you can’t spell analogy without anal. Hey now! Just opened Chris Bassitt’s player stat page, and you’re never gonna believe this, but what he’s done for the last six years? He’s doing it again! Wild, right? Chris Bassitt has made a career out of being criminally underrated. Look at his stats: 8.4 K/9, 2.7 BB/9, 3.60 ERA, and guess where he ranks for starters on the year on the Player Rater. That’s top 20 starter numbers. He will barely be a top 40 starter in drafts again in 2024. Underrated, always. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Daulton Varsho – 1-for-3, 2 runs and his 19th homer. Not enough has been made of all the work Varsho did to prove wrong a person who might’ve thought, “A 20/15 season from a catcher has to be valuable.”
Matt Chapman – 1-for-4 and his 16th homer. Matt David Chapman killed that ball.
Brandon Belt – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 17th homer, and another homer today. Well, not yet, but he will, because he always follows a homer with another.
Corbin Burnes – 4 IP, 0 ER, ERA at 3.39. Last week was the season’s final Buy column, but as I told someone in the comments yesterday, I am here and will help as much as I can, but shizz is wacky the final weekend. Use the Streamonator, absolutely, but every pitcher this final weekend is liable to go 4 or less innings, especially guys on playoff teams.
Kyle Schwarber – 1-for-3 and his 46th homer. Ya know who the Phils remind me of? The 80’s Brewers. The Harvey Wallbangers. I’m prolly dating myself.
Ke’Bryan Hayes – Got the night off, because he has to rest now and not for the next four months starting Monday. What the eff, man! Play the games! For whatever reason, resting this late in the year on a team that is not going to the playoffs pisses me off.
Jeff McNeil – Diagnosed with a partial tear of his UCL. Adding insult to injury (literally), the Mets aren’t considering surgery. Of course, they’re not. Why would you do that when you have all offseason to recuperate, then wait until the setback in March, and he misses all of 2024.
David Peterson – 7 IP, 0 ER, 8 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 5.03. True story, I had one slot left in my sleeper series last preseason and I had two posts written. So, two posts, and one slot. I had to decide between posting Peterson’s sleeper or Justin Steele’s. Think I made the right call.
Jesus Luzardo – 7 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 10 Ks, ERA at 3.63. If I knew a Bible verse, I’d say one now about thanking Jesus. Here’s one psalm I got off the internet: Jesus 3.63, He remembers those in H2H playoffs and does His best. Thank you, Jesus Luzardo.
Charlie Blackmon – 3-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and a slam (8) and legs (3). Chazz Noir riding off into the sunset in his final games as a Colorado–I’m totally kidding! The Rockies are going to re-sign him for at least three more years. At least!
Sean Bouchard – 2-for-5, 2 runs and his 2nd homer, and 2nd homer in as many games. Your final hot schmotato alert of the season, go get him!
Elehuris Montero – 3-for-4, 4 runs, 2 RBIs and his 9th homer, 2nd homer in three games. Okay, he’s been hot too. Also, on a somewhat related note, you know what’s pretty freakin’ cool? That Kris Bryant has been missing games again.
J.D. Martinez – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 32nd homer. Just Dong, because anything else is uncivilized!
Adolis Garcia – 1-for-3 and his 39th homer, and 4th homer in five games. What’s incredible is he’ll be discounted again next year. Guarantee it!
Julio Rodriguez – 1-for-4 and his 32nd homer. He’s smoking, that’s why he goes by JuulRod.
Chris Sale – 5 IP, 1 ER, 4 baserunners, 2 Ks, ERA at 4.30. Alex Cora announced Sale is his 2024 Opening Day starter. I honestly had to do a Google to make sure this wasn’t a joke. Yo, Cora, dream less! A) Sale’s gonna be healthy? Oh, pause, kay. B) They’re not going to sign anyone? C) There’s no C. Oh, I see what Cora was doing, okay, I will try myself: Cougs will insist in 2024 that I begin dating J. Lo.
Anthony Santander – 1-for-4 and his 28th homer. Will go over the end-of-the-season recap of the positional rankings starting next week. Will say it was a bit surprising to see my preseason sleeper, Santander, as a top 20 outfielder. Never felt like he got crazy hot at any point, but that’s not fully accurate. If you click on his name, you see he had a huge May and August. Guess it feels ‘quiet’ when you have hot months followed by two meh months.
Dean Kremer – 5 1/3 IP, 0 ER, 3 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 4.12. Can’t ask for more than this final week. Seeing a starter going 5+ IP makes me like that guy seeing a double rainbow.
Matt Olson – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 54th homer. Don’t pay much attention to WAR. What is it good for? Judging real players’ worth, ha! Say it again now! With that said, I went to look to see if Olson was close to Acuña (he’s not), and I happened to notice William Contereras is above Luis Robert Jr., Adolis Garcia, Jose Ramirez, Kyle Tucker and an assortment of other players. Cal Raleigh is 22nd overall! Hey, one love to that giant ass, but cmon. Felix Bautista is 37th for pitchers (!), tied with the 4.82 ERA Miles Mikolas, so, yeah, I don’t pay much attention to WAR.
Marcus Stroman – 2 IP, 2 ER, ERA at 3.95. He’s in front of Felix Bautista in WAR.
Chase Silseth – Activated from the IL and will start today. I’m sthreaming him. Pray for me.
Cole Ragans – 6 1/3 IP, 4 ER, 9 baserunners (4 BBs), 8 Ks, ERA at 3.47. I’m in, Daddy. Yes, I’m in for next year. How’sever, I’m thinking there might be people who are more in than me. He feels on the precipice of disaster as others who have a 5+ BB/9 as recently as *pause for emphasis* this year.
Michael Massey – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 15th homer. There were some who thought Massey could become more than a 15/5/.240 hitter. Me, I was one. Sadly, he has 15-homer power, and a Launch Angle that would make Schwarber say, “Cool, man, keep doing that.” There might not be a bigger death sentence than a guy who can’t hit homers who hits with a 20-degree Launch Angle.
Sawyer Gipson-Long – 5 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 2.70. Here’s one for you haters: SGL or Ragans? If you asked me a month ago, I’d prolly ask you, “What is an SGL? Is that an R&B group from the 90s? Did they open for SWV?”
Spencer Torkelson – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 30th homer. The Promised Land! He has reached Mt. Tork in the 30-Homer Valley! He has planted his flag upon said mountain and yelled at the clouds, “I will be drafted two rounds earlier because I made it to 30-Homer Valley!” He speaks truth.
Touki Toussaint – 4 IP, 1 ER, ERA at 4.97. Will be watching closely to the Macon, Georgia-area Ramada Inn to see who is crowned 2024’s Touki, when the Braves’ brass meets there in December. My money’s on Darius Vines. He’s just random enough!
Yoan Moncada – 1-for-2, 2 runs and his 10th homer. Will be interesting to see if he can get to 40/40 this weekend. If Sunday’s White Sox game goes into extra innings, say, 24,000 extra innings, and Moncada gets 6,000 at-bats, it could happen!
Andrew Vaughn – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 21st homer, hitting .260. Being sincere when I say, if you come into next year’s draft, and offer me $5,000 dollars to draft Vaughn, I will draft him and take your money. Otherwise, no heckin’ way. Andrew Yawn is such a snoozefest.
Sonny Gray – 4 IP, 1 ER, ERA at 2.79. What a beautiful, fitting way for him to go out: A no decision.
Luis Medina – 6 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 5.42. Medina Applebaum, you gotta put me on the Streamonator, Medina Applebaum, you gotta put me on. Medina, Medina, Medina…
Ryan Noda – 1-for-4 and his 16th homer. To the tune of Do-Re-Mi, “Noda, a name I call my grandmom…”
