Do you hear that? Grrrrrrrr. Is that a bear? Grumble, grumble. Is that Grey complaining about how he traded away Manny Machado for David Price while picking up every rookie pitcher known to man? The sound you make while pronouncing Prince’s weird symbol name. Ah, I know what that is. That’s my gut. Not only does it tell me when I’m hungry, it speaks fluent crazy musician. True fact: it once explained G’n’R’s Estranged video to me. It’s quite simple really: Axl Rose is nuttier than a bukkake video. Hrm, maybe I didn’t need my gut to tell me that…anywho, my gut is now trying to tell me something about fantasy baseball for this week and it’s telling me this Oakland guy named Brandon Moss will be a good play this week and is only 31% owned in ESPN leagues and 21% in Yahoo. Ok, it didn’t tell me the last part, my eyes did cuz I looked him up. But I can tell you’re not convinced so let’s see why Moss should be a good play for week 12 of the 2013 fantasy baseball season…
When examining Moss, it’s important to take a look at his good side. No, I’m not talking about his profile, silly, though with a mug like this I think the answer to which side is better would be ‘either’. Handsome bastard. No wonder why Josh Reddick hides his face behind a homeless guy’s body hair. Moss puts all of us to shame. No, the important thing about Moss is that he’s a left-handed hitter and like many left-handed hitters, he don’t hit no balls against LHP. Though he hit .293 against southpaws last year, he only got 58 ABs against them and his slugging percentage was 20 points less (.431 vs .643) than it was against righties last year. Now of course, none of these stats matter and anyone who drafted him this year could tell you that he’s been a bust so far with a .225/.321/.444 slashline heading into Saturday’s game. But the big thing to note about Moss for this week can be defined by two numbers: 7 and 0. That 7 is the amount of games the Athletics play this week and the zero would be the amount of lefties he’ll have to face in that time as long as the Seattle & Texas rotations stay true. Now for another number: 4. That’s the number of games Moss gets to play in Texas. I don’t know if you know this or not, but it’s June. Ok, you did know that so you also know that’s the time for hitter’s parks to start shining cuz Summer is on like Donkey Kong and we all know the Rangers ballpark is good for that. When you factor in the schedule in Texas has guys like Nick Tepesch, Josh Lindblom, and Justin Grimm on tap, it’s hard not to recognize the potential for a couple of dingers to start the week. Though he does have two tough righties on the schedule in Yu Darvish and Hisashi Iwakuma, it’s rounded out with the aforementioned Texas trio and most likely Harang and Bonderman. Of those 5, only one has a sub-4 ERA – Bonderman has a 3.86 in three starts – and none of them are really intimidating for matchup purposes. Again, this is a gut call. I don’t have the stats to tell you he’s the best play this week but the matchups are enticing and Moss proved last year he can be useful in spurts and this week just might be one of them. So if he does well this week and you nabbed him, you can thank me. Grrr, grumble, grrr!!!! Oh, and my gut. I’m sorry, gut, you know how much I care about you. You hungry? Want a hot pocket?
