I had a hard time trying to come up with a Creeper of the Week for a week that only has three games and no rotations announced. So in a moment of scotch fueled clarity, I decided to create my own All-Star team. I’m going to highlight some of my favorite Creepers of the “not a real half first half”. There is only one voter, myself, and like any list, there will be bias. Hey, it’s my list and the winners are very obvious. It’s not like if I was to rank some of my favorite movies or songs, then I’m sure we could really get into a discussion. Oooooooh that sounds fun! I’m going to throw some out for you. For my favorite movie, it’s Goodfellas and Apocalypse Now (both these clips are NSFW). The movie in third is a tie of about 20 flicks that all make a strong case. For music, I’m not going to make it easy on you. Here is my top three non-corporate underground independent soul songs of the last 5 years. 1) Lee Fields & The Expressions – You’re the Kind of Girl 2) Charles Bradley – The World (Is Going Up In Flames) 3) Ruby Velle & The Soulphonics – My Dear. Do you have any? Actually, the story of Charles Bradley is a really interesting tale of “it’s never too late”. They even made a documentary movie about him. I highly recommend clicking on that link. Have you done it yet? Okay, good, then let’s move on to my all star team… countdown style!
3) Kole Calhoun (creeper – 10.8%, current – 92.8%) – With DL’s over loaded with this season’s Injurpocalypse, many owners had to let pre-season Gray sleeper Kole Calhoun go out into the pool for anyone to grab. I took notice of this drop and screamed for everyone to go pick him up. Unfortunately his first week back was delayed by the Sciosciapath and his other plans for playing time. His week turned into a dud but I never lost faith. June came around and the winds started to change and since then he’s been one of the most productive players in the game. At the beginning of June his batting average sat at .228 and as of today has raised to .304 while putting up a line of 32/7/19/1 and making him a staple across the board. This creeper was my plea to add him and hold onto him and if you listened to me and shared in the faith then you were too stubborn/lazy to drop him and now are doing your happy dance.
2) Avisail Garcia (creeper – 11.6% – current – lost for season) This was a tough one because I was heavily invested in MinnyMiggy this year and had some really high hopes for the second year breakout star in the making. Set to bat either in front of or behind Jose Abreu makes me wonder what we would have had if he wasn’t such a hustler. That hustle cost us a season cut short before it really got started. After opening the year blah, he got the gift that keeps on giving…to us FBBer’s. That gift was Coors Field where the Coors Correction makes everyone Bichetter. Going down after only one at bat in the third game that week he still put up a line of 4/2/3/.444 over three games which in many weeks is better than most. Oh, how I miss you Avisail, this one’s for you Señor.
1) Josh Willingham (creeper – 4.8 %, current – 15.5%) Don’t pay attention to him now, after his creeper week he shot up into the 80% owned realm for a bit. Talk about one of the best debuts this season and one that jump started a lot of owners team into a positive direction. From his return from the DL on May 26th until June 11th he put up a line of 11/5/17/.315 and in that time he put up his creeper week line of 6/1/8/.444. This is why he is my number one All Star of the first half. Way to go slugger! Guys like Willingham and creeper staple Adam Dunn are what extended batty calls are all about. They come in and drop counting stats all over the screen then make themselves droppable for the next guy in line.
Some of my Creepers have been duds, Cameron Maybin, Mitch Moreland, and Juan Lagares come to mind when I think about the first half. Some of my bonus/others under consideration calls outplayed the lead. But that’s how it goes. It’s not a perfect science but is hedging our luck against the match-ups. I’m probably using hedge wrong but you get the point. Before closing this out I’m going to throw up a couple of players that are under owned and need to be looked at: Oswaldo Arcia (1.6%), Kevin Kiermaier (9.8%), David Freese (13.9%), Travis d’Arnaud (5.2%) Oscar Taveras (16.9%), and A.J. Pollock (6.4%). The last two are my favorite stashes here. I have a feeling that Taveras is primed to have a good second half. Call it my gut play here but I like the kid. Looking at his stats I see a guy pressing to produce and I’m hoping the days off will help him regain some focus and start bringing that batting average up. The Cardinals are always a team to never underestimate , especially in the second half. They have that thing about them that you can’t explain but just watch happen every year. My other favorite is Pollock, after breaking out in a big way this year he went down with that hand injury. His ownership has tanked and now is the time to grab and stash a guy who should be back around mid-August. I think it’s worth a shot and hopefully you can get a cheap usable bat for the stretch run. I hope everyone enjoys our little mental break and I’ll see you in the comments.
