Evan Longoria is out for 6 to 8 weeks. Let’s look on the bright side. According to our Fantasy Baseball Player Rater, Longoria has been less valuable than Encarnacion and Aviles at 3rd base. On the less bright side, those guys have been really, really good. Okay, that bright side argument didn’t play out so well. Let’s try again. On the bright side, I told everyone to draft Longoria and drafted him myself, so you can point at me and say how screwed I am. On the less bright side, if you’re reading this, there’s a chance you listened to me and drafted Longoria too. Okay, last try. In the 6 weeks he will miss, Longoria would’ve gave you around 8 homers and 30 RBIs with a .300 average. You can get that off waivers from Pedro Alvarez or Chris Davis (if all those coins I just dumped into a wishing well mean anything). Did I just try to convince myself that Pedro Alvarez was going to give me the same stats as Longoria? Wow, glad I haven’t convinced myself anything dangerous like I can fly or I can heal Longoria’s torn hammy by kidnapping him and taking him to St. Petersburg where they filmed Cocoon. Though I guess taking him to St. Pete couldn’t hurt… Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Matt Moore – 5 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners, 7 Ks. Pull your arms inside, I’m closing the window to buy low on Moore.
Matt Joyce – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 6th homer. Every year he’s a beast before the All-Star break. Will someone remind me next February to place Joyce in my top 100 overall? It sounds like crazy talk, but think about this. You draft Joyce in the top 100, then someone will underperform on your team when the season starts (Stanton, McCutchen, do I have to continue with the names?) so you trade the underachiever for a different piece and play Joyce. Then you’ll be winning your league and people will be like how is this schmohawk winning when he took Joyce in the 8th round?
Nolan Reimold – Will miss a few days with a bulging disk — no, that’s not like when you tried to jam a CD into your radio and one was already there. Reimold says he will be back in a few days, which is pretty much what he’s said for the last week, so he also has a broken record.
Brian Matusz – 6 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 4 Ks. 2nd consecutive solid start from Matusz…And his WHIP is still 1.70. Ma nish ta no thank you as I pass over him.
Chris Davis – 3-for-4, 3 runs and his 5th homer. See, he’s totally as good as Longoria! (Or I’m taking my fountain coins back. All of them Mouth-style.)
J.J. Hardy – 1-for-5 with his 4th homer as he bats .185, which is my weight soaking wet, holding a 20 pound bottle of mayonnaise.
Shin-Soo Choo – Yesterday, Rudy said over IM that he thought they were going to designate for assignment Choo. Then I remembered his keyboard N doesn’t work. He meant Chone with an E typo and no N. Though, DFA’ing Choo didn’t sound as crazy as it should have. With that said, Choo sat out again yesterday with a tight hamstring and hasn’t played in a week. If Choo’s hamstrings wrote for Razzball, you’d get a roundup every other week.
Jordan Schafer – Out with an oblique strain. Just thinking about how weird words are that start with oh-bee. Oblique, oblong, OB-GYN. Eh, maybe it’s just me.
Jed Lowrie – 1-for-2 with his 2nd homer in three games. When Lowrie gets hot, he gets hot schmotato hot, and when he gets cold, it’s because he’s injured. WHO! (While Healthy Own.)
Paul Goldschmidt – 3-for-4, I was thinking that his 1-for-3 on Monday might’ve been a sign, but yesterday’s telling me he’s alive. If an impatient owner dropped him, grab him immediately. AuShizz is on!
Krispie Young – Took 35 swings yesterday. Just give me three of your best and get on the field! Ah fanabla, he’s not due back for a few weeks still.
Trevor Cahill – 7 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 5 Ks. His ERA is now at 3.13. Aren’t you glad you panicked after his last start?
Jarrod Dyson – 2-for-4, 2 runs out of the leadoff spot. He also got a steal on Sunday. If you need steals, I could see grabbing him, but once Cain returns (soon) I’m not sure Dyson will play. Or maybe I’m just not picking up Dyson because I’m chicken.
Jeff Francoeur – 3-for-4, maybe Frenchy is finally coming out of his season long slump. If he is, could he bring Hosmer with him? Thank you.
Rick Porcello – 8 IP, 3 ER, 7 baserunners, 3 Ks, lowering his ERA to 5.64, and raising his “How many times will someone ask in the comments if they should pick up Porcello” quotient to 6.89.
Mike Carp – Activated from the DL. 94% (no math done) of the outfielders on waivers are the Alex Presley type, which leaves only 17% (still no math) of the outfielders giving power. So if you’re in the lesser quarter percentile (throwing math out the window at this point), I’d grab Carp, or Crap if you’re kinda dyslexic.
Jesus Montero – 4-for-4 with no runs, RBIs or steals. The Charley Lau Special!
Michael Saunders – 1-for-4 with his 4th home run. We actually go over Saunders later on today in the podcast. You can hardly wait! No, you!
Jason Kipnis – 3-for-4 with a SB. Now has his AVG up to .280 with 3 HR and 5 SB – good for top 5 in the Player Rater for 2B. We are Kipnissing history.
Ryan Zimmerman – Says he’s going to return on Sunday. I’ll file that under “I’ll believe it when I see it.” It’s filed right after, “If there was celery ice cream, I could eat all I want and still lose calories.”
Bryce Harper – Jumped into a pickup softball game yesterday in Washington. Softball when you’re not old enough to drink? That sounds terrible! Somewhere, Matt Stairs is nodding his head yes.
Jose Iglesias – Recalled by the Red Sox to provide depth as Youuuuuuuuk nurses his big-baby-itis. Iglesias is a good pick up if your league has a Web Gem category.
Gordon Beckham – 3-for-4 including his 1st HR of the year. One more of those and someone’s gonna have a big boy average (.200+).
Yadier Molina – 2-for-5 with 3 runs and 2 SBs. Other catchers are having great years but Yadier is #1 on the player rater for catchers and it’s not that close. He must’ve kept some of Pujols’s mojo.
Cory Luebke– Will be skipped with a sore elbow. As frequent commenter, royce! said, “With Luebke being hurt, the Padres get to show off their minor league depth and call up… Jeff Suppan? I’m thinking a sad trombone would work here, but a “trombone being kicked in the nuts” would be more appropriate.”
Jonny Venters – 2/3 IP, 2 ER as he blew Beachy’s quality start (7 IP, 2 ER, 5 baserunners, 2 Ks). Fredi Gonzalez said Venters’s punishment is having to throw another 120 games in a row.
Curtis Granderson – 2-for-3 with his 9th home run. Okay, but Stanton has 10 RBIs, so there!
Kelly Johnson – 2-for-3, 4 RBIs and his 5th homer. I’ll be honest, I don’t know what every player is currently doing. Johnson was one of those I wasn’t sure about. So someone asked if they should drop him the other day and I looked at his stats. This guy you want to drop? I’d give you Cano’s stats for Kelly Johnson’s stats right now. Actually, I’ll give you Longoria, Cano and Stanton’s stats if you want them. Kelly Johnson has more RBIs than Bautista right now. Oh, and I like Aaron Hill right now too. Danny Espinosa, not so much. He looks like the turd that my ex-girlfriend put in my bed in college. A story you can read all about in my e-book!
Adam Lind – 0-for-4 with one homer on the year as he bats .203. This ship sailed and then sunk.
Jemile Weeks – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 5th steal. Holding the mirror to his nose, and it faintly fogs up.
Grant Balfour – 1/3 IP, 2 ER and his fifth earned run in his last two appearances. As the closerousel turns… I’d grab Ryan Cook only because I think Brian Fuentes is bad at, ya know, pitching.
Jarrod Parker – 6 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 4 Ks in Fenway. Sonavabench!
Pedro Alvarez – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 6th homer. Only 7 more homers and 27 more RBIs and you will have admirably filled in for Longoria.
Jose Tabata – 1-for-4 with his 1st homer. He’s also batting over .350 in the last week. Hey, Tah-bah-ta, Tah-bah-ta, Tah-bah-ta, swing, Tah-bah-ta!
Ubaldo Jimenez – 4 2/3 IP, 4 ER– Well, whatever. You can’t own him anywhere. Take him and Chacin, give them two Entertainment.com coupons to Souplantation and hope they get food poisoning.
Giancarlo Stanton – 1-for-4 with his 2nd homer to keep pace with A.J. Ellis.
Heath Bell – Threw the perfect inning for the save, and the closer leash goes out a hair, but remember it’s retractable.
Jerome Williams – 9 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 6 Ks as he threw a shutout vs. Minnesota. Nothing gives pitchers the O face like facing Twins.
Torii Hunter – 2-for-2 with his 2nd homer in as many games, equaling the I’s he dots.
Albert Pujols – 0-for-4. Now being outhomered by Dee Gordon. Though Dee Gordon’s homer came off his head as Matt Kemp was swinging him.
Peter Bourjos – Benched for the 4th time in 5 games by the Sciosciapath who has decided not to play a struggling prospect with awesome defense in favor of Vernon Wells. Peter, welcome to the Doghouse That Napoli built. The Sciosciapath is going at this all wrong. He should try to one-up his student, Joe “Infield Shift” Maddon, by playing a two man outfield of Bourjos and Trout and then play five infielders. “Hey, Maicer, you always wondered what UTIL meant? It means U stand behind second base ‘TIL I tell you to come back to the dugout.”
Mat Gamel – Left yesterday’s game after running into a fence. This gives me a great idea. Baseball stadiums should have no fences. Only players should wear electric shock collars, so when they get to a certain point in foul territory they’re shocked. Problem solved!
