Hey, I’m Higgins and I’m going to be posting updates about our Fantasy Razzball leagues. If you are not familiar with Fantasy Razzball, it is a league format where us truly masochistic fantasy baseballers try to build the worst fantasy baseball team possible. Full rules can be found here.
Last month we looked at the master standings and gave appropriate props to Pyramid Lake Cui-ui, the overall leader. Since then he has been dethroned and slipped all the way down to 6th place (that is sarcastic, don’t ask where my team is). Our new current leader is Butera Butera, representing Division 1 with 2,746 points and fueled by 9th round pick Robert Andino, who is the #1 player in the last 30 days with 128 points. Team Butera Butera also features the fearsome San Francisco middle infield combination of Brandon Crawford and Emmanuel Burriss (over 300 points combined), all-glove-therefore-Fantasy-Razzball-All-Star Brendan Ryan (194), as well as a starting five outfielders who have combined for all of ten home runs on the season while averaging over 100 points each, which has allowed him to bench first-rounder Michael Bourn while he has been doing his best Jose Bautista impression lately. (Seriously, what the hell? Disclaimer: I may be another disgruntled Fantasy Razzball Bourn owner). Anyway, congrats to Butera Butera while he stands atop the terrible fantasy baseball pedestal, but things remain close as the top seven teams are only ~200 points apart. That’s like one week of normally-bad Ty Wigginton turning it on, so be careful of those weekly lineup locks.
If you picked up Albert Pujols when I talked about him on May 12th… uh, sorry. You gambled and lost. Since then he has 8 home runs and 26 RBI, earning himself a spot back on the Fantasy Razzball waiver wire. I’m pretty sure there’s a clause about that somewhere in his contract. In the last thirty days he’s been worth -66 points, bested (worsted?) only by players such as Carlos Gonzalez, Joey Votto, and Bautista. If you had either of those guys, then you are confused about what kind of league you are in again. The #1 worst/best player in Fantasy Razzball in the last month? Trevour Plouffe, with 12 home runs good for -106 points. If you said “oh he plays infield for the Minnesota Twins and he only hit .238 last year and he has a wussy name so he’ll be awesomely terrible”… well, I don’t know what to tell you. I would have said the same thing.
So if you’re stuck in the middle of the standings, treading water like Matt Diaz at the plate, where do you look for some Fantasy Razzball help this summer? Luckily as the season goes on, injuries pile up and more teams stop pretending they might make it to October and start replacing their bad players with worse players. Fantasy Razzball is won on the waiver wire as those fourth outfielders, utility infielders, and Triple-A callups rack up playing time. Obscurity is your friend here. On Saturday in Minnesota the fourth-place Brewers are starting a guy named Michael Fiers. I don’t know who he is either, but that’s a good sign. It looks like his ERA was over 4 in Nashville this year, so he is razz quality. You know what’s even better? According to their website, the Twins are starting TBA. Gold, Jerry! Gold! This should be the Fantasy Razzball equivalent of Kershaw versus Cain. The point is, the best players in these leagues come and go and while your team might seem crappy (or not crappy enough) right now, by next month you could be the 1927 New York Yankees i.e. the 2003 Detroit Tigers.
(Edited hindsight: this post was written on Friday. Fiers managed to keep the Twins in check, but Minnesota went with Aussie Liam Hendriks. He gave up three home runs, but only two of his five runs were earned. He still nabbed that juicy juicy loss.)
Just look at The Great Andino. Number one for the last month, but just got benched because Brian Roberts is back. Who knows what he’ll be worth by July.
Until next time, pick up those Padres and look for those powerless strikeouts.
