Hey, 2015 ESPN Fantasy Baseball Rankings, Imma Let You Finish But…

Watch out, because I’m about to eviscerate someone, which Google tells me means to disembowel and I consider softening eviscerate, but decide to stick with it.  That’s how mad I am!  I’m ready to disembowel after deliberations!  Hey, ESPN, you best get your colostomy bag ready cause you’re gonna need it.  (By the by, I Googled colostomy bags for the holidays, and I couldn’t find any.  I may just invent some and go on Shark Tank and wow Robert Herjavec with my pitch.  “Wait, there’s more!  A Passover colostomy bag because we know it doesn’t stay unleavened forever.”  Don’t steal my invention ideas.)  Today, I take a knife and seppuku (I’m running out of thesaurus entries for disemboweling) ESPN’s 2015 fantasy baseball rankings.  To the tune of Jackin’ For Beats by Ice Cube.  Commence knife to belly:

Give me Arenado, fool, it’s a full-time Grey move,
Giancarlo, yo homie make your sweatpants move,
And I’ll jack any Tristan, Karabell, Quintong (sp?) rank,
That’s the names of the suckers I done outranked,

Admittedly, ESPN rankings are better than they’ve been in the past, presumably because Snafu Larry is no longer in the picture.  The last few years were so painful when Tristan, Karabell and Snafu would do those ranking summit videos.  They’d go like this, “Snafu, you have Sabathia ranked in the top 30 overall.”  Snafu, “I love love love him this year.  Did I ever tell you about the time I did karaoke with David Faustino?”  Then you’d see Karabell slowly lower his head and sob.  ESPN still relies too heavily on name value.  Quintong, for instance, drafts Aramis in the LABR league that Rudy is in and says, “Another oldie but goodie (he just drafted Rollins), Ramirez doesn’t have a lot of upside, but his statistical floor in terms of homers and average is worth the investment, especially at the corner infielder spot.”  Floor’s a good word for Aramis’s stats the last few years, as in, look down and you find them.  I don’t even know how much Quintong contributes to ESPN’s rankings.  Or really any of the ESPN ‘perts I mention.  I think they outsource their rankings.  I’m not being facetious.  I think a different service provides them with player blurbs, projections and rankings.  At least that would make the most sense.  I’m almost positive someone else provides all the blurbs and projections, so you can’t possibly have one person do the rankings and then a different group do the projections, can you?  This will be my number one question when I see ESPN’s ‘perts in Arizona at spring training.  Number two will be:  Does anyone miss Snafu Larry from covering baseball?  Yes, I have two questions, so I guess that makes me bi-curious.  Wait, what?

I get away from a starter,
Drop a dime, I’ll break you off somethin’ proper,
With the S-A-M-A-R-D-Z-I-J-A and that’s Jeff-Sahmotherszeera.
And here’s how I’ll greet ya!
Stop fool, come off that pitcher,
Feel dumb ‘cuz you’re caught in the dark,
(Ya rankings are off the mark.)

ESPN says catchers are the shallowest position (no argument there), and say that’s the reason to draft Posey early (I’d argue that’s wrong all day).  Then two breaths later, they say pitching is the deepest in talent (again no argument), but then rank three starters in the top 20 and 15 starters in the top 50.  Huh?  Does that follow?  Cause I never did well at those high school logic and reasoning questions.  You know the ones:  A pigeon is an animal and a camel is an animal, so a camel can fly?  Yes, a camel can fly.  Right?  ESPN claims their rankings are for 10-team leagues.  So, with that in mind, why do they have so many pitchers ranked so high?  In a 10-team league, you can likely get away without a pitcher until the 9th round.  You shake a tree in the 14th round and a top 20 starter will fall out in a 10-team league.  You could draft no pitchers at all in a 10-team league and get a sub-3 ERA.  Then the particulars, Tanaka with half a wing is their 21st SP, and Arrieta is their 29th?  Hmm…Huh?!  Here’s a good one…Justin Verlander is their 37th best SP above Mat Latos!  Wait, it gets better.  They have Verlander projected for a 4.03 ERA and 1.29 WHIP.  They have Latos projected for a 3.38 ERA and 1.21 WHIP.  I couldn’t even make that up.  Actually, I could.  But I didn’t.  Here’s another classic example of “You’re joking, right?”  Alex Wood is projected for a 3.23 ERA and a 1.19 WHIP with 164 Ks.  Cliff Lee is projected for 175 Ks and a 3.55 ERA and 1.16 WHIP.  They’re likely close in ranking, right?  Um, no.  The Adverb is ranked as the 28th best SP and Wood as the 45th.  Sure, there’s other things likely involved in their rankings besides stats.  Like health.  Of which Lee has none.  He had to be shutdown with elbow inflammation.  I’m gonna move on before I get an ulcer.

And it’ll drive you nuts, steal your rankings and give it that Grey touch,
Like jackin’ at night, say hi to the top 432 I’m packin’,
And it sounds so sweet,
Grey Albright and the Razzmob is Jack Hannahananananananin’ for beats.

Carlos Beltran vs. Lorenzo Cain?  Which one you think ESPN got higher?  It’s obvious, isn’t it?  Does it matter that one is 87 years old and looks done while one is slated to bat in the middle of the order and is in his prime?  No, of course it doesn’t!  Mentioned above, but worth upsetting PETA to beat this recently-defunct horse.  There’s a ton of name value ranked way too high:  Cano, Tulo, Freeman, Bumgarner, Posey, Braun, etc. etc. etc.  You know what ESPN’s rankings are good for?  If you use them, you’ll have names even your Grandma knows.  Everyone wants to discuss their drafted team with their Gramsie over a bowl of hard candies, don’t they?  See, name value is good on paper.  Not paper that’s filled with stats, paper that’s filled with just names.

Then I have to show and prove and use a French preposition like chez,
‘Cuz suckers can’t fade the Grey,
And if I jack you and you keep comin’?
I’ll have you marks a hundred miles and runnin’,

Stop, stop, stop, stop.
Suh-prize, Charlie Blackmonz!

Most of my sleepers that I wrote about almost two months ago held true as I figured they would.  As I said back then, I have a pretty good idea who the big box sites will like.  I’m way up on Wong (sleeper), Souza (sleeper) (By the by, I love the movie, Wong Souza.  What glorious music that girl produces on a skin flute!), Avisail (sleeper), Pollock (sleeper), Hutchison (sleeper) and Segura (sleeper).  Go against people who use ESPN rankings and it’s gonna be armed robbery and you didn’t even have to use your AK.  You got to say it was a good day.  Oops, wrong Cube song.  Mashing up two Cube songs without express written Cube consent?  He’s gonna call Attorney Big Al!

Now on the less-Cube tip, here’s a chart of the biggest values from ESPN to me (Thank you!) and the players that ESPN overrates (No thank you!):

THANK YOU

NO THANK YOU