Albert Pujols and his owners are not not not gonna have a good time the rest of 2013 thanks to a partially torn plantar fascia ligament in his foot. It must be hard to stamp out fasciasm when it affects one’s foot – especially when the leader of the movement is so menacing. Pujols has clearly been a shadow of his former self but he still has been the 6th most valuable 1B (not counting guys with other position eligibility) according to our Season-to-Date Player Rater. For those of you without a built-in replacement at 1B like the Angels (Mark Trumbo), I recommmend just playing matchups via the Hitter-tron and hope you luck into a few hot streaks. Or, if you’ve got surplus at a position, trade for a dependable 1B to save yourself the joy of deciding between the Yonder Alonsos on the waiver wire.
Anyway, here are some other notes from the weekend. (And a shout-out to Grey ‘Iron Man’ Albright who is taking a night off with the Cougar’s family whom, I assume, live in a pink house somewhere in Indiana)…
Alfonso Soriano – 4 for 5 with a HR, 3 RBI, and a walk-off single. It’s like he turned back the clock and played at the age he said he was his first time around with the Yankees.
Wil Myers – 3 for 4 with 2 HR, 4 RBI. That’s the 8th time in 9 games that he has had multiple hits. I don’t think the rest of the Rays offense has managed 2+ hits in 8 of the last 9 games.
Derek Jeter – Hit a HR on the first pitch he saw from Matt Moore. He just pretended he was at a bar and the first bit…uh, person he saw was Mandy Moore.
Wilson Ramos – 2-for-4 with a grand slam and 5 RBIs. Doubtful he’ll be useful outside of deep leagues this year but he has shown a solid bat for catcher in the past. Plus, if you say Wilson ‘Catcher’ Ramos fast enough, you might catch one of Derek Jeter’s hand-me-downs.
Jose Fernandez – 8 IP, 2 ER, struck out BuKKKKKKKKKKKKKos (13 if you lost count). He now has an ERA/WHIP of 2.71/1.04 with over a K an inning. I would be surprised if he pitched much after September 1st (when he hits around 150 IP) but this has been a great rookie season. If only Grey didn’t drop him for Tyler Colvin in RCL.
Giancarlo Stanton – Went 7-for-9 with 4 BBs in the 3-game set against Pittsburgh, with 4 R/2 HR/3 RBI. He is now only 13 HRs behind Pedro Alvarez for the NL HR lead. I think that lead will be less than double digits by the end of next week.
Rajai Davis – 1 for 3 with a BB, no R, no RBI, and 4 SB?!?! Gah, why didn’t I just stream him instead of How I Met Your Mother’s Jason Kubel? They need to consider Rajai like a starting pitcher. Start him once every 5 games and note it under Probable SAGNOF in the game previews.
Justin Masterson and Ubaldo Jimenez – Gave up 0 ER to the Rangers over 15 2/3 IP this weekend (7 2/3 IP for Masterson, 8 IP for Ubaldo). Masterson now has 153 Ks in 99.9 IP this year. He had 159 and 158 K’s in 2011/2012 over 206 and 216 IP. Ubaldo remains a high-risk/high-reward streaming candidate for shallow leagues given his solid K-rate and inconsistency (this was his first start of more than 6 IP in his last 10 starts and 5 of the 10 were below $0 in value).
Jhonny Peralta – Hit a Grand Slam on Sunday, giving him 10 Jhomers, 53 RBIs, and a .305 AVG so far on the year. 6th most valuable SS so far on the season. I thought this guy was toast a couple years ago and he’d be out of the league before the guy he replaced (Vizquel) – like what happened with Miguel Tejada and Bobby Crosby. What a run for the Tigers in terms of heavy hitters – Miggy, Fielder, V-Mart, Jhonny, Delmon Young during those playoff runs. They should recruit Ndamukong Suh from the Lions to play 2B while Infante is hurt.
Miguel Cabrera – Miggy owners must have gone through both Ticker Tease and Ticker Shock on Sunday as the Tigers scored 12 runs and Miggy went 0 for 1 and left the game for a pinch-hitter. It wasn’t a flare-up of the hip injury that sidelined him a few games this week (note: he turns into Pujols 2013 in 3 years, right?) – he just got ejected arguing a strike call. My guess is he said, “I’m not the only one in the batter’s box who’d fail a breathalyzer test”
David Ortiz – 4-for-4 with a HR, 2 R, and 2 RBI against the Orioles. He now has 20 HRs and a sick .329 AVG. Teams should add the 3B to the infield shift and have the pitcher do a Mitch Williams and fall towards 3B after the pitch.
Manny Machado – The Village People’s favorite 3B went 0-for-4 and his AVG as now sunk under .300 for the first time since April. His AVG is creeping down towards the Mendoza line for the month of July. He’s just like any kid his age – slacking off during summer vacation.
Ian Desmond – 4-for-4 with 3 runs and 2 RBI. On pace to just about match last year’s breakthrough campaign. Meanwhile, Danny Espinosa’s name is going to be recycled as a TV procedural detective who is trying to get his life back on track after a demotion cost him his job and his partner.
Carlos Torres – The Met rookie followed up two decent starts with a clunker against the Nats (3 IP, 8 ER). It’s a hard time for New Yorkers going by the name of Carlos.
Denard Span – 4-for-4 with a HR. This must’ve been his first exciting stat line all year. There’s a reason he’s a grade below C-SPAN.
Travis Wood – Got the Win over the Giants with a 7 IP, 0 ER (1 R), 7 Ks start and his 3rd HR of the year. He’s now at a 2.79/1.07 in 130 IP. When you start looking at the standings and can’t figure out why others are doing better than you in ERA/WHIP, it’s because of guys like this (note the ~6 K/9 and .240 BABIP as reasons not to buy into T. Wood too much)
Nick Franklin – Franklin bashed two HRs on Sunday – giving him 10 for the year in only 195 AB. I’m probably going to lose an AL-only league because I blanked and didn’t bid for him when he got called up. On the plus side, I drafted Pujols and Lance Berkman as my 1B and CI….damn soft spot for old players.
Tyson Ross – The Hodgepadre (and one-time MediOAKer) threw 8 scoreless innings with 7 Ks against the Diamondbacks. Serves the D-Backs right for sitting ‘brother from suburban, Regis & Katie Lee-loving mother’ Cody Ross who has dressed for lesser pitchers. Please note that media reports have incorrectly said the game occurred in Arizona. That can’t be true.
Patrick Corbin – Fell to 12-2 after giving up a whole run to the Padres in 8 IP. He now has a 2.24/0.99 ERA/WHIP and solid K’s over 140 IP. See note on Travis Wood and double the font size.
Jason Heyward – HRs on Friday and Sunday. Welcome to 2013, Jason.
Tony Cingrani – The Apertif went 7 IP, 2 baserunners, 11 Ks. You know it’s a good year for rookie pitchers when even Dusty manages not to screw one up.
Nelson Cruz – Ron Washington made a Nellie Cruz sandwich on Saturday batting Engel Beltre and Adrian Beltre before/after Cruz. Nellie felt like the G to the Beltre H’s.
Alex Rodriguez – The likely unfounded media rumors are that A-Rod might get suspended through 2014. That would totally give Grey and I enough time to pitch A-Rod a reality show titled “Razzing A-Rod” where we just hang out with A-Rod and veil everything in a cloak of sarcasm that his alien personality cannot recognize. Here’s the treatment for the first episode: We ask A-Rod if we can meet his friends. He takes us to his media room where he pulls out the Friends DVD collection (A-Rod, “This show is so much cooler than Seinfeld!”). He laughs approximately 0.4 seconds after the laugh track begins on every joke and 1.5 seconds after the laugh track ends (A-Rod, “Joey’s favorite food is sandwiches. Ha!”). We play along when A-Rod asks us to play F***/Marry/Workout With (A-Rod, “I’d f*** Lisa Kudrow…in a couple of years, am i right”?). We then ask A-Rod if he can show us some dance moves to see how closely it mirrors Jean Claude Van Damme in Kickboxer.
