Coming from beautiful Acadia National Park this week! If you’ve never been, go. It’s fantastic.
Box scores. I love a good box score. Not much better in life than waking up, fresh coffee, and reviewing every game for 15 minutes or so. It’s one of the small pleasures that make me happy I live in this particular time in history.
We hit the historic lottery. Sports!
Problem is I’ve had some real-life stress and business, and not been able to do this ritual as often as I’d like.
I’m also motivationally challenged at times.
The Educator has been slipping but learning.
You Razzball readers are a sharp lot. A sharpening forge, if you will. And usually, gently ask why I left out certain guys. So I picked three guys and found some folks who know more about them than me.
Royce Lewis is the first guy I’ve whiffed on. Can Royce roll you to a championship? Will he stick at third?
I reached out to a best writer friend who asked to not use his name, badge, or serial number. He said Royce will stay at third and is viewed as their long term guy alongside Carlos Correa. Holds up defensively with a good arm at the corner. The unnamed best writer projects him as a .285 hitter with 25 HR pop. Speed might be an issue since the ACL.
But wait! My source wrote back again, after talking with his guys and evaluating he thinks Lewis has a .300 upside, and his sprinting is 81 percentile.
Lewis is for sure a fantasy asset and I would rank him somewhere in tier 3.
Isaac Paredes has also slid into my comments almost weekly. I haven’t loved his metrics and opted to go with other guys in the top 25. But am I right?
I DM’d this famous guy Jason Collette on the Tweeter machine and he was kind enough to respond. His take is that Paredes success has been largely due to traffic on the base paths ahead of him. Huge red flag for me! What if the Rays slump or their star SS gets benched for not being a good teammate?
I just can’t forecast him ahead of a lot of other guys. His contact quality is terrible; elite plate approach though. Good real-life player, but as Collette says his value is dependent on the traffic in the base paths. I’ll pass on this Peredes, just like on July 4. I would place him firmly in the 20-30 range.
Did you know a few Razzball writers are White Sox fans? I know, why would anyone choose them? It’s a sad, sad lot being a Sox fan over the community that is Cub fans in Chicago. Of course, I don’t live in CHGO so maybe Raleigh gets a team?
Seems like I get asked about Jake Burger every week, so thought I’d fire up the questions and grill some Razzball writers. Let’s see what they cooked up.
Mike Couillard is a poor unfortunate Sox fan and told me that his stat cast numbers reflect extreme contact and he’s a fast sprinter. He is all or nothing though, with a very low contact and chase rate. When I presented Mark Reynolds as a comp he agreed.
Keelinbillue wants everyone to know Burger didn’t make the roster and Hanser Alberto did. Then there was a brief discussion of a game called BurgerTime which I don’t remember.
The Razzball group chat is sometimes less than helpful.
Statcast for Burger shows a well done hard-hit rate with a topping of elite exit velocity. I would say the chase rate burns him a little bit, as does the K rate. Mark Reynolds is a great comparison to me. Well, not to me, per se. I was a weak-armed 2B with occasional pop. Burger though, I never go after guys like that. If you need reasons, just check Mark Reynolds’ Reference page. It isn’t going to last for Burger, and he will soon be rotten for your fantasy teams.
Hope you enjoyed this week’s article more than I enjoyed the crazy hike today that was all climbing rocks. My joints are struggling, hopefully, less than your teams are.
