Jeurys Familia has been diagnosed with a clogged artery in his right shoulder. Do the Met doctors have Waze? Try the Van Wyck Artery. You know what’s happening here, right? This is Metsferatu, the evil spirit who haunts Mets pitching. Metsferatu was not happy about the Taillon news, only he sidelines pitchers! Metsferatu looks at back cover of the Post and Daily News, plotting his next move, “What if I give Gsellman a third testicle? Or two horns that pop out of his forehead so people can call him Gazelleman? Maybe I go hitter and turn Neil Walker into a zombie. Will anyone notice? I mean, I had them replace a guy with Valley Fever with a guy named dude-a and no one said a damn thing.” So, Jeurys Familia could be out a while, or not at all. Still early to say, but I would absolutely grab Addison Reed. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Hanley Ramirez – Sat out yesterday with a sore trapezius. Ironically, he hurt it walking a tightrope between healthy and injured.
Mookie Betts – 2-for-3, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 5th homer, hitting .311. But he can’t hit without Ortiz! Which is the narrative people were selling in April, because people forgot the baseball season is six months long. The Red Sox are now near the top in the majors for homers in May.
Eduardo Rodriguez – 6 IP, 1 ER, 3 baserunners (0 BBs), 5 Ks, ERA at 2.80. The Brewers, his opponent, are a hacking organization, and not a group who takes walks. That plays into Ed-Rod’s strengths, plus Thames had the day off. Still, Ed-Rod’s early command issues have looked better with each additional start, and it hasn’t hurt his Ks. Likely closer to a 3.75 ERA guy, but with a 9+ K/9, which makes him ownable everywhere. To read more, see Ralph’s Eduardo Rodriguez fantasy. Surprisingly, it didn’t include a partially covered Benintendi.
Neftali Feliz – 1/3 IP, 2 ER, ERA at 6.19, and his 2nd Kazaam in a row. Hopefully, Craig Counsell will take into consideration his poor use of Feliz rather than Feliz’s poor use of pitching. There’s room to panic here, if you want. Feliz’s K-rate has cratered like Edward James Olmos’ face. Looking at Feliz’s peripherals, his previous year of 10.2 K/9 actually stands out as the outlier now, and his garbage walk rate and 7.5 K/9 this year looks closer to the norm. Any hoo! You should own Corey Knebel.
Ryan Braun – Headed to the DL because someone just let him in on the fact there’s a ten-day DL now and he doesn’t need to be day-to-day for ten days straight. Braun said, “Hopefully, if I get a little bit of down time I’ll be able to get back to full strength.” Hey, not to get all semantics on him, but you’ve had nothing but down time for almost two weeks.
Derek Holland – 5 IP, 3 ER (4 unearned), 10 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA up to 2.43. Serious question. Nay, like Fonzie’s horse would say, philosophical question! This is like a fantasy baseball “if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” If a pitcher regresses but the runs are unearned, is his regression over or will he continue to regress?
Melky Cabrera – 1-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 2nd homer. More philosophy for you, if a home run comes off Phil Hughes is it still a home run?
Jose Berrios – Called up for Saturday’s start. Here was me after I heard he was called up: cracks neck, thinks about picking up Berrios, cracks neck again, thinks about how if I crack my neck one more time it will look like I’m Canseco about to get into the batters’ box, links to Canseco podcast interview, returns to typing up this blurb. Yeah, I couldn’t care less about Berrios. Has he pitched well in the minors this year? Yeah, yup, yeppers. Did he pitch better in the minors in 2016 and still look like absolute garbage when he was promoted last year? Affirmative. He seems to have corrected his command issues from last year, but I’d still wait and see in all leagues shallower than 16 team mixed.
Brian Dozier – 1-for-4, and his 5th homer as he returned from an injury, but not the DL! Woohoo!
Miguel Sano – 1-for-2, 2 runs and his 9th homer, hitting .304. He was the first Twin to homer on his 24th birthday since Gary Gaetti in 1982, which reminds me of my favorite J. Cole song, “My only regret was too young for Gary Gaetti. My only regret was too young for Eric Davis. Now all I’m left with is memories of L.J. Hoes, formerly of the Astros…”
Eduardo Escobar – 2-for-3, 4 RBIs and his 4th homer, hitting .250. I had a brain fart, and forgot what kind of player Eduardo Escobar was, so I Googled him and Google’s search results said, “Are you sure you don’t mean any other fantasy player?”
Shelby Miller – Underwent Tommy John surgery. The surgery was a success said the operating doctor, former GM Dave Stewart, who slept in a Holiday Inn Express on Wednesday night.
Gregory Polanco – 1-for-3 and his 1st homer, hitting .241. Not bad….If this were April 6th!
Zack Greinke – 8 IP, 1 ER, 2 baserunners, 11 Ks, ERA at 2.79. Damn, Greinke looks good. Of course, this was the Pirates who look like as usable as a dirty dishrag found under an adolescent boy’s bed. But still, Greinke looks excellent. His velocity’s a bit down, but all of his peripherals look right on, and completely corrected from last year.
Whit Merrifield – 2-for-3, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and a Little League 2-homer day. One homer that left the park, and one single and three-base error.
Jason Vargas – 7 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 1.01. Somewhere, Atlee Hammaker is writing a New York Times opinion piece about why he thinks Jason Vargas should not accept the AL All-Star Game starting assignment.
Jake Odorizzi – 6 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 2.61. His ERA makes me laugh, because it’s so inconsequential in shallower leagues, like one where I dropped Odorizzi after this game because I didn’t like his next matchup. Sure, it was more of a soft, all-knowing laugh rather than a big guffaw.
Trevor Story – Hit the Disgraceful List with a fictitious injury. Officially, the Rockies are saying it’s a shoulder injury. Unofficially, they’re saying they like their chances better with Alexi Amarista and Pat V-Something. They went from one of their potential horses to a Russian and an alien from V. I wouldn’t sell Story low; I’d wait out the DL stint. I know, easier said than done.
Hyun-Jin Ryu – 4 IP, 5 ER as he was activated. I don’t mind Ryu, but you have to wonder about a guy’s judgment to return for a Coors series.
Chase Utley – 3-for-5, 1 run, 1 RBI, hitting .183. Can two teams score 17 runs combined and all the fantasy insight one can provide is, “Yup, it’s Coors?” Well, yup, it’s Coors.
Kenta Maeda – Hit the DL with hamstring tightness.
You get a 10-day DL!!! You get a 10-day DL!!! Everyone gets a 10-day DL!!! pic.twitter.com/AR0KzwsKGN
— Razzball (@Razzball) May 11, 2017
Francisco Liriano – Hit the Disgraceful List with terrible stats. The Jays said Liriano should be back in the minimum ten days. In defense of Liriano, just about everyone on the Jays has terrible stats, so it’s unfair to single him out.
Steve Pearce – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 4th homer. Is it already time for another three homers in five days binge? Pearce isn’t in this afternoon’s Buy column, but I could see him suddenly becoming a hot schmotato this weekend.
Justin Smoak – 3-for-3, 2 runs, 4 RBIs and is 6th homer, hitting .274. Getting lost in all the Tommy Joseph buzz (there’s absolutely no Tommy Joseph buzz), Smoak’s been having a decent first six weeks and is available just about everywhere.
Marco Estrada – 6 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 3.12. This other starter is injured, so it’s not completely analogous, but you know who Estrada is better than, that no one would’ve said he’s better than in the preseason? Thinking Hamels.
James Paxton – Resumed throwing yesterday. His timetable is to return at the end of May, look like an ace for three starts, then have a bad start and hit the DL again. Sorry, that’s my timetable for him.
Robinson Cano – Scratched with a sore quad. To inform the club, Cano told the club “fireworks emoji” in the quad.
Nelson Cruz – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 8th homer, hitting .331. That average obviously won’t continue, but I was shocked to see he was hitting so well. I mean, I know about the power, but that average and he’s on pace for 115 RBIs. Not too shabby, like the quarter of Harrison Ford that is Jewish.
J.D. Martinez – 50/50 to return this weekend. I’d buy that raffle ticket for a dollar! (And win hopefully at least 50 cents.)
Justin Upton – 1-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 7th homer, hitting .262. Upton’s been so normal this year. Not bad, not great, just normal, which seems so unlike him. Middle ground is not usually his thing.
Michel Fulmer – 7 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 2.54. Surprised to see him do so well against the Angels. I mean, they do after all have Ben Revere as their sixth hitter. I wonder if The Sciosciapath thinks he’s a power hitter. Or maybe their fifth hitter, Cameron Maybin. Or their 7th hitter, Andrelton. Wow, the 40 Minutes South of Los Angeles Angels are good, huh?
JC Ramirez – 7 IP, 5 ER, 9 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 4.20. You know how when your dad doesn’t get mad at you but just says he’s disappointed? I’m disappointed in JC Ramirez.
Aaron Hicks – 0-for-1, 1 run and his 6th steal, as he hits .333. To quote Jackie Chiles, it’s egregious how the Yankees are treating Hicks. He’s hitting eighth. Um, he’s been your 2nd best hitter and has a .474 OBP.
Michael Pineda – 6 2/3 IP, 3 ER, 7 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 3.27 vs. Dallas Keuchel – 6 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 1.69. This was a matchup billed as, “Most People Think Keuchel Is Pitching Better Than Pineda, But It’s Actually Been The Reverse.” You can imagine how cramped the marquee was with that billing.
Carlos Correa – 2-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 5th homer, hitting .282. Admittedly, a bit yawnstipating so far, but I would still very much be about importing from Korea. Siri, just write what I say! That should read ‘buying in on Correa.’
Mike Napoli – 2-for-3, 4 RBIs and his 6th and 7th homers, hitting .172. I keep thinking Napoli’s going to come out of his early season slump like his mom comes out of her shirt, but he keeps disappointing. Maybe this will be the kickstart he needs.
Brandon Maurer – 1/3 IP, 4 ER and his 1st blown save, ERA at 4.61. Wow, he was really holding in that blown save for a while. That was like the tantric sex of blown saves.
Jharel Cotton – Demoted to Triple-A Nashville. Not great for his pitching career, but great news for his budding country-western music career! Cotton needs to hook up with a record producer, fine-tune his chops, so to speak(!), get on The Voice and hem and haw about who to choose but go with Blake Shelton, only he can truly guide your career! Or at least pretend to for a few months on a reality show.
Sean Manaea – Wil return on Sunday. That’s the day-after-the-day-after Manaea.
Eddie Butler – Promoted for today’s start. I saw he had a 5 K/9 in Triple-A this year, then I looked at three different sites to make sure I wasn’t reading it wrong. This Butler’s going to be opening the door to a lot of runs.
Ty Blach – 7 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners (1 BB), 2 Ks, ERA at 4.88. Stream-o-Nator predicted a line of 5 1/3 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 1 walk, 3 Ks. It was only 2 Ks! What a rip!
Brandon Crawford – 1-for-4 as he was activated from the DL. Kevin from ESPN’s “Get Him In Your Lineup” Department said, “I’m about to ask for a transfer to the ‘Put An S Next To The Name Of Players That Are In The Lineup’ Department, because all of these DL players is crazy.”
Denard Span – 4-for-5 and his 1st homer as he was activated from the DL. Span was happy at all the Get Well cards he was sent that were re-delivered by Ben Revere.
Bronson Arroyo – 6 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 5.94. This game had the great distinction to feature Arroyo vs. Arroyo. Closest thing to that in San Fran history was Sandoval’s arroz con pollo. Arroyo vs. Arroyo sounds a bit like directions in the Mission District, the nexus of the Unoverse.
