It’s always hard to know if a major league manager is being sly or stupid. Guessing stupid gets you right at least 75% of the time, sly is 24%. This time Maddon might be in the 1%. Maddon seemed to indicate Jo Adell was nowhere on the radar. Was he being sly, stupid or the rare 1%? The 1% happens when someone is injured and a prospect just needs to be called up twisting the manager’s arm. Thankfully, it wasn’t Shohei Ohtani’s arm that was twisted; enough has happened to that. So, Jo Adell was called up, seemingly to replace Brian Goodwin (hopefully). Prospect Itch wrote about 1,000 words on Jo Adell at his Jo Adell fantasy (which included Luis Robert — hum-ma-na). I wrote a few Jo Adell preseason outlook posts — one last year, one during shutdown. If you’re the type who doesn’t want to look at long-form writing and prefers a quick, “Give me the Cliff Notes, dude. I ain’t got time for work.” Pick him up. Everywhere. He’s. So. Good. I’m Giving. Him. The. One. Sentence. Treatment. For. Emphasis. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Shohei Ohtani – Diagnosed with a Grade 1-2 forearm strain. Grade 1 is bad; Grade 2 is significant; Grade 3 is “What’s Dr. Andrews doing online shopping for Ferraris while I’m in his office?” This ends Ohtani’s pitching for this season, which is actually a good thing for fantasy. In my opinion (which is what you get at Razzball, so I’m not sure why I’m pointing it out), Ohtani is much more valuable as only a hitter. When can he hit again with a forearm strain? I don’t know, I’m, get this, not a doctor. He can hit with the strain, hopefully soon.
Nomar Mazara – 0-for-1 as he was activated from the IL and pinch-hit. Not to get in the business of real life GM’ing like every nerd on Twitter — we’re fantasy baseball nerds, not real baseball nerds; big difference! — but the White Sox should trade Mazara for a solid, if unremarkable starter like Mike Fiers.
Luis Robert – 1-for-3, 2 runs and 2 steals (2, 3), hitting .350. *picking petals from a daisy* Lou Bob loves me, he loves me a lot, he loves me, he loves me a lot…Oh my God, it’s a lot!
Yoan Moncada – 3-for-5, 2 runs and his 2nd homer, hitting .351. He’s averaging around .410 BABIP across two seasons. Essentially that means, he’s hitting bloopers to the 2nd baseman, a squirrel is jumping up and biting the 2nd baseman’s nuts, and the ball is falling in for a single. For two years.
Carlos Rodon – Left with shoulder soreness. Rodon him obsolete.
Leury Garcia – 3-for-5, 1 run, hitting .364. Find a hotter schmotato, I’ll wait (I won’t wait).
Brett Anderson – 3 IP, 2 ER as he was activated from the IL. B.A. Brokeass.
Shelby Miller – Opted out of playing this year. Coincidentally, teams also opted out of playing him.
Eddy Alvarez – Called up and will play 2nd base the rest of the season for the Marlins. Last year, he went 12/12/.323 in Triple-A, but, before we start touching each other’s nipples at what could be, he’s 30 years old and a little past his sell-by date. Fine in NL-Only leagues. Also, playing for the Miami Misfit Toys will be: Jordan Yamamoto, Jorge Guzman, Nick Vincent, Josh Smith, Ryan Lavarnway, Logan Forsythe, Justin Shafer, Richard Bleier, James Hoyt, Brian Moran, and Mike Morin. I believe a few of those were made up. You can sorta see they ran out of made-up names towards the end: “Um, Moran and…Morin. Yeah, that’s the ticket.” Not sure who needs to hear this, but strip clubs and casinos aren’t clean when there’s no pandemic. Can’t players sneak off to a car wash? By the way, Marlins say they left their hotel only to get milk. They should get Melky Cabrera to build them a website that says in giant Geocities font, “The Marlins hotel doesn’t carry milk.”
Joey Votto – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 3rd homer, returning from the IL as he tested negative for Covid and positive for the Triple Crown!
Nick Senzel – Scratched due to a sprained finger. Maybe stop scratching!
Nick Castellanos – 1-for-3 and his 5th homer. Looks like the Greek God of Hard Contact didn’t need Chicago or the Billy Goat Tavern to unleash his long distance disco flies.
Zach Plesac – 7 IP, 3 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 1.80 vs. Sonny Gray – 6 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 0.96. Give me all the shares of both of these pitchers. Please, Zach Plesac (almost palindrome!) and my boy, Sonny Gray — muah!
Ramon Laureano – 2-for-3, 1 run, 2 RBIs and his 1st steal, hitting .324. Imagine not loving this guy. Every morning I wake, put lipstick on my index finger and thumb and hand kiss Nomar Onaerual on my mirror.
Frankie Montas – 7 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 2.25. Wanted Montas in the preseason, but don’t think I own him in any league. Any league at least where I need to change the lineup. I’ve forgotten more Best Ball leagues than you’ve drafted.
Khris Davis – 2-for-3, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 1st homer, hitting .125. Damn, he looks terrible, or slightly better than Pete Alonso.
Nolan Arenado – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 1st homer. Wow, a scientist just handed me this stack of note paper saying this was the formula for the Covid vaccine. I better take extra special care with it, so I’m going to casually leave it by this open window–NOOOOO!!! Torenado!
Chris Owings – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 1st homer. Don’t reward Bud Black for being stupid and playing Owings over Hampson! C’mon, karma, use your power for evil!
Jairo Diaz – 1 IP, 1 ER and his 2nd save in as many games, ERA at 1.69. He appears to be the closer, but show me a Jairo and a pitcher in Coors, and I will write you a tragedy.
Mike Yastrzemski – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 3rd homer, hitting .333. Here’s me holding a bat signed by his grandfather, as I make my pitch to the Marlins.
Hey, @Marlins if you need a middle infielder, you can see here I was voted “Baseball’s MVP” back in the 80s pic.twitter.com/BAQclZvwLJ
— Razzball (@Razzball) August 3, 2020
Chadwick Tromp – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 2nd homer, and 2nd homer in as many games. No, it makes no sense and, yes, his name will never stop making me laugh, but a hot schmotato in Coors? To see what you need to do, you don’t need a diploma from Tromp University.
Gio Urshela – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 3rd homer, hitting .300. Feels like he has Gleyber’s voodoo magic this year. Hit that curveball, Jobu-shela!
Gerrit Cole – 6 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA 2.55. MLB screaming to the heavens, “Send us a sign if you don’t think it’s safe to play baseball!” *pandemic, hurricanes* MLB, “Nothing, huh?”
DJ LeMahieu – 2-for-4 and his 2nd homer, hitting .412. Mea culpa, my glow-stick-toting DJ brethen. I get it. You are having a career renaissance and it wasn’t just last year. You don’t have to keep proving me wrong.
Brett Gardner – 1-for-3 and his 2nd homer, and 2nd homer in the last three games. Damn, I almost made him a batty call, but I didn’t pull the trigger. Gardner appears to be a hot schmotato, but the Yankees are off today, and you can’t hold someone like him in daily leagues without a game. Pick him up right before his Wednesday doubleheader.
Spencer Howard – Under consideration to start Sunday vs. the Braves. You have to know how aggressive you need to be to grab him in your league; he could be the best starter called up this year. Which could mean 40 IP of ace pitching, or one start then the Phils need to sit out for 3 weeks. Ya know, 2020.
Jay Bruce – 1-for-2 and his 1st homer. They call him Bruce! (Because that’s his name.)
Rich Hill – Hit the IL with shoulder soreness. It is a modern wonder of the world that Rich Hill can ever get out of bed without hurting himself.
Lewis Thorpe – 4 IP, 3 ER, ERA at 3.12. Twins’ rookie, Thorpe, throws 89 MPH. More like Lewis Twerp! I owned him! High-five me! No? Okay. He gets by with offspeed stuff, and usually has solid command, but none of it has connected yet. Can cyclops, but I’d be worried about a roofie until we see more.
Cole Tucker – 1-for-4 and his 1st homer, as he played center field. Irrelevant for fantasy, but the Pirates taking who is a solid prospect because of his glove at short, and moving him to the outfield so they can start Erik Gonzalez is just the kind of move you expect from the Pirates.
Alec Mills – 7 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 1.38. I nearly streamed him, but couldn’t pull the trigger. Streamonator has him lined up for this weekend vs. the Cards so we’ll see if that even happens.
Rowan Wick – 1 1/3 IP, 0 ER, ERA at 0.00 and his 2nd save. Will you look at this? It’s almost like there’s normalcy with closers. Except for the fact that Wick pitched in the 8th, which was likely unnecessary and now he’ll be too tired to go again today, so David Ross will prolly go back to Kimbrel to confuse the mound with a Port-a-Potty.
Trent Grisham – 2-for-3 and his 4th homer, hitting .293. I’ve been telling you to get this guy for the last eight months, and that’s not an exaggeration.
Wil Myers – 2-for-4 and his 3rd homer, hitting .282. Two scientists in a lab look up from their test tubes. “It can’t be right.” “But we’ve done the calculations dozens of times and each time it tells us the same…” They look at each other, and simultaneously say, “…To stop Covid, Wil Myers has to win the NL MVP.”
Fernando Tatis Jr. – 1-for-3 and his 3rd homer, hitting .279. FTJ! Fun the Jewels fast!
Chris Paddack – 6 IP, 3 ER, 5 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 2.65. The Padres are such a fun club. I could watch them all day, except when they’re in my market and games are blacked out! Eff you, MLB!
Joc Pederson – 1-for-3 and his 1st homer, hitting .240. I know he’s been struggling, but I wasn’t sure how badly. After I saw he homered, I looked at his numbers. Struggling? He’s hitting almost a hundred points better than Pete Alonso!
Cody Bellinger – 1-for-4 and his 2nd homer, and 2nd homer in as many games. Get hot, you bastage!
Mike Soroka – Torn Achilles and done for the season. Something I said in one of the 1st podcasts we recorded when the season started back up, and something I still haven’t heard much about: It’s not just Covid, none of these guys have had the proper ramping up to the season, and they’re all prone to injuries. Not just Rich Hill.
Travis d’Arnaud – 2-for-4 and his 1st homer, hitting .400. Let’s hope he gets traded to Arizona at some point just for the giggles of hearing the French Terminator, d’Arnaud say, “I’ll be d’back.”
Amed Rosario – Left with quad tightness. Why do injuries have to happen on Monday right after lineups lock? Like we don’t have enough players not playing. Andres Gimenez could see some short-term playing time, and is likely better with the bat than Amed, but I don’t own him! In fairness, Gimenez might just be good for some steals and an occasional home run (for this year).
Robinson Cano – Out with groin tightness. Sounds like an issue with his pants.
Jacob deGrom – 6 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 10 Ks, ERA at 2.12. He’s now hitting a new high of 101 MPH regularly. Amazing how much hot air from the fans was slowing down his fastball.
Wilson Ramos – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 1st homer, hitting .219. Fun fact! His full name is Wilson R Amos Cookies. He’s named after his belly.
Jack Flaherty – Cards/Tigers four-game series was postponed as I supposed it would. Much like the antibodies, the DET-STL just wasn’t in the Cards.
