[brid autoplay=”true” video=”452433″ player=”10951″ title=”2019 Razzball Fantasy Football Draft Kit Tight Ends”]
Yesterday, the Indians were to the Yankees as the Yankees were to the Orioles and the Orioles were to the Orioles during split-squad games in Spring Training and Spring Training is to Kevin Bacon. Five degrees! Take that, dentist of the mailman whose wife goes to Kyra Sedgwick manicurist! This Indians’ scalping of the Yankees was a long, long time coming. What a narrative for Jose Ramirez this year. From April until June 30th, he had 5 HRs and was hitting .214. In the next six weeks, he has 14 homers and is hitting around .300 (around because I didn’t feel like doing the math, deal with it), including yesterday’s part in the drubbing (2-for-3, 6 RBIs and his 18th and 19th homer). Jos-Rami is the 1st time I can remember feeling like I nailed his preseason overrated post, while taking the W for saying to buy him in June. A double W, a double-dub, a dubya with a dubya, a–Okay, you get the point. For 2020, I bet everyone will be ranking Jose Ramirez in the same place where I had him this year, tail-end of the 1st round vs. that top five crap they were all coming with this year. Otherwise? More W’s for Grey! A triple dubya, a worldwide W, a–All right, enough. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Psyche! Before we move into the roundup, there’s a new fantasy football video at the top of this post. Watch, review and rate. Kidding, you goofs! You just need to watch. 2nd of all, join one of our fantasy football leagues before they’re all filled. Anyway II, the roundup:
Jason Kipnis – 2-for-6 and his 12th homer, hitting around-.230 in the last week with no homers, so Kipnis cooled off with the quickness (I’m a poet and aware of it!).
Carlos Santana – 3-for-5, 4 runs, 3 RBIs and his 28th and 29th homer, hitting .290. Carlos Santana is having the quietest great season that’s not really quiet because I say he’s having a quietly great season almost every day.
Roberto Perez – 3-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 20th homer. Least likely storylines this year: Roberto Perez having 20 homers, Roberto Perez having more than seven homers or Roberto Perez having fantasy value? I’m going with all three.
Greg Allen – 4-for-5, 4 runs, 4 RBIs and his 4th homer, hitting .257. He won’t be in this afternoon’s Buy, because he’s here now, but he has two homers and a steal in the last week, and might be supplanting Mercado for the starting job. Member two weeks away when we loved Mercado? *fade away air ball*
Gary Sanchez – 1-for-4 and his 27th homer, and 2nd homer in 2nd straight game. You know him, yadda-blabbity-bloo. What I wanted to mention briefly is why don’t teams who are up by ten or more runs let position players pitch? Especially after the losing team let a position player pitch. It would save the winning team’s arms and, if shizz goes real sideways, you can always bring in a real pitcher. Does it matter if you win by ten or five runs?
Mike Fiers – 6 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 3.46. 1st subpar start from him in three months, and, compared to most pitchers, this still wasn’t that bad. Streamonator is iffy on Fiers’s next start too, and I get it, it’s vs. the Yanks led by Gio Urshela, and that’s not being sarcastic.
Matt Olson – 2-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 24th and 25th homer. Allahson, your aim is true, and your timing is better because I was thinking about dropping you.
Matt Chapman – 3-for-4, 3 runs and his 28th and 29th homer, and 2nd two-homer game in two days. A’s are taking opponents to the Matts! High-five the crap out of me! C’mon! No? Okay.
Carlos Correa – 2-for-4 and his 18th and 19th homer, hitting .290. You prorate his season out and his year would be incredible. Unfortch, you have to prorate out his career so far.
Michael Brantley – 3-for-4, 3 runs and his 17th and 18th homer. Baseball is bizzonkers this year. If you’re not getting five homers from your fantasy team on a short schedule, you’re getting dusted.
Aaron Sanchez – 5 1/3 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 5.79. Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-BUT what about his new spin rate? Ditching the sinker? Maybe we shouldn’t have embraced the narrative faster than Alyssa Milano embraced the vampire.
Dustin May – Dave Roberts isn’t sure if May will start on Sunday. Roberts said, “We’re up by 50 games. Maybe I’ll start Russell Martin.”
Corey Seager – 1-for-4 and his 12th homer, and 3rd homer in as many games, hitting .266. Three days ago, it seemed like a normal morning, but Corey Seager clicked on an email from his mother with the subject: YOUR BROTHER SAYS THE BALL IS JUICED.
Max Muncy – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 29th homer, hitting .259. As soon as he ripped the ball for a home run, I began screaming, “This is Muncy TV!” I was dressed as a peacock. Meh, guess you had to be there.
Cody Bellinger – 1-for-3, 3 RBIs and a slam (40) and legs (10), hitting .317. Just thought of a fun wrinkle to the MVP race. Whoever comes in 2nd has to award the winner with the trophy, through gritted teeth.
Kyle Garlick – 1-for-3 and his 3rd homer. If your trading deadline hasn’t passed, try to trade Garlick for Trout, and when they refuse, ask them, “Are you a vampire? Ya know, Alyssa Milano liked vampires and Dodgers.”
Walker Buehler – 4 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 3.31. Great, a reason for the Dodgers to conjure up some fake injury for him. “Sorry to say Buehler’s got a bad case of pretendinitis and will be sidelined anywhere from 10 to 30 days.”
Jorge Alfaro – 3-for-4, 1 run, 3 RBIs, hitting .259. He hadn’t done anything for a while, so I dropped him for Dom Nunez two days ago. Rockies benched Nunez yesterday (of course), and Alfaro will now become the greatest hitting catcher since Mickey Tettleton in R.B.I. Baseball 3.
Caleb Smith – 5 IP, 1 ER, 1 hit, 3 walks, 4 Ks, ERA at 3.63. Seriously: Caleb Smith or Paddack for 2020? And I’m the world’s biggest Paddack fan, but I’m tilting hard towards Smith.
Jared Hughes – Claimed off waivers by the Phils. This has Charlie Manuel’s fingerprints all over it. “Charlie, any thoughts on Jared Hughes?” Charlie, “Scramming a pumpkin takes a sharpened haystack otherwise you’re gonna get wheelbarrowed.” Everyone looks at each other, “Are you saying we should get Jared Hughes?” Damn, Kapler’s losing this team!
Bryce Harper – 1-for-4, 4 RBIs and a slam (25) and legs (7), a walk-off grand salami. Nothing cured beef can’t fix. If it can cure itself, it can cure you! When asked about Harper’s hot bat, Charlie Manuel said something that linguistic experts are still deciphering.
Anthony Rizzo – 2-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 22nd homer. HR to the Izzo! Damn, had been a long time since one of those. Rizzo been injured? He retire in June and unretire in August? Tell me true, I don’t own him.
Kyle Schwarber – 1-for-5 and his 28th homer and his 100th career homer. Oddly enough, Joe Buck has gone into his mom’s bathroom and screamed in ecstasy 100 times too.
Yu Darvish – 7 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners (zero walks), 10 Ks, ERA at 4.21. Forget a solid #2, Yu looks like he could be a sneaky ace next year. Sorry, bad stereotype.
Pedro Strop – 0 ER, 2 ER, ERA at 5.46. Seems like a solid closer to me! Then Derek Holland (0 IP, 1 ER, ERA at 5.59) finished the Cubs’ bullpen disaster. Kimbrel’s likely a day away, so you can lose all of these other scrubs. Don’t want no scrubs!
Jose Abreu – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 25th and 26th homer, hitting .278. I wanna say it’s boring to own Abreu, but then I think back four blurbs ago to Rizzo. Seriously, has Rizzo missed time? What the eff, my dudes?
Andrew Heaney – 7 IP, 3 ER, 4 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 4.76 vs. Reynaldo Lopez – 5 1/3 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 5.29. This matchup was billed as, “When the Streamonator is right, streamers delight, when the Streamonator is wrong, where’s my bong?”
Mike Trout – 4-for-4, 4 runs and his 40th homer. Hey, Trout, 5’s beat 4’s and aces beat both, i.e., since this is the 1st year maybe ever I’ve owned Trout, it’s been pretty awesome, but could he throw 200 IP of a sub-3 ERA?
Michael Pineda – 5 IP, 3 ER, 7 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 4.20, as he was activated from the IL. Pineda had a triceps injury, so I was hoping to see a terrible start from him or a great start. This way we knew what side of the fence to get on with owning Pineda going forward. Yet, he does the most confusing start to read into, i.e., Pineda’s filled with mystery flavored Dum-Dums.
Marwin Gonzalez – 4-for-5, 1 run, 2 RBIs, hitting .260. 2019 has me so damaged with extreme offense that every time I see a guy with four hits, I assume cycle. Marwin’s homered twice this week, and, after yesterday’s big game, I’m gonna say hot schmotato alert.
Luis Arraez – 3-for-5, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 3rd homer, hitting .355. For the last three weeks, I’ve looked at Arraez for possible inclusion in the Friday Buy, and, well, he has a nice average.
Miguel Sano – 1-for-4, 2 runs and his 22nd homer, and 2nd homer in as many games. If everyone and Mark Mothersbaugh’s mother is hitting home runs, it doesn’t mean much, but Sano is having a nice partial season for power.
Hunter Pence – 1-for-3 and his 18th homer. I remember someone coming into the comments in the early months saying how Pence was going to hit more than 27 homers and I kept telling them Pence would get injured and cool off. Not sure what happened to that person, but they might still end up on the right side of this with a strong, final six weeks.
Willie Calhoun – 2-for-4 and his 11h homer, hitting .274. I’ve owned Willie for the better part of August, let’s look at what he’s done — .180 average and 4 HRs. Okay, wish I hadn’t looked!
Sonny Gray – 5 IP, 0 ER, 1 hit, 3 walks, 10 Ks, ERA at 2.98. Gray has 18 straight scoreless innings, and this shows you that you should always trust yourself, even if ‘you’ are spelled differently. Watched a lot of this game, because, well, my MLB app has decided to only broadcast en Espanol for most broadcasts, except the Reds. Gray looks like his brilliant self from the A’s days. Absolute filthy 94 MPH two-seamers cutting in, dirty sliders breaking off the table to lefties. I wrote him off in the preseason, but I was wrong.
Julio Teheran – 1 1/3 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 3.71. This is interesting, so Teheran’s sister city is a Dumpster Fire. Feels like that might have deeper meaning. As I’ve said before, I would not own Teheran in most mixed leagues.
Josh Donaldson – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 27th and 28th homer, hitting .265. Also, in this game, Freddie Freeman (2-for-3) hit his 30th and 31st homer. Tildaddy hit his 35th; Matt Joyce hit his 4th, and the Braves lost. If some time traveler from the past ever saw that, they’d think fences were moved in 350 feet in each stadium. “When I watched baseball in the 80’s, if someone hit a home run, we celebrated by chugging New Coke and watching a video from Blockbuster. There were so few homers, New Coke went flat and Blockbuster went out of business!”
Pete Alonso – 5-for-5, 6 RBIs and his 39th homer. Albombso!
Amed Rosario – 5-for-6, 4 runs, 1 RBI and a home run short of a cycle. We call that a 1871-2018 cycle.
Dereck Rodriguez – 7 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 4.79. I actually looked at the Streamonator for his next matchup and Streamonator laughed in my face.
Evan Longoria – 3-for-5, 4 RBI and his 15th homer. Anyone under 20 homers leaves me with a sad pit in my stomach? Do you even lift, bro?
Dylan Moore – 1-for-4 and his 5th homer. Am I the only who wants to call him Dinty Moore and scream at any man named Mel, “You’re a whore, Mel!” Meh, maybe it’s just me.
Mallex Smith – 3-for-4, 1 run, 1 RBI and his 33rd and 34th steal, hitting .238. Mallex P. SAGNOF talks about the trickle-down economy with his hippie parents and steals bases from the poor to give to the rich.
Kyle Seager – 2-for-5, 3 RBIs, hitting over-.400 in the last week with five homers in the last eight games and he’ll be in this afternoon’s Buy column, which should be more than enticing for you. I mean, Kyle Seager! C’mon! I’m sparking joy!
Spencer Turnbull – 5 IP, 3 ER, 8 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 3.75. Early on in the season, I said Turnbull should be pronounced by Charles Barkley because that’s how good he’s gonna be and we had some laughs! Mostly me. Now, checking back in on him, he’s had a decent season — 8.5 K/9, 3.5 BB/9, 3.93 FIP, and, earlier in his career in the minors, he had more Ks, and moments of better command. Might need to cyclops him in the offseason, could see liking him more next year.
Miguel Cabrera – 1-for-4 and his 9th homer. Statcast timed Miggy’s home run trot at 37 minutes but that was mostly due to how long it took the Postmates guy to meet him at 2nd base.
