You Wish We Could Fast Forward To Opening Day 2021? Soto I

Our long national nightmare is over (except for the actual long national nightmare that isn’t over — sigh, to be a person with parenthetical blindness and not have to read this caveat)! We did it, boys and five girl readers. We f*cking did it! Not us, per se. We didn’t do shizz, except draft some baseball players for fantasy. But, ya know what, that’s enough for me! See, with lowered goals and expectations, you’re never disappointed. It’s a zen thing; you wouldn’t understand. It was a mere nine months ago when we started talking about sleepers and rankings and…How old am I now?

When 2020 started vs. Now pic.twitter.com/MQRevUcPbV

— Razzball (@Razzball) July 21, 2020

Well, whatever, baseball is back and that’s all that matter. Singing like an absolute loon, “Baseball’s back and I want to get married — hey nah, hey nah — baseball’s back!” And, now in my mind, I’m married to Giancarlo Stanton. Ask yourself why you didn’t send us a wedding gift. Selfish much? Of course, Opening Day couldn’t have happened in any other way in 2020. It had to be met with cold-ass reality, which why Juan Soto tested positive for Covid. It sucks, Mr. Obvious said, but it’s also a reminder of what this year will be. It’s going to be waiver wire pickups, the Streamonator, the Hittertron and playing of matchups. If you’re curious and want to torture yourself, Juan Soto fell to 179th overall in the final 2020 preseason rankings. Stepping in to replace Juan Soto will be Andrew Stevenson, the James Spader of replacements. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Emilio Bonifacio – Made the Nats’ team. So nice to see Emily Goodface again, I thought she retired to Amherst and opened an artisanal olive oil shop.

Austin Voth – Will open season as the Nats’ 5th starter. I’ll tell ya what after saying “I’ll tell ya what,” I’m having a hard time getting excited about any 5th starters. If they get skipped and get eight-ish starts this year, I’m more interested in streaming.

Max Scherzer – 5 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 10 baserunners, 11 Ks. I am not a pitching coach. I actually turned off Real Sports when Trevor Bauer started talking about grips and shizz. Hows’ever, Scherzer was either A) Not finishing his pitches. B) Trying to avoid injuring his back, which will injure his back. C) There’s no C. It didn’t look like the Scherzer of old, or, simply, he got old. It happens. I hear. This year pitching is going to be a mess, and I don’t want to oversimplify Scherzer’s next 11 starts into just his first, but he looked like a top 20 starter vs. a top three.

Adam Eaton – 1-for-2 and his 1st homer. He also just missed a 2nd homer. Could he…could we…do I just say it…? Eaton’s chowing down a hot schmotato!

DJ LeMahieu – Was activated from the IL, but didn’t start. By the by, as you likely heard, there’s gonna be expanded playoffs. More teams in the playoffs means more teams resting guys at the end of September, when there’s already very few projected ABs and IP. It’s not great for fantasy. In real life, I love it, more baseball, gimme gimme gimme.

Gerrit Cole – 5 IP, 1 ER, 1 hit, 1 walk, 5 Ks. Gerrit Cole really kept the crowd out of this game.

Giancarlo Stanton – 2-for-3, 3 RBIs and his 1st homer. During the lightning storm that ended the game early, it was a little hairy, me guiding that hang-glider over the stadium, but to look down, for only a brief second, at Giancarlo’s pectorals, it was all worth it. Please, you absolute Greek God of muscles, stay healthy.

Aaron Judge – 2-for-3, 1 run, 1 RBI. I also just avoided banging my knee hang-gliding over Judge’s head. I *pinkie to mouth* misjudged.

Clayton Kershaw – Hit the IL with back stiffness. Which gave me front stiffness for his replacement, The Giant Carrot…

Dustin May – 4 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 4 Ks, as he started in place of Clayton Kershaw. May was originally optioned to the alternate training site where human-sized rabbits salivated for The Giant Carrot, but not today human-sized rabbits! I originally had Dustin May tangentially mentioned in this afternoon’s Buy column, but removed him because he’s here now and he’s gorgeous! (Also, the Buy column was released yesterday to our Patreons. It will be released a day early all year in our Patreon, and there’s an extra weekly podcast for Patreons.)

Austin Barnes – 0-for-4, 1 RBI, as he started over Will Smith. Dave Roberts said, and I am laughing as I type this, he doesn’t want to overwork the youngster, Smith. Dude, there’s 60 games this year, and this was Opening Day!

Enrique Hernandez – 4-for-5, 2 runs, 5 RBIs and his 1st homer. Damn! I was looking at him, but I went with another random streamer like Donovan Solano (0-for-1) who didn’t start. Also, not starting, was Chris Taylor, hero of Summer Camp — Hero of Summer Camp sounds like a bad movie with Sean Astin. So, I don’t know which way Dave Roberts is going between Hernandez and Taylor, but whichever is starting is worth streaming because of the lineup.

Mookie Betts – 1-for-5, 1 run. That’s one hit every $365 million. What a joke!

Johnny Cueto – 4 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 3 Ks. Cueto looked good in this start–Oh, who am I kidding? He looked fine! I was just happy to see baseball, and dreaming about buying cutouts. I want fan cutouts so bad! Anyone want to go halfsie with me, I want to get J. Lo and Ben Affleck cutouts just to mess with A-Rod. Or how about Andre the Giant cutouts? A cutout with Larry King sleeping in Mary Hart’s lap? I’m about to sell my house for fan cutouts!

Tyler Rogers – 2/3 IP, 4 ER. Is he the closer? Then Kazaam! A mere 48 hours ago I was so happy about winning a Tyler Rogers FAAB bid. 48-Hour-Ago Grey is an absolute idiot.

Edward Olivares – Made the Padres. Went over him in my Franchy Cordero trade recap, i.e., I let my Franch flag fly.

Yonder Alonso – Optioned to alternate training site. Guess the Braves got Matt Adams and were over Yonder. *insert yodeling*

Cole Hamels – Hit the 45-day IL. That puts him in line to pitch two-thirds of an inning on September 24th.

Kyle Wright – Assigned to be Braves’ 5th starter. I own him in Tout Wars (12-team, NL-Only), so this isn’t for everyone. He works around 95 MPH on the speedball, and throws a slider a lot for good reason, it’s solid pitch — could be a 8.5 K/9, 3.50 BB/9, low-4 ERA guy. In shallow leagues, I’d wait and see.

Anthony DeSclafani – Hit the IL with a mild “right teres major strain.” Make up your mind, DeSclafani’s body! Are you minor or major? DeSclafani says it’s a small issue, and might only miss one start. It does heat up the T. Mahle. Ay caramba!

Drew Butera – Will open the season as the Rockies’ 3rd catcher behind Elias Diaz, who is behind Tony Wolters. That is one giant crapfecta!

Brendan Rodgers – Optioned to alternate training site and Bud Black said, “Would love to get Rodgers playing time before he’s 35 years old, but no promises.”

Eduardo Rodriguez – Shut down due to minor complications with Covid. Hopefully he’s okay, and much better than how the Red Sox rotation looks without him.

Roberto Osuna – Is on the Astros’ Re-Opening Day roster so Ryan Pressly, while in this afternoon’s Buy, may have a very short stint as the closer. That is the first time ‘short’ and ‘Astros’ have appeared in same sentence without an Altuve mention.

Brad Peacock – Hit the IL with shoulder soreness. Ironically, losing Peacock is a major blow for the Astros. Because of the cheating, it’s a limb filled with Dodgers fans, but the Astros aren’t going to be very good this year, and it 100% has nothing to do with being unable to cheat.

Jake Fraley – Optioned to alternate training site where he will do shake weights, Jane Fonda workouts and other alternative training methods.

John Means – Hit the IL with arm fatigue. It’s pronounced fah-tee-gay — it’s Italian!

Hunter Harvey – Hit the IL with elbow soreness. “Is Dustin May a giant carrot?” That’s Harvey licking his lips.

Jake Odorizzi – Twins defined Odorizzi’s back pain as a right intercostal strain, which seems a ton more ominous. Odorizzi…Ominous…Odorous? Yup, exactly.

Yoan Moncada – Activated from the IL. In our Razzball staff picks, I chose Jose Abreu for MVP, but I wasn’t sure if Moncada would be ready when I made the pick. I could’ve easily chose Moncada for MVP, and I have Luis Robert for ROY (of course) and Giolito for Cy Young, can you tell who I think is going to the playoffs?

Zack Collins – Made the White Sox roster as a backup…Well, every position, including catcher. Won’t be in this afternoon’s Buy column, but in AL-only or Zack-Only leagues, Collins could be sneaky power.

Kevin Cron – Made the team, but, sadly, he’s on the weak-side of the platoon. I wonder if the Cron brothers ever get together and fight for shotgun in a car, only to realize no one is driving.

Michael Fulmer – Activated from the IL after undergoing Tommy John surgery. He missed three months–Wait, he didn’t miss any time. Hey, nice timing on that surgery, Fulms! Any hoo! He’ll be used as an Opener for now and has no real value yet.

Jordy Mercer – Made the Tigers team. Find someone to love like cheap-ass teams love signing Jordy Mercer as a utility guy.

Brendan McKay – Assigned to the alternate training site. Serious question, has there been any talk about him being a herbathrowdite this year? I haven’t heard a thing.

Bradley Zimmer – Made the MLB roster, i.e., the Indians are composing a team that is not sans Zimmer.

James Karinchak – Made the major league roster. Karinchak is the only good Karen.