[brid autoplay=”true” video=”425798″ player=”10951″ title=”Fantasy Baseball 2019 Mailbag Week 13″]
On the first pitch Justin Upton (2-for-4) saw back from the IL, he slammed it into the seats for his 1st home run. Kevin from ESPN’s “Get Him In Your Lineup” Department said, “Anyone who wants to come over on Saturday, I’m doing a screening of the short film I did about O.J. Simpson and a lovable group of his former Bills teammates plotting to break into a Vegas casino to steal back his memorabilia called, O.J.’s Eleven. I play O.J. in blackface.” People have been asking about adding Justin Upton, and he’s currently owned in 70% of ESPN leagues, though Klara Bell owns 17,000 teams to help fill his virtual trophy case, and doesn’t own Upton, so, technically, Upton’s owned in 101% of leagues, but, if he’s available, I’d add him everywhere. Prior to his injury, he was a top 30 outfielder, and see no reason why he can’t do something similar from here to there. There being October. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Mike Trout – 4-for-5, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 20th homer, hitting .296, and a triple short of the cycle. Not quite a Mike drop.
Shohei Ohtani – 2-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 9th homer, hitting .283. Podcaster Ralph and I talk about Ohtani on today’s pod, and how well Ohtani has done over the last 162 games worth of at-bats and how he should never pitch again, or maybe as a closer. It’s not a segment we submit for a Webby, but it’s adjacent to one.
Edwin Jackson – 2/3 IP, 7 ER, ERA at 12.43. His next team is going to be with the Washington Generals.
Cavan Biggio – 2-for-2, 3 RBIs and his 4th and 5th homer, and 2nd two homer game in a week. Craig Biggio who?! He’s a Hall of Famer and the father of Cavan. I know, Random Italicized Voice, it’s a figure of speech. Oh, yeah, people always go around saying, ‘Craig Biggio who?!’ Yes, very popular. I grabbed Cavan in another league, maybe he’s starting to figure this shizz out.
Randal Grichuk – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 13th homer. He never hits a home run that isn’t followed by another home run. I know, technically, that would mean he hits 162 homers every year, but eventual he stops hitting home runs, stop being so literal.
Trevor Williams – Will return on Wednesday to face the Tigers. Sometimes I say Cougs looks like Paul Williams and that upsets her, so I say it more. Then I send her pictures of Paul Williams over text, saying, “You never told me you did a duet with Kermit the Frog.” Any hoo! I’m not a fan of Williams this year, but that’s a decent matchup.
Roman Quinn – Activated from the IL. I grabbed Quinn in one league a few weeks ago, because I had an extra IL spot. By the by, not to be Willy Wokestein, but Yahoo still calls it a DL slot on their site, which I imagine is because changing DL to IL would involve hiring someone to work on the site for three-quarters of an hour, and, well, let’s not kid ourselves. Either way, I like Quinn for cheap steals in deep leagues, especially with Bruce banged up. Hearing “Bruce banged up,” a 45-year-old woman in Jersey just started fanning herself.
Logan Allen – Padres will call up their pitching prospect to fill-in for their other pitching prospect who they’re keeping on a tight innings count. Of course, the reason is obvious, due to service time, but if you were to stop to think about “their stated” reasons, you’d have an aneurysm. Allen had a 5.15 ERA in Triple-A, but it was in the PCL, which is like hitting with an aluminum bat on the moon…actually, that what it’s like in the MLB now too. For what it’s Werth, Allen is top 15 on the Prospectonator for rookie pitcher projections.
Manny Machado – 2-for-4 and his 14th homer. He was suspended for one game for aggressively arguing with an ump. You know it’s BS, because Machado’s never done anything aggressively.
Joey Lucchesi – 7 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 3.74. Now do it again on the road. Please, Joey Lucchesi of the Stromboli Crime Family.
Tyler Beede – 6 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 6.67. Sonavabench! I start this guy every time out at home and he’s worse than Nadir Bupkis, then he goes out and does this in Los Angeles. Jesus H. Christopher Robbin! By the way, Beede walked Matt Beaty of the Dodgers. That Beede Beaty AB is now a collector’s item.
Max Muncy – 2-for-3 and his 17th homer. And you doubted my high ranking of him. You should’ve been doubting my high ranking of Jesus Aguilar! Or Nicholas Castellanos. Or any pitcher.
Tommy Milone – 6 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 3 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.03. If you trusted the Streamonator on this start, and streamed Milone. Cheers!
Tom Murphy – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 8th homer, hitting .300. Member when the Rockies refused to start Murphy for three years straight? Good stuff, Rox!
Mike Fiers – 6 2/3 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 4.28. Why did yesterday feel like the day to stream everyone? Even Cashner pitched well, and that’s the 1st time in the history of the English language anyone has ever said that.
Dallas Keuchel – Expected to return on Friday. Yo, when’s Kimbrel returning? He only needs to throw one inning. Asking as a stunod who owned him longer than any MLB team this year.
Zack Wheeler – 6 IP, 4 ER, 10 hits, 2 walks, 4 Ks, ERA at 4.94. Whack Zeeler is a very special kind of pitcher. He manages to turn every scoring opportunity for the opposing team into runs. Great work, Whack.
Mike Soroka – 6 IP, 3 ER, 7 baserunners, 2 Ks, ERA at 2.12. Why can’t I have one pitcher who fends off the Regression Fairies like it’s a group of straight guys discussing the oeuvre of Kevin Smith.
Ronald Acuna Jr. – 3-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 17th homer. Tildaddy says every day is Father’s Day and belches!
Ozzie Albies – 3-for-5, 2 runs, 4 RBIs and his 11th homer, hitting .286. Braves’ eight-hole hitter is hitting better than the Mets’ three-hole hitter.
Brian McCann – 3-for-3, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 7th homer, hitting .303. Too bad you weren’t more anal retentive and went for McCann over Posey.
Raisel Iglesias – 1 IP, 0 ER, ERA at 2.97, as he pitched from the 8th until one out in the 9th, then ceded the save opportunity to Michael Lorenzen. You remember when Raisel criticized the Reds for how they were using him? Well, you don’t have to remember, that’s my job, as well as going up to strangers on the street asking them for change. Wanna find a quick way for a team to mess with you even more? It’s by criticizing them on usage, and yesterday was a great example.
Miles Mikolas – 6 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 4.48. Guess we shouldn’t have worried so much about Mikolas in this layup matchup, and went with the cold hard facts of the Streamonator.
Matt Carpenter – 3-for-4, 3 runs and his 10th homer, and a standard, run-of-the-mill, bunt double. Or more accurately, “I’m a bunt that trickles to where the shortstop should be and allows the hitter to run to 2nd. I’m not actually a double, call me a stunt double.”
Elieser Hernandez – 6 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.95. Wow, one of my random pickups actually worked out. I’ll be a jackass’s monkey. Caleb Smith is returning to bump Elieser or Yamamoto, and, outside of deep leagues, it’s hard to recommend either. Elieser interests me more, because his slider’s got a little bite and he has solid command.
Mike Clevinger – 4 2/3 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 2.70, as he was activated from the IL. I’ve mentioned this before, and I will mention this one last time before going back to goofing on him, but I don’t trust back issues to be solved that quickly, though, I admittedly don’t know how severe his were. Just throwing up some warning flags. *wipes mouth* I really shouldn’t have eaten those warning flags.
Oscar Mercado – 1-for-4 and his 4th homer, hitting near .370 in the last week and two steals in the previous two days. Hot schmotato alert!
Hunter Pence – Hit the IL with a right groin strain. His left groin is the man groin. His right groin is the bird groin. Called up to replace him was Willie Calhoun (0-for-3, 1 run), who I added in one league, and I’m day-to-day with Calhoun, because I’ve been burned by him so many times I’ve go asbestos fingers as they say in every episode of Top Chef.
Danny Santana – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and a slam (5) and legs (8), hitting .305. Dannys Antana might also be a recipient of some extra playing time with Pence (and Mazara) banged up.
Lance Lynn – 7 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 4.16. Been about two weeks of me saying you should just pick up Lynn. Gotta start to wonder if you’re just reading for s’s and g’s, and, if so, that’s cool too.
Rick Porcello – 7 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 4.31. CWM’ing Porcello, but he’s one of the few pitchers I’ve seen with an xFIP north of 5.00, which is really something even with Capri Sun straws stuck in the balls.
Jose Berrios – 8 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 10 Ks, ERA at 2.86. Due to Berrios, I went looking for Quality Start leaders, and that led me to Fox Sports. Woof! Actually, that’s what the dog says. The Fox says Berrios is in the top three Quality Starts, which is what I assumed, thereabouts. I assumed and thereabouts are two hedges making a positive.
Yonny Chirinos – 6 IP, 3 ER, 6 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.00. Didn’t get the win, and was overshadowed by his opponent, but in The House They Built Across From The House Ruth Built? Damn good start for Yonny. Streamonator sorta likes his next one, and I wouldn’t hesitate starting him.
Masahiro Tanaka – 9 IP, 0 ER, 3 baserunners, 10 Ks, ERA at 3.23. From a real baseball standpoint, this was against the Rays, and he just steamrolled them. Fun fact! Steamrolling comes from dim sum ladies pushing steamed pork buns to the other side of the restaurant and through lots of hungry people.
Cameron Maybin – 3-for-3, 2 runs and his 4th homer, and, like, his 7th homer in the last two days. I guess schmotato, but Aaron Judge and Giancarlo are returning any day, and Maybin’s about to get steamrolled. “Judge is pushing shumai at 3 o’clock!”
DJ LeMahieu – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 8th homer. “That’s not shumai, it’s LeMahieu sitting on a cart!”
