Prior to be doing my fifteen-hundredth dart throw, Bartolo Colon. “Hey, listen, if you can get him cheap and with the NL DH–” *smoke rises from RoboGrey’s ears* Seriously, could someone unplug the MLB season, blow into the cartridge and plug it back in? On phone with AppleCare, “For the last few weeks, I’ve only seen the pinwheel on the baseball season, and the big brains at the Genius Bar have no idea what to do. Any suggestions?” For those not following too closely, the MLB owners are imitating Wimpy and saying, “We will kindly pay you next Collective Bargaining Agreement for a hamburger today,” and the players, crazily enough, are saying, “Hold up, you want us to play for 80% of our salary?” And the MLB owners are replying, “Yeah, c’mon, you crooks, you have so much money.” Then the players are like, “You’re paying us but claiming to have less money than us? Ain’t that some shizz?” I expected this to be resolved by now, but resolution at this point seems like it’s going to come down to Head Idiot Rob Manfred, and him forcing the season into existence. If I’m reading all of the negotiations correctly, Head Idiot can force a 48-game season, but can’t force players to play. Make sense? No, of course it doesn’t! The Head Idiot said last week there would 100% be a season, and this week said there wouldn’t. In other words, the Head Idiot doesn’t even know what the Head Idiot can do because, get this, he’s an idiot. Some have speculated that MLB will force a 48-game season, but it’s way too early now since they have to play until September 27th, because of TV schedules, so they’re stalling for another week or two. All of that led to this breaking news yesterday:
BREAKING: MLB
— Razzball (@Razzball) June 15, 2020
If a season is forced, I wouldn’t be shocked if some big names opt out like Mike Trout, Christian Yelich and, really, anyone who has plenty of ‘eff you’ money. Once we have a set number of games, we will update our rankings and possibly remove players who aren’t playing. Also, as we talk about on today’s podcast, coming later today, I was against redrafting leagues, but if a lot of players are sitting out and we’re playing a 50-game season, then, yeah, it becomes unfair to try to play out a league drafted prior to all of this. On the other hand, maybe it’ll be fun to just play it out. I’m saying that last line in case any MLB owners or players are reading. Play it out! Anyway, here’s what else I saw for 2020 fantasy baseball:
Griffin Canning – Cleared to resume throwing. That’s fantastic, great, terrific, awesome, astounding, yeah, I don’t care, but I’m faking enthusiasm, is it obvious? Griffin Canning was diagnosed with “chronic changes” to his UCL. Unless his elbow was hitting a bong, I don’t want any pitcher with chronic anything to his UCL.
Alex Verdugo – Feels 100 percent. I know how he feels with his feels. Dude, I watched Normal People on Hulu and I felt “100 percent” too. All the feels. Every single one of them. Verdugo sounds like he’ll be ready for Opening Day when that happens, and I could see easing up on the hesitation on him, due to his back stress fracture, since he now has about 10 months of rehab.
Willie Calhoun – Has fully recovered from his broken jaw. Pretty incredible he was able to full heal from a broken jaw without missing one regular season game. A true testament to his mouth. If only some of the MLB owners’ mouths weren’t as lucky.
Jordan Hicks – Advanced to 30-pitch bullpen sessions. Cardinals’ bullpen is going to be one of the more interesting influx for the team/acid reflux for fantasy owners. Off top of my head (while looking at their depth charts), I could see saves for Carlos Martinez, Gallegos, Brebbia, Andrew Miller, Ryan Helsley, Brett Cecil, Kwang Hyun Kim and Hicks, without even mentioning any of their prospects. In general, saves, in a 48-game season will be, how do I say this gently, goofy.
Trey Mancini – Won’t play this year as he battles back from colon cancer. Keeping him in my thoughts, and vandalizing Michael Jordan’s Range Rover license plates to make them spell, “To Trey.”
Chris Archer – Will miss this season after having surgery to repair thoracic outlet syndrome, which is usually a death sentence for MLB pitchers. See: Matt Harvey. Also, it’s being reported that the Pirates have to call the Rays “daddy.” Tyler Glasnow, Austin Meadows and Shane Baz for Chris Archer isn’t the worst trade in MLB history; it might be in the top three of all-time when all is said and done. Obviously, Archer was removed from all rankings.
Brent Honeywell – Underwent a decompression procedure on his UCL.
Nobody:
No one at all:
Literally not a soul:
MLB Pitchers: I need an arm procedure after not doing anything for months.
Incredibly unfortunate, but Honeywell seems to be one of those guys who never makes good on his promise, due to injuries. Guess we’ll see, but I’m already made up my mind for him this year. I’ve removed him from my top 100 starters and top 500.
Yasiel Puig – For a brief moment in…Well, it’s been March for the last 4 months, so some time around March 75th, it was reported that Puig would sign with the Giants once the roster freeze was over, but why would they for a 48-game season? Now guessing Puig doesn’t sign anywhere this season, which sucks for him and baseball. He’s fun! Maybe he shouldn’t have been getting into the batters’ box while licking bats…Wait a minute…*thinks about how Coronavirus started*…Nah, couldn’t be.
Emmanuel Clase – Suspended for 80 games after testing positive for Boldenone. My favorite episode of Emmanuel on Skinemax was the one where she required the guy to take performance-enhancing substances. “But Emmanuel, I am exhausted. we’ve made love for 8 hours straight.” Emmanuel, “Take some Boldedone cuz I ain’t closetodone!”
