OPS Leaguers Unite! C’mon Get Happy!

Now isn’t the time to let the mayonnaise malaise take over, now is the time to win your season! See where you need to make up games; if its innings pitched, clear some unwanted bench spots with spot starters and if you’re like me, add a second catcher to get those games played up. Get happy since you’re still in it! This week we’re going to take a look at the top 25 thus far in Yahoo! OPS leagues.  Here’s the list (as of this writing):

Most of this list isn’t surprising (says Captain Obvious). Crazy how good Trout is after he missed multiple weeks and still will probably finish top ten. Stanton is finally putting together a complete MVP season;  it’s been wonderful to watch and I’m so happy for Grey since he’s been touting him since he was Mike and as such I’ve been following that advice…to only see him get hurt every season Until this one, the one where I avoided him in every league (I’m not bitter, I swear).

Multiple times I’ve interrupted my wife and told her to look at how short Jose Altuve is; seriously whenever I think about him I think about Eddie Gaedel (Dude was only 3’7”!) and think, Altuve can’t be two feet taller than him. Doesn’t even matter, he’s ridiculous (and I love this picture of him next to Sal Perez). Another second baseman, Jonathan Schoop, was way underrated going into this season but this guy (see my thumbs pointing at me) had him in the top six 2B heading into the season).

Cody Bellinger was an astute pick-up especially since he profiled as an OPS League Monster (yeah, I missed him, so sue me).  Justin Upton has had a great season considering he looked finished for most of last season (though he did pick it up toward the end of 2016, making his return to consistency not totally shocking); Jake Lamb was drafted too late in a lot of leagues but he’s definitely a guy I’m buying heavily next season. Joey Gallo is another guy who as long as the Rangers play him is going to be OPS gold; and good golly miss molly is he fun to watch hit homers.

The two guys I’m most surprised to see on this list are Justin Smoak and Travis Shaw. Both should be cheap (or relatively so) next year, as many won’t buy the full hype they remind me of guys like Joey Bats and Edwin Encarnacion who were post-post-post hype sleepers. Don’t don’t don’t don’t you, forget about them when your drafting next year.

Let’s also take a quick look at the weekly stars of OPS Leaguers Unite!: First off, Steven Souza Jr and Ryon Healy both led off my keepers post at the end of 2016 (so did Tommy Joseph, but as we all know you just can’t trust male adults that end their name in Y) and if you read this column all season, you know both guys I’ve been high in this season.  Healy and my other guy, Josh Bell, even garnished their own weekly updates.  Bell is going to continue to improve in the power department as he’s shown this season already.  Souza has always had the power, its staying healthy for him that’s been his issue. Hunter Renfroe is another guy I’ve mentioned multiple times that should only get better and already has big bopper power. A’s rookie Matt Chapman will get ABs based on his defense and will continue to hit homers. If/when they fix the baseballs and homer totals return to normal these guys are still going to be consistent good OPS/Power threats and should be targeted heading into 2018 drafts.

In conclusion I’d like to take this time to say thanks all for reading and especially commenting as now it’s time for me to head on down the ol’ dusty trail…but not too far, just over to Razzball football – so join me in a Razzball commenter league and win some stuff!  I won’t be gone the whole off-season; Be back here in early 2018 where you can find OPS positional rankings, Auction dollar values and all sorts of cool, fun stuff!  I promise this time I won’t neglect the awesome Joey Votto (I ranked him 23 overall going into this season) and rank him #1 next year!  That’ll get some positive comments I bet.

Final aside: Votto is in the midst of an interesting streak of reaching base two or more times in 20-some-odd straight games.  While writing I’m watching MLB Network’s Harold Reynolds say that guys back in the day weren’t trying to get these records; I would doubt Votto even cares much, but as Reynolds tells it the guys today are obsessed with these obscure records unlike the players of yesteryear. Those guys, they never cared about records at all, right? Point being, I didn’t like Reynolds when he was on ESPN years ago and I can’t believe he still has a job talking about baseball.  He’s the cranky old man of MLB Network and I don’t know how Greg Amsinger stands him.  Anyhoo, now my time is really up, so good luck to you Razzballers and Razzballettes the rest of the season and see you in 2018!