Owen Miller for 2023 Fantasy and More News

“Owen, you stupid poop!” is a line from Throw Momma From The Train, but is not a line you’re going to hear at Brewers games. Unless it’s in this context, “Owen, you stupid poop, but ‘stupid’ as in ‘fresh’ or ‘dope’ and ‘dope’ as in great not as in dumb, and ‘poop’ as in you’re the shizz.” Somehow, I haven’t mentioned Owen Miller (3-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and a slam (3) and legs (5), hitting .347) much. Well, I’ve got Miller fatigue, okay? And ‘fatigue’ is Italian, pronounced fah-tee-gay. I’ve mentioned many Millers — Shelby, Bryce, Mason, Bobby — but not Owen. He’s been playing 3rd every day for the Brewers, and should continue until Urias returns. He’s also got 15/15 potential with an insanely low strikeout rate. Prolly more of an NL-Only guy, but could see him paying dividends in 15-teamers or HTMLers. Get it? Div id ends? No? Okay. I don’t really get it either. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Julio Teheran – Signed with the Brewers. Ah, yes, he was the Braves’ Bryce Elder of 2013.

J.P. France – 5 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 3.43. The one rookie pitcher I don’t trust is Juan Pierre France, and the one rookie pitcher doing okay is Juan Pierre France. *puts the emoji with its head in its hands into my hands and smooshes it against my head* If I had to make sense of it, J.P. uses five different pitches and hitters aren’t familiar enough yet to lay off four of the five.

Matt McLain – 1-for-3, 3 RBIs and his 1st major league homer, as he hit 2nd, even with the return of Friedl. Sail to the moon, Matty McLain’s fantasy value, soar to the freakin’ moon!

Graham Ashcraft – 5 IP, 7 ER, ERA at 5.57. Remember not that long ago I told you Ashcraft was a sell high? Now his ERA is 5+. Wha’ happened? Wasn’t a mighty wind.

TJ Friedl – 2-for-4, 1 run as he was activated from the IL. Saw one fantasy site say he had a “robust” batting line. That line must be good, huh? He’s on pace for roughly 12/16, and his underlying stats say he should be batting .250. Mmmkay.

Paul Goldschmidt – 2-for-4 and his 8th and 9th homer, hitting .293. Au Shizz x 2!

Xander Bogaerts – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 7th homer, and his 1st homer since September, 1996. Or felt that way.

Juan Soto – 3-for-4, 2 runs and a slam (9) and legs (5). Sexy Dr. Pepper seems to be stringing together a lot of “just okay” games, but yesterday was his first great game. Send him back to Washington! He likes it there!

Lane Thomas – 2-for-4 and his 7th homer. He’ll be debated internally amongst the Razzball braintrust (me) on whether I should put him on this week’s Buy column again for, like, the 4th week in the row. The Buy column will be released later today on Patreon, and Friday for the rest of youse.

CJ Abrams – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 5th homer. My head can’t wrap around how he’s showing power and nowhere near the speed he has. What does it mean to ‘be Ceej,’ I’m asking my reflection in a pond while these thoughts storm the castle of my brain.

Gerrit Cole – 5 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 2.53. Wasn’t that long ago I told you to sell Cole. I wasn’t talking to the bad kids after being visited by Santa.

Harrison Bader – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 5th homer, hitting .290. Lot of people still asking about picking up Bader, which makes no sense. He’s a top 75 hitter on the 30-day Player Rater; he’s got power and speed and in the middle of a lineup.

Aaron Judge – 1-for-4 and his 14th homer. Can’t believe they let this guy just look wherever he wants.

Cedric Mullins – 1-for-4 and his 8th homer. Fun fact! A cow’s favorite player is Mullins. At least I think so, they Ced-Mu.

Gunnar Henderson – 2-for-4 and his 5th homer. “Hey, can we just push him in the water at Sea World and let the killer whale take care of the rest–Hold up! Gunnar moved! He’s alive!”

George Springer – 4-for-5, 3 runs, 2 RBIs and his 7th homer, hitting .255. Springer and Merrifield being on the same team feels appropriate because you can’t kill either’s fantasy value. No matter how many times you say they’re done.

Jose Berrios – 7 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 4.22. If you started Berrios vs. the Rays, congrats on your pants grapes. They are very large. Okay, time to look at Berrios’s perfs, as the kids call them. He’s got a 8.6 K/9, 2.1 BB/9, 3.78 xFIP. With better command, he’s limited homers and his ground ball rate is way up. It’s all good under the hood, as the kids said 20 years ago. Streamonator loves his next start, and I’m willing to say he can be worthwhile, which is after a big arm twist.

Matt Chapman – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and a slam (7) and legs (2), hitting .302. Hard to take anything the Jays did late in the game seriously because it was hitting vs. position players. O Raley? Yes, Luke.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. – 3-for-6, 6 RBIs and his 8th homer. Not that I won’t happily accept homers off position players. Cust kayin’.

Taj Bradley – 4 IP, 4 ER, ERA at 4.44. *slowly strums on a guitar* I call this, “Am I Really Dumb Because I Keep Starting Rookie Pitchers?”

Isaac Paredes – 1-for-4 and his 7th homer, hitting .272. Ya know what’s kinda funny? Kevin Cash prolly studies batter vs. pitcher matchups and how a lineup should be constructed more than anyone and the Rays could literally throw 12 guys out there in any order and they’d be fine.

Mickey Moniak – 1-for-3 and his 4th homer in, like, five games. Mean’swhile, Wardy Pipp sits on the bench giving good encouragement. Checking for an encouragement category in my fantasy league, and not seeing it.

Matt Thaiss – 1-for-4 and his 2nd homer. Can’t believe I dropped him in one league for Connor Wong. Always thinking with the wrong head.

Griffin Canning – 7 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 4.95. I had a whim. A whisper in my head of what might be. And, what do you know, I was right. I didn’t think Canning had a start this good since 2020, and I was right. Canning’s good starts, just a hair more frequent than the Olympics.

Brayan Bello – 7 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 4.08. His stuff is better than I think most people realize. Everything has gone to shizz in Boston in the last few years, but Bello? Oh, Bello’s good. He’s on the verge of being an ace. His last five starts: Only nine walks. That’s the big bugaboo. 29 Ks in 28 IP, that’s the 2nd big one. Almost a 60% ground ball rate. Oh, that’s big too. If he can command his pitches, he’s going to be special.

Yasmani Grandal – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 4th homer, hitting .279. Yasmani has come all the way back from the bowels of fantasy suckiness and risen like a Phoenix, a Phoenix that is like the 20th best catcher, and not really that good.

Dylan Cease – 6 IP, 2 R, 7 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 4.60. vs. Logan Allen – 6 IP, 3 ER, 8 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 3.31. Nice bounce back start from Cease, which is what one says when they realize a guy off waivers who he was facing is out-performing in every way and drafting pitching high really makes no sense. As for Cease, he’s still a sell. He does not look right.

Will Brennan – 1-for-3 and a homer. Recall people talking in the preseason about how good Brennan could be and how he was undervalued and do you know how many homers he has? Two. He’s also hitting .213.

Jorge Soler – 2-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 13th homer. Only question yesterday was whether he’d hit one or two homers.

Bobby Miller – 5 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 5 Ks, as he was called up. Oh, I see it’s only the Dodgers rookie pitcher that I roster that get hit hard. Just gave you my Bobby Miller fantasy. Yes, I like him.

J.D. Martinez – 1-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 9th homer, and third homer in two games. Just Dong is a hot schmotato heater. Buckle up for dongs.

Eduardo Rodriguez – 5 IP, 2 ER, 10 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 2.19. Ya know a guy is having a charmed year when he gets hit and gives up runs, then they’re unearned, as EdRod gave up yesterday.

Jacob deGrom – Threw 32 pitches yesterday. You know when you’re reporting a 32-pitch session you ain’t throwing more than 50 IP this year. “Not 30 pitches but 32?! Wow! That’s amazing! What a workhorse!”

Josh Jung – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 11th homer, and 3rd homer in three games, and roughly, say, three days ago people were still asking about dropping Jung. It’s almost like Jung is actually good as I’ve been saying for roughly 18 months.

Nathan Eovaldi – 9 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 2.60. My kingdom for a team with Eovaldi, Mitch Keller, Eduardo Rodriguez and Joe Ryan. By the way, now is also a fair time to laugh at the people telling you you needed to draft a starter in the first few rounds. If you had Eovaldi, Mitch Keller, Eduardo Rodriguez and Joe Ryan, you’d be winning every pitching category in every league, and you would’ve drafted your pitching when? Once in the top 100; once again in the top 200, then just grabbed some guys.

Rich Hill – 5 1/3 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 4.27. Streamonator likes Dick Mountain’s next start a bit more than last night’s but it’s still negative. By the way, following Dick Mountain for the Pirates was D. Underwood. Hmm, what kinds of booty are those Pirates digging up?

Michael Conforto – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 10th homer, and 2nd homer in the last two games, and about the fifteenth time I’ve called him a Hot Schmoforto in the last week. It’s so funny the people who say hitters don’t get hot. Sure, brah.

Alex Cobb – 7 IP, 3 ER, 7 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 2.17. Can I add Cobb into the Eovaldi list of pitchers I wish I had everywhere?

Byron Buxton – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and a slam (10) and legs (5). Bux took Cobb deep. Hey now! Wait, what?

Andres Munoz – Could be activated during next road trip. Hopefully Sewald’s not on the roof of the car for that road trip.

Ty France – 1-for-3 and his 3rd homer. Three homers? Morel has that by lunch.

Marco Gonzales – 6 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 5.68. Marco…Po’low-man-when-desperate-for-a-streamer.

Kodai Senga – Was bumped back a day. No injury, it’s just Buck Showalter owns Kodai in fantasy and wanted to avoid him pitching in Coors. Nice stuff, Buck! Or maybe Kodai just needed an extra day to prepare for Christopher Morel.

@razzballfantasy #fantasybaseball #MLB #baseball @Razzball @Razzball ? original sound – Razzball

Pete Alonso – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 18th homer. Albombso!

Christopher Morel – 1-for-3, 2 runs and his 9th homer. We hear George Will’s unmistakable voice. He begins to narrate the images we see, “The year was 2023, and, by August, it was clear Christopher Morel would break Barry Bonds’s home run record of 73. With six weeks to play, there was a chance, Morel could make a run at 100 homers.”

Matt Mervis – 2-for-3, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 2nd homer. Unfortch, he’s now batting ninth and David Ross is so dumb that he might think Mervis is most comfortable there, after homering, and leave him in the nine hole. Do not leave him there!

Seiya Suzuki – 1-for-4 and his 6th homer. Feels like Seiya is a “when healthy” 30-homer guy. The “when healthy” has been tricky, but he’s so good “when healthy.”

Drew Smyly – 5 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 2.93. Smyly is officially Streamonator-immune. Just start him until he’s no longer pitching well.

Miguel Castro – 1 IP, 0 ER, and his 5th save, ERA at 2.42, as Chafin worked the 8th. Chafin’s working me over like a pair of frayed jorts. You’d think Dbags and Chafin would go hand-in-hand. I guess this is a 60/40 closer split, but I have no idea which side is 60. Conventional wisdom says Chafin is a lefty, but where was conventional wisdom in April when Chafin was getting saves. It’s not like Chafin just became a lefty.

Jose Alvarado – Threw from flat ground. “See!” That’s Kyrie Irving.