RCL Update, Week 9: Memorial Day, Perfect Timing Bro

May 27, 2014 | Razzball Commenters League | 28 Comments

Looking for the Razzball Podcast? TOO BAD! It’s now Razzball Radio, and you can check out all the episodes here!

With only two (three if you are including the eventual death of Yordano Ventura‘s elbow) notable names going on the Disabled List this past week (Mike Napoli and Noah Syndergaard, who probably pulled something while pillaging a camp near the North Sea… HAHA Viking jokes, so good), things are looking a tad bit brighter. But not really, since there are still about 983 players currently on the DL according to my last count. Which seems low, but what do I know? Rudy does all my counting for me. And, as we took a moment this weekend, between relaxing and cooking stuff, to honor all the men and women, active, retired, and tragically lost while defending their county, in all the armed services, we should take a moment today to remember that Jose Fernandez is awesome. Prince Fielder, well, he’s fat. Matt Wieters‘ elbow just seems to be one angry effer. Kris Medlen is strikingly average, but some Patrick Corbin could have been nice. Special thanks to Bobby Parnell for the wake he’s left in New York. Jose Valverde… more like Jose LOLverde. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, which is probably the most apt metaphor ever. EVAAR. I mean, just check out my team’s start of the season, in picture form:

So, after taking a moment yesterday to remember all of those brave souls that we’ve lost, and all those who have served and are serving now to preserve our way of life, let us take a moment today, Tuesday, to remember all the hamstrings that have been pulled, all the obliques that have exploded, and all the ulnar collateral ligament’s that have just simply dropped dead, and honor their sacrifice. How did I honor them, you might ask? By doing what I usually do when perusing my leagues available player list…

My Fantasy Baseball brethen… 2014, the year of the DL… always remember.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Learn more about our 2025 Fantasy Baseball Subscriptions!

The best daily/weekly player rankings/projections (hitters, starters, and relievers) for each of the next 7-10 days + next calendar week starting Friday. Kick-ass DFS lineup optimizer and projections for DraftKings, FanDuel, and Yahoo!.

I don’t have enough spam, give me the Razzball email newsletter!

Weekly Razzball news delivered straight to your inbox.

See all of today’s starting lineups

#	MLB Starting Lineups For Fri 8/8
	ARI \| ATH \| ATL \| BAL \| BOS \| CHC \| CHW \| CIN \| CLE \| COL \| DET \| HOU \| KC \| LAA \| LAD \| MIA \| MIL \| MIN \| NYM \| NYY \| PHI \| PIT \| SD \| SEA \| SF \| STL \| TB \| TEX \| TOR \| WSH \| OAK

Deep Impact: For a Scarce Position

May 27, 2014 | Deep Leagues | 15 Comments

by: Dano

I’m in three dynasty leagues that I impulsively attend to. I’m all about the win-now, so I’ll trade my top prospects for immediate impact. In all three of these leagues, I was looking to displace an empty prospect slot, and with my MLB catchers lacking value…

The following catchers were already owned in at least 2/3rd’s of those leagues: Austin Hedges, Jorge Alfaro, Gary Sanchez, Blake Swihart (be me, in one league), Christian Bethancourt and Reese McGuire. Tom Murphy (probably because of his eventual stomping ground, Colorado) and Stryker Trahan are also owned in at least one of the leagues.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

DraftKings – Even the Rain Has East Coast Bias

May 27, 2014 | DraftKings | 4 Comments

by: Schlurricane

If you haven’t heard about the fiasco surrounding the new Dodgers television deal then good for you. There are a lot more important and interesting things to talk/think/know about. If you want to know check out this article. The Dodgers are finding other ways to get their fans an opportunity to watch and it’s benefitting true baseball fans everywhere. It seems that the pitching staff is attempting to throw no-hitters on a daily basis so that MLB Network will show the late innings of games across the country including in the Los Angeles Area.

So… cable packages are skyrocketing out west. Join the party. Gas prices are highest in the country. Home prices are astronomical. Magic Johnson can’t be blamed for all of this. What has caused this? Well, it could be the fact that you get to watch championship caliber sports all year around—Seahawks, 49ers, Sharks, Kings, Ducks, Warriors, Giants and A’s. It could be that you don’t have to stay up until 2am to watch a full slate of games on a given day. Or, it could be the weather.

As I look across the slate of games on the menu today, every single game not being played on the west coast has a chance of rain. Every west coast game has a 0% chance of rain. I had to check 5 times to believe it myself. Yes, a couple of parks have retractable roofs which can minimalize the weather impact and some have only 20% chance, but that’s a scary sight to look at for daily fantasy.

Losing sucks. And when your players don’t play you tend to lose. I don’t wanna play that game today. I don’t want to hinge my dollars on the meteorologists. They have the only profession where a success rate worse than a major league hitter is acceptable. I’m not scared of rain, but as we all know by now millionaire baseball players are deathly afraid of playing in the rain. So there might not be too much baseball happening until 10pm EST.

No need to take the day off from Draftkings! It’s time for a late night party. There are options to participate in contests that only include early games or late games depending on the schedule for the day. Today offers “Late Games Only” contests on Draftkings. Let’s head out west. Remember, if you haven’t already signed up, this link will get you a free contest right off the bat—insinuating you have to hit the ball first. If you’re a swing and miss type of person, this probably isn’t for you. You’ll have to pony up some money.

These are my picks and I scoured every bit of information. As the whifey will attest, I’ve overlooked two things in my entire life—ok maybe that’s my version of the truth. Make sure you take a look at what the DFSBot has to say about points projections and price relative value before you set your lineups. Mrs. DFSBot has nothing bad to say about him so he must be perfect. Or abusive. I mean definitely perfect.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

My Elbow For Yordano

May 27, 2014 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 642 Comments

by: Grey

I put a poster of David DeJesus up on my bedroom wall. Cougs said to me, “Grey, why do we have a picture of David DeJesus on our bedroom wall?” She was right. It was silly to put DeJesus up on my wall. So I cut out his face, cut out his lips, cut out his eyes and taped it around her face with masking tape, so she could see and talk to me through DeJesus. Then I asked my religious poster-ography if it could please leave my sweet, sweet upside pitchers alone. DeJesus said back to me, “Yes, can you please untape this thing from my head now?” DeJesus spoke to me! Too bad I didn’t do this prior to Yordano Ventura going out and getting rocked (2 2/3 IP, 5 ER) and then complaining after the game of elbow discomfort. Dah! As we know by now, no pitchers get away with elbow discomfort without a DL stint. The MRI will either lead him to a 15-day DL stint or a 12-18 month one. Lowercase yay. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Ambulance Chasers, Week 9: Nolan Are-NOT-Oh-No!

May 26, 2014 | Fantasy Baseball Buy/Sell | 31 Comments

by: SethDaSportsMan

It wouldn’t truly be baseball without a plethora of injuries to grace your fantasy teams’ rosters, now would it?

As I predicted last week, Prince Fielder is set to undergo surgery, but he isn’t the only player lost for an extended period of time. Here are some of the fallen from Week 8 and perhaps some players who could actually be returning (yes, believe it or not, they still practice modern medicine in MLB clubhouses!)

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Jones-ing For Steals

May 26, 2014 | Steals | 16 Comments

by: Mike

It’s not even June and the Mariners are on their second leadoff hitter in James Jones. The 25-year-old center fielder has hit at the top of the Mariners lineup and looks to remain there for the foreseeable future. Yes, I copied and pasted that last sentence from the Abraham Almonte post. Jones has looked good though, hitting .306 with a .377 OBP in the twenty games since his call up. More importantly, he’s swiped three bags already and projects to steal around 15 bases by year’s end. That’s a serviceable number for deeper mixed league owners struggling to find steals in their lineup. Jones stole 25+ in each of his last two minor league seasons, and he’s currently sporting a 62% ground ball percentage which is allowing him to maximize his speed. That percentage is seventh among outfielders with at least 50 plate appearances. This week, Jones gets a favorable match-up against the Tigers, who have allowed the tenth most stolen bases this season (34). A battery of Anibal Sanchez and Alex Avila has quickly become one of my favorite to run against since beginning this column. Jones probably won’t get to face that specific battery this time around, but one of our other SAGNOF picks will. Here are some of this week’s steals plays in fantasy baseball…

Please, blog, may I have some more?

DraftKings – Dap is Due (not to me)

May 26, 2014 | DraftKings | 3 Comments

by: BTXJ

With 11 of the 15 games pegged for the early contests on DraftKings, it’s a weird day to be a DFS baseball player, but a damn proud day to be an American. Thousands of men and women died for our freedom; so first and foremost, honor those brave souls any way you can, because without them, we wouldn’t be “enjoying” the daily grinds and the sweats (amongst many other [more important] things). Quit ogling the X-Men for one second and embrace the real heroes.

Now, back to the unique Memorial Day schedule – for the sake of not wasting research cycles, and in honor of my right to a Sunday Fun Day, this column will focus solely on the nighttime four-game set (i.e. the late games). To stand out in GPPs with such limited selection, it will take some creativity and a diamond in the rough or two, but let’s see what advantages we can find in just eight lineup cards. Of course, in-house tools like Hitter-Tron, Steam-o-Nator, and DFSBot are also here to help too. Oh, and on a random side note – why doesn’t Mike Olt change to #45? Olt 45 – it works every time. Billy Dee would be proud. Someone pass this along to Olt 45 – he can thank me later.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Beckett Up Like A No-Hit Truck

May 26, 2014 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 615 Comments

by: Grey

What’s more American than Memorial Day weekend? How about an ex-country singer-dating, gun-toting, Texan, a guy that looks like he puts a hot dog in the fly of his pants and goes up to female reporters and asks them if they’re hungry, a guy who we call Red State Jeter, a guy that looks like he has the rhythm of Mark Madsen, someone who has Ted Nugent’s special I’m-a-huntin’ phone number, a guy that Roger Clemens probably watches and thinks, “I wonder if he’ll have sex with my wife while I watch,” throwing a no-hitter? With a no-hitter on Memorial Day, Josh Beckett just took your ‘Murica and raised it back to its 1950’s ‘Murica when we were more obvious about our contempt for other nations. Though for our fantasy porpoises — hey, dolphins! — I gotta be honest, I’m a bit worried about him throwing 128 pitches, but his peripherals suggest a guy that if healthy can be a solid fantasy number three. He is not an ace now, so if suddenly people think that, feel free to shop him. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Jam It or Cram It: Memorial Day CookOUCH in the Razzball Lounge

May 25, 2014 | Fantasy Baseball Buy/Sell | 119 Comments

by: The Guru

It’s that time of year again when your humble-but-nonetheless-handsome Guru digs out his star-spangled turban, the seersucker suit, and attempts to pull the ol’ “hotdog” trick on the unsuspecting ladies at the annual Razzball cookout. Johnny Manziel’s got nothin’ on me! Welcome once again to the Razzball Lounge where your favorite fake baseball scribes gather to crunch the numbers, drink the grog, and avoid the Tehol – hey, the kid gets all handsy after a few! We raise our glasses this Memorial Day weekend to all those that served and we pour out a little to all those boys of summer that never made it home. Let’s lower the Razzball flag to half-mast in horror honor of the latest fantasy casualties: Prince Fielder broke his cervix (who knew?), Ryan Braun strained his oblique (‘roids help with healin’, cust kayin’), Nolan Arenado broke a finger sliding (here’s a finger for you Nolan) and Mike Moustakas burned the roof of his mouth on the Hot Pocket Mama Mous made for him. Fielder looks done for the year, Braun was done the minute his medicine cabinet contained nothing but baby aspirin and Ben-Gay, Arenado is down a digit and good ol’ Moosetacos will be spending the summer in Omaha – oh, no, he just fell into the thresher. RIP Moosetacos. Yes, we’re grieving our fake baseball teams in the lounge this long weekend. At the bar we find Sky crying in his Islay, “I’m an organ donor and Arenado can have one of my fingers.” Sky, NO!!!! *raises machete, cuts off pinky* Over at the jukebox is our resident jukebox hero Jay(Wrong) playing “Candle in the Wind” for the 23rd time. “This one’s for you my sweet Prince.” *bottle smashes above head* Sauntering out of the ladies room, zipping up his fly, arm around his latest conquest, is international man of mystery Tehol Beddict, “Why the long faces, gang? I’ve been in last place since April.” *gets punched in the face by J-Foh, breaks nose* Here at the pool table is your humble-but-nonetheless-dejected Guru. *closes eye, takes aim, fires cue ball through window* “All is lost, I’m going to start playing fantasy cricket.” And, with the Razzball crew at an all-time low, who should suddenly grace us all with his presence? The one and only Grey Albright, looking all Gatsby as he exits his convertible amidst a plume of sweet smelling vapor, a coug on each arm, mustache glistening in the summer sun. “Gentleman, don’t lose faith, it’s a long season, and even if we win, if we win, HAH! Even if we win! Even if we play so far above our heads that our noses bleed for a week to ten days; even if God in Heaven above comes down and points his hand at our side of the field; even if every man woman and child held hands together and prayed for us to win, it just wouldn’t matter because all the really good looking girls would still go out with the guys from Yahoo because they’ve got all the money! It just doesn’t matter if we win or we lose. IT JUST DOESN’T MATTER! Now, Guru, fire up your jammer crammer machine and someone get me a goddamn umbrella drink!”

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Jack’s Hit of the Week: Craven Moreland

May 25, 2014 | Creeper of the Week | 70 Comments

by: J-FOH

What do the Rangers do now? Prince has gone belly up. [Jay’s Note: More like belly all around, amiright? You know, because he’s fat.] Besides Yu Darvish, their pitching is hot garbage. I’m 50/50 if they try to make a deal for Kendrys Morales. What’s really going on in Arlington? Mitch “I get relevant every May” Moreland is what’s going on. Over the last three years, the month of May has been by far his best. He’s hit .312, with 17 dongs, 46 runs and 38 RBI’s. Maybe he has a thing with the letter ‘M’? MMMHHHH! – Mitch Moreland May I? Mitch May Moreland… Is May his middle name? Either way, something good has happened for triple M. Prince Fielder‘s neck couldn’t handle all that weight it’s been carrying around, and now Mitch gets his shot again. Hey J-FOH, Mitch has never been able to put it together for a whole season? That is correct, diligent random commenter. Mitch has never been able to put it all together for a full season and I don’t expect that to change. What I do know is May is almost over, Mitch loves to hit in May, Prince is now a popper… of pain killers, and opportunity is the drug we all subscribe to in fantasy baseball.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

DraftKings: Mad Bum Brings Mad Value

May 25, 2014 | DraftKings | 8 Comments

by: Mike

Madison Bumgarner sits on top of the Stream-o-Nator today at a $29 value, yet he’ll cost you only $9,600 on DraftKings. There’s a lot to like here in both the pitcher himself and today’s match-up. This season, Bumgarner sports a 9.97 K/9 to go along with a 2.61 BB/9. He’ll face the Twins today, who have the seventh worst strikeout percentage in baseball. For a price tag under $10K, it’s as good a play as we’ll find. There are a couple of $12K+ options in Adam Wainwright and Masahiro Tanaka, but I’m finding that spending that much on pitching cripples my ability to spend what I want on hitters. If I can find an arm around $10K instead, I’d rather jump on that and land some better bats. Bumgarner looks like one of those arms today.

If you are new to DraftKings, use our promo link to get started. New players that click on that link will get a free contest ticket with a first time deposit (only new users eligible). The winner of the contest gets entry into our $500k Showcase with a $100k top prize. Also, if you haven’t tried the DFSBot via Rudy, check it out: it’s a fantastic resource that compares projected values to actual DFS prices for the day. Here are some of today’s other picks for DraftKings contests on 5/25/2014…

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Minor Accomplishments — Week 8

May 25, 2014 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 97 Comments

by: Scott Evans

No prospect in baseball brings a higher ceiling than Javier Baez. That much is noted. He gave us a glimpse of the limitless potential last summer when he reached Double-A, drilling 35 XBH (20 HR) in 240 plate appearances during the season’s final two months. Then he showed up at big league camp this spring and knocked 5 HR in 18 games, and baseball began to wonder how long the Cubs could keep a talent like this in the minors. I drank the Baez Kool-Aid — I drank lots of it. I fantasized about scenarios that would’ve had Javy in the bigs by now, and I advised you to stash him in redraft leagues, and not let go. But then the cant-miss 21-year-old proceeded to miss. He missed just about everything that was thrown to him, to be clear, racking up a K% at Triple-A Iowa north of 35% through the first month and a half of the season. Throughout it all, though, I told you to be patient. I told you he’d turn it around, and once he did, he wouldn’t be long for the minors. I admit, anxious feelings about Baez began to creep into the back of my mind in recent weeks, and to a degree, they’re still present. These past 10 days, however, have provided much needed relief, as Baez has posted a slash line at .414/.419/.897 with 3 homers and 5 doubles. It’ll take several more weeks like this one to repair his line on the year, which sits at .201/.268/.388, but I believe Javy will be up to the challenge. And if, by chance, too much damage has been done to salvage the Triple-A line, he’ll still have a clean slate to work with when he surfaces at Wrigley later this summer.

Please, blog, may I have some more?