The Pirates are in it to win it, y’all! Maybe too aggressive. Okay, the Pirates are in it to make it seem like they’re in it to win it, y’all! Yeah, that’s probably a closer approximation. If we’re sitting here in October and saying the Pirates couldn’t have won the World Series without the help of Marlon Byrd, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle and pay for my monkey nephew to go to college, which is a lot of money. Luckily, I think they can win it with or without Byrd, as a Nikki Dinki-hosted show would say. Thankfully, none of this matters for fantasy, so why are we even talking about it? I don’t know, clunky expository question! Byrd will likely prop up the bottom of the Pirates lineup when he plays and prop himself onto the mascot’s shoulder on off days. Byrd gains a tad bit of value with this move since the Mess offense was nothing to write home about unless you were locked up abroad and ran out of things to write on postcards, and ‘Hitters Are Better Outside Of Metco’ is a bumper sticker I don’t own, but endorse. Also, going to the Pittsburgh Bucs is John Buck. Buck will change his New York nickname of “Midnight Cowboy” to “Swash,” and steal some looks behind the plate from Martin. Going the other way is Dilson Herrera and a player to be named later. Unless that player is Andrew McCutchen, there’s not a whole lot to talk about on the Mets receiving end. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

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See all of today’s starting lineups

# MLB Starting Lineups For Sun 8/3
ARI | ATH | BAL | BOS | CHC | CHW | CLE | COL | DET | HOU | KC | LAA | LAD | MIA | MIL | MIN | NYM | NYY | PHI | PIT | SD | SEA | SF | STL | TB | TEX | TOR | WSH | ATL | CIN | OAK

Fancy meeting you here, and look at you: all dressed up with no place to go. As the season winds down, some are focused on last-minute playoff help (I try to appease you below), while others are reflecting on the past season. Let’s try to focus on the positives and learn a little something. I’m curious to hear which player you think is most deserving of the “OPS League MVP Award”. Let’s stay away from Miguel Cabrera, who was obviously great, but cost you a high draft pick. I’m looking for guys who provided value that far exceeded what they cost you on draft day and were truly a gift from the fantasy baseball gods. This will ideally help to provide us with a list of potential targets for next season (don’t worry; nobody else besides us will see this). Anyway, for those of you fortunate enough to still be in contention, here are some potential targets:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

I couldn’t be a part of the podcast today because I was getting fitted for wedding dresses in NYC this weekend. I love reality based shows and thought “Why can’t I be part of Say Yes To The Dress? Even if it was to tell a large girl, ‘Nuh-uh, baby doll, you aren’t working that, no way, Jose Canseco.'” Also, my favorite musical song to sing to myself is I’m pretty, oh, so pretty. Nature fit, right? Nick decided that he should do a “freestyle” podcast because it’s too early to care about what players will do in 2014 and too late to help your stank ass team. JayWrong and Nick got together to discuss some of their 2013 baseball predictions, but the show got side tracked because they both forgot to take their meds and they wound up discussing Jay’s fragile love life and how DC is full of emo-hipster chicks. If Lisa Loeb is there, ring her up. She’s desperate for companionship. (BTW, Can you be both emo and hipster at the same time? Isn’t that like being “country” and “backwoods” at the same time? You’re goth and weird? No, you are just weird. I never got the goth thing. Are you trying to make yourself less attractive? Don’t reproduce. It’s fine with me.) Rudy and Nick discussed our RCL Expert and Champion Leagues. Apparently all RCL Leagues have no caps on transactions simply to give me a fighting chance in the Expert League. They then talked about how Rudy and I were doing in other experts leagues and Rudy started crying and playing emo-goth-hipster music. He recovered in time to decree he’d never again draft “A player named Upton” no matter how good BJ, the 3rd becomes. Anyway, here’s the Razzball podcast (now with JayWrong casually mentioning his availability even though we only have one girl listener; dude, try a singles bar):

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Mauledbypandas is back in first place for the first time since June 3rd. His team hit .289 this week with 44 runs and 43 RBI. Their 2.43 ERA lowered their season ERA to 2.99. A Hill O’ Beans dropped to second, 1-and-a-half back. They hit .284 this week with 16 home runs, and recorded 11 saves and a WHIP of 0.97 on the pitching side.

Check out the Master Standings (you can also access them via the Leagues menu up top) to see where your team ranks in comparison to the other 767 teams through Sunday. The page now includes sortable stats.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

I have a team building exercise for the Mets. Get Kevin Mitchell on the horn. He has at least five baby mamas that are flight attendants. Scrounge up the plane Lenny Dykstra owned for a minute before filing for bankruptcy. You’re going to Hawaii. All you need to do is recover the tiki doll that was lost in Maui and return it to the grave of Vincent Price. Otherwise, your team will remain cursed forever. What a terrible blow to Matt Harvey keeper owners. And not what terrible blow, as was heard around the Mets clubhouse in the 80’s. Harvey’s done for at least 15 months if he needs Tommy John surgery, and that’s what it sounds like, while Tommy John Surgery sounds like, “I don’t want to rob the world of greatness, yet I do. Repeatedly.” Poor Tommy John Surgery. No one wins here! In redraft leagues, you can obviously drop Harvey. His innings count came slightly earlier than expected. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

In true Halloween spirit, we have a special haunted edition of the Pitcher Profile.  Ok, so it’s not even September yet, but hey, we live in a world of mass consumerism and the Halloween specials and themed sections of department stores are already up.  Don’t believe me?  Ask the um, French Maid, you um… you saw leaving my room last night – it was just someone breaking in the costume!  I’m kidding, I’m not Jude Law.

So about a month ago, I was all set to do a Scott Kazmir Pitcher Profile then his arm died.  Kinda like Jared Leto’s arm in Requiem For A Dream.  After a strong stretch through mid-June to late-July, Kaz gave up 4 to the White Sox, blanked the Marlins (but a slow-pitch softball pitcher could do that), then got rocked vs. the Angels and his arm was murdered.  Murder, I Wrote!  But through the modern world of medicine, he got a Will Smith I, Robot replacement, then struggled with his stuff with the zombie arm in his first game back, giving up a 5 spot and 12 baserunners at Oakland.  So expectations were pretty low heading into his start yesterday against the Twins, but after seeing the stat line and his return to form, I decided to break down his start and see if that velocity is back where it was a few months ago:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Since being traded to the Royals ten days ago, Emilio Bonifacio has seven steals – more than any player in baseball in that span. Obviously, he’s benefited from more playing time in his new home. He’s started all but one game since the trade and while he hasn’t exactly contributed much in the other fantasy categories, he’s been piling up the steals. It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise since the Royals are near the top of the league in both stolen bases (112) and success rate (83%). Bonifacio has always had the wheels too. Just last year he stole 30 bases in just 64 games played. His dual eligibility at second base and outfield is a huge boost to his fantasy value. This week he’ll draw the Twins and Blue Jays. The Twins are stingy against the stolen base, but Boni should have some success on the base paths against his former team later in the week. Here are some other speedsters worth a look:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

It was about a half year ago that Grey threw all his chips into the pot on Marco Estrada. Man-crushed him onto just about every team we co-manage (along with the deviated septumet) as well as his Razzball Commenter League team. Well, this looked like a lost season for ol’ Marco when he went on the Disgraceful List in early June while sporting a 5.32/1.36 in 69 IP. Combined with Ryan Braun’s suspension and the inevitable 2nd half regressions for Gomez/Segura, Milwaukee has been as relevant to fantasy baseball fans as the city is for travelers intolerant of lactose, cheap domestic beer, and drag queens masquerading as a young Penny Marshall. Under this shroud of yawnonymity, Marco Estrada’s season is beginning to rise from the ashes like Bud Selig’s toupee at that fateful windy hometown barbecue that’s now annually celebrated as Furrywurst Day. Estrada went 7 IP in a tough matchup (@CIN) and gave up 3 baserunners (1 H, 2 BB) and K’d 9 Reds. That’s his 3rd solid start in his last 4 and that includes an @TEX + home vs. STL. He’s definitely worth a pickup for the homestretch if only to see if he can pitch well enough to convince Grey to double down on Estrada in 2014.

In other news…

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Welcome into the Razzball Lounge, fantasy freaks. Here in the lounge we celebrated Razzball scribes like to kick back, relax, sketch Grey’s mustache, debate Yasiel Puig and lament our fantasy baseball failures over a couple of scotch and sodas as we prepare for some football drafting here. What do you mean it’s too early for scotch? It’s 11 in the morning, Guru. Well, get me a Pop-Tart with it. On this lazy Sunday in the lounge we find Sky in a dark corner trying to decide where to rank Bilal Powell, “Isn’t baseball season over yet? How many games do they play, like a 100?” Dropping his quarters into the jukebox is our resident bear or bull, JayWrong, “You guys should really pick up Jhoulys Chacin. Mind if I play Elvis Costello again?” *bottle smashes above head* Bellying up to the bar is our Podcast host and resident Canadian arguing with the bartender, “Whaddya mean you don’t have Labatts? How am I gonna wash down this pickled egg, eh?” Meanwhile, in the ladies room we find the one and only Tehol mid fondle with a handsome honey he’ll soon discover has an Adam’s apple, “Uh, guys? GUUYYSS?!” And here at the pool table is your humble and almost as manly Guru preparing a list of ballers that are going to deliver you a fantasy baseball championship. *closes eye, takes aim, sinks eight ball in corner pocket, downs scotch* What are we doing here again? Oh yeah, it’s time to jam it or cram it.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Greetings and good cheer, my fellow Razzballians (which sounds like a portmanteau of ‘Razzball Aliens’ but I swear it’s not; the status of your US green card is not knowledge we currently own. Note the word ‘currently’.) and welcome to the end of days. See how if you say it nicely how well it goes over? ‘Huzzah my good and lovely wife of 15 years, I’m here to divorce you!’. Try it, it might work out to where you don’t have to give up 50% of your Furby collection. Hrm, maybe I shouldn’t hand out life advice and stick to fantasy baseball…anywho, our season is winding down and it gets harder and harder to find a good bat on waivers. Trust me I know. If I hadn’t seen some hope for Michael Morse this week, you might’ve been hearing about Bogusevic here. We’re scraping the bottom of the barrel full of monkeys at this point and if you’ve ever cleaned one of those barrels out, you know what the bottom is full of. You haven’t and you don’t, you say? You don’t get the implication, you dully respond? I’m talking about fecal matter here, people, of the primate variety or ‘monkey poo’ if you need it in layman’s terms. By the end of the year, you’re trying to justify any and all pickups since most ownable players are already on teams and the rosters haven’t expanded for some September rookie upside plays yet. So without further ado, let’s discuss the monkey poo that that is Morse for 2013 Fantasy baseball…oops, my boss over at Razzball Football is telling me something via my bluetooth (hint: I am my own boss over there…so yeah, I’m basically talking to myself in this made up scenario). It seems that some of you do play Fantasy Football and for those that do, you can join a Razzball Commenter Leagues for football just like you did for baseball. There’s all the same things you’d expect to find on the baseball side. Good league mates, a grand prize, an image of Grey lying naked on a Polar Bearskin rug with a meerschaum pipe. So hop over there, create/join a league, then hop back over here to finish the story of my great Re-Morse…

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Back in May, I wrote a Courtney Hawkins fantasy. You can read it here. At that point in time, Hawkins was at High-A Winston Salem knocking homers at a good rate, but he was struggling to make contact, striking out more than 50% of the time he stepped to the plate. Near the end of the writeup, I said this: “The Sox must be thrilled with the huge power Hawkins is showing, but if the K’s continue at this rate, they’ll need to consider bumping him down the ladder to a level where he can more easily focus on approach and pitch recognition. There’s plenty of time for him to improve in that regard, and for fantasy baseball purposes, I truly hope he doesn’t go the way of the Donkey. Either way, though, he’s a fascinating dude to follow.” So here’s our Courtney Hawkins update, almost four months later: .182/.252/.407, 19 HR, 9 SB, 38% K-rate in 95 games at High-A. In other words, the whiffs continued, and the White Sox never demoted him. Hawkins is an extraordinary athlete with enormous upside, and I rarely am one to question a team’s development strategy, but it bothers me that the Sox have allowed their 19-year-old prized prospect to struggle so severely all season long. He won’t be ready for Double-A next spring, and I’m beginning to worry that this 1st rounder might never realize his potential.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Sean Connery enjoyed the landing of B-Weezy.

So it’s official. Just in time for your playoffs or late-season run for a title, Matt Cain has joined Jason Heyward and Rafael Betancourt, all recent casualties, on the DL. Even though the X-ray’s came back negative after Cain got hit by a line-drive on Thursday, Bruce Bochy said it was too soon to say whether or not he would make his next start. A mere seven hours later, which I guess was not too soon anymore, it was decided that Cain would not only miss his next start, but at least three. You’d figure with such a big head, Bochy would have a better grasp of time. And, you know, bullpen usage. Granted, this season wasn’t shaping up to be Cain’s finest and was pretty up-and-down (more down) in general. But his second-half ERA of 2.84 and improved walk rate were representing an expected regression. So the timing couldn’t be worse, especially since the Giants are not postseason bound and really have no reason to rush a recovery. Relevant. Here’s what else I noticed yesterday…

Please, blog, may I have some more?