Said like Denzel from Training Day, “Chutes and Ladders ain’t got nothing on us!” Nick decided to pore over stats like he pores over pornography and come up with this really neat — his word — game called, Fact or Fiction. Here’s how it works: he says some random stat for some random player than another random stat for another random player to prove how great or poor one of the players has been doing. Example: Chris Stewart has more steals than Jason Heyward. Fact or Fiction? It’s a lot easier to play if you can just Google the answer. Yes, I see you Googling. Stop Googling! By the way, does anyone use Bing? Do you call it Binging? Bing’ing? Chuck Berry messing with my Bing-a-ling? Cool story, brah. Nick does this game with Rudy and I, separately. I’m going to see if we can get all three of us on the same podcast maybe one more time this year. That’s if Rudy will lift his court order. My favorite part of Fact or Fiction is you can hear Rudy and I thinking. My thinking sounds like this, “Um…” Rudy’s thinking sounds like this, “Hmmm…” Maybe one day someone will remix our thoughts all proper — I’m hinting in your direction David Guetta, if you’re a reader. Of course you are. We’re hip, I know. Anyway, here’s the Razzball Podcast (now with truths and un-truths):
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Mauledbypandas closed to within 4-tenths of a point, but A Hill O’ Beans held on to the lead for the second straight week. With six weeks to go, there are 16 teams within 7 points of My Mustache Has A Mustache.
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?Finally, the Red Sox promoted Nomah’s heir apparent — Zandah Bogats! Johnny Pesky and Ted Williams’s frozen head said, “Allaka Xander!” and poof a direct descendant of Cahl Yahstremski, Nomah and former top prospect, Harvey Jod, who died tragically in a parking lot incident, appeared. Drafting a hard A-voweled hitter makes as much sense for the Sox as drafting soft O’s for the Twins: Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau; they still must rue the day they lost out on Joe Charboneau. But, you know, you can’t spell Xander Bogaerts without Red Sox, and he’s got bat and range, to boot. So, here’s looking at you, Bogaerts! Went there, wrote that — Xander Bogaerts fantasy, that is. Now Xander’s here to Bogaert the Red Sox shortstop job. There’s a chance he simply platoons this year. If he’s only used against lefties, his value will be severely diminished in redraft leagues. My guess is he’ll play shortstop vs. lefties, and play some third base vs. righties with Middlebrooks grabbing pine occasionally. Obviously, it wasn’t a great sign last night that he was benched vs. a righty, but it was just one game. I’d grab him in all leagues because his bat is that good. Think of a Puig-type splash at shortstop. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?You know, picking your fantasy baseball pitchers is surprisingly a lot like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. At the beginning, you want the old reliable guys – you know – the ones that can barely walk. Looking at you R.A. Dickey. You’ve got all this potential for an Oscar-winner/fantasy title. But as the movie and baseball season progresses, you want younger and younger guys with the upside of their ML debuts and big K potential against hitters who have never seen them before. Then after a longgggg middle half (and the dog days of summer in the baseball season), you’re in the final act and you’re ready to throw out there any 20-something-year-old just for the hell of it (just ask Kathy Griffin about that). Or you’ve walked out of the movie because you’re just not into it.
As you well know, Pitcher Profiles usually select a pitcher from Sunday, but with overwhelming questions and requests for a profiling of Danny Salazar, I felt overwhelmed to buck the trend.
Please, blog, may I have some more?It’s that time of year. With just a couple of weeks until rosters expand in September, it’s time for players in re-draft leagues to start considering prospect call-ups. Billy Hamilton is by far the best bet for a steals impact in the final month of the season. Entering the weekend, he had 70 stolen bases in just 110 games. Check out what Razzball’s prospect whisperer Scott Evans had to say about him recently: “Need to make a late push in steals before year’s end? Billy Hamilton will soon help in that regard, and he won’t need regular plate appearances to do so.” And Evans knows his shizz. Billy Hamilton is fast. He could enter games as a pinch runner on first base and be on third base before you swallow that sip of stadium suds. In addition to holding the MiLB steals record and posting sick times from base to base, Hamilton chugs through Mountain Dews like Dusty Baker chews through toothpicks. He’s one of the players I’m most excited about watching if he gets the call this September. The fly in the ointment continues to be the Reds’ reluctance to place him on the 40-man roster. As of Friday they were still undecided, and that’s important information to keep an eye on. To be honest, the Reds would be foolish not to use him as a weapon, but I’m not running any major league teams last time I checked. As we’ve done all year long, let’s look at who is out there and ready to contribute now in the steals category:
Please, blog, may I have some more?You don’t have to only listen to Brewers games on the radio to be excited about Khris Davis. You also don’t have to only be excited about owning him for the possibility of verbally swindling another owner. “No, you verbally agreed to trade me Kershaw for Khris Davis. I don’t care if you thought it was that other guy. Besides, this Khris Davis has more homers very, very recently.” Same name chicanery is as old as the Bible. In 25 AD, a guy by the name of Jesus Krist showed up drunk to his job, soaking wet, and got a bye when he said he was practicing walking on water. Many years later, the Roman empire invaded Britain because of a prank call by Klaudius Seesir. For three years, Tori Spelling thought she married the guy from The Practice, only recently finding out it wasn’t Dylan McDermott but Dean McDermott, so you see this is nothing new. Neither is Khris Davis’s power. In the minors, he averaged a homer just about every fifth game, a practice he’s maintaining in the majors (makes him around a 30-homer guy). He now has four homers in the last nine games, and, while he’s hitting, I’d absolutely grab him for power in all leagues. Don’t let his name stop you. Yes, Chris with a K looks like a girl’s name, but it’s not his fault his parents let Roger Clemens name him. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?So, how’s your season? *connects hose to tailpipe* That good, huh? Well, the end is near my depressed Razzballin’ droogs. Some of us are prepared for the sprint to the finish and others are drinking too much Colt 45, screaming “Ike Davis” at confused strangers and assembling Fantasy Football draft boards in their tighty whities and Ken Stabler throwbacks. Speaking of which, everyone say hello to Sky. He’s our Fantasy Football Czar and would like to meet your acquaintance here. If you’ve enjoyed our weekly jammer crammer sessions, once we wrap up this here baseball season in a pretty little bow, your humble Guru will continue jamming and cramming on Fantasy Football Island. So join a RCL League now. As for our fake baseball teams, how did you do? Taking a look at The Guru’s collection of teams, I’d have to say it’s been a satisfying season. Currently I’m staring at 10 firsts, 5 seconds and a third. 16 teams? Yes, I admit I do have a problem with moderation. Excuse me while I pour another scotch. Good morning. The areas that have been problematic for me this year have been steals and saves. SAGNOF! Injuries to Jason Motte and Joel Hanrahan certainly didn’t help and had me scrambling to the waiver wire early and often for the likes of Koji Uehara and Rex Brothers. When it comes to steals, the early injury to Jose Reyes and now the suspension of Everth Cabrera put me in the SAGNOF hole. Ouch! Stay away from my SAGNOF hole, it’s an exit not an entrance. As we enter the final three weeks of the regular season, here’s hoping your season has been a success and all the credit can be heaped upon your motley crew of Razzballin’ scribes. If you are out of it, damn the fantasy gods, troll Tehol on Twitter and let me pour you a tumbler of Islay. Enjoy and leave a comment below on the state of your season. It’s time to jam it or cram it – SAGNOF! Part II: Red, White and Screwed.
Please, blog, may I have some more?And just like Lazarus, I’ve come back from the dead. Well not really from death. I was just on vacation but after being gone this long I’m sure you’re all saying ‘you’re dead to me’ upon reading this. I know, it was one of the worst times of the year to leave you. You’re pushing for the playoffs in head to head leagues or trying to wiggle up your standings at the final turn of the season. I left you cold, naked and afraid like that one time the boyfriend came in and you were bumping uglies with his girl and you had to hide in the stand up freezer. I understand no apology will erase this frost-bitten memory for you but hopefully my player of choice this week can put me back into your good graces. To be fair, JB and I and the rest of the Razzball Football crew have been pretty busy trying to get Commissioners for the 2013 Fantasy Football season in our Razzball Commenter Leagues so it’s not like we haven’t still been working hard for you, we just changed the shape of the ball. But with that, I come to you for this fine week 21 with a power crazed man with a sweet home ballpark. So let me give unto you Darin Ruf for week 21 of the 2013 Fantasy Baseball season…
Please, blog, may I have some more?For the past few seasons, Jose Abreu has been regarded as Cuba’s best offensive talent. The 26-year-old slugger has spent the past decade playing pro ball in Cuba where he routinely was at the top of the league in AVG, OBP, SLG, RBI, and HR. Well, it now seems he’s played his last game in Cuba, as reports earlier this week explain that he has left his homeland and has begun the process of becoming a MLB free agent. At 6-3, 250, Abreu is a large man with next to zero defensive appeal. He’s a 1B/DH type, so he’d fit best with an AL club, but scouting reports suggest he has enough glove to get by at first, so don’t rule out the NL entirely. Wherever he signs, it’s gonna be for big money and an immediate big league opportunity. Abreu is an MLB-ready masher, and at age 26, there’ll be no reason to start him in the minors. If all goes as planned, he should be occupying a regular MLB role by Opening Day 2014. There’s upside here in the neighborhood of .300 AVG and 30+ HR. It’ll be interesting to see how early he’s off the board in mixed league drafts next spring.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Rod Stewart knows how to pick venues. Masterful choice.
Hey now, somebody likes someone, or so says Marc Topkin, who, by-the-way, sounds like a X-Wing pilot. He has reported that there is mutual interest between Delmon Young and the Tampa Bay Rays. Ooo-la-la. They should get a room to rekindle the fire that once burned. Hopefully not in Tampa, because I’ve been there. It has bridges and old people. That’s… about… it. However, there are two things that I can say about this that are rock solid facts. First, Delmon Young is most certainly hanging out on your waiver wire. Maybe throwing bats at people. As pictured above, hopefully one of those people is Luke Scott. And second, he’s supposedly heading back to a team that utilizes match-ups correctly, and, most certainly, would utilize him correctly. Like if there’s a bat throwing contest. Now, forget everything you know about Young. I mean, don’t forget *that* much. He’s still kinda stinky, in, you know, a hobo sort-of-way. And if you’re wondering, there’s really no downside here, since hobo’s don’t own computers. I think. But if you’re actually wondering about why I’m talking about Delmon Young, it’s not because he’s hit .266/.300/.402 since 2011 and .261/.302/.397 so far this year. It’s because he’s hit .286/.361/.397 against lefties in 80 games. Which brings me back to the second point. Tampa Bay will play the match-ups here, and perhaps you should too. Who knows, he could get on fire, do some damage, and help your team for the stretch run. Or, you know, throw bats at people. Here’s what else I noticed yesterday…
Please, blog, may I have some more?Did you guys see that Clint Eastwood movie, “Trouble with the Curve”? No? Yeah, me neither. It got a 52% on RottenTomatoes.com, which is pretty awful, so I think it’s safe to assume we didn’t miss much. Anyway, I’m thinking the whole flick would’ve gone over better if it had just looped this clip from the Little League World Series over and over again:
Bhahahahahah. I laugh, but I’m sure my effort wouldn’t have been much better. Your two-starters are below.
As always, probable pitchers are subject to change. For a look at all fantasy baseball streamers, click that link.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Hey, how are you doing? Good/Bad? That’s good/bad. This is a beautiful/ugly morning/afternoon/night we’re having! What great/lousy weather. I love/hate this time of year! It’s like the beginning/middle/end of everything we love/hate. I remember when we went to (fill-in anecdote) and you said (search old emails for something they said). You are so smart/dumb about those things! I enjoy/hate your insight. Let’s please/never talk again. Oops! I meant to paste in my generic buy on Brandon Belt that I do every year and instead you got my generic break-up/let’s have sex email. Every year around this time, Brandon Belt ignites the furries in my nether regions and I go and tell you to pick him up. Here’s an idea, maybe he’s just a 2nd half hitter! I don’t know, and it’s not really pertinent right now. What is important is how he’s hitting. Since the All-Star break, he’s hitting .324 with five homers with all five of those homers coming in August, four coming in the last week. I don’t know where I’m gonna fall on Belt next year. Right now, he looks like a solid sleeper, but he looks like that every August. None of that matters, grab him now if you’re struggling at your corner infidel slot. He’s bound to do well/poorly! Hey, I found my generic Belt buy post! Anyway, here’s some more players to buy or sell this week in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?