As Sam Cooke said when looking at John Axford on my fantasy teams, “Change is gonna come.” Thanks, Sam. Sam also said the same thing after I gave a waiter twenty dollars on a $12 bill. Speaking of paper money, is it me or do people pull out a five dollar bill and also wonder to themselves, “Hey, when did they put Daniel Day Lewis on money?” The Brewers said we need to look at the closing situation with Axford. HAHAHAHAHA *breathe, Grey, breathe* HAHAHAHAHA *inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale* Oh, man, that it is rich. They need to look at it?! Really?! That’s like saying there’s a goiter the size of a cantaloupe growing out of your head and you might want to get it checked out. Hey, you got a goiter growing out of your bullpen, Brewers! Check on it! Obviously, you need to grab The Muppeteer, Jim Henderson. I’d hold Axford for now (on my bench), but he could be out of the mix for saves for a while if he can’t his shizz together when he enters games in the 7th and 8th inning. 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 Mon 8/11
ARI | ATH | BOS | CHW | CIN | COL | DET | HOU | KC | LAA | LAD | MIL | MIN | NYY | PHI | PIT | SD | SF | STL | TB | TEX | WSH | ATL | BAL | CHC | CLE | MIA | NYM | OAK | SEA | TOR

Razzball Nation!

The pitcher profiles are back for 2013.  Every Monday I will be breaking down a starting pitcher’s performance pitch-by-pitch so you can see an in-depth review of their velocity and how much luck factored into their numbers.

Jose Fernandez, the Miami Marlins 1st-round pick in 2011, had an unreal ascent through the Minors up until Spring Training a few months back, and in a surprise move a few days before Opening Day, decided to put the big righty in the rotation to start the season.  Similar comparison could be made to Michael Pineda when he came up with the Mariners in 2011.  A big, hard-thrower beginning in the Majors in the Opening Day rotation perhaps too early in their careers.  Just look at what happened to Pineda’s shoulder.  Hopefully Fernandez can avoid similar fate.

Listen, I know these can sometimes be a little drier than Grey’s mustache on a Caribbean beach.  But they offer a different perspective on a pitcher’s outing other than looking at only stats.  I will tend to pick young pitchers or fringe-owned starters, but if you have any suggestions of a pitcher you’d like broken down, pick a guy starting over next weekend and shoot that comment below.

Here’s how Fernandez looked:

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Kids these days, you all have it so good. All your video games have the most primo controllers. I went and googled Joystick just to find out how much these things have changed over time and what I saw shocked me. Well, that was partially my fault seeing as I went to google images and had the filter off. Note to self: never look up ‘grab my joystick’ ever again. But I digress, the controllers for these new systems are amazing. The Wii-mote? The coolest. The Playstation one? Stellar. When I had video games at your age – and yes I’m going to pretend you’re all way younger than me and spoiled so just play along – all I got was two buttons, Rob The Robot and a power glove. A FREAKIN POWER GLOVE, PEOPLE. But of course, you just got what the industry calls filler cuz that’s what this industry is full of. There’s no way I can write 500 plus words about Matt Joyce unless I started talking about his family heritage or his love for deep sea fishing. Did you really wanna hear about that? Didn’t think so. Of course, you didn’t wanna hear about joy sticks either but this Joyce stick should probably be in your lineup for week two of 2013 fantasy baseball. Don’t believe me? Well then read on!

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This morning’s rant is for all the owners who took it up the ace on Sunday. It’s one thing when your ace is pitching @TEX or @COL but home against Cleveland where David Price gave up 8 ER and 13 baserunners in 5 IP? Ouch. Home against an Ortiz-less Boston offense (RA Dickey – 4.2 IP, 7 ER, 12 baserunners – the first 5 runs coming before an out was recorded)? Damn. Home against the Kansas City Royals (Cole Hamels – 5.2 IP, 8 ER 13 baserunners)? Oof! Home against a Holliday-less Cardinal team at one of the pitching-friendliest parks in baseball (Matt Cain – 3.2IP, 9 ER, 9 baserunners)? C’mon, that’s just cruel! For those of you in H2H leagues, consider yourselves lucky. At least these starts are expunged from the record. As for Roto players who own these guys, not much you could do now except turn down the perfunctory ‘buy low’ trade offers. Price, Hamels and Cain all have great track records so you have to assume these games were anomalies. Dickey….who the hell knows? Knuckleballs are like snowflakes – I don’t really understand either of them. Why wouldn’t snow fall in balls or, at the very least, in a uniform shape? (Rhetorical – please don’t explain this phenomenon). On to the other events of the weekend….

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Each week I’ll be looking at some favorable match-ups to help you grab a few extra steals for your fantasy team. Whether you are in a weekly or daily league, looking at weak defensive catchers and strong/aggressive base running teams may help you make decisions as to which players you should start or sit in your hunt for an edge in the stolen base category. Since the 2013 season is only a week old, I’ll use some data from 2012 to get started and give you an idea of what we will be looking for. Just realize that these are only two dimensions that can affect stolen base totals.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

A year ago, Nolan Arenado was entering the 2012 season with loads of hype. Minor League production expectations were enormous, and most folks around baseball were already penciling the young 3B into the Rockies’ mid-season lineup. But a slow start at Double-A and a concerning lack of over-the-wall power quickly put an end to those 2012 Arenado arrival fantasies. The 21-year-old watched his prospect stock slip this off-season, dropping out of the top 50 on prospect lists from almost every publication. Fast forward to 2013: Arenado put together a terrific spring in big league camp, blasting four homers and posting a .852 OPS in 52 PA. And after reassignment to Triple-A Colorado Springs, he hasn’t slowed down whatsoever, going 7/14 through his first two games, including two long balls. Chris Nelson is not a long-term option for the Rockies at third, and Arenado finally appears to be ready to step into Coors field and entrench himself at the hot corner. He’ll be fantasy-relevant once he’s up, and I imagine that’ll be no later than mid-June.

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Welcome to the first official Deep Impact for this 2013 season. We went over some Overvalued and Undervalued choices to help with your off season tasks. Now that the year has begun, one could ask what our goal will be as this series moves forward. Well, foremost, this series exists to do the chit and do the chat with all things Deep League. That should have been obvious, or my title needs to be changed. But I don’t want to change it, I want to live in a world where Morgan Freeman is the President. And Leelee Sobieski is actually eating. And, well, Frodo is still Frodo, except instead of a ring, he’s keeping his chick safe from the tsunami horde and hopefully any type of sandwich shortage.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

We have almost a week of baseball in the books and Yu Darvish‘s Marvishlous 14 K 1-hitter and Chris Davis‘ power surge have been early standouts. Don’t own either? That’s a shame. Feel like quitting? Not yet, Razzball Nation, I am here to help. You may remember me, Dan, or my alter ego Blairtch, from such fantasy Friday roundups as Mike Trout Saved My Season, But Jewel Saved My Soul and Harper: Better, Faster, Stronger, and my popular online fantasy advice guide, Quit Losing Already, You Loser! I will be recapping Friday nights in fantasy baseball, providing plenty of references to The Cure and fantasy advice so Grey can use his weekends to take care of business, i.e. drink all those daiquiris you’ve been buying him and continue travelling across America interviewing players and managers, scouting top prospects, and attending round table discussions featuring only the most prestigious faculty, alumni and council members at the Fantasy Baseball College of Charleston. So do not worry, I’ll be here throughout the season to cover Friday’s full slate of games for the loyal weekend warriors. There are lots of players to cover this week so let’s get right to it.

Here’s what happened Friday night in fantasy baseball [*Opening Week Edition*]:

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Weekly leaguers, Two-Startapalooza is back with a fresh lineup for week two. It’s a weekly feature, so obviously it’s back. I’ll try to come up with more clever ledes in future weeks, but I’m a little busy right now prepping my photog equipment for Tehol’s Playgirl shoot. Speaking of Tehol, he’s gonna be posting on points leagues this season, and I know many of you two-start hoarders are points league participants, so be sure to read his stuff. Anyway, here’s a look at the two-start landscape for week two.

As always, probable pitchers are subject to change. And for a look at all fantasy baseball streamers, click that link. The Steam-o-Nator goes live April 8th.

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Last year, the Buy/Sell brought you such brilliant ideas as “Eric Thames is gonna be a river running through your heart!” and “Brennan Boesch is more like Brennan Bauce.” Buy/Sell, “You know, I don’t point all of your crappy suggestions… A.J. Mass was talking about buying me an acre of land in Kentucky and letting me run around with all of his stolen base draft picks. I may take him up on the offer if you’re not careful.” So, this is the first Buy/Sell of the season. Every Friday there will be a new one. Buy/Sell, “Not if we continue to get along like this. Try me, ‘stache. Try me.” This week’s lede pick is a new fave of mine who might not be worth owning by the end of April in mixed leagues, Jose Fernandez. Here’s an overall note, in this fantasy baseball game that has chosen us, we want to take the risk right now in case someone breaks out. It would be great if we all drafted a team that we can coast to a championship with, but if that’s true, your league isn’t competitive. In any league worth its salt, you need to pepper in some risk. Tuck your head down and go head long into the risk tornado. Fantasy baseballers on the storm, Fantasy baseballers on the storm…Into this blog we are born… Fantasy baseballers on the storm! I’m not saying drop Wainwright after one bad start, but having guys like Jose Fernandez at the end of your staff is much better than guys like Maholm (assuming every one of your other starters isn’t a risky upside gamble). You want guys at the end of your rotation that can do so much more than a 5th or 6th starter, rather than a 5th or 6th starter that is essentially a 5th or 6th starter. As for Fernandez, here’s what I said the other day, “First thing I do when I have a prospect question is search the site to see what Scott, our prospect writer, said. What I found, was a whole Jose Fernandez fantasy. He didn’t stop there, he also talked about him in the Marlins prospect preview post in October. There he said, “Fernandez broke out in 2012, posting a 1.75 ERA, a 0.93 WHIP, and a 10.6 K/9 between Low-A and High-A. The 20-year-old has legitimate ace-potential, and should find himself in the top-15 on most prospect lists this offseason. Now, if I were making a top-15 list of Well-Groomed Mustaches, Grey wouldn’t make it. When I blow up his picture 1000% in my laboratory, I can see cheese microbes.” Wow, Scott has a laboratory? That’s awesome! So, the Marlins are an interesting beast. They sell off all of their pieces, but they promote within quickly. After watching that Showtime series last year about the Marlins. I’m 50/50 on whether they even know about the arbitration clock. Within their minor league system, they’re run like, “We gotta make it to the playoffs this year!” From the major league level, they’re run like, “Let’s make sure we ship in our concession stands’ Cracker Jack from Chile because it’s four-hundredths of a cent cheaper. They pop their corn in yak oil.” I’d absolutely grab Jose Fernandez in all leagues. He has the chance to be lights out and could go 160 innings. He has the stuff that could make him a top ten starter in all of baseball within a year. For this year, I’ll give him the line of: 7-8/3.74/1.31/120 in 130 innings. Absolutely can be better. And worse. That’s the rookie nookie blessing and curse.” And that’s me quoting me! A lot of people commented about his lack of experience. He hasn’t thrown above High-A. Or as he calls it now, Bye-A. That shouldn’t matter. His stuff will play anywhere. He hits mid-90’s with a plus change and curve. Does it matter that a guy is 20 years old or 30 years old with his stuff? Chances are a pitcher is more likely to have that stuff at 20 with less miles on his arm. Fernandez will need to be lucky to win 10 games this year, but he could get a shizzload of Ks and have decent ratios. If he flames out, then you drop him for the next hot starter. Anyway, here’s some more players to buy or sell this week in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Greetings all! Tis I, Tehol Beddict, ready and willing to service you in any way you desire, though the main goal here is to help you with fantasy baseball. I am a man who has worn many a hat. You may know me as the fantasy football guru who dominated the Razzball writers league, or as the fantasy basketball writer who was almost gang raped by she males in Bora Bora, or possibly even seen my man-kini photo spreads in countless magazines and websites throughout the years. It is a pleasure to serve you and it’s a privilege to write for the greatest fantasy sports website known to man. Let’s jump into the post as I’m going in and out of consciousness due to the fact I’ve been starving myself in preparing for an audition at Playgirl.

Please, blog, may I have some more?