Sky

2013 Indians Fantasy Baseball Preview

March 23, 2013 | Fantasy Baseball Team Previews | 77 Comments

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We at Razzball realize that exporting our views across the country has damaging consequences on the blogosphere. To help make amends, we are reaching out to leading team blogs and featuring their locally blogged answers to pressing 2013 fantasy baseball questions regarding their team. We feel this approach will be fresher, more sustainable, and require less energy consumption (for us anyway). The 2013 Indians Fantasy Baseball Preview comes courtesy Lewie Pollis from Wahoos On First.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

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See all of today’s starting lineups

# MLB Starting Lineups For Sat 8/16
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
Tom Jacks

Handicapping Injured Players

March 23, 2013 | 2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft, OPS Leagues | 100 Comments

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Hold on, Alabama Shakes. This title isn’t meant for you to run out and take a crowbar to an injured player’s knee. Instead, I’m handicapping injured players in terms of their value. In a way, this is an expansion upon an article I wrote about how Corey Hart compares to Allen Craig. I’ve heard people argue that you can’t predict injuries, so you should draft players with confidence who, though they have an extensive injury history, are currently healthy. To me, it doesn’t make sense to make that assumption, as if injuries have no lingering aftereffect or increase in chance of future injury. Just because we don’t know the full extent of something doesn’t mean we should ignore it. So, it’s worth building this potential risk into the price you pay or the round you draft that player. It is the same approach that you can use to value players who are currently injured. Does this sound controversial? Perfect, that means you’ve followed me so far. I’m going to use this approach to evaluate a few players. The goal of this post is to reduce the uncertainty of how injuries affect a player’s value, particularly in OPS leagues. Anyway, here’s how I value some of these players:

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Mike

Bouncing Back: Relievers

March 22, 2013 | 2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft | 12 Comments

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Trying to find reliable relievers, especially closers, is like trying to catch squirrels with a hula hoop. Nobody wants to overpay or worse yet end up with a dud who kills your ratios and is always in danger of losing the gig. I’ll be rooting around on the waiver wire or in the final rounds of the draft this year for my saves so I’m not going to be the one to tell you to draft closers early or even at all. This is more about identifying three relievers who will be undervalued this year due to an injury or poor performance in 2012, but who will help fantasy teams either in saves, solid ratios, or strikeout numbers. We’ll start out with a no-brainer and work our way down to a sleeper.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Grey

MLB Has Major Beef With RB’s PED Use

March 22, 2013 | 2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft, Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 602 Comments

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Here’s a scenario: You are the burger flipper manager at your local burger flipping place. Someone comes to you and says Ryan Braun, your best burger flipping employee, is injecting his meat with HGH. That’s why they’re tasting so good, yells one of your other employees. You don’t want to believe Ryan is doing this. His burgers are soooooooo delicious. All of your customers love them. Kowtowing to your other employees and the media, you decide to taste test his burgers. Sadly, they do taste test positive for HGH. You have no solution other than to suspend him. This is gonna hurt business. When, by sheer luck, it turns out your taste testers sampled his burgers after they were delivered to their house from FedEx and the soooooooo delicious burger wasn’t tasted in the restaurant. Ryan’s attorneys rejoice. Ryan says, “I told you my burgers were clean” and you shrug. You’re just glad your best burger flipper can keep making you those soooooooo delicious burgers. Then…THEN someone comes along and says they found a note scribbled in the dumpster that says Ryan is ordering HGH to inject into his soooooooo delicious burgers. You look at that note and say, “Okay, we’ll keep an eye on things,” and go back to serving those soooooooo delicious burgers that everyone likes. Well, damn me and my deliciously Horsey sauce argument about chain of custody and Biogenesis as a ‘consultant.’ There’s no way Ryan Braun is being suspended for this Biogenesis nonsense. It’s ridiculous. Can we move on? Anyway, here’s what else I saw in spring training for 2013 fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Jay

Under The Greydar: You’ll Ryu The Day You Crossed Me!

March 21, 2013 | 2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft | 97 Comments

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I volunteered for this assignment, which if you knew me, would be considered a very extraordinary event. Just to give you some context, I find it difficult to volunteer out of bed. But I feel, scratch that, I know I have a compelling reason to write of our subject and I would like to share that reason with you, the readers. That reason is because… I am half-Korean. Dun-Dun-DUN!

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Sky

2013 Pirates Fantasy Baseball Preview

March 21, 2013 | Fantasy Baseball Team Previews | 39 Comments

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We at Razzball realize that exporting our views across the country has damaging consequences on the blogosphere. To help make amends, we are reaching out to leading team blogs and featuring their locally blogged answers to pressing 2013 fantasy baseball questions regarding their team. We feel this approach will be fresher, more sustainable, and require less energy consumption (for us anyway). The 2013 Pirates Fantasy Baseball Preview comes courtesy Pat Lackey from Where Have You Gone Andy Van Slyke.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Grey

It’s Been A Bad Week For Adverb Thumbs

March 21, 2013 | 2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft, Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 450 Comments

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The title of this post was nearly, “F*ck Luis Cruz.” If that guy gets in the way of my last round draft pick of Dee Gordon, I’m gonna be none too happy! Or is that “I’m gonna be some unhappy?” While Hanley Ramirez is out with a thumb injury, I want Dee Gordon to play for a month and for the Dodgers to say they won’t play Luis Cruz. I homophoned you! If anyone out there drafted Hanley already, I want to see your faces. Push them against your computer monitors or your handheld mobile devices. You are traitors to Razzball. I said specifically — or pacifically if you’re on a boat off the coast of California — not to draft Hanley. Word for word, “I’m done with Hanley until we see a return to his previous glory.” I didn’t even bury the lede. That’s the first freakin’ sentence of my Hanley blurb on the top 20 shortstops for 2013 fantasy baseball. I hope Hanley’s out for 3 months, returns to hit 7 homers with 12 steals and someone drafts him in the 3rd round of 2014, too. Know why? Because no matter how many times I tell people to ignore position scarcity, they don’t listen. You need to jam a cotton swab in your noggin like Lena Dunham and clean out your wax. (BTW, season two of Girls — meandering, pointless, adjective. Biggest drop in quality from season one to season two for a TV show since Heroes.) The Dodgers are saying Hanley could be out anywhere from two weeks to ten weeks. If you drafted him, you don’t read this so I’m talking to all the people who didn’t draft him. Send an email to the Hanley drafters. Subject: Trade Offer. Body of email: Any interest in trading for Yunel Escobar? I’ll take Paul Goldschmidt. Click send. Now unfriend them on Facebook. Done. Anyway, here’s what else I saw in Spring Training for 2013 fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Scott Evans

2013 Minor League Preview: Kansas City Royals

March 20, 2013 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 44 Comments

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Organizational Talent Rankings via Baseball America
2012 (3) | 2011 (1) | 2010 (16) | 2009 (11) | 2008 (24)

2012 Affiliate Records
MLB: [72-90] AL Central
AAA: [83-61] Pacific Coast League – Omaha
AA: [58-81] Texas League – Northwest Arkansas
A+: [66-74] Carolina League – Wilmington
A: [68-72] Midwest League – Kane County (SAL Lexington beginning 2013)

Graduated Prospects
Will Smith (LHP); Kelvin Herrera (RHP); Everett Teaford (LHP)

The Run Down
The Royals traded away a decent chunk of their upper-levels talent in the James Shields deal with the Rays. Wil Myers, Jake Odorizzi, and Mike Montgomery are all gone, and what’s left is a very young system. It also happens to be a very good system. But with youth comes risk. There’s as much upside here as there is in any other organization — numbers 1-10 below are all capable of bringing significant value to fantasy owners — and there are some college arms that should move quickly. But for the most part, this farm system is unproven. Unless Yordano Ventura is converted to relief, I don’t see much fantasy value pushing through until 2014. Even so, this group will be a lot of fun to watch in the upcoming season.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Sky

2013 Phillies Fantasy Baseball Preview

March 20, 2013 | Fantasy Baseball Team Previews | 46 Comments

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We at Razzball realize that exporting our views across the country has damaging consequences on the blogosphere. To help make amends, we are reaching out to leading team blogs and featuring their locally blogged answers to pressing 2013 fantasy baseball questions regarding their team. We feel this approach will be fresher, more sustainable, and require less energy consumption (for us anyway). The 2013 Phillies Fantasy Baseball Preview comes courtesy of Elizabeth Roscher from The Good Phight.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Grey

Starters To Target, 2013 Fantasy Baseball

March 20, 2013 | 2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft | 444 Comments

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Something that may help you is my pitchers pairing post. Something else that may help you is APPLES. Something else that might help you, our Fantasy Baseball War Room. Something else that may also help you is mocking A-Rod. One note before we get to the lede’s lead-in, ESPN doesn’t look they rank any starters. I have no idea where a bunch of these guys are on their list, I’m assuming they are after 300. If you know where they’re ranked, you’re smarter than me. Pat yourself on the back, you’re in the top eighty-six percentile. So, these starters are all being drafted after 200 overall. Now, this is a (legal-in-all-countries-except-Trinidad-and-Tobago) supplement to the top 100 starters for 2013 fantasy baseball. Click on the player’s name where applicable to read more and see their 2013 projections. Also, I’ve gone over all positions for sleepers; to see them all 2013 fantasy baseball sleepers. Anyway, here’s some starters to target for 2013 fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Grey

The Razzball Podcast — The One Where I Reveal My Connection To Madeleine Albright

March 19, 2013 | All Podcasts | 280 Comments

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My grandfather, who is 86 years old, Skypes with me all the time. He’ll Skype with me when he’s eating some braciola that he got from the deli down the street. Sometimes he’ll Skype with me when he’s not wearing a shirt, and simply calling me to ask how ‘his pecs’ look because he’s about to Skype with one of his five girlfriends. Sometimes he Skypes me by accident when he’s trying to call Google (that’s what he does rather than search). I tell you this so when I say we still weren’t able to get the podcast going with Rudy and I together on the same call, you know we’re not coming to you from the 1950’s before such things as ‘conference call.’ We are all living in the present day. To be honest, I have to say this whole Daylight Savings Time thing is still affecting us. “So, I call in at 10:30 AM? Is that Eastern? Pacific? Central? Eastern pre-Daylight Savings? Post-Daylight Savings?” Do you see how many different possibilities there are? No wonder Bobby Fischer went mad. Who can keep track of all of these things? Rudy tried to call in after me, but Nick closed up shop, so it’s just me today. Well, me, Smokey and Jaywrong. They called in before me — separately, so I have no idea what they said because WE CAN’T FIGURE OUT CONFERENCE CALL?! I talked about some of my ancestry and Madeleine Albright, then we talked fantasy baseball. I’m assuming the other people on the podcast also talked fantasy baseball too. I’m merely assuming. Nick and I specifically go over my Justin Upton, Edwin Encarnacion and Ian Kinsler rankings. We talk briefly about the Fantasy Baseball War Room. I also handicap the Razzball Writers’ League and the Razzball Champions RCL. Maybe next week we can figure out a call-in number and an exact time. We shall see. Or not. Your choice. Anyway, here’s the Razzball podcast (still in 3 separate parts):

Please, blog, may I have some more?