There is a stupid premium on Jered Weaver. Stupid as in dumb. Not stupid as in, “Yo, Grey your feathered hair is stupid fresh! Farrah Fawcett is prolly jealous in heaven. Flap your wings, Greyseph Hawkins, you are my angel on earth. I love you.” In the top 20 starters for 2013 fantasy baseball, I went over some of this so if you’ve been there, read that, skip ahead until the sentence starting, “Your claim to fame…” Last year, Weaver’s K-rate bottomed out to its lowest since his rookie year with a 6.77 K/9. That ranks 58th for starters. He’s between Masterson, Kuroda, Ervin Santana, Paul Maholm. That’s eeny meeny miny no. To go further with one of the guys there, Kuroda’s K-rate was 6.84, his walk rate was 2.09 and his xFIP was 3.67. Weaver’s walk rate and xFIP were 2.15 and 4.18. Oh, and Kuroda’s fastball velocity sits around 92. Weaver’s is at 88. If you were just looking at those numbers with no names attached, you’d concur Kuroda is headed for a better season in 2013 than Weaver. You, sir, are a darn fine concurrer. Speaking of Weaver’s fastball, he had the 8th worst velocity in the majors. Your grandmother could throw faster. Granted, your grandmother was a receptionist at the Miami-based Biogenesis of America clinic, but still. For xFIP, Weaver was the 27th worst in the majors between Volquez, Arroyo, Buehrle and Nolasco. Those guys couldn’t get into the Who’s Who Among American Baseball Players with $39.95 and a B+ GPA. So why is Jered Weaver overrated for 2013 fantasy baseball?
Please, blog, may I have some more?I don’t have enough spam, give me the Razzball email newsletter!
Weekly Razzball news delivered straight to your inbox.
Liner notes from the Razzball fantasy baseball meeting:
Grey: Hey Sky, you should do a piece on Chris Johnson.
Sky: Chris Johnson? Tennessee Titans? Football season’s over, why exactly would I do that?
Grey: You goof-tard, I’m talking about the Braves’ Chris Johnson.
Sky: The only Chris Johnson I’m familiar with from baseball plays for the Houston Astros.
Grey: You’ve gotta be kidding me…dude, just go back to your fantasy football hidey-hole!
Please, blog, may I have some more?After an excellent response last week, we now have 623 teams. This will be my 3rd season keeping track of things in the RCL. In 2011 there were 38 leagues; the number jumped 26% last year to 48, and I expect a similar growth this year once the March rush hits. So, of course, we need more commissioners. Thanks to Sea Pilot for opening a league last night. That draft is set for a Thursday evening. That gives us 9 new slots to fill, plus 4 more in a new keeper league which will not be eligible to be in the RCL after the 2013 season. Dave also signed up, with a Saturday morning draft, but did not provide a working link yet. It should be fixed tonight. Please head over to the RCL Registration post to see how you can become a commissioner, or just add a team to one of the leagues. (For a step-by-step guide to creating a new league, see this post in the fantasy baseball forums.)
Please, blog, may I have some more?Though, I would like to read a post about Siamese Twins Dance Strategy. “Xiu, could you stop salsa’ing when I’m friggin’ tango’ing! My effin’ coconut is about to rupture!” Oh, and you’re welcome, Siamese twins who Googled “Siamese Twins Dance Strategy.” We don’t judge here at Razzball, but, out of curiosity, do you guys share a urinal? Use two at a time? Wait, pee, wait? I will tap my orange Crocs impatiently as I wait for your answer. Head-to-Head, or H2H, doesn’t change a lot to our 2013 fantasy baseball rankings. There are 300 billion suns in the Milky Way galaxy. There are 100s of billions of galaxies in the universe. There are at least 256,000 planets exactly like Earth. Yet, there’s only one Miggy Cabrera. (Though Ciggy Mabrera on Planet Yurick is pretty good too. Not a first rounder though.) H2H doesn’t change that. The strategy for playing in the middle of the season in H2H leagues changes. You aren’t hoping Billy Butler hits 30 homers by October, but whether or not he’ll hit a homer on Sunday or if you should sit him to try and win steals. It’s all about the match-ups, y’all! So you want to build a team that can match up well with any other team. (FYI, I’ve gone over this stuff before, but some of you might need a pine tree refresher hung from your rear view.) Anyway, let’s look at some H2H fantasy baseball draft strategy:
PSYCHE! Before we get into the post, just wanted to quickly announce that we’re mind-melding (just consolidating) our Facebook pages. So if you want to Like us on Facebook, you go there. All the sports are gonna be one for all and all for one like the Brand Nubians. Unus pro Razzballus, omnes pro uno, for our Latin American readers. Anyway II, here’s the H2H draft strategy:
Please, blog, may I have some more?The original post has been removed as we felt it was too similar in both content and language to a story in Zev Chafets’ Cooperstown Confidential. For those of you who enjoyed the article, we recommend buying the book that provided the inspiration for the post.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Why hello there. This article will look at the position battles in each division. Today’s topic, for the rare reader that ignores the title, is the NL East. By the way, I’m all in on non-Marlins pitchers in the NL East. Do any of those lineups look devastating? Not really. And you’ll probably get a win each time they face the Marlins. Anyway, here’s some of the position battles to keep an eye on in the NL East:
Please, blog, may I have some more?The other day I went over my 2013 ESPN ranklings. There, I was all fire, brimstone and gangsta rap. Saying eff this, and eff that. I was pissed off like I was Tim Dog right after landing at LAX. I was spitting bullets, y’all needed to wear a vest. Now, I’m looking at Yahoo’s 2013 fantasy baseball rankings and Tim Dog didn’t get enough penicillin on wax and now he’s RIP. BTW, If you were a rapper in the 80’s or early 90’s or a professional wrestler, watch over your shoulder, son, the reaper is comin’ for you. “Multivitamins are better than any alcohol or aphrodisiac…” That’s Tone Loc working on a new song. More people use Yahoo than any other fantasy baseball game provider thing-a-ma-boobie, so more schmohawks are reading their rankings than any other rankings, yet I never take their rankings serious. Quick analogy that may or may not make sense: There’s years of looking up to your father, whether you agree all the time or not. Then, one day, he takes a poop on your couch. He should take him to the hospital; he’s in need of some sort of psychology examination. If the tests come back conclusive that he pooped the couch simply out of laziness, then that’s ESPN. Okay, now, Yahoo is your 8-year-old cousin pooping your couch. You’re annoyed, but you’re not sending the kid for psychology examinations. In other words, I always feel like ESPN should know better, but Yahoo, well, they have The Noise ranking Curtis Granderson 14th overall. Even Jose Canseco knows Granderson may have hit 60 homers in 30,000 BC due to a lack of gravity, but he still would need a ton of luck to hit .240. My apologies to Saltines, but Grandy at 14th overall is crackers (even before the injury).
Please, blog, may I have some more?Organizational Talent Rankings via Baseball America
2012 (10) | 2011 (17) | 2010 (5) | 2009 (13) | 2008 (2)
2012 Affiliate Records
MLB: [69-93] AL East
AAA: [79-65] International League – Pawtucket
AA: [68-73] Eastern League – Portland
A+: [68-69] Carolina League – Salem
A: [66-73] South Atlantic League – Greenville
A(ss): [36-40] New York-Penn League — Lowell
Arizona Fall League Players — Surprise Saguaros
Chris Martin (RHP); Pete Ruiz (RHP); Michael Almanzar (3B); Bryce Brentz (OF)
Graduated Prospects
Will Middlebrooks (3B); Ryan Lavarnway (C); Pedro Ciriaco (INF); Felix Doubront (LHP); Junichi Tazawa (RHP)
The Run Down
With impact talent at nearly every level of the farm, this is a deep system, and a good one. Xander Bogaerts, a top-10 overall prospect, headlines the group and will arrive within the next year-and-a-half as a big time fantasy asset. Behind him, Boston features a great mix of high-ceiling guys and high-floor guys, making this system not only high-impact, but rather safe as well. The Red Sox might be another year or so away from contending again in the crazy-competitive AL East, but the club has done a quality job of trimming some fat, and setting itself up for long-term success in the process.
As suggested by you (yes, you!), I’m long overdue in covering a batch of “good” OPS values, as Better Than Ezra would say. To be Frank Francisco with you, I’m going to hit you with a chair, if by chair I mean knowledge. I’m not going to restate some players I’ve recently fawned over, like David Ortiz, Josh Willingham, Corey Hart, Ike Davis, Kevin Youkilis, Todd Frazier, and SAGNOFs. I’m also going to stay away from players in the first couple rounds (don’t hate the playa, hate their draft position!) because you don’t need me to tell you that Joey Votto and Giancarlo Stanton are awesome, do you? If so, then please seek medical assistance. Anyway, as I mentioned last week, some of the Razzball writers are participating in a mock draft and you can follow the chaos at #RazzballMock (though Sky conveniently posted a recap). Without further delay, here are some of the players I’m looking forward to drafting in OPS leagues after the first couple rounds:
Please, blog, may I have some more?Truth be told, I almost made Logan Morrison my discount double check post for first basemen but decided ‘nah, I’ll cheap out and go with an already draftable commodity in Kendrys Morales cuz I’m lazy like that’. Then Grey said ‘only one OF? Seriously, how lazy can you be? Give me three posts about outfielders. And put the lotion in the F@#$ing basket!’. And so I obliged on both counts but still got the hose again for some reason. But we’re not here to talk about playing lambs with Albright, we’re here to dissect LoMo’s current draft day ADP of 219 and whether it’s a discount or a steal for 2013 fantasy baseball…
Please, blog, may I have some more?Outfielders who hit 8-12 home runs and steal 15-25 bases seem easy to find and not very exciting to keep on a fantasy roster. But what if we had reason to believe there was something more on the horizon? I see a lot of bounce back potential in Cameron Maybin.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Writing these posts where I look at the differences between my 2013 fantasy baseball rankings and ESPN’s fantasy baseball rankings gives me severe agita, but I want to be calm. I don’t want an ulcer. So, for this post, I put on the Dixie Chicks’s cover of Landslide… Children get older, I’m getting older too… Unfortunately, I hunt and peck on my keyboard and it took me that entire song to type up the first sentence of this paragraph and iTunes shuffled to N.W.A. Right about now, N.W.A. court is in full effect.
“Judge Grey presiding in the case of Razzball vs. ESPN.”
“Prosecuting attorneys are MC Grey, Ice Grey and Eazy-mother*******-Grey!”
“Order, order, order… Ice Grey, take the mother******** stand. Do you swear the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help your stupid ass?”
“You goddamn right!”
“Well, won’t you tell everybody what the eff you gotta say?”
Please, blog, may I have some more?