by: Steve Paulo
Welcome, Patrons, sidle on up to the bar and let’s take a look together at the coming week’s double-dippers. I’m sure I’m going to generate plenty of angry comments from fantasy managers with certain players below on their rosters, but hey, I’m just the messenger. These pitchers are who they are, and no amount of […]
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Thanks the the new collective bargaining agreement between Major League Baseball and the players union, teams are no longer hiding their top prospects in the minors to delay their service time and ability to hit arbitration and free agency earlier in their careers.
The Mariners (Julio Rodriguez) and Astros (Jeremy Pena) have had top rookies in their starting lineup since the start of the season. Meanwhile, a host of other teams have featured rookies in their lineup from day one or already promoted them from the minors.
A TRIO OF ROOKIES
One team that has been aggressive in calling up top players from the minors is the St. Louis Cardinals. I talked about one of those rookies, Juan Yepez, last week. You can read about him here. The Cardinals also have two more rookies in their lineup, and both are readily available in Yahoo and ESPN leagues.
Rookie Brendan Donovan is rostered on 22% of Yahoo leagues and only 5.4% of ESPN leagues. Nolan Gorman, the other rookie, has the attention of a few more Yahoo and ESPN fantasy players as he is rostered on 63% of Yahoo rosters and 30% of ESPN rosters.
Meanwhile, the Kansas City Royals realized that Salvador Perez can’t play in every game, like he nearly did last season by appearing in 161 contests. The Royals thus turned to top catching prospect MJ Melendez and called him up from Triple A. Melendez is currently on only 37% of Yahoo rosters and 10.2% of ESPN rosters.
It’s time to take a look at these three players and discuss if they are Top Dynasty Keepers or not.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Having Tommy Pham in last week’s article makes me happy. He provided the moment of the season when he slapped Joc Pederson in the face over a fantasy football dispute. That sounds like something from The Onion, but that is something that factually happened! If moments like that don’t make you love baseball, I don’t […]
Please, blog, may I have some more?When you think of comfort food, mac-n-cheese is always at or near the top of the list. Who can resist the temptation of that four-cheese goodness your mom used to make on holidays or special occasions? Maybe it’s the Kraft mac-n-cheese variety that comes to mind first…the one in the blue box that was a […]
Please, blog, may I have some more?I’m not often surprised by the machinations of major league baseball teams because the road map is pretty well defined in stages by contracts and developmental norms, and it’s part of my job to know the lay of the land.
Atlanta OF Michael Harris II being promoted from AA on Saturday surprised me.
Can be underrated fun, surprises, especially in a baseball sense. And then I realize I should have seen it coming, so the surprise loses some sheen in the fog of negative self-talk, but it’s exciting nonetheless!
Harris earned this jump by playing well every step of the way, but also because Atlanta has run out of center fielders. Adam Duvall is slugging .274. Ronald Acuña Jr. isn’t quite healed enough to be an everyday defender. Guillermo Heredia is striking out 48.8 percent of the time. Travis Demeritte wasn’t playing center anyway but was demoted to make space for Harris after Demeritte fell into a 1-for-34 slump.
I mention all of this not to diminish Harris’ achievement but to highlight his opportunity. A plus contact hitter with dynamic hand-eye coordination, the 21-year-old, 6’0” 195 lb left-hander has always passed the eye test with flying colors on offense and was slashing .305/.372/.506 with five home runs and 11 stolen bases in 43 games at AA, striking out 19.9 percent of the time and drawing an 8.7 percent walk rate.
I think we can track way back to the Cristian Pache (Matt Olson) trade to see the footprints leading to this transaction. The club must think Harris’ defense has progressed enough to hand him the keys to their big league outfield. He’s a must-add where you can fit him. I’m about 60/40 that his swing-happy approach combined with the big-league heavy balls will prove too big a challenge for his first few hundred plate appearances, but stranger things have happened.
Please, blog, may I have some more?First and foremost, I wish all of you a fun and safe Memorial Day. Hard to believe that we are almost done with two months of the season and moving officially into summer. We have an insane week of games coming up. The Cubs play 9 times (insert Ed Rooney.gif), while Detriot, Milwaukee, Minnesota, and […]
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by: Jeremy Brewer
Do you remember that one kid in elementary school who always seemed to win every raffle, cake walk or prize when it was nothing more than dumb luck? Well, welcome to Major League Baseball where that same kid is reimagined as Chris Davis and instead of winning the cake walk, he wins a ridiculous $161M contract. Both of these guys stink if you are not them and the second one sinks your fantasy season as well. This week our hitter profiles dig into a few luck metrics to warn or yearn for the rest of the season. Do not worry, I won’t mention Chris Davis again.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Red Sox second year breakout and probably should-be closer Garrett Whitlock began the night on a roll firing six innings of two run baseball, allowing just six base runners, five hits, one walk and striking out four. The offense was on fire, Xander Bogaerts had two hits with a 3-run homer, Fenway was abuzz, and […]
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by: Matt Stiles
Therapy is a good thing. Much of the stigma surrounding therapy appears to have disappeared and that is positive. Though I am not a therapist by trade, I feel as if the amount of back-and-forth banter I have shared with my fellow DFS writers and the Razzball readers has provided me some insight into the […]
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by: keelinbillue
Happy Weekend to my Razzles from your Reporter of Fragiles! This week’s report will begin with a moment of silence for Kris Bryant. He was not off the IL for long, but he did come off of it. For a minute. While I am certainly breaking some sort of Razzball policy by showing you this, […]
Please, blog, may I have some more?[brid autoplay=”true” video=”1019641″ player=”13959″ title=”BSH%209″ duration=”226″ description=”undefined” uploaddate=”2022-05-26″ thumbnailurl=”https://cdn.brid.tv/live/partners/9233/snapshot/1019641_th_1653533913.jpg” contentUrl=”//cdn.brid.tv/live/partners/9233/sd/1019641.mp4″]
(NOTE: THIS POST WAS RELEASED EARLY THIS WEEK ON OUR PATREON. IT’S $10/MONTH.)
Me and seven guys who I picked up in a Home Depot parking lot are bringing home a life-sized cutout of Grayson Rodriguez in a wheelbarrow. “Cory, please help me get my make-believe son, Gray, uh, son, onto my couch.” Cory and my new Home Depot friends, who I paid with Venmo, manage to lean the 6’5″, 220-pound cutout onto the couch.
Later, me and Cougs are watching The Staircase and between us is my make-believe son, Grayson. “Say hello, Grayson,” I say. I nudge the Grayson cutout with my arm, and it falls over crushing my wife’s foot. At the Urgent Care, I explain to Cougs that Grayson Rodriguez is the best pitcher the Orioles have right now. As a horsey might say, nay, he’s a top five arm in the AL East right now. If he’s healthy, it’s stuff you’re not seeing from many pitchers in the major leagues. Five above-average to plus-plus pitches with control. Through nine starts in Triple-A as the 9th youngest pitcher at the level: His K/9 is 13.7; his BB/9 is 2.9; his FIP is 1.77.
I shush Cougs’s sobs. I ask, “Are you sobbing from your broken foot from my make-believe son cutout falling on you or are you worried about his slider?” Before she can answer, I anticipate and tell her his fastball sits 95 MPH with a plus whiff rate, and his two plus secondaries are his curveball and changeup with whiff rates above 50%. Oh, and by the by, he has a slider and cutter that grade as average or better too. Is this man a hydra? What kind of water do they have in the Rio Grande that they’re giving this Texan? He’s unreal, like an alien. He just needs a nickname to play off Grayson, and being an alien. Oh, I know! Call him Spawn. Grayson’s going to be the best thing you’ve seen since the last future Hall of Famer was promoted. A chip right off the old block that fell on Cougs, that’s my Spawn!
Also, here’s me talking about Grayson Rodriguez (please subscribe to this friggin Youtube channel — click that and click subscribe):
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by: Laura Holt
As we head into Memorial Day weekend, this week has once again reminded me of the occasional agony that ensues due to the myriad of options available to fantasy owners in shallow leagues, options which simply aren’t there for those of us in the deep league world. On Wednesday, I managed to have both Joc […]
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