When I started researching this article, I was aiming to list stolen base targets owned in less than 50% of ESPN leagues, but apparently, I could have lowered that number all the way to 7%. However, I’m basing that ownership on FantasyPros’s ESPN data. I don’t use ESPN myself anymore. I’m still waiting for them to reply to a customer service email I sent in 2008. 

But here’s the situation you find yourself in now — you’re dead last in SB in your roto league. “I planned it this way,” you say to your league mates. 

“Yep, I punted stolen bases — who cares about 1 category if I’m dominating the others?” You grimace as you look at Adalberto Mondesi’s 0 SBs on your IL, Jonathan Villar’s 0 SBs on your bench, Leody Taveras’s .160 OBP you had to drop after 3 weeks of garbage baseball. 

And you’re not dominating the other categories, are you Tommy? You’re not dominating them at all. And now you find yourself desperate. Kenta Maeda and Kyle Hendricks have forgotten how to pitch (until this week.) Luis Robert is basically done for the year and that can’t-miss, sure-fire, put him in the Hall of Fame now prospect Kyle Tucker is, in fact, missing all over the place! That’s where SAGNOF has your back. The players below are so low-owned they’re cheaper than free. Pick 1 or 2 of them up and start making that climb in your league’s SB column. Deshi deshi basara basara! Deshi deshi basara basara! 

Please, blog, may I have some more?

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See all of today’s starting lineups

# MLB Starting Lineups For Sat 8/2
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

The first month of the season is in the books and we’ve seen some great baseball to this point. I expect tonight to be more of the same as we have a couple of established aces on the mound. An up-and-coming ace in Freddy Peralta, along with interesting stack options. Atlanta is the top stack choice. If you’re willing to take on risk, Brewers and Tigers are interesting options as well. Detroit has an interesting matchup against Martin Perez. However, it’s forecasted to rain leading up to the first pitch and could start in a delay. Milwaukee goes up against a familiar face in Chase Anderson, who seems to be on the decline.

 

New to FanDuel? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!

Please, blog, may I have some more?

[brid autoplay=”true” video=”771122″ player=”10951″ title=”RZBL%202021%20WAIVER%20WIRE%20WEEK%205″ duration=”156″ description=”undefined” uploaddate=”2021-04-30″ thumbnailurl=”//cdn.brid.tv/live/partners/9233/thumb/771122_t_1619758719.png” contentUrl=”//cdn.brid.tv/live/partners/9233/sd/771122.mp4″]

With a two singles and a double, the White Sox big hitting star yesterday was Dylan Cease. Saying after the game, “With Lou Bob going down like a deflated beanbag — No offense, Mitch Haniger — it’s important we all step up like an 80’s aerobics teacher,” then he began to count off exercise moves, “5, 6, 7, 8, schlemiel, schlimazel, let’s see you burn, boys!” Then he did some step aerobics out of the room. Obviously, he’s being modest, and way more anaerobic. It wasn’t just his hitting people were doing the swoon for — 6 IP, 0 ER, 1 hit, 3 walks, 11 Ks, ERA at 2.37, and now his last 13 innings have been shutout with 20 Ks. That makes me want to sing (Keep Feeling) Fascination by The Human League. We’re all in that. The Human League. I’m saying that’s all of us. I will rock your world though if you say anything bad about boba. Cease looks to be going to his 96 MPH 4-seam fastball more than ever in his career, paired with an 86 MPH slider that has a .174 xBA, which is just goofy for a pitch he’s throwing 30% of the time. Don’t want to be caught with my shorts around my ankles because I’m wearing a banana hammock, but Cease looks to be emerging as an ace. Not a fantasy number two or three, but a number one. I don’t say that lightly, though I am writing this with a feather and 100 monkeys are typing it up later–Let’s go, Ling-Ling! Type faster! Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

So I was sitting there on my porch drinking coffee this weekend thinking about a dream I had. In said dream, I was sitting at a small streetside cafe in Morroco, also drinking coffee. It’s a beautiful spring morning and the local street vendors are cooking the morning grub. The tasty aroma hangs like a cloud over the bazaar. I’m sitting there contemplating starting pitchers and who might be a surprise this season no one is talking about. Someone without a lot of flash that’s easy to spot, but low-key doing something different that doesn’t completely show up on the stat sheet. And while I’m staring at the clouds (debating this most serious of missions), a little Morrocan girl runs up to me carrying a bright turquoise bag and empties the contents on my lap.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Happy May!  The first month of the baseball season has come and gone, and for better or worse we should be getting a pretty good idea of whether or not we’ve drafted competitive fantasy baseball teams.  In deep leagues, there may not be too much we can do to improve our teams’ weaknesses, but that shouldn’t stop us from trying.  Let’s look at another list of players — focusing almost exclusively on guys with minuscule ownership numbers according to CBS Sports, as we are wont to do here at Rolling In The Deep — that may be available and of potential interest to those of us in NL-only, AL-only, and other very deep leagues.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Before we take a dive into our weekly Razzball Commeneter leagues numbers and standings to see how badly Son is clobbering us this week, I want to take a little aside.  I want to chat about K/9 and its importance in the long game of the season.  Since we’re all capped at 1,400 IP, the strikeout category basically turns into a race for the highest K/9.  Once your innings are up, you are stuck with the number of strikeouts you have.  This makes those high K/9 relievers such as Aroldis Chapman and James Karinchak (even without the save opportunities) very valuable pieces.  Something I like to do is sort players by K/9.  You can do this by hitting “Extra” on the player page when viewing pitchers.  Then, just sort by K/9 and make sure you’re looking for players with a substantial amount of IP.  If only Jose de Leon could not give up an earned run every outing, that K/9 (17.28) would be delightful.  If you find yourself without a save vulture target for the day and your offense is full, consider grabbing a high K/9 reliever to help boost those stats.  It only takes a few 7 IP, 2 K performances to put you behind the pace.  It’s important to monitor and keep a balance.  Fortunately for you, and especially those that are bad at math, we’re tracking your K/9 for you on the Master Standings page.  There, you can see that among teams with at least 40 IP/week we have Team KumaDeviL with an impressive 12.4 K/9.  Bringing up the rear is Team Matbrekk77 with 7.7 K/9 in 245 IP.  Ideally, you’ll be looking at a K/9 north of 10.  You can see our current Master Standings leader, Son is a little behind, which could prove his undoing as everyone catches up in IP.  There’s still time to correct though, so fear not!  It’s also going to be important to monitor your innings usage.  You can click “MIN/MAX” on your team page to see your innings used and your pace.  I like to keep my pace pretty close to right on the money, but your mileage may vary.  Just don’t leave innings on the table if you can help it.  Let’s take a look at the rest of the week that was, week 4 in the RCLs:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Welcome to the Tuesday edition of FanDuel DFS here on Razzball. It’s May the 4th! Congrats to those who’ve been cashing in on their DFS lineups so far, and for those of you who’ve yet to find that heater, let’s stay positive and turn it around TODAY! It’s the Jacob deGrom slate and I don’t care what his price is, he’s the best pitcher in baseball and is always atop the player pool when it’s his turn. Hopefully, the force will be with the Mets’ bats and they’ll put up some runs to get JdG a W.

There’s all kinds of spots to go tonight on this 11 game slate, but the key is going to be hitting on those salary-saving bats, OR, finding that lower-priced arm that goes off if you’re into that type of thing. I’m not an advocate of fading deGrom, but there are some juicy high-priced bats that would be fun builds if you can find the right guy to get you those 40-50 points out of the P slot. The top 3 SP on my board tonight are all in solid spots. We have deGrom ($12,500) @ Cardinals, Aaron Nola ($9,200) vs Brewers, and Nick Pivetta ($8,300) vs Tigers. I’ll say it now, if I’m not going with deGrom, there are only 3 other spots I feel okay/good about. And honestly, I’m only going there if the weather is still super shaky leading up to game time. There’s a sneaky pivot that I like, but it’ll take balls to do so. Let’s get down to business.

 

New to FanDuel? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!

Please, blog, may I have some more?

[brid autoplay=”true” video=”771122″ player=”10951″ title=”RZBL%202021%20WAIVER%20WIRE%20WEEK%205″ duration=”156″ description=”undefined” uploaddate=”2021-04-30″ thumbnailurl=”//cdn.brid.tv/live/partners/9233/thumb/771122_t_1619758719.png” contentUrl=”//cdn.brid.tv/live/partners/9233/sd/771122.mp4″]

“Hello, I’d like to sign up for your bartending course, Concocktailions. Yes, I saw you were officially endorsed by Bryan Brown who played Doug Coughlin in Cocktail. No, no, I don’t want to bartend professionally. Yes, just do some recreational cocktail slinging. Ideally, I’d just like to learn one drink. How to make a tasty drink from Drano.” Luis Robert will miss at least 12-16 weeks with a tear of the hip flexor, which is the season, boys and five girls. You can’t find a vacuum that sucks this much. Between him and Eloy, I mean, I mean, I mean! UGH! I can’t even grasp words! This is all Tony La Russa’s fault! And the Fantasy Baseball Overlord! *sticking head out of a window* I HATE YOU FANTASY BASEBALL OVERLORD!!! FBO, “I hate me too. Why do I suck so much?” Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

“Everywhere,” Grey said, pulling boba through a straw. “The time is near.” He finished his boba tea, shaking the ice in the cup like a maraca. I felt like Iron Man, lost in the darkness of space a thousand light-years from home. I knew the truth. Grey was powered by boba, and with the looming boba shortage, his prognostication powers were waning. I sat in his office, like a child watching his hero fade away.

“I thought it was going to be rainy today,” Grey said, flinging the curtains open to reveal brilliant sunshine. “I tried cocoa nibs, coconut pearls, even chickpeas. Nothing. I’m just a lothario now.” He turned, grabbed a magazine from his desk, and tossed it in front of me. Fantasy Baseballer Magazine. “Go ahead,” Grey said, “Ask my opinion on a player.” I opened it, seemingly at random, finding the Colorado Rockies.

“Tell me about Bud Black,” I asked.

Grey’s hand began shaking, the maraca-like boba tea playing in time to Gasolina. “Bud Black is rational, cool-minded, sensible.” Tears ran down from Grey’s eyes as he spoke. “Fair with playing time.”

His boba cup dropped to the ground, a cacophony of crushed ice and plastic.

I couldn’t see my boss like this. “Grey, the boba raw ingredients are stuck in ships off the coast. We can heist them. Start a new company. We’ll be RazzBoba!” I stood and approached the Fantasy Master Lothario but he waved me back.

“Everywhere,” Grey said, “I can’t dirty your hands with this. That’s my container ship to heist. If I don’t make it back, take care of my Bartolo Colon bobblehead, and feed my goldfish, Lou Bob.” 

I took the Fantasy Baseballer Magazine in my hand and thwapped it on the table. “With Gyorko as my witness, we’ll make you a fantasy master again!” 

Please, blog, may I have some more?

I struggle to remember a world without alternate sites, and I miss the minors. Prospects really got crushed by the pandemic much harder than any recent pool of players. They were already being paid dirt, but to lose a year of development, or even a year of service time, is absolutely brutal. It’s like if the Beatles never went to Hamburg and tried to develop their talents in Liverpool instead with spotty gigs mostly attended by McCartney’s family. He seems like the kind of guy whose family is a little too supportive. Anyways, without Hamburg, the Beatles would have sucked. Without the minors, we don’t get to pick apart prospect blurbs that are absolutely sure that Prospect T. Neuplayer’s call-up is imminent. It never is, friends. Do you know what is imminent? Blurb injury curses!

I’ve introduced a section into this old series called “Hex Enduction Power,” where we will analyze injury blurbs that accidentally guarantee that a player goes on the IL. I’m talking something like this:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Though it’s been since never that I read the The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood I know that Robin Hood was said to have been a skilled archer that stole from the rich to give to the poor. While it sounds well intended, isn’t it still stealing? Wouldn’t that make him a criminal? I just did a quick Google search as to whether he was a thief and, as it turns out, there is quite the public opinion with many taking both sides. Here’s what side I’m taking. Neither. Don’t care. If I remember correctly, I had a teacher in high school that said the real thief was the leader of the country. Apparently he levied absurd taxes upon the common folk and oppressed them when they could not pay. But like I said, that’s not why either of us are here.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Razzball Patreon members receive our weekly podcast where Grey cackles about the funniest news stories we’ve found over the past week, plus you get that warm fuzzy feeling of supporting your favorite fantasy sports site in all the land.

It’s your favorite hour of the week! I Can’t Believe It’s Not Not News is back again with all the Billy Hurley jokes and Grey Albright cackles you can handle. First we report on a woman facing felony charges for not returning a copy of Sabrina The Teenage Witch two decades ago. Then an Illinois man bowls a perfect game with his fathers ashes inside his bowling ball and a Russian man is held hostage by a Chinese reality TV show. And later Billy reports on a Greyhound who tested positive for meth after winning a race.

Tune in now for all the laughs and Albright cackles you can handle by signing up for the exclusive Razzball Patreon Club for only $5/month, or upgrade to receive the weekly podcast plus early access to all of Grey’s 2021 fantasy baseball buy/sell posts for just $13/month!

Watch our teaser video from this week’s episode below, just a little taste of what you’ll receive by subscribing to the weekly hour long show:

Please, blog, may I have some more?