Smart rebuilds tend to come together a year early. They do not tend to intersect with a pandemic that runs roughshod through the organization. Miami’s 2020 season would’ve been impressive in any context—the culmination of an aggressive realignment of resources—but in a world where they signed street free agents to play crucial roles in their decimated lineup, their success borders on the miraculous. 

17 new players joined the club to take on Baltimore for four games in three days after the active roster spent a week in quarantine. Naturally, the Miami replacements won all four games, prompting manager Don Mattingly to say he’d “have to write a book after this.” Fast forward two months: the Marlins just swept the Cubs out of the playoffs; Mattingly is working on a nine-book, coming-of-age saga because as fresh as these fish have been this year, the best is yet to come. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?

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See all of today’s starting lineups

# MLB Starting Lineups For Mon 8/4
ARI | ATL | BAL | BOS | CHC | CIN | CLE | COL | DET | HOU | KC | LAA | LAD | MIA | MIL | MIN | NYM | NYY | PHI | PIT | SD | SF | STL | TB | TEX | TOR | ATH | CHW | OAK | SEA | WSH

As terrible as the 2nd basemen were, the top 20 shortstops for 2020 fantasy baseball were that good. Just absolute nails, and not like the Nails interview Donkey Teeth and I did with Lenny Dykstra on our Patreon podcast (it’s $5/month; the price of one fancy coffee if you’re in a non-fancy coffee shop) where Nails is having sex while talking to us, but nails like nails nails. These guys could make a difference for your fantasy team. From the top, until, well, they fall off at a certain point. We’ll get there. To recap my recap before the recap, this final ranking is from our Fantasy Baseball Player Rater with my comments. This is not for next year. Anyway, here’s the top 20 shortstops for 2020 fantasy baseball and how they compared to where I originally ranked them:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

2nd basemen in 2020 were a lot like the year 2020, in general. A complete shizzshow.Wilmer Flores was a top five 2nd baseman. That is not a compliment to Wilmer Flores, but a slap in the face of all 2nd basemen. That’s Wilmer Flores taking off his white glove and smacking every other 2nd baseman across the face. Then, as the 2nd basemen place their hand on their cheek, shocked they were smacked and disrespected, Jeff McNeil, who wasn’t even a top 20 2nd baseman, comes along and urinates on their shoe. To recap my recap before the recap, this final top 20 2nd basemen for 2020 fantasy baseball ranking is from our Fantasy Baseball Player Rater with my comments. This is not for next year. Anyway, here’s the top 20 2nd basemen for 2020 fantasy baseball and how they compared to where I originally ranked them:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Atlanta flew right over Milwaukee like a cross-continental flight, and their number one prospect played a huge role in the two-game sweep. Ian Anderson is just the latest in a long line of rookies who’ve lifted the team to three straight postseasons. Among the handful of teams who can claim Best Build in baseball, Atlanta’s can be matched by only the Dodgers and Rays.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Enjoying the playoffs this year. Or as I call them, the “30 days Rob Manfred took from us in June.” I hate Rob Manfred so much it feels toxic, in a really healthy way. “Which city are you from, Grey?” Toxicity. Any hoo, today’s journey through the recaps take us to the 1st basemen. They’re better than the top 20 catchers for 2020 fantasy baseball (not clickbait at all), but by how much? How do I explain that? I have an idea! By recapping them. To recap my recap before the recap, this final ranking is from our Fantasy Baseball Player Rater with my comments. This is not for next year. Hayzeus Cristo, just enjoy a recap before we get into next year. Anyway, here’s the top 20 1st basemen for 2020 fantasy baseball and how they compared to where I originally ranked them:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

*insert musical note* Hello, darkness, my old friend. It’s something-something, me again. So, I don’t know the words. Are you here for musical theory or for a recap of the craziest season in recent memory? I thought so! Today’s jazz handsy recap is of the catchers. Please don’t ask if this is ranking for next year. It’s not a ranking for next year. It’s me recapping last season (last two months?). Please, for the love that all is holy, understand this. It’s all I ask of you. Well, that and shower me with praise. The latter isn’t hard, the former is. Also, remembering which is the ‘latter’ and which is the ‘former’ is hard too. Quibbles and semantics, my good man and five lady-mans. It wouldn’t be fair for me to preseason rank the players, then rank them again in the postseason based on my opinion, so these postseason top 20 lists are ranked according to our Fantasy Baseball Player Rater. It’s cold hard math, y’all! Anyway, here’s the top 20 catchers for 2020 fantasy baseball and how they compared to where I originally ranked them:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

The playoff stage is set in the American League, and the prospects of Tampa Bay, Oakland, Minnesota, Cleveland, New York, Houston, Chicago, and Toronto are ready to grab the nation’s eyeballs. Randy Arozarena has already tripled out of the 3-spot in Tampa’s lineup, and some is right with the world. 

Here’s my AL playoff breakdown: Expanded Playoffs Invite Prospect Impact

The National League wasn’t settled when I went to press Saturday night, but the musical chairs are all silent now and waiting for the real music to start. Let’s take a lap. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?

After a long two months the season is finally over. Maybe it’s me but this season seems like it just got started. Oh wait, that’s right this season is 60 games and about as filling as a Big Mac 20 minutes after you eat it. Don’t worry Grey and yours truly are back for one more week as we run through the player awards for 2020 Fantasy Baseball based off of the Razzball Player Rater. So don’t yell at us if you don’t like it, blame our robot overlords. We talk the good, the bad, the odd, and the Luke Voit. It’s a cornucopia of takes! It’s the final Razzball Fantasy Baseball Podcast of 2020!

Please, blog, may I have some more?

All nine wild and crazy weeks are in the books and they sure did feel like a year.  I’ve said it many times, but I never expected us to get to this point.  Call me a cynic, but I obviously underestimated the power of the almighty dollar.  Things looked pretty rocky when we didn’t even make it two weeks before the Marlins were on hiatus, and look at us now, the Marlins are a playoff team!  *Eyeroll*  As wonky as this season was, we still have a Razzball Commenter League champion to crown.  It’s not who you might think either…without further ado, I present to you, our 2020 Razzball Commenter Leagues Champion…Team DFresh!  I may have jinxed Team Tokyo last week, but I really thought they had this thing wrapped up.  I should have known, with this only being week nine, that huge swings could still happen and they did.  DFresh got hot at the right time, jumping from 21st to 2nd last week and taking the top spot this final week thanks to another five league points gained, bringing their total to 116.  That’s a hard total to top, especially combined with a LCI of 114.  With that, Team Tokyo ends up with a hard-luck second overall.  DFresh really rakes it in, winning themselves a $250 Best Buy gift card!  More importantly though, DFresh gets a Razzball T-Shirt and RCL glory.  Who can put a price on that?  Oh, it’s $25, well then, moving on.  DFresh comments around the site from time to time, so the next time you see a comment (likely in this post) be sure to heap on the praise and congratulations.  They fended off some very tough competitors this year to claim the RCL crown including last year’s top finishers, Backdoor Cutters and Fat Fuckin Babies.  This is DFresh’s moment though, so hopefully they pop in, take a bow and soak it up, they earned it.  

Here’s what else what happened this year and this final week of the RCLs:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Officially, this is the 11.5th Razzballie ceremony, and our first socially distanced one. *looks out at the cardboard cutout audience* I see some familiar faces out there. There’s the cutout that sells me car wax at Pep Boys. Good to see you! Figure you’d like some recycled jokes, since you’re all made of biodegradable material. *eerie silence* Okay, moving on. I’ll be your host for the ceremony after A-Rod backed out. Turns out he couldn’t host, he’s just a parasite! It’s all right he’s a no-show, you can’t spell ghosting without host. You also can’t spell hostage, but no one is forcing you to stay for the award show. You’re going to want to, though, because without these awards, you’ll have no idea who was the best and worst hitters and pitchers in this absurdly abbreviated year, and you’ll be left giving out your own awards and no one cares if your “Low sodium tomato soup in a sourdough bowl” won your “Whitest Lunch Of All-Time” award. Stop making up fake awards! Leave that to me. Anyway, here’s the year-end awards for the best and worst of fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Hey all! It’s Blair, your 2020 Top 100 starting pitcher ranker. Glad you came along for the ride! Your fantasy season is over now, and hopefully you won the championship, or you made a dent in your dynasty league, or you just managed to stay a bit saner in the depths of the pandemic that’s been clawing away at us for the past six months.

Let’s get the business side out of the way first: if you like what I did with [waves hands around] this series, hop on over to the subscription page and get an ad-free subscription to support me and Grey  and Lauren Holt and Coolwhip and MattTruss and JKJ and, and, and. If you’re not in a place to grab a subscription, then tell your friends about us, or share Razzball content on social media, or, well, just say thank you in the comments and I’ll give you a virtual high five.

Since there’s no longer traditional fantasy baseball going on right now, my weekly series at Razzball is more or less done until spring training. If you want my advice on DFS or dynasty leagues or whatever, feel free to ping me on Twitter, or leave a comment at the bottom of this page, or ask one of the many other talented writers here on Razzball what their opinion of your situation is. Otherwise, I’ll provide some updates on player profiles throughout the winter and I hope you keep coming around to check them out.

Please, blog, may I have some more?