It’s hard to believe that there will be some real baseball being played in just a few days. I still feel woefully unprepared as I feel like teams have hardly any clue who is starting Opening Day. We’re still getting opt-out news for crying in the clouds! We just found out a couple days ago that the Nationals could play Opening Day in their park and we have no idea where the Blue Jays are going to be playing, AH! Regardless, we soldier on and make the best of what we get, I’ll be watching Thursday night because I’m a sucker for baseball and because I have about 30 Razzball Commenter Leagues to try and manage this season. Speaking of which, we have a league, drafting tonight at 9 PM ET and you can click HERE to join and draft one last team this season. What’s one more at this point? If you’re just coming out of your long spring stupor and starting to check your RCL team pages again, I have a few tips and tricks below on how you can customize your teams to make viewing things easier. Unfortunately, there is no way to copy settings from one team to another, so if you have many teams *raises hand*, you’ll have to do these steps on every one. Let’s get to it!
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Scott White, Sr. Writer for CBS Sports, talks with B_Don and Donkey Teeth about the shortened 2020 season. The guys ask Scott about his expectations for his Braves for both hitting and pitching. We ask Scott about his thoughts on Mike Trout as he comes in at 5 among his rankings.
The guys then move on to discuss the recent CBS roto auction. Scott criticizes DT and B_Don’s approach in the auction grabbing 3 top hitters in Ronald Acuña Jr. ($49), Cody Bellinger ($44), and Chrsitian Yelich ($56). The podcast hosts then explain their thinking toward the full stars and scrubs approach.
We move on to Scott’s team and how he planned his team prior to the auction. We get his take on Francisco Lindor and his possibilities of being traded, and his expectations for Mike Soroka.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Brett Anderson hit the IL with a blister on his finger. Shame really. Super, super sad news. *watches two-hour VHS titled, “Fist Pump Like Tiger Woods,” ejects the tape, stands up awkwardly, raises hand and FIST PUMPS* I’m doing it! I’m fist pumping! So, little ol’ Anderson was willing to play through it but the coaches were worried the compromised grip would affect him. Little ol’ Anderson said, “Gonna have to leave it to the other four horsemen.” Corbin Burnes wasn’t in my rankings, but if I were adding people, I would add him. (At this point, I’m only removing opt outs and seriously injured players, because it’s too late in game to be adding guys for drafts. If you’re following along, you know which guys I like more now.) So, Burnes works off three-point-seventy-five pitches. Not quite four, and operates in the fast lane with a 95+ MPH fastball, and a babymaking slider that produced a 52.1% strikeout rate and .188 BAA. The Milwaukee Burnes’ers’ Burnes had a 12.9 K/9 last year and has great command, though he didn’t show it. Looking for a breakout that is likely available in most shallower leagues? Burnes said, “Say goodnight, Bretty,” and you say hello to Corbin. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?July 20-July 26, 2020
Well, hello everyone and welcome back to your favorite place to hear about split fingers, Razzball’s Top 100 Starting Pitcher List! If you’ve been a good fantasy baseball manager, you’ve already bookmarked the previous article while you were drafting your teams and social media should be cheering your wise moves. If you’ve been a bad manager and Grey put you in his basement, well, you’re probably sitting next to me right now eating from a hoarded supply of Pop Tarts. Leave me the strawberry!
Before we get to the list, let’s check up on a couple of important news bits. If you follow me on Twitter @everywhereblair, some of these updates are already old stories for you. In case this is your first time here, I’ll catch you up: I update the Google Doc below daily in response to hearing about Covid news, rotation management, and summer training performances. Bookmark this page and check it out to get the most up-to-date pitcher rankings for your drafting needs. By following me on Twitter, you’ll hear first when I update the Top 100 Starting Pitcher List.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Adam Aizer (@Adamaizer) from CBS Sports joins the show to talk about his favorite fantasy options for the 60 game season. Carlos Correa or Corey Seager? We find out about how his career got started and how he ended up working with CBS. We discuss the Twins/Yankees rivalry over the years and the wild card game he attended in 2017.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Greetings, friends! It’s with both excitement and a bit of trepidation that I welcome you to my final post before actual major league baseball games are scheduled to be played. I don’t want to say I have an overly emotional relationship with fantasy baseball, but when I pulled up a player’s page this morning and saw his line of 2019 stats — that I’ve been staring at for what seems like decades — replaced with “2020” and a bunch of fresh, clean zeroes… well, I had a visceral reaction that is hard to explain but involved momentary shortness of breath and near-tears. If we’ve gotten this close only for things to go awry now, it will be quite the crushing blow… but at least I’ll have had several weeks worth of entertainment in trying to prep for this crazy thing we’re calling the 2020 major league baseball season. As we finish drafting and dot those i’s and cross those t’s on teams we’ve already drafted, let’s take a look at some players who have had a potential bump in value of late: deep-league, AL edition.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Did you hear this week’s big news? No, not the story about the man who bit the seagull after it tried to steal his Big Mac. Even bigger news: Grey is now releasing his weekly buy/sell articles one day early to all our valued Patreon members! We’re also raffling off two of the final RazzBowl fan spots to Patreon members this week. Shoot me an email at [email protected] if you’re a Patreon member who would like to be entered into that raffle. And if you aren’t in the cool kid’s Patreon club yet, what in the name of Albright are you waiting for?! Join the Razzball Patreon now for just $5/month.
Anyway, on this week’s episode of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Not News with world renowned comedian Billy Hurley, we talk about more offbeat news stories. What you heard about the man who bit a seagull was all true. And no, that man wasn’t previous Patreon Podcast guest, Lenny Dykstra. Well, as far as we know.
Please, blog, may I have some more?I remember my final week of Summer Camp. I was in the Weeniechoke Mountains when I had my first experience with a girl. Her name was Michelle Branch. Not the singer, but a branch I named Michelle. This final week of Summer Camp is equally less-than-ideal for some bullpens. “Certain teams with uncertain ninths.” That’s me being poetic. Michelle Branch would’ve appreciated it. So, Keone Kela hit the IL. As I said in Friday’s Buy, “Kyle Crick stands to act as the Pirates’ closer for at least the re-opening. Crick is also one of the few players who will have a cheering section in the fan-less stadiums.” And that’s me quoting me! Since then, Crick gave up four earned in a third of an inning vs. the Indians and I’m checking my watch for Kela’s return. Nick Burdi is lurking there too, but you’re speculating two deep on a pen that might get ten total saves? Next up, Roberto Osuna hasn’t thrown off the mound yet and, when asked when Osuna would, Dusty said, “We don’t have any answers.” Dusty is reassuring as always! I think Osuna will be fine, since he’s with the team, but Ryan Pressly is there, and ain’t no hound dog. (Sorry. Moving on…) Giovanny Gallegos‘s undisclosed reasons for being away have turned into he’s ‘dis close’ to rejoining the Cards’ bullpen. Likely can tear up your Ryan Helsley shares, they’re doing a backwards STONKS. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?Now that the season is upon us we can start to make more informed decisions. We have a general idea of what rotations may look like and which teams are considering leaning on their bullpens more heavily. It still involves a good pinch of guesswork but with waivers opening, we’ll need to jump to some conclusions. Good luck in your sprint seasons.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Hello Mother. Hello Father.
Here I am at Camp Corona.
Tests are bad here. The system’s failing.
We’re very stressed but fairly uncomplaining.
Now I don’t want this should scare ya,
But my bunkmate thinks we’ll soon lockdown this area.
Sorry for that.
But wow am I excited to be writing a prospect news piece!
Please, blog, may I have some more?What’s up party people. We are now 6 days away from Re-Opening Day and the player landscape is starting to move into focus… and simultaneously move out of focus. This is the continuation of my series on outfielders, the last installment being Top 75 Outfielders for 2020: Summer Camp Edition. Some guys are now arriving back into camp just in time to take a few cuts including Juan Soto, Joey Gallo, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., and Mallex Smith. Then there are others still not back yet like Yordan Alvarez, Austin Meadows, and Victor Robles. Hahahahaha, nothing to see here. The testing policy is going swimmingly, huh? Leave it to MLB to be the MLB’s worst enemy. So, with so much chaos at play as the season starts you will want to make sure you are ready to fill roster holes and have bench guys ready to go in what could be 4–5 roster spots exclusively for outfielders. That could be a real challenge to keep up with and your boy is here to help.
Here’s what I’ve been seeing around camp:
Please, blog, may I have some more?At this point I feel a little like a repeating Kevin McCallister, screaming over and over again as I splash the stinging liquid of not stop Covid-19 news against my fantasy baseball face. How are we supposed to keep up? By the time this work is published three more Top 100 players could be struck down, throwing their 60 game season into question. And since all these players are in their home areas for summer camp, when the virus is spiking in that area, particularly Houston, it can throw camp completely out of whack.
As you can probably guess, Yordan Alvarez coming down with the virus and Houston’s cases spiking has slipped Astros batters down. Other individual cases have an effect here and there, and Freddy Freeman is finally having an effect on Braves batters despite coming back. There was also a trade on Thursday that has the smallest effect here. Also, Yasiel Puig doesn’t quite make it. Yup, the virus got him too.
If you are wondering about the particulars of the list a big change was made last week. That includes some park effect fine tuning, and in particular why I have Mike Trout ranked so low. You can find last week’s list here. All that being said, let’s look at some of this week’s movers:
Please, blog, may I have some more?