During the Major League Baseball Rule 4 Draft, I am usually in China, eating my favorite breakfast in the world: a crispy pork bun and a pizza-shaped, spicy-salty bread that I don’t think I could describe, except maybe to say “mouth heaven.”

And that’s kind of the thing about China: the food. The cultures are old and the ethnicities are varied. Mainland China is comprised of some 57 different people groups with different cultures and cuisines. Food is a national pride and pastime. The word “variety” doesn’t even begin to describe the diversity of dishes and flavors. 

Mock drafts are not like Chinese cuisine.

Sure you might encounter a spicy pepper or two, but you’re not going to find sauteed eel, boiled jellyfish or barbecued squid on a stick. 

Maybe you’ll think it’s good to not find these specific foods, but if you don’t try everything once, you’ll be missing out on that miracle dish you’re surprised to find is perfect for you—the flavor combination you’ve been waiting a lifetime to find–and I’m happy to report that sauteed eel is incredible. 

So that’s what we’ll do here: saute some eel, boil some jellyfish, taste some chaos.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

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See all of today’s starting lineups

# MLB Starting Lineups For Wed 8/6
ARI | ATH | ATL | BAL | BOS | CHC | CHW | CIN | CLE | COL | HOU | KC | LAA | LAD | MIA | MIL | MIN | NYM | NYY | PHI | PIT | SD | SEA | SF | STL | TB | TEX | TOR | WSH | DET | OAK

Material on Razzball about Lane Thomas is scant to say the least, also scant is to say the least, coincidentally. When you search all mentions of Lane Thomas here, you see me, Prospect Mike, JKJ, Prospect Ralph, and Big Magoo all mentioning him once. And barely. The largest entry of all three is from Prospect Mike saying, “Thomas put up outstanding numbers AA and AAA in 2018 – 27 homers, 17 steals. The damper is that this power burst came out of the clear blue sky and most reports still have him pegged as a fourth outfielder in the big leagues. Another glitch is his health history – which isn’t exactly…healthy. He’s on the 40-man and could see some action this summer in St. Louis, and Grey is a total loser.” Wow, what did I ever do? Prospect Mike was talking about Lane Thomas for last year too, by the by, so he was right. About Thomas seeing some action, not about me! C’mon! Last year in a small sample, he hit 4 HRs, stole one bag and hit .316 with only a .308 BABIP, which was in 38 ABs. That was after a 10/11/.268 year in Triple-A in 265 ABs. He fractured his wrist in August, which cut his breakout short, so Mike was right about his health history too. Being about 11 months since that wrist injury, he should be totally fine. So, what should we expect from Lane Thomas for 2020 fantasy baseball and what makes him a great dart throw?

Please, blog, may I have some more?

After a tumultuous week in the news for both national issues of race as well as MLB’s current negotiations we found it only fitting to bring on someone with a great deal of insight on both race relations and how it relates to MLB. Our guest Randy Wilkins is a Filmmaker, Director of the AppleTV Show “Dear…”, as well as the director of ESPN 30 for 30 Short 86-32 (which you can watch at that link) and Docket 32357. Additionally, he provides Yankees analysis in his free time. Oh, and BTW our dude owns a few Emmys. It’s a riveting discussion and one worth tuning into for Randy’s perspective alone. A few times we mention his Twitter thread that went viral, that’s here:

It’s the latest episode of the Razzball Podcast.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

If you’re a hardcore baseball fan, you’ve probably already mulled through your fair share of 2020 MLB mock drafts. It seems like every website worth a damn posts one, yet no one really knows what to expect, and it only takes one curveball to throw the entire equation out of whack. Even so, I figured I’d give it a try for Razzball’s sake, if for no other reason than to give Grey some spicy motivation to tune in on Wednesday night. See, now it’s a mock draft.

There’s a lot of uncertainty with this draft. Nobody knows for sure just how college heavy teams are ultimately going to go with the unique situation created by COVID-19, and which teams will elect to play the strategic bonus tomfoolery game. It’s difficult to project just how these factors will play into each and every team’s respective strategy. We might see more teams than ever taking on the “best-available” approach.

But as it relates to fantasy baseball, Wednesday’s draft is relevant because it sets the stage for the ensuing trajectory of every drafted player’s stock as a prospect. Not only does draft position tend to influence how people value prospects in first-year player drafts, but who drafted said player can also go a long way in determining what their Minor League journey will look like and how confident we are as fantasy owners that they will develop successfully. That being said, here is my carefully-concocted mock draft of the first 29 picks this upcoming Wednesday. Mush! Onward into the unknown!

Please, blog, may I have some more?

A calendar page flies off and we follow it to the ground. We can’t quite make out the date on it yet, then the wind whips up hard and slams the page into a screen door. There, it ominously flaps against the screen door and we see the date. It reads…*dramatic sting*…March. Grey picks, because he’s writing this in third person, the piece of paper off the screen door and casually reads it. Slowly, across his face, a dawning of hell, it’s March 98th, 2020! AHHHHHH!!! Screams echo out–*shoots up in bed* Oh, wait, it’s June, 2020. Haha, silly dreamscape of hell. You’re so dumb, subconscious brain. Go back to hiding amongst all my baseball knowledge and factoids. So, today, I bring you my 1,789th Dart Throw, Daniel Vogelbach. Just think, by September, I will have profiled every baseball player as someone to draft. If only you were in a 30-team league with 178-man benches. Shucks, really. I kid, of course, because any day now we’re going to find out whether or not there’s gonna be a baseball season. I do believe a 100-game shortened season is still possible, but, ya know, they kinda need to figure shizz out sooner vs. later, and it’s not a great look when the MLB wants to play less baseball. So, what can we expect from Daniel Vogelbach for 2020 fantasy baseball and what makes him a great dart throw?

Please, blog, may I have some more?

I’ve only been loosely following the counterproposals MLB and the MLBPA are exchanging. Where are we at now, 200 to -38? How does a negative game take place? Only position players are allowed to pitch and only pitchers get to hit. You thought that was cute before, huh? It seems like the most likely season is 50 games, which would be wild. Stats like steals are going to be so very hard to manufacture. I’d suggest streaming rabbits against pitchers that can be run on from the jump, to be honest. Here are the worst pitchers when it came to stolen bases yielded per inning in 2019.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Craig Mish (@CraigMish), host of the Swings and Mishes podcast joins the show to breakdown the Miami Marlins. We discuss the veteran loaded lineup. Can guys like Corey Dickerson and Jesus Aguilar bounce back and have a monster season? Will Jonathan Villar carry over his success from Baltimore? We also dive into the young, but promising rotation. Can Sandy Alcantara be the work horse of the rotation? Can Pablo Lopez and Caleb Smith take the next steps to stardom? Their farm system is loaded with talented guys like Sixto Sanchez and J.J. Bleday leading the way. We discuss all these questions and more.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

On this week’s Patreon podcast, we welcome, Ben Sisto, artist, curator and star of the documentary, Who Let The Dogs Out. Yes, as in the song. *insert barking* The documentary — available on Hulu — Who Let the Dogs out — tells the story of Ben Sisto and how he went looking for the origins of the Who Let The Dogs Out song. You ever Google one topic on the internet like “What’s so great about Britain” and five hours later find yourself watching someone make homemade tortillas? That’s what this documentary feels like in some ways — what started from an innocuous moment on the Wikipedia page of Who Let The Dogs Out sent Ben on a 10-year odyssey to find out, finally, who, actually, let out the dogs.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

The Rule 4 Draft kicks off this Wednesday! Time to get amped for an actual sporting event! 

Or not. I mean it’s your call. Would totally understand if you’re so irritated by big-wig greed you can’t pretend MLB doesn’t suck at being a professional league for a couple of weeknights. 

2020’s will be a supremely weird draft, but I’m geeked for it. I’ll post a mock draft here midday Wednesday, after which I’ll continue these rankings. I know some leagues like to do their First-Year-Player Drafts immediately after the July 2 signing date for international amateurs (in a typical season), so I figured the time was right to start synthesizing the talent trickling into our game this summer. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Caleb Smith is not an ace. I will put that out there now, and assuage any comment bombs. However looking at a short season, and for funsies, considering an MLB proposed 50-game season that looks closer and closer to reality as the days grow longer, we are now looking at finding value in possibly 2 months of games, bleh. With a long grinding season becoming a short sprint, I was curious about fast-starting pitchers while continuing research on the hitter-side. To my surprise, there was 1 name that appeared in the Top 20 K% for starting pitchers from April–May over the last 2 years outside of Grey’s Top 100. That name is indeed Caleb Smith.

Now I know what you are thinking, Smith is kinda sun-dried garbaggio as the season wears on so why are you bothering me with this pincushion? I get it. But hear me out! If the season continues to shrink and we see 2 months full of games, you can spin the wheel of mediocrity and possibly land on a short-term ace. He doesn’t have to be Mr. Right, just Mr. Right-now-while-we-have-games (for 2 months). And those kinds of aces come in spades, Mr. Kilmister. One of which could easily be our boy, Caleb.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

We’re heading into month three of quarantine and my wife and I are running out of shows to binge. So we’re revisiting one of our favorites in Lost. Secret time – we got our son’s name from the show, not from the Mark Twain novel. We’ve watched the full series at least four times through and the thing I love is how well they developed the characters. Sure, by the end there are plenty of unanswered questions, but I love the ensemble and I love how flawed every character is. Since my mind is back on “The Island”, I decided to look into The Smoak Monster himself, Justin Smoak. Entering his age-33 season, is a return to fantasy relevance in the cards for Smoak who batted a paltry .208 in his final season with the Blue Jays, or will he be scratched off Jacob’s candidate list?

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Eric Cross (@EricCross04) from Fantrax joins the show to dive into this years prospects and MLB draft. We discuss his top 10 highlighted by Wander Franco, Luis Robert and Jo Adell. We also go over guys he thinks could work their way into the top 50. Julio Rodriguez or Jarred Kelenic? We look at the loaded Seattle Mariners farm system and who we think could become the next wave of MLB stars. Eric gives us his top 5 draft picks and why that organization will take them. Who goes first overall? Spencer Torkelson, Austin Martin, Nick Gonzales.

Please, blog, may I have some more?