This is it folks. I can feel baseball getting closer. It’s either that, or Rob Manfred has moved into my basement bunker and has been whispering sweet nothings in my ear. What this weird aside presupposes is, why not both? And despite having a subconscious urge to add a DH to my daily routine, we’re going to shake things up and instead of covering a value pitcher or a Padres anything, I wanted to focus thy gaze (do you even gaze, bro?) upon J.T. Realmuto. Wrongly-used partial middle “ye” English vernacular aside (the yeee!), I’m here to establish that J.T. Realmuto is a very good baseball player. In fact, he’s probably the best catcher in the league right now, both in fantasy and in real MLB terms. And while it’d be quite the content strategy to end the post here and consider this mission accomplished, I’d prefer to make the case that while Realmuto may be the real acuerdo, he’s not the droid catcher you’re looking for. In fact, drafting him may actually handicap your team the entire season, even if that season is shortened down to something like 12 total triskaidecagon-headers…
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Kyle Lewis is in my top 100 outfielders for 2020 fantasy baseball, but, as mentioned the other day, these Dart Throws are me being a little more footloose and fancy-free like Kevin Bacon on Casual Fridays with projections and possible upside. By the way, can you imagine explaining to an alien right now what Casual Fridays are? “It’s when you don’t have to dress up for work on Friday.” Alien speaks in an alien language while you wait for the Alien Language Translator to give you back what it’s saying. Finally, the Alien Language Translator says, “You’ve been wearing sweatpants for the last five weeks. What’s more casual? Your stained gotchies?” Yo, that Alien has a smart mouth, which is located on its feet, because it’s an alien. Any hoo! In my top 100 outfielders, I threw Kyle Lewis a bone by including him. To get him in the lineup, Dee Gordon has to be benched; Mitch Haniger’s Mr. Peanut has to be crushed; Austin Nola has to do whatever it is Austin Nola does, but on the bench; Jake Fraley has to do a bit better than Austin Nola, but not good enough to start and Dylan Moore…Well, who? Your 2020 Mariners are tight eh-eff team of recycled garbage that was never recycled. But, when the league starts up again, and, if the M’s are playing in Arizona — better! — then Kyle Lewis could be the starting right fielder. So, what can we expect from Kyle Lewis for 2020 fantasy baseball and what makes him a great dart throw?
Please, blog, may I have some more?
There have been a lot of strange things about this off-season. I mean, in addition to the obvious, like constantly worrying about the health of ourselves, our loved ones, and the fate of mankind while not having baseball as a job/hobby/distraction. For me, one of the odder consequences of the delayed season is the fact that I have yet to draft an NL or AL-only team this year, as all of my private leagues are waiting to draft until we have a better idea what the coming weeks and months will bring. Another very weird thing that seems to have happened to me over the last several months is that I have evidently developed a propensity for paying more than ever before for catchers on my fantasy baseball teams.
I realize now that this trend actually started back in another lifetime late November, when my first draft of the season took place. I’ve drafted quite a few teams since then — mostly 15-team mixed format, 2-catcher leagues, with a standard 5×5 roto scoring system. Unlike every other season of my fantasy baseball career, almost every one of them features at least one catcher that I had to pay for with either a mid-round pick of a handful of valuable auction dollars. Last year, I literally did not even include catchers on my master spread sheet… I just had a handful of names in mind that I knew I could grab at the very end of a draft or with my last dollar in an auction. This year, paying for a catcher was not a strategy that I came into draft season with; it just kind of happened. Draft after draft, it just continued to occur: time to make a pick, and I felt a catcher was the best value on the board. This happened back in my first drafts this winter, and continued through my last drafts a couple of weeks ago — so in terms of the catching position, my take on how to construct the best team really didn’t change once the uncertainty of the season’s timeline and potential format changes came into play. What I’m also realizing is that I’m pretty happy with how most of my teams turned out overall on paper — to the point where, if worse comes to worst and we have no baseball in 2020 and I don’t get to see if my don’t-wait-as-long-as-usual-to-draft-a-catcher method worked, I will most likely jump right back in and employ a similar strategy in 2021.
Coming down from the high of interviewing a Rap God a week ago, Grey and I are back to baseball. Well kind of… we mostly speculate about the speculation coming from the known speculators about all things baseball. In other words we discuss those verkakte plans all over Twitter and the internet. We talk a little food, a little love, a little life, as well as movies and TV. Is there anything else for us to do besides movies and TV? It’s the only thing holding society together at the moment. Someday historians will look back at this period and will be inspired to pen the book “How The Tiger King Saved Civilization”. In the future this is less ridiculous, mostly because we all dress like Kevin Nash in the 90s. Anyway, it’s the latest episode of the Razzball podcast.
Please, blog, may I have some more?This post will either be insanely stupid and a terrible use of splits stats or *mimes mind being blown*. Actually, now that I think about it, *mimes mind being blown* doesn’t sound like a positive. Two negatives? A perfect start for a post about Rougned Odor! Owning Rougned Odor over the course of the season is exactly like *mimes mind being blown*. The last time I owned Rougned Odor I repeatedly *mimes mind being blown* at how awful he was. Sometimes I’d watch him swing and miss for roughly 100 straight at-bats and *mimes mind being blown*. I once owned Rougned Odor through a 1-for-seemingly-500 stretch, dropped him and watched him hit five homers in four games on waivers and *mimes mind being blown*. There’s a countless number of *mimes mind being blown* times I can associate with Rougned Odor and none of them are good, frankly. *mimes mind being blown* is a terrible way to think about Rougned Odor — forget I ever said it! I hate him so much! Yet. Dot dot dot. I’m kinda interested, due to his splits. So, what can we expect from Rougned Odor for 2020 fantasy baseball and what makes him a great dart throw?
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Happy Star Wars day one and all! We officially have two Razzball Commenter Leagues remaining, one of which is drafting tonight! Click HERE and you are in! Check the spreadsheet below for the last remaining RCL draft on Thursday night. Who doesn’t need a little draft therapy these days? You can snag up all of Grey’s dart throws and be ready to rumble once the season rolls. Way back on Tuesday, March 3rd at 9:00pm EST, a gaggle of Razzball Writers (well, most) settled in for an early season draft. Twelve fantasy writers in one league and you thought we weren’t going to take this opportunity to hear ourselves talk (type)? Well, then you thought wrong! We’re all loaded with hot fiyah taeks! This isn’t the ‘Perts League that Grey hosts, this is just anyone that writes for Razzball and who wanted to join an RCL. You can check out all the draft results HERE to follow along. This season’s participants in RCL draft order are:
B_Don – Podcasts & Chill
Thomas Howland – Spring Training Position Battles, DFS & Weekly 100
Will Scharnagl – Small Sample, Big Outlook
Coolwhip – Deep Thoughts
Butters – DFS Content
Hammer – The local ambulance chaser
SON – A two sport star, running the basketball side of Razzball and writing Bear/Bull for MLB
MattTruss – DFS and RCLs are my game
Richardo – Former DFS Guru turned H2H All-Star
Kerry Klug – Team Previews & Sleepers
Pat – Pitcher Profiles
Mcafeeeee – OPS is his bag
Now you know who is in the league, next we’ll hear what they had to say about it. I interviewed each writer with some questions; some personal and some generic and here’s what they had to say:
Fantasy Baseball Podcast: Indians Baseball with Matt Williams
May 4, 2020 | All Podcasts | 1 Commentby: Brent
Matt Williams (@MattWi77iams), host of the Turn Two Podcast, joins the show to breakdown the Cleveland Indians Ball Club. We take a deep dive into why Jose Ramirez had such a bad stretch and what he did to fix it. We look into why or why not Francisco Lindor will get traded and to which potential suitors. How good can this pitching staff be? Matt gives his thoughts on why Mike Clevinger can win a Cy Young and if his teammate Shane Bieber can follow in his footsteps. We also look into their farm system for potential impact players that can make the big league roster.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Donkey Teeth and I had the pleasure of welcoming Don Zemmer (a sentence I’m sure you expected to read pre-pandemic) to our Patreon podcast.
Who?
Dot dot dot.
Don Zemmer, fools! The guy who sings popular songs using baseball players’ names! Allow me to give you an example for the underknowers and not-yet-appreciators. For the unsubscribed and not-yet-hip-to-the-unhip. For the uninitiated and unsatiated. For the what-the-heck-are-you-talking-abouters and the seriously-fill-me-in-I’m-cluelessers! Here’s some of Don Zemmer’s best:
Please, blog, may I have some more?Thread of songs that hit 100k views
???
1. Star Spangled Banner pic.twitter.com/9FPpMoaO7p
— don zemmer (@DonZemmer) April 12, 2020
Today we put the finishing touches on one of dynasty baseball’s toughest positions.
People just don’t trade speedy outfielders who can hit.
Or at least they shouldn’t.
Sure a Jarrod Dyson might get vacuumed up at basement pricing every now and then, but if you’ve got Starling Marte, Victor Robles or Oscar Mercado, you’re probably not that interested in the offers you’ve gotten for them. Speed players who contribute across the board are the dodo birds of our game. Outfield and middle infield are typically the only places to find them, apart from the occasional Jose Ramirez or prime-age Paul Goldschmidt. You flat out need some speed covering the green if you’re hoping to compete in the category, and I’m just not the type to advocate punting a category in 5×5. Trying to win leagues over here–not tell tales about fading saves and steals but hanging in with the top group anyway.
Anyway, best to get ‘em young while they’re cheap. I wouldn’t be paying up for all the guys like Pache who show aptitude in the lower minors, but if I can take a fistful of freemium fliers on guys like Jasiah Dixon and Jeferson Espinal, I’m doing that all day.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Hello, again. It’s nice to be back in the saddle, writing up some fantasy baseball tidbits. I took a little hiatus after my COVID-19 Bargains series, but I’m kicking off a new one for yinz. If what’s on the grapevine is true, then we’ll finally get what I hope all of you have been waiting for: a DH for National League teams! I know you old-schoolers out there hate the idea – and trust me, I consider myself pretty old school in a lot of respects – but I don’t give two soggy turds about watching a pitcher try to hit a baseball. Some can do it okay, but the overwhelming majority cannot. It’s largely a meaningless at-bat, as far as I’m concerned. And let’s not even talk about pitchers running bases.
The 2020 fantasy baseball season is going to be a strange one, no doubt. I keep seeing this whole thing about 100 games and only three divisions total. Will these games be played in Spring Training parks? Regular parks? No one knows for sure. Are we gonna get doubleheaders like crazy? *shrug emoji* The latest proposal suggests regular home parks without fans, but we’ll see. For the sake of my sanity, I’m going to treat this series as if we’re gonna get regular home parks, and I’m going to categorize each team in their regular divisions, since that’s what we’re (read “I’m”) used to. Yes, Cardinals hitters facing more aces than just what the Cubs, Reds, Brewers, and Pirates would throw at them certainly changes things, but that’s true for every lineup if this proposal comes to fruition. I’m not going to sit here and analyze how Tyler O’Neill might fare against Matthew Boyd. I’m just going to point out some NL bats you might want to pay attention to since they may become regular instead of platooning. Capeesh? Obviously, if this division re-alignment happens, there has to be a universal DH. Either that or make the AL teams use a pitcher in the lineup. Who wants that? I sure as hell don’t.
Bear in mind, I’m not necessarily focusing on each team’s potential DH. This series is more about which NL bat benefits the most on each squad due to said DH. Could be because said bat might be said DH, or could be because said bat might be a better defensive option for another bat who could be said DH. Capeesh?
So, without further ado, here are my biggest risers were we to indeed get the lovely universal DH:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Bulls on Parade, Part 1: Catchers and Corners
May 1, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball | 80 Commentsby: Big Magoo
Nostalgia can be a funny thing. In challenging times, especially, it can be nice to revisit things that you think back on fondly. It wraps you in a warm, comfy blanket of good memories and better times. Even now, as I’m writing this, I just put on a random 90s alternative rock/grunge playlist that I found on YouTube. I have some very nostalgic feelings about the music from that era. Alice in Chains? Yes please. Soundgarden? Mmm… so cozy. Better Than Ezra? Sure, why not. Underrated band. Tal Bachman? Ahhhh, that’s… wait, what? Joan Osborne? Brrr… it’s getting drafty in here. Savage Garden? Hey, where the hell did my blanket go? Time to pull a Randy Savage and drop the big elbow on this list. Magoo’s gettin’ angry!
Well, so much for my nostalgic musical trip. That brings us back to baseball. It’s really the ultimate source of nostalgia for me. Whether playing, watching, or getting hooked on the fantasy side of things, it’s been a constant in my life since I was about four years old. A nice, warm blanket that’s always at the ready. So to be sitting here in late April with no baseball in sight feels weird. Really weird. And while nobody really knows when or where or in what form our national pastime will return, I’m hopeful that it will at some point this year. But instead of focusing on what we can’t control, let’s focus on what we can control, shall we?
Which brings us to the topic at hand. We might not know when and where baseball will be played this season, but we can certainly choose who we want playing on our fantasy teams. With that in mind, I’ll be discussing all of the players who I’ve drafted in my fantasy baseball leagues in 2020. It might sound like a lot, but it’ll just be covering five leagues in total – four NFBC Online Championship leagues, and one NFBC Draft Champions league. For some perspective, the four OC leagues are 12 team mixed with weekly lineup locks, weekly pickups, and the following starting lineup requirements: 2 C, 1 1B, 1 2B, 1 SS, 1 3B, 1 MI, 1 CI, 5 OF, 1 Util, and 9 P. There is a 1000 innings pitched minimum, but no specific minimum or starting requirements for starting or relief pitchers. The Draft Champions is a 15 team mixed league format with the same starting lineup requirements as the OC format, except it’s a 50 round draft-and-hold with no in-season transactions. What you draft is what you’re stuck with until the end of the season. There is no trading and no injured list in both formats as well.
I’ll be breaking things down by position, briefly discussing my pre-draft strategies followed by a quick analysis of each player that I ended up pulling the trigger on. Since this article is already longer than a typical baby seal comment, I’ll just be covering catchers and corner infielders today, with middle infielders, outfielders, and pitchers soon to follow.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
2020 Team Fantasy Sleepers: Toronto Blue Jays
May 1, 2020 | Fantasy Team Previews | 10 Commentsby: Kerry Klug
Oh what a year it’s been since my last article was published on April 3rd. At that point I was thinking “Wow, the Athletics could win the AL West this season with this lineup!” Now, I’m left wondering “I wonder if the Blue Jays can beat their division rivals, the NY Mets and the Pittsburgh Pirates and win the MLB East.” At this point I don’t care how they break the teams down. Three divisions, six divisions, 15 divisions — just gimme my baseball! There’s only so much KBO I can watch and MLB Power Pros I can play!
My prediction is that baseball dives face first into “We’re baseball! We ARE America!” and the season launches for 100 games on Saturday, July 4th. What’s more ‘Murican than that?!
Enough banter — let’s talk about the Blue Jays sleepers. As always — I’m not here to talk about Vlad Guerrero or Bo Bichette — everyone already knows about them and how they’re going to perform. Also — I’m not really going to touch on prospects. The Itch already did a bang up job telling you about Nate Pearson and the other Blue Jays prospects here: https://razzball.com/top-2020-prospects-toronto-blue-jays/
Please, blog, may I have some more?
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