MattTruss

RCL Update, Week 2: The Week That Was

April 17, 2018 | Our Leagues, Razzball Commenters League | 23 Comments

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Is it just me or is half the league on the DL right now?  Everyone seems like they have a strained this or a sore that.  Can the Razzball Commenter Leagues go to five DL spots next year?  I never thought I’d miss Rougned Odor so much. Ozzie Albies is helping to ease the pain though, thanks Ozzie.  Now, if Ronnie Baseball could go ahead and join Ozzie with the big club, that’d be swell. I know I’m not the only one itching to see Ronald Acuna called up ASAP.  His ADP was 79.58 and that was with early drafts having him go off the board around pick 100. The closer we got to Opening Day, the higher he was drafted, spiking at pick 47.  Team cdwiz26 was the big winner, able to nab Acuna at pick 117. Is it too soon to worry if you’re falling behind in stolen bases or some other category? Probably not yet, especially if you have a guy like Acuna waiting to make an impact.

It’s the silly season for our leagues at this point, where we can have huge swings in the standings based on 2-3 good days of stats.  Thanks to Rudy and the Robots (also the name of my Depeche Mode cover band) we have a starting point for the Master Standings. Big thanks to Rudy for working with FanTrax to get this rolling even earlier than we did last year with ESPN.  Who’s the number one team after the first couple weeks of the season? You’ll have to click below to see that. Let’s take a look at the standings as well as some trades in the week that was, week two in the RCLs:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

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See all of today’s starting lineups

# MLB Starting Lineups For Sun 8/3
ARI | ATH | BAL | BOS | CHC | CHW | CLE | COL | DET | HOU | KC | LAA | LAD | MIA | MIL | MIN | NYM | NYY | PHI | PIT | SD | SEA | SF | STL | TB | TEX | TOR | WSH | ATL | CIN | OAK
Geoff

Fantasy Baseball Podcast: Hanging Zucchinis, Week 3 Of 2018 Fantasy Baseball

April 17, 2018 | All Podcasts, Razzball Podcast | 31 Comments

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Every week I get up here and tell you “This episode has it all!”. But this week, I actually mean it. Where else can you get discussions of “Butt-texting”, exit velocities, launch angles, and geriatric dating, other than the Razzball Fantasy Baseball Podcast? Not up to speed on what hanging zucchinis are? Take a seat, and let the Fantasy Master Lothario Grey Albright explain. Outside of Grey’s eccentric family, we come back with some hot takes, and deep discussion of Bartolo’s near perfect game, Ozzie Albies breakout, and every wavier wire darling from Joey Lucchesi to Franchy Cordero. Finally, please make sure to support our sponsor by heading over to RotoWear.com and entering promo code “SAGNOF” for 20% off the highest quality t-shirts in the fantasy sports game. It’s the latest edition of the Razzball Fantasy Baseball Podcast:

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Roto-Wan

Draft: Sharpen Those Pencils

April 17, 2018 | DFS, Draft | 2 Comments

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Tonight is my favorite kind of night on Draft.com. The small rosters usually mean you’re choosing between great hitter A and great hitter B. Some tough match-ups equals slimmer than usual pickin’s for this slate. That’s going to help you gain an edge by doing your homework and finding advantageous spots for players like Justin Bour and Mike Foltynewicz. So sharpen up your pencil, and maybe stop doodling inappropriately.

New to Draft.com? 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?
Grey

Bryce’s Breakneck Beginning Beats Back Broken Bats

April 17, 2018 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 515 Comments

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There’s no greater compliment I can give a player than I wish I owned him in every league.  Okay, maybe a higher compliment is I wish he’d married my mom and been my dad, but then he’d be old and I wouldn’t be able to own him in every league, unless he married her when I was, like, 20 and he was three years old, but then I’d sorta be like his dad, but I would have to call him dad and that would be confusing, what would I call him, “Lil’ Dad?”  “Half Pops?”  “Daddy Little Jeans?”  And if Daddy Little Jeans were my dad and I owned him in fantasy and he had a bad game, then dinner would be awkward.  “Hey, Daddy Little Jeans, you can’t get a hit off a Marlins pitcher?  You’re useless, and my mom wants a divorce!”  So, in conclusion, it’s best if I say I want to own a player vs. have him be my dad.  Seriously, though, Bryce Harper (2-for-4, 2 runs, 3 RBIs with his 8th homer, hitting .315) could be finally putting up that 45/15/.320 season we’ve all been dreaming about, and headed for a $750 million pay day with the Yanks (after holding out for three months into the season).

Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Lance

Hipster Pitchers And What To Think

April 16, 2018 | 2023 Fantasy Baseball | 9 Comments

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Each of the last two weeks, I’ve looked at pitchers who changed something in their repertoire. The first change I looked at was my opinion of starters – Take that for data! – before that exact trio started generating substantial buzz (Corbin, Bundy, Lucchesi). I then navigated to velocity changes on two arms I was particularly intrigued by (Berrios, Castillo). Now to complete the trinity, I wanted to look at what I consider “hipster pitchers.”

Said in layman’s terms – are hipsters layman now? – these arms are following the breaking-ball trend that has taken over the game, buoyed by the philosophy that your best pitch should be thrown more than the past would suggest. Breaking balls are the most successful pitch at inducing whiffs for the majority of pitchers, that’s why the majority of starters, when broken down by pitch usage and count, will tend to utilize breaking balls with two strikes (duh!). They’re also the most fun to gif up – just ask one of the most popular baseball accounts on Twitter, @PitchingNinja.

Speaking of pitchers, if you like the sound of my voice, which you can judge for yourself weekly on the Razzball Prospect Podcast I co-host with Ralph, I’m doing also doing a weekly “Pitcher Thoughts” podcast. It’s available on the Apple Podcast app, Stitcher, Spotify, and Soundcloud. Shameless plug!

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Smokey

SAGNOF Report: Fantastic Steals And Where To Find Them

April 16, 2018 | Uncategorized | 25 Comments

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The stolen base department is always a tough sledding affair.  It is filled with guessing and presumptuous displays of picking the right guy in the right situation.  Steals are very hard to come by on a regular basis currently so the steals are a “trending downward” property. So hitting on one SAGNOF flyer for the week or via the waiver wire for immediate returns is just a hard thing to predict.  At best, the wire fellas will net you one steal a week, and that is being generous.  So looking at the trends “against teams, by teams that steal” is the best model for the stolen base business. Upcoming matchups for the week are the way to go if you wanna guess, but guess with style and maybe a better idea of who is stealing on who and how often.  Taking not only advantage of a catcher skill set but a team skill set for their propensity to give of the thievery.  So here is the SAGNOF report for this week with a scheduler forecaster for the 10-most frequent base stealing teams and their schedule for the week…

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Al Shines

The Keepers Corner: Who’s Getting The Call Up?

April 16, 2018 | Keeper Leagues | 8 Comments

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It can be tricky playing fantasy baseball and having to play off clues and subtle moves MLB teams make for their star-studded young players. When Eugenio Suarez fractured his thumb earlier this week the fantasy community came far and wide with their takes on if the Cincinnati Reds would call up the second overall pick from 2016 Nick Senzel. Senzel could be up this weekend or the end of the month, and sadly some are even saying maybe not until June. Some have said Suarez’s injury wont change anything for the Reds and that they can play out the rest of the season without him (even if his bat is major league ready). This still is all speculation and if you’re in a keeper league, I hope you grabbed him immediately after Suarez went down. When situations like this occur just a few times a year, you can’t wait for the beat writers or reporters to say what they are expecting to happen, you have to risk wasting that waiver wire pick before the actual word gets out. To succeed in fantasy baseball and in all keeper/dynasty leagues, speculation is all you should need to make a move…

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Ignacio

Draft: Can You Snell What Blake Is Cooking

April 16, 2018 | DFS, Draft | 3 Comments

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Blake Snell has a real opportunity tonight to body-slam the battered Texas Rangers. Missing a couple of key components in the offense, the Rangers have managed a measly .674 OPS as a team. In addition to the injuries, they offer a huge strikeout potential, as they ranked 4th in the entire MLB in Ks. Snell has always been somewhat of an enigma but he has the stuff to dominate a lineup, as he proved his last time out (6IP 1ER 10Ks). Lastly, the game is being played indoors and offers no chance of a PPD, when it seems every game is being postponed these days. Let’s take a look at the rest of the picks…

New to Draft? 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 you do. It’s how we know you care!  

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Grey

Starling Goes Hannibal On The Marlins

April 16, 2018 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 612 Comments

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Just wanna put it out there that Al Gore did a better job of inventing the internet than he did at global warming.  All these postponements is a real shitshow…snow.  The way we’re going there’s going to be back-to-back tripleheaders in August for some teams with the ceremonial first pitch thrown out by Joel Youngblood.  Here was me trying to field a full fantasy team the last few days:  I’m going to hold onto Matt Davidson through his postponed games, at least I have Freddie Freeman, and now the Braves are rained out, well, I have Miguel Andujar in a doubleheader, and…that’s been canceled, guess I can grab whomever is starting for the Royals vs. Ohtani and that game has been called.  Hmm, down to one game on Sunday — Rays vs. Phils.  C’mon, Kiermaier–And he’s out after one inning.  FMFBBL.  Any hoo!  Yesterday, Starling Marte went 5-for-5, 4 runs and his 3rd homer, hitting .305.  If you’re facing him, urine trouble, if you’re a PEDs tester, that is.  By the way, I heard an interesting tidbit on a podcast the other day.  If you wipe a baby diaper filled with pee on your face, you will stay forever young.  Of course, the advice came from a prisoner serving 25 years to life in San Quentin, so there might be side effects.  Coming into this game, Marte was hitting .241, and he raised his average more than sixty points, which shows you how young the season is still.  Maybe the season wiped baby urine on itself.  Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Kerry Klug

Top 100 Hitters, Week 3: Showtime Ohtani!

April 15, 2018 | Fantasy Baseball Rankings | 45 Comments

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Boy, this Ohtani is all anybody’s ever talking about. I’m so sick and tired of hearing about how brilliant that Ohtani is. I was so tempted to put Shohei Ohtani on this list. So tempted! Unfortunately he only has 30 at-bats compared to the league leader, his teammate, Albert Pujols’s 67. That’s too small of a sample size for me to overreact and 3-4 batting games per week can leave you in a hole. It is fun to see that he has a 0% soft contact rate though. But that Ohtani is some kind of something, huh?

This winter weather is messing with a lot of players. At the bottom of my top 100 you’ll see a list of hitters who shoulda, coulda, woulda been in the top 100 if they were healthy. I think most of them will return and find themselves back on the top 100 list, but for now, due to their missed games and health uncertainty — they get their own list.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Dokken

Two Startapalooza, Week 3: Maybe Not As Gross As You’d Expect

April 15, 2018 | Fantasy Baseball Two-Start Pitchers | 25 Comments

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Technically this will be Week 4 if you count the first Thursday through Sunday games, but I refuse to do that! That’s only half a week, my friend. We don’t half-ass anything around here, especially weeks. We go hard. YOU go hard. That’s why you’re here. You’re looking to get the weekly streaming leg up on your competition so you can punch them in their proverbial genitals. Don’t actually punch your competition in the genitals though, that ain’t right. Unless they talk smack about yo’ momma, then it’s ok.

The streaming game is one not for the faint of heart since it can go awry even in the best of situations, but part of the long game is casting your lot with a sound process and putting yourself in the best position to succeed. That said, out of the weekly bucket of mediocrity are some surprisingly non barf-inducing possibilities. I consider the options in Tier 4, which ended up rather thick and chunky (not unlike my soup), to be largely streamable in deeper mixed leagues. Let’s have a look at some of the more interesting double dippers this week…

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Paul "The" Martian

FAAB Five: Teoscar Dot Com

April 15, 2018 | Uncategorized | 17 Comments

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Teoscar Hernandez (10-15% FAAB Budget) is a player that screams fantasy upside. Teoscar Hernandez is a coveted combination of power and speed that does not come along on the waiver wire often. Past seasons of 20-30 steals in the minors with a double-digit home run ceiling are tools to look towards when planning to bid some FAAB budget this week. Teoscar is also a Statcast darling who pops up on the top of the 2017 Brls/PA leaderboards surrounded by players like Nelson Cruz, Khris Davis, and teammate Justin Smoak. The approach could still improve, but the potential for gaudy fantasy stats is evident with this call-up. Hernandez could have made the opening day lineup in a desolate Blue Jays outfield. The team opted to give Randal Grichuk a chance to fulfill his trade. However, faith in the former Cardinal is fleeting. Hernandez could be a player that sticks on fantasy rosters all season providing double-digit steals and home runs with the potential to surpass 20 in both categories.

Please, blog, may I have some more?