Turns out there is a 50/50 shot that I’ve hit on Grey’s mom in Whole Foods. I would raise those odds to like a 90% chance if she likes wearing yoga pants. What can I say? I’m a sucker for yoga pants. If you haven’t figured it out yet, Grey and I found out this weekend that Grey’s mom and I live in the same area and shop at the same supermarkets! We also found out that JB doesn’t have to be the host in order to get sucked into a Brewers vortex for the first 20 minutes of the show, as talking about Lewis Brinson bled right into Domingo Santana, which bled into Orlando Arcia. We finally do move on, and get to such luminaries as Aaron Judge, Jeff Hoffman, Brad Peacock, Aaron Hicks, Corey Seager, and many more. I then congratulate “nightpandas” on his Razzball Only FantasyDraft Contest victory last week. It’s the latest edition of the Razzball Fantasy Baseball Podcast:
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Jacob Does An 180 DeGrom Turn From Last Start
June 13, 2017 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 480 Commentsby: Grey
Yesterday, Jacob deGrom threw a complete game with 1 ER, 9 baserunners (4 BBs), 6 Ks, lowering his ERA to 4.33. Oh, his peripherals are beautiful. Velocity is fine, even up a tad up, and that’s not the new radar gun positioning talking. For what it’s worth, a radar gun can’t talk. His Ks are way up. Walks are up too, but not quite to the point where it justifies his four-plus ERA. His xFIP is even below where it was last year. So, what explains his mediocre ERA besides the general answer of: Mets gonna Mets? He’s not throwing his cutter or change nearly as much and is almost entirely relying on a slider and four-seam fastball. The change and cutter were never ‘big’ pitches for him, but mixing them in may have kept hitters honest like Abe Lincoln and iced tea. His slider this year is barely a positive pitch for him. Last year, it was a top 20 slider in the majors, right next to Sabathia, and that guy loves sliders! As with most things Mets pitchers-related, it’s a conundrum wrapped inside a forklift of fortune cookies that is wrapped inside a turkey. It’s called a turforkum. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
It’s Peacock week here at Razzball, and I for one, have been trying my damnedest to use some of the lessons taught to me by my mentor, the sometimes debonair, but mostly creepy, world-renowned pickup artist Mystery. You might remember this sexual predator from MTV at some point in the last 10 years. MTV, ruining everything since 1981! You might not recall this, particularly if you’ve never been under the spell of a man dressed as the lead singer of Jamiroquai, but Mystery has long preached the word of “Peacocking”. I can’t be sure, but I’m almost certain that this is the act of pretending you’re Brad Peacock to pickup women. I mean how could this not work have you seen “The P-Cock” in all his glory? Gorgeous just like a horse is, to say the least. The 29 year old Peacock has spent parts of 5 seasons in the majors, mostly as a shuttle arm, between AAA and the majors. In 2017 however, the righty has been a bit of a revelation for the Astros, first in the bullpen, and now in the rotation. Grey wrote him up on Friday, and he’s been one of the more interesting streams over the last few weeks. If only due to that heavenly 15 K/9 over his first three starts. So let’s dig into Peacock and see what he’s doing on the mound, when not going into liquor store rages.
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Stephen Strasburg, $24,800 is taking the mound tonight against the Braves and I for one purchased my ticket for the SS K machine back on Thursday. The good news is, there’s still tickets available, the bad news is they’re a little pricey. I hate to use the word underrated when it comes to Strasburg, but all you hear about is Kershaw, Mad Max, Keuchel and Greinke. Where’s the Love for Strasburg? His last four starts are ridiculous, 3-1 with 5 ER and 41 K’s over his last 27.2 innings. Yes, you read that correctly, 41 K’s over his last 27.2 innings (Mic drop). I’m matching Strasburg up with Jameson Taillon, $13,600 who’s got the Rockies fresh off the DL. Now I typically don’t like starting guys coming off the DL due to pitch counts, but Taillon wasn’t gone due to any baseball related injury and he was hitting 97 on the radar gun in his last rehab start. He was straight money before the sudden cancer diagnosis and I’m sure it’ll be an emotional night for the Pirates team upon his return. I think Taillon will have a little extra juice in the tank tonight and at this price I can’t pass him up. Now that we got our pitching locked in let’s see what offense is going to help us cash in.
New to FantasyDraft? 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!
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I use a number of different tools, sites, and metrics every week to adjust my rankings and to determine exactly who I should focus on each week. I usually try to focus on players owned in less than 60% leagues, players who are rising or falling and who you should probably buy low or sell high on, or players who are new to the Top 100 or on the cusp of joining the ranks. It has only been a few weeks since I took over these rankings for the legendary M@, so I am still working on creating the most efficient system (I spend wayyyyyy too much time agonizing over these rankings every Sunday).
I start by going over my notes and spreadsheets from the previous week, then take a peek at Razzball’s Player Rater and look at the current rankings and the Rest of Season Projections. Once I jot down some notes from those, I take a look at ESPN’s PR15 Player Ratings for the last 15 days. Lastly, I check FanGraphs with a focus on the best wOBA for the last 14 days and the last 30 days. Usually, once I am finished with that process, I have an idea of who I am going to write about and a starting point for adjusting the rankings.
Please, blog, may I have some more? Looking Good Brinson. Feeling Good Lewis!
June 12, 2017 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 698 Commentsby: Grey
I’m at my computer checking baseball news about six months a year. Give or take about five hours here and there. On Saturday, it was one of those times I was away from my computer, due to a family wedding in Cape May. Closer change, prospect call-up. Happens when you’re away from the computer, that’s it. Call it a wrap. With Prospector Ralph in the league, there’s no chance for me. Around 6 PM, I got the dreaded text. “Lewis Brinson was called up.” Too bad I didn’t see it until about 7 PM. Had a lavender-flavored champagne in one hand, a lobster claw in the other hand, my mom was like, “You have butter dripping down your chin,” my grandfather was complaining Bruno Mars doesn’t have good choruses in his songs, and there was the text, sitting there on a locked iPhone screen. Done. Sigh. Well, if you got him, or can still get Brinson, you should. Jonathan Villar hit the DL, and, brucely, he wasn’t playing well and Keon Broxton (1-for-4 and his 7th homer yesterday) moves to a platoon role. Unless Brinson totally flames out, he’s up, and playing for good in center. In Triple-A, he had six homers and seven steals in 45 games, which is what I’d expect from him in the majors. Your basic 25/25/.280 guy. Yesterday, he hit leadoff went 0-for-2 with two walks and stole his first base. Yes, he should be owned everywhere, and could be the Trea Turner-type call-up of the year. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Quick, what do Luis Severino and Jimmy Nelson have in common?
If you answered both have a strikeout rate above 24%, a walk rate below 6%, and the exact same FIP before Saturday’s slate of games, you’re correct! I’m a big fan of arbitrary thresholds for drawing comparisons between players, even when it works in the opposite direction of my above example. Why don’t we try another?
What do Bronson Arroyo and Jordan Zimmermann have in common?
If you answered they’re the only qualified pitchers in baseball with FIPs above 6, you’re correct! Also of note, Zimmermann is roughly 10% more owned than Arroyo. To all those out there who stopped managing your teams in week two, football season doesn’t start for another 13 weeks; you have no excuse.
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Sundays are fantastic. Around my house, they are typically the recovery day of the weekend. Sundays usually go unscheduled, there is sleeping in, sitting on the couch in sweatpants and sipping coffee; all the good things in life. In the fall and winter there’s football to be had and in the spring and summer there’s a day full of baseball. The full slate and early start times makes for my favorite DFS day of the week as well. Full slate days tend to favor the better DFS players and I much prefer them to a slate with 5 games and 10 similar lineups in every tournament. The early start times mean we have almost every single lineup at our disposal by the time lineups lock. That means we can make accurate lineup decisions, have our lineups in by 1 EST and enjoy the rest of the day watching games and watching our DFS winnings grow. So, let’s dive into the FantasyDraft waters and see if we can’t get some nice ROI on this Sunday Funday.
New to FantasyDraft? 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?
Hey Batter³ Contest, Week 11: Curious George
June 11, 2017 | Fantasy Baseball Points Leagues | 40 Commentsby: malamoney
Springer springer hit a dinger. Actually he hit five of them in week 9. Until last week you might say that he was having a rather pedestrian start to the 2017 season. Coming into the week he wasn’t even a top 30 outfielder with respect to points. As a matter of fact his starting percentage was slowly taking a dip, and as a result, there were quite a few angry managers staring at 45 points on their bench last week. I have a rule that I nearly always abide by in weekly league: Play your studs. Well if George Springer was curious about what it’s like to be in the top 20, he now knows as his week 9 performance has catapulted him in the 17 spot.
Enough about this George dude from Houston, what you all really want to know is who won week 9. Actually there are probably only a small handful that really care. That would be those of you that had at least an outside chance of winning. Well wait no longer. The winner is the contestant that picked George Springer. Since there was only one of you that did so, the mystery winner should be easy to figure out. Ok, fine. I won’t make you go back and do the leg work. The winner was Fungazi with 90 points. Fungazi picked George Springer (45), Carlos Correa (40) and Brian Dozier (5). Dozier’s five points were meaningless considering Springer and Correa were the top two highest scoring players of the week. Second place was The Padre with 73 points. Like I said, no thanks to Dozier. Congrats Fungazi!
Here are the top 5 from Week 9:
Please, blog, may I have some more?The MLB Draft is finally upon us and I’m sure about 10% of Razzball’s readership actually cares. It’s cool, I’ll sit here and nurture these babes into big strong fantasy studs, feeding them from my prospector teet. I’ll do the dirty work too, scolding the bad seeds, and killing off the runts. Wow, in two sentences I pissed off 90% of Razzball and animal rights folks. Picketers please stay off my newly planted grass, it’s taken rather well with the deluge of rain recently and I’d like to see it reach full lush maturity. Now back to the lecture at hand, this post is really just my big board from the most recent episode of the Prospect Podcast where Halp and I mocked out the Top 30. I’ll touch on each player so you’ll have a general familiarity with their skills and profile. I might also include turn-ons, and dream dates, but you’ll have to read and find out. As always there’s been lots of flips and flops in my ranks since I dropped my Top 10. So don’t judge me for being a dirty flip-flopper! Forgive me, I fell in love with some high schoolers…. ummmm I mean prep players. Found some reliable college studs…ummm hitters! So on and so forth. You get the point, it’s my MLB Draft Top 25 Fantasy Prospects.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Mike Trout used to be pretty much the only reason to watch the Angels :::pause here for sobbing break:::. Despite having the best player on the planet and one of the larger budgets in the league, the Angels were still not very good. Now Trout is gone forever (Okay, he will probably be back in a couple months) and we have no reason to watch that team out in Los Angeles of Anaheim of California or whatever they are calling themselves this week. But that wouldn’t make any sense. Why would I start off this article with such a non-sequitur? Aha! I wouldn’t!
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Cameron Maybin returned from the disabled list last night after a minimum stay and got right back to business. Leading off, Maybin went 3-for-4 scoring four runs, and stole four bases to bring his total to seventeen for the year. That’s right, folks. FOUR STEALS! Sweet sassy molassy! Killer Cam already has more steals than he did all of last year in Detroit (15), and he became the first player since 2013 to steal four bases in a game, and just the 12th player in EVER to steal four bases and score four runs. Have a day! Setting records! Making history! Years ago I wrote a lede pleading with my readers to pick up Cameron Maybin in April and he ended up having one of his most productive seasons ever. So here’s hoping lightning can strike twice, and by lightning I am of course referring to Maybin’s speed. He stole 10 bases in May in 89 at bats hitting .270 with two home runs. Basically, if you got a need for speed, you’re not going to do much better than Maybin, who is available in a little over 80% of ESPN leagues at the moment. With the Angels outfield decimated by injuries, Cam should have ample opportunity to play, and leading off can only help his stolen base numbers. He’s capable of putting up big speed numbers for your team (he stole 40 for San Diego in 2011) if he can stay healthy, which of course with Maybin is a huge Aaron Judge-sized “if.” Still, Cameron is worth riding while he’s leading off, and hitting, and stealing and healthy and I’d add him everywhere I had a need for speed. Let’s hope Maybin this time will be different.
Here’s what else I saw in fantasy baseball Friday night:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
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