Well, here we are gentlemen and five girl readers. Hmm, if I’m one of the five girl readers and I’m writing this [Jay’s Note: You forgot my mother.], does that mean I should only be addressing 4 girl readers? Or should I just stick with 5, since I’m certainly vain enough that I’ll be reading my own work once it’s published? Hold on, is “published” the wrong word since we’re talking about the internet, and does my use of it make me sound out of touch? Wait, what was I saying? Oh yeah, here we are: week 7! Most MLB teams have played around 40 games now, so we’re about a quarter of the way through the season. Have any owners just flat-out quit in your leagues? In one of my keeper leagues (which of course are a different animal than re-drafts when it comes to punting a season), there were several blockbuster trades over the past weekend… those “in the hunt” have definitely distinguished themselves from those who are “playing for the future”. Meanwhile, I have a few re-draft leagues where some owners are barely setting valid lineups. Does this happen in your league? And if so, do you care?

Please, blog, may I have some more?

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See all of today’s starting lineups

# MLB Starting Lineups For Thu 8/7
ATH | ATL | CHW | CIN | MIA | PIT | SEA | WSH | ARI | BAL | BOS | CHC | CLE | COL | DET | HOU | KC | LAA | LAD | MIL | MIN | NYM | NYY | OAK | PHI | SD | SF | STL | TB | TEX | TOR

The fantasy baseball roster you could make out of the current disabled list would easily be in first place in many rotisserie leagues. If you left your draft with all of these players healthy you would probably be pretty confident of your trophy chances. Granted, if you left your draft with these players I’d question the skills of your league mates.

Fun story, I once joined a friend’s new fantasy baseball league and one of the members had never done fantasy sports before. He drafted every offensive position in order starting with catcher in round 1. This was my actual reaction when I realized what was going on in about the 3rd or 4th round… Needless to say his pitching was a disaster.

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Eugenio Suarez is off to a blistering start in 2017, slashing 23R/7HR/22RBI/2SB in just 36 games this season. Suarez is fairly young, as he’s 25 with three years’ experience in the majors. However, he only started receiving consistent playing time beginning last season, and has been producing with his daily starts in 2017.

A consistent starter in Cincinnati, Suarez has been one of the top options at third base. While the hot streak will not continue indefinitely, he has the ability to consistently produce stats for the remainder of the 2017 season. In this article, I’ll show the reasons why I believe Suarez will continue his high contact rate and power surge.

The example I’ll provide will be using his last four years of stats, beginning with his 2014 rookie year in Detroit.  This will allow us to see the progression of his stats, along with the growth of his contact rates.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Hello all my loyal followers!  I hope everyone is well on this amazing Wednesday.  I’ll tell you right now I’m in love with today’s slate.  There are two pitchers I love today, but I’ll go into that a little later.  The team I love today is the Texas Rangers.  As a team, they’re really starting to heat up, having scored five or more runs in five of their last six games.  Texas also faces off with a pretty bad pitcher in Elfin from the Phillies.  Finally, this game will take place in Globe Life Park which becomes a launching pad once we get into summer.  We’re lucky enough to get a nice hot, humid day today and I expect the ball to fly in this park.  My lineups will start with Rougned Odor at $2,800; he’s playing a lot better and I expect it to continue.  He’s slowly starting to hit and he’s also beginning to steal some bags.  He should continue that today.  Others I like today are Elvis Andrus at $3,000,  Joey Gallo at $3,200, and Delino DeShields at $2,800.  All three of these guys bring something a little different to the table.  Andrus has five hits in his last two games and has really turned into a solid run producer for a team that really needs it.  Gallo is just a beast who can hit a homerun any at bat, and Deshields will probably hit lead off with huge steal upside.  He also has a very sneaky batters eye with solid pop.

Now on to the picks…

New to FanDuel? 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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We have our first big call-up of the major league season!!!  “Yoo-hoo!”  You want chocolate milk, Cody Bellinger?  “I was drawing attention to myself, since I was called up first.”  Oh, yeah, but you feel like you were always here.  “Oh, well, that’s nice of you to say–”  Shut up, Cody Bellinger!  Bradley Zimmer, now this is a call-up!  “I’ll be up soon!”  Shut up, Amed Rosario!  This is about Bradley Zimmer.  Zimmer is a guy who is a speed-first, power-second, average-third guy.  Actually, on base percentage second in leagues that count that sorta thing.  In Triple-A, he had five homers, nine steals and a 30% strikeout rate.  He looks like Keon Broxton who should be platooned out of the lineup against lefties.  I will call him, Right-on Broxton.  I grabbed him in all leagues where he was available, you don’t want to miss out on the first big call-up.  “Seriously, are you just ignoring me?”  Bellinger, you’re getting on my last nerve!  For 2017, I’d give Zimmer a line around 45/10/40/.235/20.  That could be the best call-up of the year.  “Seriously?!”  Shut it down, CB!  Oh, and I’m aware that Zimmer went 0-for-3 with 3 Ks out of the nine hole, but Bellinger looked lost thru a whole two starts too when he was first called up. “Keep my name out of your mouth!” Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Image result for jose bautista pinata

I always loved pinatas at parties. You got to beat the crap out of something with a stick until candy fell like manna from the heavens. Ah, the good ole days. To make it a little more challenging, pinatas would often be swung from side to side to make it a moving target. There would also be like a million kids waiting their turn because who wouldn’t want to beat the crap out of something with a stick? You would get two, maybe three swings. I noticed that if you showed some skill and whacked it with feeling, the parents would let you do your thing. As long as you didn’t look like a psychopath. Anyways, the point is that it took time to figure out how to hit the pinata correctly. With the limited number of swings afforded, it also made it a very stressful situation. Sounds a lot like baseball…

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It was quite the week for trading in the Razzball Commenter Leagues this week as we saw 16 trades completed, several of which caused some commotion and consternation.  Those 16 trades don’t include the several vetoed trades (looking at you Cougs R Us) nor the few trades that were accepted Sunday but won’t be processed until Monday.   Those will be included in next week’s data.

Mike Maher and myself got the party kicked off last Tuesday morning, a couple hours before last week’s update hit.  You may have seen last week’s comments filled with talk of Bryce Harper.  In the deal I sent Mike Ryan Braun ($19.0), Miguel Sano ($18.7), Dallas Keuchel ($16.0) and Travis Shaw (-$10.2).  In return I received Bryce Harper ($38.0) and Carlos Santana ($20.0).  Those values in parentheses are the Rudy/Steamer Rest Of Season values as of Monday afternoon.  That comes out to (ignoring Travis Shaw, who was a throw in) $53.7 for Mike and $58.0 for myself.  At the time of the trade Ryan Braun wasn’t on the DL yet so his value was a bit higher.  This also doesn’t take into account the lineup flexibility I gain from the deal.  For example, I was able to add Alex Wood, who could end up being this year’s Dallas Keuchel circa 2015 if the Dodgers don’t yank his chain too much as well as a streaming spot for hitter/RP/streaming starter.  Grey was chirping and the consensus was that I had ripped off poor Mr. Maher.  In fact, Tehol posted two days AFTER the trade processed that the league should “do the right thing” and veto the deal.  This led Mike (who you should totally follow on Twitter – @mikeMaher) to break out the following Twitter Poll.  Only 4 out of 20 of Mike’s Twitter followers seemed to think I won that deal, with one Twitterer going on to say it wasn’t even close (which Mike agreed).  So, what does the rest of Razzball nation have to say about this deal?  I hate to make the entire lede about a deal that involved my team, so let’s bring this back to trades in general.  I’m entirely anti-veto.  Unless there’s money on the line and something can be proven that two parties are conspiring with one another to win a league and split the prize, I say let the deal stand.  In general, these RCLs are filled with people who don’t really know each other, just like a public league on any other site.  The only thing most of us have in common is reading Razzball.  Bryce Harper could snap any number of tendons tomorrow and then I’m left standing in the rain, cold and sad.  Managers evaluate talent differently, what you view as a good deal, I might not.  It’s your team though, so you do you, I’ll do me and we’ll ridicule your trade in the court of public opinion in the comments below.

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While it isn’t an exact science, picking on a pitcher for stolen base success is not always an awful strategy.  So after the jump, there is a year-to-date chart that shows the propensity for pitcher’s to give up the free base.  Like I said, it is never an exact anything, because there are some elite names on this list, and because they are usually good pitchers, their respective OBP against isn’t the shining star of stats to chase.  But in theory, chasing dudes for thievery in a non-thievery world is bad folly.  Because getting on base is the most important thing next to waking up and reading what Ge has to say.  Us bottom feeders who swim the waters in the afternoon gotta be creative and basically be the monkey on the grind box to get your attention.  So for those of you with ADHD, welcome back.  And here is some weekly insight into the world of steals and saves.  Cause you may be a dime piece but saves and steals don’t need a face…

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Hopefully we are as happy as Ray Liota was in the movie Goodfellas when he was screaming JIMMY in the shower after Jimmy Nelson ($15,200) is done taking the mound against the Padres. The San Diego Padres are a great matchup almost every night in DFS, they rank 28th in the MLB in Runs, have the worst team batting average in the league and they are in the Top 5 in Strikeouts. Nelson is coming off a start were he allowed 0 earned runs and struck out 8 Boston Red Sox hitters. He should have a chance to match those number tonight and have a chance at the win, with the way the Brewers are swinging the bat.

There are some nice arms taking the mound tonight with Zack Grienke ($21,300) going up against the banged up New York Mets, and Dallas Keuchel ($22,800) facing the struggling Miami Marlins. I don’t need to tell you to pick those two guys who are on fire right now, so lets take a look at some other plays that could be worth the pick…right after the editor hops in and provides you all with a linky clicks for the FantasyDraft Razzball Exclusive Listener’s League.  It’s $5 which is about the cost for 16 oz of freedom in my neighborhood.  I hate missing out on a beer, but I hate missing out on playing this game even more.  Join us, won’t you?

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!

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Not even fantasy baseball is safe from the Robot Revolution, but fear not, it is situations like this that Razzball has a standing militia on call, The Crab Army. Lord Tehol Beddict is not your true enemy! We must all unite and take aim at the bots! Or, we can just give up and admit that Rudy’s Streaming Tools are far superior to human intellect. Grey and I bring on Razzball’s own MattTruss to discuss the robot takeover and try to make sense of the entire thing. We also talk about how last week’s Razzball Only FantasyDraft Contest was our most competitive yet. Congrats to “therizzo” for taking home first place, and make sure to get in on the fun by JOINING THIS WEEK’S CONTEST. Between all the robot talk, we do manage to squeeze in some fantasy baseball analysis, as we discuss just how good Alex Wood and Jose Berrios are, along with the buy low merits of Masahiro Tanaka, Rougned Odor, Jonathan Villar, and Alex Bregman. It’s the latest edition of the Razzball Fantasy Baseball Podcast.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Yesterday was a bad day to quit being young with A.J. Pollock and Carlos Gomez both hitting the DL.  Together!  In a non-gay way.  But it would’ve been totally cool with me if it was in a gay way.  Let’s start with Pollock since he is the less ethnically sensitive of the two.  Pollock has a Grade 1 groin strain.  When the strain happened, Pollock was reading Groin Strains for Dummies.  Chapter 1:  Don’t Move Your Leg In A Normal Manner.  “Go to a trampoline, but don’t jump on it with your feet, fall on it sitting criss-cross apple sauce.”  Pollock will likely be out for two to three weeks, and in his place the Russian Game of Thrones character, Gregor Blanco, and Reymond “You Can’t Not Think Of Daisy” Fuentes.  Fuentes is the more interesting of two, since he should be on the stronger side of a platoon, and has speed.  Outside of NL-Only and deep mixed leagues, I’m passing on both.  As for CarGomez, he will miss four to six weeks.  That’s too bad, he used to be good three years ago.  Replacing him on the roster will be Jared Hoying, who looks like a Motter-fodder.  Then, we have Carlos Carrasco, who is affectionately known as Cookie, and I am a Cookie Monster for him, so this one hurts me.  In yesterday’s game, Carrasco had a huge lead, when he squandered that and left the game with a trainer.  All you had to do with cruise to the W on the Ivictory Coast!  Apparently, that’s the way the Cookie crumbles.  He was diagnosed with left pectoral tightness, which doesn’t sound bad.  Which, Part 2:  The Return of the Which, will still likely mean a DL stint.  Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

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Major Key Alert! Now, for all you Gen-X’ers and cowboy hat-wearing’ country boys, “Major Key” is a term used by us Millennials. Well, anyone can use it really. You should try it in your next board meeting, or at home in a convo with your wife. Have a great idea? Care to pass on some knowledge or drop a little truth bomb into a situation? Gotta give ’em that major key.

And yes, there’s an emoji for that…

Please, blog, may I have some more?