Greetings, everyone. You might remember me from my days writing the Frankencatcher Reports here last year or the Handcuff Reports this past football season. The Frankencatcher Report concept is pretty simple, but if you need a refresher feel free to check out one of my posts from last year. In most fantasy leagues, at least half of the teams utilize some kind of revolving door at the catcher position because, after the very small top tier of kind-of-elite options, there sits a tire fire of lesser options, each burning, glowing, and extinguishing at different times throughout the year. More tire fire metaphors, you say? Sure, I thought that felt good, too. Maybe we can revisit that later.

For the 2017 season, the current plan is for me to write the Frankencatcher Report every other week. For the other every other weeks, I’ll be writing about Fantasy Environments. What are fantasy environments, you say? Good question. Maybe we can figure that out together. Usually, when I think about fantasy environments, though, it ends up something like this:

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See all of today’s starting lineups

# MLB Starting Lineups For Mon 8/4
ARI | ATL | BAL | BOS | CHC | CIN | CLE | COL | DET | HOU | KC | LAA | LAD | MIA | MIL | MIN | NYM | NYY | PHI | PIT | SD | SF | STL | TB | TEX | TOR | ATH | CHW | OAK | SEA | WSH

Here’s what I know about projections, they’re guaranteed to be mostly wrong with a handful of unpredictable close calls. That’s probably the most accurate projection I’m about to make, which is not quite the ringing self-endorsement one my expect to read in the introduction paragraph for a 2017 fantasy baseball projections post. Let’s be honest with ourselves, projections are bullshit. They’re little more than slightly educated guesses. This is not meant to take anything away from the hard work and resulting labors of love bestowed upon us by very smart statisticians and baseball analysts, but at the end of the day, I almost feel like the projections-hungry fantasy baseball population would be better off without them. Having just written that sentence I find it extremely ironic considering I am about to release my projections in just a few moments. I think they call that the pot calling the kettle black. Maybe the pot is just racist. Did anyone ever consider that the kettle might have started the name calling? Was it Tim Lincecum’s pot?

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Here, friend, are some catchers that I will be targeting at my 2017 fantasy drafts after the top options are gone.  I’m not going to get into the strategy of punting catchers.  Been there, half-drunkenly wrote that years ago.  Click on the player’s name where applicable to read more and see their 2017 projections.  This is a (legal-in-most-countries) supplement to the top 20 catchers of 2017 fantasy baseball.  Now, guys and five girl readers, I am not saying avoid catchers like J.T. Realmuto if they fall, but to get on this list, you need to be drafted later than 200 overall, and, to preemptively answer at least seven comments, yes, I will go around the entire infield, outfield and pitchers to target very late.  Anyway, here’s some catchers to target for 2017 fantasy baseball:

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This will be the most important thing I ever write for Razzball. I’m not into hyperbole, so that makes it true. Seriously, though, if it ain’t good then it will probably be the last thing I ever write for Razzball and I will endure the same fate as my fellow Korean, Kim Jong Chul.

Yesterday was the most memorable day of my young Razzball life. It all started when I received an email from the Supreme Leader Jr, aka Fantasy Master Lothario, aka Grey Albright. In it he wrote, “Yo, Son! JB is in town. Let’s go pillage the village and bleep the women!!!” Joking about the last part by the way. Words can only say so much…

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RCL draft season is still creeping along.  We are up to 7 drafts now with another one that went off late last night.  We’ll be getting into the thick of it here shortly but while we wait for draft-mania to start, let’s look at some more RCL strategy.  

This week I wanted to briefly go over some notes on pitching in the RCLs.  I say briefly because this subject has been covered many times before, quite brucely, much more succinctly than I could cover it.  I’ll tell you young Razzballers a story, about where it all got started, way back in a time known as ten after twenty.  There was a man that went by the name Oaktown Steve.  If there were a Hall of Fame for commenters, Steve would be first ballot.  Occasionally, the Steve from Oaktown still pops in with a comment or two but gentlemen and six ladies, OTS was all over this streaming phenomenon; the pioneer of the movement if you will. Next came Simply Fred.  Fred was onto the streaming movement along with a handful of others and this is where the revolution really picked up steam.  Rudy felt he could improve the process and the Stream-O-Nator was born!  The world hasn’t been the same since.  Finally, Rudy covered the importance of maximizing IP and how to value our streamers here.  That should be enough clickbait and reading to get you off to sleep tonight where visions of ERA, WHIP and K/9 will dance in your head.  If you’re feeling lazy though, I’ll give you the cliffs-notes version with a couple of my own notes.

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Razzball, ON LOCATION!  That’s right Razzball Nation, Grey and I report live from sunny Phoenix, Arizona with our thoughts from live Spring Training scouting.  Things didn’t go so well for Tyler Skaggs!  But it did go much better for us schmohawks, who had a blast in the desert – check out us clowns on the tweets!  We also catch up on other news from around the MLB like injuries to the Davids, plus preview Grey’s ranks through SS and 3B.  Now with more live tickling!  Here’s the latest edition of the Razzball Baseball Podcast:

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JB and I went to spring training this past weekend in Arizona.  Had some great meals, drank some iced Cuban coffees that I tried to order as an ‘iced Puig,’ saw way too many Angels games, obviously went to a Brewers game, and enjoyed my very first six-foot, seven-inch spooning.  I needed JB’s oversized spoon after hearing about David Dahl and his rib injury.  He has a stress reaction of his sixth rib, and I have a stress reaction with many expletives.  You can’t spell David Dahl without dah.  Seriously, I tried.  Now, I can’t see his name without thinking it’s really “Dah!”  Rockies manager Bud Black said that Opening Day is out of the question.  I moved him out of my top 20 outfielders and into my top 40 outfielders.  I still would draft him, even if he’s no longer in my top 100 overall.   The Rockies said Gerardo Parra will fill-in for Dah!, and I’d draft Parra in the last rounds as a flyer just in case Dah!’s injury turns out to be worse than thought.  I just jinxed him, didn’t I?  Dah!  By the by, between Charlie Blackmon and manager, Bud Black, the Rockies have so many white guys trying to take advantage of affirmative action, they should sign C. Thomas Howell star of Soul Man.  Anyway, here’s what else I saw this spring training for fantasy baseball:

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With all the innings totals I wish I could accurately project for 2017, two that carry some of the most weight in drafts come from the same team. To say the Dodgers have a plethora of starting pitching would be an understatement. One of the many divergences between baseball and fantasy baseball is the value of depth. The Dodgers have roughly 10 viable starting pitchers from which they can construct their opening day rotation, yet that only creates headaches for fantasy owners trying to figure out projections for arms like the two I’m curious about, Julio Urias and Rich Hill.

Razzball Commenter Leagues are open! Play against our contributors and your fellow readers for prizes. Join here!

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It only seems fitting that I should take up the mantle of the 2017 Fantasy Baseball War Room. I’ll be the first one to admit that the satisfaction of working up a beautiful Excel spreadsheet gives me the same kind of goosebumps as when someone utters to Grey the words…“Giancarlo Stanton”. Is it nerdy? You bet. But nerds win leagues, so let me help you win yours. Without further ado, I present the 2017 version of the Razzball War Room “Excel edition” to assist in your league-dominating draft performance. Let’s delve into the features:

First and foremost, this workbook is auto-updating. So long as you click ‘refresh data connections’, you are guaranteed to be seeing Grey’s latest and greatest projections which are updated throughout the pre-season.  To do so: click the “Data” tab in your ribbon,  and then “Refresh all”; if you don’t know what the ribbon is, then this spreadsheet version is probably not for you, and let’s hope for your sake that your league opponents don’t read Razzball or are all drafting from Android devices with no Excel in sight. Seriously, though, if you find the Excel version too daunting, be sure to check out the web version of the War Room linked from Grey’s how-to post for the online Fantasy Baseball War Room.

Features in the 2017 Excel edition include:

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Draft day is usually the highlight of your night, granted, if there isn’t a killer Magic the Gathering tournament going down. Here at SAGNOF central, we use high tech devices (protractors) and technology (metal detectors) to help you be more smarter. Smartest? Most smart? One of those. The chase for draft day steals is always a ball and rank-him affair, the top guys are the top guys because they contribute in multiple categories, not just the thievery department. But what about the guys who don’t? That, my friends, is SAGNOF. I am going to take you through a look at some of the steal-only guys and their draft day ADP’s currently to see what values exist and who is drafting what, where, and why. Because we all like a bargain, it’s why Marshall’s and T.J. Maxx exist, they are the “slight defect consumer bin” for shopping, where as these guys are the one-off for a 5×5 contribution. Get the correlation? Good. The king of the one-category right now is Billy Hamilton. Yes he will score runs, but his main contribution to your team is basically hoping he wins SB’s all by his lonesome. His current ADP across multiple formats ranges from 60th overall to about 90 in some obtuse cases. Neither are fantastic, and I think his value is somewhere in the middle. Yes, he is going to steal you some bases, but on the high-end, is he worth a 5-6th round draft pick in your draft? Maybe, when you consider their are a ton of misfit toys being drafted around him like Todd Frazier, Mark Trumbo, and most of the back-end first tiered closers, Britton and Melancon. It’s funny that the conundrum and research says that people are drafting both ends of the S in AGNOF at about the same point on draft day. So now that you know who and where Billy Lin Miranda is being drafted, let’s see where some of the updated mid-round values at steals.

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Well, I didn’t expect to write this post.  I thought I was overrating Christian Yelich when I ranked the top 20 outfielders.  Never in my wildest dreams did I expect others to be so much more excited about him.  By the way, my wildest dreams include Giancarlo, marmalade and a goat wearing pants.  In my dream journal, I call that dream, “Ecstasy:  My Bleating Heart.”  A schmohawk is so extreme, and I don’t like doing schmohawk posts for guys that are young, and Yelich is younger looking than Neil Patrick Harris when he played Doogie.  Yelich should be peaking, but, Hayzeus Cristo, Yahoo and ESPN have Yelich ranked crazy-pants-high.  I had a friend who sniffed glue, we called him Elmer, and, after a solid glue-in-nose sesh, he still made more sense than where these people have ranked Yelich.  Anyway, why is Christian Yelich overrated for 2017 fantasy baseball?

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Welcome to the 2017 Razzball Team Previews! You’ll find everything you need to know about each team to get yourself ready for the upcoming fantasy baseball season. And I do mean everything, everybody. We’ve got line-ups, charts, numbers, projections, questionable questions, smarter answer, potent potables and well, that’s a lie. No potables here, but plenty of potent fantasy names brimming with potential. Now’s the time to be an eternal optimist for the next six weeks. So, we’ve got a team to preview and questions to ask. Let’s get after it!

A quick note on the format. Each preview will feature six questions to a team’s blog writer. Are there only six great fantasy questions for each team? Of course not, but THAT’S WHAT THE COMMENTS ARE FOR! So, enjoy the thoughts of another writer, the dialogue on each team, and then continue the conversation in the comments!

We have a very special guest for this post, Chad Moriyama, to provide his take on what the team has in store this season. Now enough rambling, let’s see what 2017 holds for the Los Angeles Dodgers!

Please, blog, may I have some more?