After a two week hiatus we’re back in the saddle again. This time we brought along a couple of friends to help us, well sort of. This week’s episode is a live mock first year player draft featuring two very knowledgeable prospect hounds in Matt Thompson, lead prospect writer for Friendswithfantasybenefits.com, and the ghost of Razzball’s very own Smokey. The four of us mocked out the first 32 picks on Twitter, so technically it’s not “live”, but not to worry this allowed us to discuss each player in detail. The goal is to get you prepared for your upcoming FYPD drafts this offseason. I know, I know, we’re such givers! Though it’s not all sunshine and Rose wine. Due to technical difficulties we lost out first run-through of the show with Smokey. So, this episode features Halp, Matt, and I trying our damndest to fill the void left behind by our grizzled vet, and to give you the rational behind the LOOGY’s picks. No need to fear prospect hounds, the Razzball Prospect Podcast is back, and stroking the flames of the hot stove all offseason.

P.S. For those following along at home I’ve included the draft results here

Please, blog, may I have some more?

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See all of today’s starting lineups

# MLB Starting Lineups For Wed 8/6
ARI | ATH | ATL | BAL | BOS | CHC | CHW | CIN | CLE | COL | HOU | KC | LAA | LAD | MIA | MIL | MIN | NYM | NYY | PHI | PIT | SD | SEA | SF | STL | TB | TEX | TOR | WSH | DET | OAK

For those looking for pictures of ballplayers taking off their ballcap and recapping themselves, you’re in the wrong place!  Though, sometimes I get the sense people in the comments aren’t wearing pants, so if that does it for you, there ya go.  Oh, who are we kidding, I’m not wearing pants.  Pants are for conformist sissies!  Pound for pound, the top 20 3rd basemen for 2016 fantasy baseball were as good as any other position.  In fact (oh, geez, here goes Grey adding on), Matt Carpenter was the 20th best 2nd baseman and samesies here, and was only the 22nd best 1st baseman, so not much more depth there. This recap ranking is from our Fantasy Baseball Player Rater with my comments.  The Player Rater allows me to be impartial while looking at how I ranked players in the preseason.  Now, let’s get this, young money.  Anyway, here’s the top 20 3rd basemen for 2016 fantasy baseball and how they compare to where I originally ranked them:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Finally! The finale! Finally finale! As you’ll hear on the Pod, we had some delays getting our wrap-up show recorded, but we finally got together to review the 2016 season! The season that was… The Brewers were awful, Grey steamrolled me with his sheer number of moves in our RCL league, Joe Ross wasn’t that good… Ugh! In our finale, we review all of the league leaders in the standard 5×5 cats, and also break down some of leaders in the indicator stats like BABIP and HR rate from this past season. We then review our Official 2016 Picks, which I think went a lot better for me than Grey! You be the judge! And of course we end the show thanking everyone who helped make 2016 a great season, mainly you, Razzball Nation listeners! Here’s our final edition of the 2016 Razzball Baseball Podcast:

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I’m not sure why, but I love the South Atlantic League. It could be it’s well known moniker of the Sally League that I like so much. Maybe it’s the new and improved packaging? Or, quite frankly it could just be the plethora of talent. Though more than likely, it’s the Sally part. I mean just picture a whole league full of Sallys. Which would either be made up entirely of men your grandfather dismissed as feminine, or it’s a league full of men and women named Sally. Only the best Sally’s need apply. On a personal bias note, I’d like to think that Sally Jesse Raphael is a 20/20 threat with intangibles. I mean her glasses were swagtastic. While we’re on the topic, let’s be honest, the game has really been deficient on swaggie glasses since Chris Sabo stopped trappin’. Wow, I get off topic quicker than a “Town-Hall Style” debate. Don’t worry no locker room talk here, we save that for the comment section. So without further ado, the 2016 Sally League Review (#spitfire).

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We’re gonna find out if the top 20 shortstops are as Ken Bonerific as the top 20 2nd basemen.  Hint:  they are.  Damn, I gotta work on building suspense.  That hint pretty much gives the whole kit away and tacks the kaboodle onto its back as it’s walking out the door.  Goodbye, kit and kaboodle, I just gave you away for nothing.  I am very charitable.  When I go to Whole Foods, I only throw a small hissy fit when they ask me to donate money, “Take a dollar out of the $12 per pound olive bar and you donate!”  To recap, this final ranking is from our Fantasy Baseball Player Rater with my comments.  The Player Rater allows me to be impartial while looking at how I ranked them in the preseason.  Anyway, here’s the top 20 shortstops for 2016 fantasy baseball and how they compare to where I originally ranked them:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

We already went over the top 20 catchers and the top 20 1st basemen for 2016 fantasy baseball.  Today, we dip our big toe into the top 20 2nd basemen pool.  Okay, it was actually more like a lake where lots of spring breakers are partying, and, instead of throwing beads at girls, they’re throwing 30 home run hitters.  It’s a little scary, for unstints (how I say it), that there were only six 2nd basemen that you wanted to own all year in 2015, and, this year, there’s a 30-homer hitter 2nd baseman that didn’t even make the top 25 2nd basemen — Jedd, you Gyorko!  1st basemen were still a little deeper, but barely.  2nd basemen, and the soon to be released shortstops got their sea legs in 2016.  To recap this crap (rhyme points!), this final ranking for last year is from our Fantasy Baseball Player Rater with my comments.  The Player Rater allows me to be impartial while looking at how I ranked them in the preseason.  Anyway, here’s the top 20 2nd basemen for 2016 fantasy baseball and how they compared to where I originally ranked them:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

It’s been a rough couple days. What can I say, sometimes I leave fantasy behind, and actually dabble in the realm of investing my emotions into real baseball. For shame, my Red Sox have let me down. It’s okay, I have things to take my mind off these hard losses. Sure, I have my loving wife, and three beautiful children; most normal people would seek solace in those they hold most dear. Not me, I’m far too twisted for that. I need to bury my face in minor league stats and scouting reports. Thinking somewhere in all this I’ll find my happy place. Well now that I’ve gotten my rambling incoherent emotional discharge out of the way. Let me tell you I’m excited. Not because I’ve been doing Google image searches of busty actresses, but because it’s time to release my First Year Player Draft (FYPD) post. I’ve been working on it, and kicking around the names for a few weeks to a month now. Hopefully this can help you navigate the upcoming first year player drafts in your leagues. In addition to today’s post, Michael Halpern and I will be inviting two special guests onto next week’s episode of the Prospect Podcast. The four of us will mock out our top 32 picks, and speak a little on each. Look out for that… Speaking of Halp, he put out his first year player draft top 10 over on imaginarybrickwall earlier this week. Make sure you check that out. Today I’ll hit you with my top 15, and finish off the top 30 on Wednesday.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

After drudging through an Andy Dufresne-type tunnel for the top 20 catchers for 2016 fantasy baseball, I find myself with a group that actually really hurt or helped your team depending on how you drafted.  If you went wrong with your 1st baseman, it could kill your season.  Hey, Prince Fielder, no hard feelings from me.  We are totally fine since I knew not to draft you.  If you went right, you might’ve won your league.  Last year, I said offense was making a comeback.  This year, I say, you prophetic son of a B, darn tootin’ offense is making a comeback.  How’d you get so handsome and wise, though not wise enough to answer a question posed by yourself?  Lots of guys on this list not only did well, but did better than their preseason projections.  Offense is in full swoon, like Our Commissioner Manfred is swooning with the guy who wrapped the baseballs a little bit tighter this year.  To recap, this final ranking is from our Fantasy Baseball Player Rater with my comments.  Anyway, here’s the top 20 1st basemen for 2016 fantasy baseball and how they compared to where I originally ranked them:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

rel-2016-winner
You know how they say “banners fly forever”?  Well in the REL, it’s true!  The 2016 Nationals have won the inaugural 2016 Razzball Elite League season, in a truly epic 4-4 final over the AL champion The Tribe, winning on the second tie-breaker, RBIs.  You can see how close the standings wrapped up in this link, as the Nats won on a Sunday homer and Tyler Thornburg blowing a save.  Congratulations to the Nationals for posting such a dominant 2016, as us other 29 peons try to gather ourselves for a run at immortal legacy, by having our banner fly in the logo in 2017.  Here’s what our AL and NL champions had to say about the first REL World Series:

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It feels like just the other day the baseball regular season started.  You wrote “I heart baseball” in permanent marker on your arm, then you met a girl who wrote “I heart guys who heart baseball” on her arm, then, during sex in July, you screamed out “I got a Trumboner!” and now you don’t have baseball or a girlfriend.  C’mon, calendar, make like a soldier and turn to March.  The only cure for the post-baseball season blues — recapping the preseason top twenty lists and being hand-fed Doritos.  First up, Cool Ranch and our preseason Top 20 Catchers for 2016.  It’s important to look back before we look ahead to 2017.  To paraphrase the one and only B-Real, “How do you know where you’re at, if you don’t know where you’ve been? Understand where I’m coming from?”  (Also, if you missed it, I interviewed B-Real this year on our podcast, though that might not have been as good as our Jose Canseco interview.)  It wouldn’t be fair for me to preseason rank the players, then rank them again in the postseason based on my opinion, so these postseason top 20 lists are ranked according to our Fantasy Baseball Player Rater.  It’s cold hard math, y’all!  Please, for the love that all is holy, don’t ask me if this is for next year.  Anyway, here’s the top 20 catchers for 2016 fantasy baseball and how they compared to where I originally ranked them:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

No joke, this is how my day opened. I woke up (amazing!), went for my usual run, came home and begin my usual shizz, shower, and shave routine. The thing is, during the first part of my usual triple S routine, I was checking my email. BTW more emails get checked on the throne than anywhere else in the world. In fact if you don’t bring your phone into the hopper, you’re a sociopath. Simple and plain. Anywho, I check my email and am greeted by this beaut.

“This morning we received a report that an individual wearing a clown costume was seen on a school campus in Your Random Massachusetts town. All schools were alerted and schools responded consistent with safe school readiness practices. Our police investigated and have reported that this is confirmed to be hoax. I appreciate the quick response by our schools and police. Thank you.”

Please, blog, may I have some more?

The end is here my friends.  I thought for a second there we might have some Monday rain delay controversy, but it all worked out and it was Team Levy who took all the glory!  We’ve never had a team with a perfect season until now.  This guarantees Team Levy will remain in the RCL record books for all time as the perfect season can never be beaten, only tied.  That’s pretty amazing to think about.  Out of all the teams that have been managed throughout the the (seven?) years of RCLs and all the leagues we’ve seen, no one has ever pulled off the perfect season.  An amazing achievement!  For their efforts Team Levy takes home a shizz ton of loot.  Let’s see…hold on, searching the site to find the list of goodies…ah-ha, here it is: an autographed baseball of the player who is Grey’s avatar.  That’s right, an autographed baseball of… Well, I guess only Grey and Team Levy will know.  Levy will also receive an autographed baseball of Oscar Gamble!  That’s two, count ‘em, two autographed balls and last, but not least, a $250 Best Buy gift card.  I remember Best Buy, that was the place we used to go before the internet was invented to buy things like video games, CDs and speakers.  I’m pretty sure my local Best Buy just went out of business as a matter of fact.  Good times!  Oh, and Grey says he’ll throw in a Razzball T-shirt as well.  I don’t believe Team Levy has checked in via comments at all this year, but now would be the time.  Levy fended off some very tough competitors this year to claim the RCL crown and it took every bit of that perfect score to win.  Cram It put up a valiant final few weeks but came up 1 point short of going back to back.  Still first, followed by 2nd overall, beating out thousands in the process is no laughing matter.  Cram It deserves some major kudos.  This is Team Levy’s moment though, so hopefully they show up, take a bow and soak it up, they earned it.  Here’s what else what happened this year and this final week of the RCLs:

Please, blog, may I have some more?