Perfection achieved!  Perfection sustained is TBD, but I don’t see how anyone can chase down Team Levy in All Beddict Tha God in any category.  Maybe Ron Chi can catch Levy in saves, but I doubt it.  Maybe Team Nereim can catch Levy in HRs, but considering he’s got Logan Morrison, and even worse, Lance McCullers, in his starting lineup still, I don’t see that happening either.  The only other team in the league that seems to be playing still is The Talent Show, who’s in 2nd place.  The Talent Show is so far behind Team Levy in every category though, there’s little chance they catch him either.  So, this is Levy’s game to lose it would seem.  The saving grace for Cram It and Backdoor Sliders is that despite reaching a perfect 120, the LCI for All Hail Beddict Tha God dropped to 99, meaning it’s now officially a below average league.  That drop in LCI meant that moving from 119 to 120 had absolutely zero affect on Team Levy’s RCL Points, which stayed at 116.6.  With only 3 owners really doing much, the LCI could continue to drop which would only narrow the gap.  If the LCI in DFSers Anonymous or FCL grows above that 106 mark, things could get pretty tight.  It’s a long shot, but Team Levy should send out a league wide e-mail to his stagnant league mates to try and drum up some activity.  Maybe offer them all some Bed Bath & Beyond 20% off coupons if they come back and at least set a roster for the week.  Anything would help with three weeks to go.  Here’s what else went down in the RCLs in the week that was, Week 23:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

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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 | HOU | KC | LAA | LAD | MIA | MIL | MIN | NYM | NYY | PHI | PIT | SD | SF | STL | TB | TEX | TOR | ATH | CHW | DET | OAK | SEA | WSH

The Diamondbacks host the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday night in what is expected to be a pier six brawl. Both teams are starting below average left-handed pitchers and that means runs should come in bunches. The Rockies should do their fair share of damage, but the D’Backs are the holy grail tonight. Jorge de la Rosa is like a lamb being led to slaughter every single time he takes the mound. He occasionally racks up strikeouts, but mostly it is walks and meatballs. Arizona has two lefty killers in their outfield and I expect both of them to do damage. Rickie Weeks Jr. has one purpose in life and that is smashing lefties. He does it quite well. So well actually, that he still has a spot on a 25-man roster years after being removed as the Brewers’ second baseman. He’s never taken JDLR deep, but has five hits in 11 at-bats against the 12 year veteran. Yasmany Tomas is 6-for-12 with a home run against de la Rosa and lives rent free in his mind everyday. With Tomas just $4,400 and Weeks Jr. priced at $4,000, I am using both of them.

New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well reserve your spot in the 25 Team Razzball Exclusive League set to run Monday September 19th to wet your DK whistle. Just remember to sign up through us before you do. Wanna know what the best part is about signing up with us? The free subscription for the rest of the season to our DFSBot, that’s what! For details on the how to, please visit our Razzball Subscriptions page.

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The final stretch run is here! For all of you out there in your H2H semis or finals – or wrapping up your final push in your Roto tables – Grey and I discuss some of the news & notes around the Majors like Matt Moore‘s must-own-ability and if you need to own Kendrys Morales. Morales then shoots us into an ESPN vs. Yahoo position eligibility tangent! On the one hand, Yahoo has no consistency, on the other, ESPN can’t keep their fantasy App from crashing when football floods their servers! Then we get to your comments and tweets, which were all about keepers for 2017. We throw out a few value names, and talk some guys we might like as sleepers next season. Here’s the latest edition of the Razzball Pod, now with more British accents!

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Yesterday, Daniel Norris went 6 1/3 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 11 Ks, ERA at 3.81.  Deserved better than a no decision, but he’s 23 years old, making $500,000, so who cares what he deserves?  I deserve equal pay for cracking jokes about fantasy baseball for six months!  *marching with a picket sign*  Sign reads:  BLOGGER = Better Living-wage Or Gainful Gifts, Earnings, Reimbursements *pull back to reveal I’m marching in my underwear with my dog humping my leg*  Stop, Ted!  I’m trying to make a point!  So, Norris looked terrific, but he’s had a vexing season.  Vexing, I tell ya!  He was put in middle relief after a back problem that sidelined in the spring, then he returned and was almost immediately sidelined with an oblique problem.  Why do we care?  Well, I wrote a sleeper post about him last year, saying, “He’s a sleeper, because he’ll likely be drafted late since he appears to be a year away, and, sadly, he might not just appear to be a year away, but he might actually be a year away, though he might appear to be a year away and not be a year away.  I’m the Grand Champion of putting “year away” in one sentence, by the way.  Norris is a pure upside play.  He could be a 4+ ERA guy that bounces between the rotation, the bullpen and the minors or a 2.75 ERA guy with truckloads of Ks.”  And that’s me quoting me!  I quote that, because I was exactly right (I couldn’t have been wrong since I hedged more than Sonic) and for 2017 I’m going to like Norris for the exact same reasons while being a year closer.  Dot dot dot.  To getting a living wage!  I’m Norma Rae!  Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Who could forget our first visit over to Finnegan’s?! Grabbin’ a pint, singin’ some odes, and getting so sloshed we’re coming back for mo’!

As we saw in his first career start last year, Brandon Finnegan looked kinda blah to me. And after an early-season near no-hit bid against the Cubs, Finnegan’s effectiveness was a range from blah-to-awful. His walk rate was terrible especially next to an equally atrocious K-rate, and Finnegan could not be further off my radar. But suddenly some Ks started popping up with equally sudden success, which beat writers reported could be contributed to learning a change-up from Dan Straily. After heavily using what I’m assuming was a different change-up grip at the start of the season through his first 4 starts (close to 25% of the time), Finnegan then barely threw it 10% of the time over his next 21 starts . As I mentioned in that pitcher profile from last year, his change-up looked pretty below average and I’m guessing he more-or-less scrapped it from his main arsenal. But over his last 4 starts, he’s got an insane 35:8 K:BB in 25.0 IP with a 2.16 ERA. I obviously haven’t watched too much Finnegan, but I have added him in several of my leagues due to glowing reports on this new change-up (and of course, recent result), so I decided to profile him to see how it’s really looking. Here’s how he fared yesterday afternoon against the Bucs:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Yeah, it is sort of a play on words for the band Journey, so what?  The “so what” is that if you ever want a whole-hearted laugh to yourself, go watch Steve Perry sing the seventh inning stretch.  It is fitting because the postseason save aftermath that is happening is coming from San Francisco, the home of the band Journey.  See what I did there…? A huge cartwheel.  The removal of Santiago Casilla, because he was a little save chilly has thrown the usual or at least semi-stable job into a committee situation.  Never fun for anyone.  Hunter Strickland got the first save chance post Casilla castaway.  Bochy is a finicky beast, if he was a cat owner, never married, and possible a 50year-old scorned woman, it would make sense, but he isn’t, he is a manager that flies by the beat of his own drum.  I usually have dynamite steals info, but since this happened in between my closer/reliever post on Saturday, you get a double dip of save-ness.  The adds for me are Strickland, Romo, Cory Gearrin, a hold on Casilla and unless the inning is straight LOOGY’d up, Javier Lopez could be a factor.  That is how I see the saves getting divvied up.  That is a cavalcade of names to chase for saves, but if you wanna bank on one guy getting a mass majority I would look for Hunter to be that guy.  So continuing on with the S part of the AGNOF, let’s see what has happened around the baseball fantasy universe over the past week in thievery.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Monday Night Football is kicking off tonight, so the smart money is going to be on the baseball side. I love the NFL, but for tonight let’s Fuhgeddaboudit and focus on the easy money. I know Mike Foltynewicz, $9,600 isn’t Italian, but if I was in a pinch and needed someone to whack a lineup, I’d feel confident I could call on Folty to get it done tonight. He’s at home facing the Marlins who have dropped 6 of their last 9 games and he looks like he solved the control issues that plagued him earlier this season, as he’s only walked 7 over his last 5 starts. Not only has he limited his walks, but he’s also missing bats with 31 Ks over the last 30 innings. Hotlanta has been pretty cold as of late, but I think they’ll turn things around against Andrew Cashner and help our boy Folty to a W. I’m going to be pairing Folty with my old pal Puke Soup aka, Jeff Samardzija, $10,600 vs our favorite Monday night opponent, the San Diego Padres. I know he’s been inconsistent all season, but I love the home matchup and there’s something about seeing all those jumbled letters in my lineup that makes sense tonight. It’s definitely a risky play, but he threw a gem in Colorado on Tuesday going 7 innings with 9 Ks and 1 ER. Now that we’ve rostered the best Scrabble duo ever in DraftKings history let’s take a look at who we can matchup on the offensive side.

New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well reserve your spot in the 25 Team Razzball Exclusive League set to run today to wet your DK whistle. Just remember to sign up through us before you do. Wanna know what the best part is about signing up with us? The free subscription for the rest of the season to our DFSBot, that’s what! For details on the how to, please visit our Razzball Subscriptions page.

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You know how people write stuff on a grain of rice.  With that in mind, on Rich Hill‘s blister this is written, “Took a whole lot of tryin’ to get up that Hill — R.I.P. Sherman Hemsley.  I can’t believe I not only had room on this grain for an inspirational quote, but also room to attribute the quote to the wrong person and to also add in this meta comment about my inspirational quot–”  Damn, he wasn’t able to fit everything.  That’s the worst.  That’s like when you’re writing a birthday card to someone and you start writing a note only to get to the end and need to start writing super-tiny and curved to fit it in.  And that’s not the first time you’ve heard your curve is super-tiny.  Rich Hill was perfect on Saturday — 7 IP, 0 ER, 0 baserunners, 9 Ks — but, to be honest, Hill has been perfect for the last two years (though only 29 IP last year).  This year, 1.80 ERA, 0.96 WHIP with a 10.4 K/9 and 1.74 ERA over the past two years.  So, ya know, your usual ace you get about 120 IP from.  For 2017, it’s going to be hard to rank him much below the top 25 with the caveat that you’re only getting him for three to four months.  Makes you wish rice grains were just a tad bigger to fit all of the superlatives on there for Rich Hill.  Know what I mea– Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

bulldozier

In the last month Brian Dozier has been bulldozing opponents like it’s his job. Technically it is his job, but he gets an “A” for effort and is the run away candidate for Employee of the Month. Gary Sanchez who? After two hot weeks, he’s been more like Harry Sanchez. And in case you didn’t know who Harry Sanchez was, the Urban Dictionary defines him as “Same as Dirty Sanchez with the addition of pulling the hair from ones taint, and making a mustache from the left overs of the dirty sanchez.” While I’m pretty sure anyone can add entries to the Urban Dictionary as I’ve done so myself, I’d have to say this description is pretty accurate considering Gary has totaled zero points in the last two weeks. Just in time for points leagues playoffs. (This opening was written on Friday before Sanchez hit two home runs.)

Please, blog, may I have some more?

What’s good amigos!? We’re blessed with another Sunday. Only this isn’t any ordinary, run of the mill type Sunday. This is Week 1 of the NFL season and we should all rejoice. Not only because we’re all red meat consuming, patriotic, concussion cheering Americans, but this also marks the start of a unique daily fantasy opportunity. You see, most everyone else will be focusing on crafting their NFL lineups, while those of us “Baseball sharps” can take advantage of the money just begging to jump into our pockets. Yes it’s true…there’s still plenty of cash floating around in baseball contests and it’s your job to seek it out. Look for the contests that are guaranteed but might not fill up in time and apply the knowledge you have about September baseball ( Or what we provide here) and use it to your advantage. For example, you might really like a certain high-priced pitcher, but since his team is either out of the playoff picture or too far ahead of the pack to worry – he very well could be pulled after just a few short innings. So with that in mind, today we’re all climbing aboard the “Dream Weaver” train. Luke Weaver has a delicious matchup with the Milwaukee Brewers and it happens to be at home where he owns a 1.50 ERA and 1.00 WHIP. The Brewers have the worst strikeout rate in baseball, checking in at 25.2% and their .318 wOBA is merely average as it ranks 15th in the league. The Beer Makers check in with a 92 wRC+ which ranks in the bottom third of the league and their .161 ISO and .736 OPS register below league average as well. Though the sample is a bit small, Weaver owns a 4.43 K/BB & 11.16 K/9 ratio through 25 innings this year and he’s done this with a rather unlucky .358 BABIP. Wanna know the best part? Weaver checks in with a price tag of $4,800!!! Do I have your attention yet? Good. I’ll leave my pants on then. There’s really no need for me put on my Sunday chaps and give you the off-off Broadway version of “Dallas Buyers Club.” I’ll save that for another day.

Anyway, here’s the best of the rest of my Sunday suggestions:

New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well reserve your spot in the 25 Team Razzball Exclusive League set to run Monday September 12th to wet your DK whistle. Just remember to sign up through us before you do. Wanna know what the best part is about signing up with us? The free subscription for the rest of the season to our DFSBot, that’s what! For details on the how to, please visit our Razzball Subscriptions page.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Many consider the break between the Super Bowl and the beginning of Spring Training, to be the most boring weeks of the sports calendar. For us Prospectors it’s probably from the end of the MiLB regular season until the beginning of the Arizona Fall League. This is a time for us to put our pick axes, and helmet lights down, and reflect on the year that was. So in that vein, today we embark on the first part of a two part series, detailing my 2016 All-Prospect Team. Today’s feature, focuses on the position players, or the lineup for our Minor League dream team. Wednesday’s post will look at our rotation. I’ve eliminated players I view as graduated, whether MLB guidelines agree or not. So no Alex Bregman, Joey Gallo, Andrew Benintendi, Gary Sanchez, or Ryon Healy etc. I’ve also provided a runner up for each position, listed as bench options. These bench options deserve considerable acclaim, but unfortunately for them, I deemed the player ahead of them to be more deserving. Obviously these picks can’t be argued with, because what I say goes, and should be accepted as fact. So if you try and argue with me in the comments about my choices, I’m going to head to your house and pummel you while wearing foam Hulk mitts.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

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I almost began this by calling each of you a cotton-headed ninny muggins. For those of you still paying attention, and still in contention, I wasn’t speaking to you. Trust me, this isn’t a jab to the heart of your fantasy fandom, but rather a jab to the heart of those dad blam stats I extract every. single. effing. week. Haha, yes, they’re what carry this article, outside of these little intro words that a grand total of four three of you read, and they matter greatly when determining which starters should get the nod in the two-start realm. But…this week, and maybe others in September, some of the numbers may not add up to the prettiest math on paper. And I just may get salty if you say the numbers next to the name I’m bout to highlight does over the next seven days. So, deep breath. No need to name call. We can keep it rockin’ and ready to rage like when the song in the gif above hits the radio. And by the radio, I of course mean the loudspeakers in a baseball stadium in between innings with some annoying dancer and the team’s baseball girls doing a country jig. Which name? Ol’ Cotton Eye Jha.

Please, blog, may I have some more?