As a Mariners fan, it’s very rare I have much of any empathy for other teams and their fans, especially teams that just came off winning a World Series. And yet, here I am looking at the sad state of the Royals and think to myself ‘how many black cats crossed this team’s path?’. A majority of KC’s masterpiece last year was the young nucleus staying healthy, guided by Alex Gordon as the vet, and a crazy good bullpen. Flash forward to this year and it seems like the entire team is on the DL. No really! This is not the roster it was back in 2015 and the numbers resemble it. The Royals have the 5th worst wRC+ on the year and are K’ing about 5% more than they did last year. But even those numbers lie a little because it keeps some of the early part of the year – read: when the team was healthier – in the equation. So instead, I’m looking at their second half numbers and yup, worst team in baseball by wRC+ standards. Yes, worse than the Phillies and the Braves. Yes, that is really, really gross. But now that I’ve done all that research, it’s time to turn it into some cash money and with that, we get Tyler Duffey. Tyler’s game log inspires zero confidence as it’s about as up and down as a certain type of professional dancer around certain poles. That said, at $5,700, he inspires me to call him my SP2 in tourneys. Now that we’ve turned the Royals’ pain into our gain, let’s see what else we should do. Here’s my hung over and maybe still drunk taeks for this Saturday DK slate…

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See all of today’s starting lineups

# MLB Starting Lineups For Tue 8/5
ARI | ATH | ATL | BAL | BOS | CHC | CHW | CIN | CLE | COL | DET | HOU | KC | LAA | LAD | MIL | MIN | NYM | NYY | PHI | PIT | SD | SEA | SF | STL | TB | TEX | TOR | WSH | MIA | OAK

Joe Musgrove shut down the mighty Toronto Blue Jays for the second time, going seven strong innings, allowing just six hits, two runs, a walk and striking out seven for his first major league win. He looked dominant. Like Michael Phelps dominates the pool, or Simone Biles dominates her sport, and all sports, for ever and ever. Simone though. Have you ever seen such dominance? Clearly, ESPN has not. Regardless, Joey Joe Joe now sports a sparkling 1.47 ERA, 0.76 WHIP and 21/2 K/BB ratio though 18.1 innings. Did you miss out on Jameson Taillon, Michael Fulmer, Lucas Giolito or Blake Snell? Well frown no-more, my frowny-faced friend, because Joe Musgrove may just be the best performing of the rookie-nookie bunch, and while everyone is off drafting their fantasy football teams, Musgrove is still available in over half of baseball leagues. Who is this Musgrove character, and what makes him a must-own pitcher, you ask? In 16 games in AA and AAA (85.1 IP), Joe was 7-4 with a 2.74 ERA, 1.04 WHIP and 87/10 K/BB rate. Oh yeah. For those of you playing at home, that will help your fantasy team. He also plays for the Houston Astros, a team in dire need of all the help they can get as they make their playoff push. Grey told you told BUY and Joe Musgrove needs to be added in all leagues as soon as you finish reading this…sandwich! Gotcha! Now make like Katie Ledecky and 100m fly to the waiver wire!

Here’s what else I saw Friday night in fantasy baseball:

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The holds leaderboard has been basically demolished as guys have switched roles. Three out of the top-10 holds guys (Bettances, Herrera, and Watson) currently are holding down the closer roles for their respective teams.  Add in two more from the top-20 (Andrew Miller and Ken Giles) and you can see that 20% of the entire holds leaders are double dipping in stats.  Not always a bad thing, but when you are counting on one stat from a guy and then it switches to another, it detracts from the previous.  Have no fear, because the bullpen aficionado is here to steer you through the muck and mire that is the bullpen shuffle.  So for this week, we are going to look at guys who aren’t in a closing role.  I have taken current closers out of the equation for the chart, because this is a holds piece and we don’t want “their kind” infiltrating the holds stuff.  So be active on the waiver wire as we come down to the end of the season, there should be no commitment in the relief game.

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In 1972, a young Polish man by the name of Stanley “Stash” Petrosky burst on the scene with the Pirates organization and stole 87 bases while pinch-running for the Single-A Long John Silvers.  No matter how many times corrected, he continually held the bat backwards and never got past Single-A, but his speed was a delight to watch.  Since then, Poles have been considered some of the sneakiest fast players in the game.  Some social scientists have contended that this is due to the Polish ancestors standing in line for bread.  Never wanting to be standing in line ever again, they instead run and steal.  Some historians say the Poles have skis on their end of their names because thousands of years ago they would tie flat boards to their ankles rather than walking and they built up a taste for speed.  Others say this is ethnic profiling and it should be stopped.  Either way, one guy who can’t be stopped is Travis Jankowski.  Janky, as he’s not known anywhere, has 25 steals in 184 ABs.  Since 2000, Jankowski has the most steals in the fewest plate appearances besides Tony Campana (there’s a throwback name).  The King of SAGNOF, Rajai Davis, Jarrod Dyson, Emilio Bonifacio, Dee Gordon and Jordan Schafer are a few of the guys that have been close in the last 16 years, but what Jankowski is doing is historic SAGNOF.  Or as it’s known in some cultures SAGNOFski.  Oh, and Jankowski is also hitting north of .450 in the last week.  Grab him!  Anyway, here’s some more players to Buy or Sell this week in fantasy baseball:

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Yu Darvish likes to throw strikeouts, and I like to put him in my lineups. Darvish also likes pitching at the Rangers ballpark. When pitching at home in his career, Darvish has held hitters to a .279 wOBA in 310 innings. Batters have not been able get a hold of the pitches he has been throwing. Hitters have a swinging strike rate of 13.2% (career high), an out of zone swing rate of 31.3% (career high), and a zone contact rate of 80% (career low). Darvish is feeling it! He has gone over 6 innings in his last 4 starts, and has thrown 34 K with only 2 walks. In that four game span he has averaged 24 fantasy points. With the Tigers in town, Darvish should continue to pile on the strikeouts, as the Tigers have a strikeout rate of 21.6% vs RHP. Tigers are throwing out Anibal Sanchez, which should help Darvish earn the win. And with that I give you the rest of my DFS picks…

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 August 15th 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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Yesterday, Carlos Correa (4-for-8, 4 runs, 4 RBIs) hit two homers across the doubleheader (three in last three games), making it look easy like North Korea during the ‘imaginary’ Olympics that are being aired in North Korea.  “It looks like the U.S.A. is going to take 1st place…”  Bad editing splice job, 20 second lag, bad voiceover, “And North Korea just edges out 1st place!  Wow, this will be…” Bad editing splice job, obvious voiceover, “North Korea’s one billionth medal win.”   By the way, are you as surprised as me that during Olympic competitions you haven’t see any of this:  “Okay, Argentina will now be serving for the win.  Whoa, I think the Spanish coach just unleashed a nest of mosquitos!  He’s Zika’ing them out!”  Seriously, no one is Zika’ing out their opponents.  So, Carlos Correa found some of his footing yesterday that he showed last August/September.  Wait, is he only an August and September player?  Septacular!  Now he’s going to get to 25+ HRs on the year and be overdrafted again next year.  We need a bad editing splice job to remove his 2nd half stats for next preseason.  Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

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When thinking about the Colorado Rockies organization, great pitching is probably the last thing that comes to mind. The main reason for this is that there just hasn’t been much of it throughout their brief history, due in large part to the launching pad that is known as Coors Field. Mike Hampton was a former runner up in the Cy Young voting and frontline starter prior to producing a disastrous 5.75 ERA during his two seasons in Colorado. Denny Neagle was a two time All-Star and former 20 game winner who struggled mightily in a Rockies uniform. It’s pretty telling when Jorge de la Rosa, Aaron Cook, and Jeff Francis are some of the most successful pitchers in franchise history. The bottom line is fairly obvious – pitchers generally don’t fare well in Colorado. However, current ace Jon Gray is doing his best to buck the trend of underwhelming production from Rockies hurlers. Will he prove to be the exception to the rule or will he just be another in a long line of Rockies pitchers to avoid?

Let’s take a look at Gray’s profile to determine if his current success is sustainable moving forward. Here are a few thoughts and observations:

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REL baseball logo newWell, on the heels of the real-life Trade Deadline, we are now faced with the REL Trade Deadline looming this Sunday.  We’ve started seeing a huge influx of trades as team build for the final stretch or rebuild for the future.  You know the saying “the future is now”?  Things couldn’t be further from the truth for my REL Brewers!

To the teams that are actually good, and we’re starting to see runaways in both leagues.  In the AL, the Blue Jays are migrating to the top of every category, and in the NL, the Nats have already lived there.  Looks like the initial REL World Series will be the 1 Canadian team vs. the 1 former Canadian team.  At least things are going better for the ol’ US of A in the Olympics!  Here’s how week 19 went down in the 2016 REL League:

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There are a lot of varying opinions about Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez in the baseball community. I’m not here to get into that right now. All I know is that his career will be most likely over on Friday because he simply cannot catch up to the fastball anymore. However, the Yankees have announced he will play Thursday at Fenway against the knuckler, Steven Wright. What a perfect storm for Alex Rodriguez to take it to the Red Sox once more; he still can hit a knuckle ball a heck of a long way, and he has a big wall to aim at and over. If for no other reason than after Friday he simply won’t be an option, get A-Rod’s last hurrah into your lineup.

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 August 15th 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 ourDFSBot, that’s what! For details on the how to, please visit our Razzball Subscriptions page.

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Wait, what? We were allowed to record a second episode? Indeed! On this week’s edition of the Prospect Podcast we cover it all. From the recent callups of Luke Weaver and Alex Reyes, the upcoming promotion of Yulieski Gurriel, the newly free agented (is that a word?) Lourdes Gurriel Jr., we also get into when the hell the Yanks are going to callup Aaron Judge. Finally Michael Halpern and I list our top 10 prospect pitchers and then get into our favorite prospect pitching sleepers. Here’s the latest edition of the Prospect Podcast….Now on iTunes!!!!

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Yesterday, Carlos Gomez was designated for assignment.  Outfielders in the tier of guys in the preseason I told you not to draft:  Pence, Kemp, Gomez, Schwarber, Hanley, Corey Dickerson, Ellsbury, Brantley, Adam Jones and Carlos Gonzalez.  I’ll take a 7-for-10.  You believed still in the preseason about Carlos Gomez, didn’t you?  *touches finger to nose but not for a sobriety test*  I’m more surprised by the people shocked by Gomez’s fall from grace.  *makes crazy, rolly finger motion by ear*  Anyone who saw him in his prime knew he was gonna find a steep cliff.  Even when he broke out, the underlying stats told you something had to change or he wasn’t going to have continued success.  *sticks finger in nose, smiles*  Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

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Rejoice fellow prospectors for Michael Wacha has been slayed and disposed of on the DL with a shoulder injury. Good riddance Wacha, may the rookie nookieing begin. In the immediate aftermath Cards top prospect and K aficionado extraordinaire Alex Reyes was promoted. The early assumption was he’d fill Wacha’s roster spot. That was until he wasn’t. Shortly there after, it broke that he would be used out of the pen rather than take Wacha’s spot. Then Luke Weaver was called up. This made me excited, one because I’m nutty about prospects, two because I own Weaver in a whole shizz ton of leagues, and three because he fits the profile of the rookie starters that have been successful so far this season. What’s that profile Ralph? Control, command, and low walk rates. It’s the love, peace, and chicken grease of pitcher prospecting. Think about it Taillon, Maeda, and most recently Musgrove; the players letting up the least amount of free passes are having the greatest initial success out of the gate. It’s not a coincidence, because talented major league hitters will sit on junk pitches all day, and force you to throw strikes. That’s what Luke Weaver does Gentlemen and five ladies. He throws strikes…. lots of’em. He had 12 total walks in 83 innings at AA and AAA this season. He’s not some Phil Hughes boring control artist either, he brings with him a 10.0 K/9. Weaver keeps the ball in the ballpark too. In fact, he’s only allowed 7 homers across 197 minor league innings. All this to say you should pick him up. Whether you start him on Saturday vs the Cubs is up to your discretion, but there will be other matchups, better matchups. You’ll want him for those.

Please, blog, may I have some more?