*Grey adjusts his chiseled body, places himself on a seat, props his chin up with his hand, makes sure that he’s not covering his mustache.* “Welcome to today’s symposium on the intersection of art, science and fantasy baseball. Thank you for joining me at the New Brunswick Holiday Inn. For those arriving late, please fill in the front seats. Don’t groan, my handsome will distract you from wherever you’re sitting if you allow it. Carlos Rodon showed yesterday what he’s capable of — 7 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 11 Ks — but his 4.61 ERA shows everything else. Yes, he will be a 2016 sleeper; his stuff is just so nasty. He has a 10 K/9 in 91 2/3 IP this year (good for sixth best in the majors if he qualified). Yo, Prince, what you say to that? He’s a sexy M.F. Unfortunately, his walk rate is 5, which is as awful as his K-rate is good (would be the worst qualified starter’s BB/9). You know who that reminds me of? Just about every hard thrower when they first came up: Scherzer, Randy Johnson, Sale, Carrasco…. Even Kershaw’s first full year’s BB/9 was 4.79. I’m not saying Rodon will be that good next year, but he’s 22 years old and by the age of 24 he could be a top ten starter. Okay, that should be enough for you to digest for now. For the five ladies joining us, I will continue this in the hotel bar, The Cheeky Monkey, for refreshments and chicken fingers.” Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

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See all of today’s starting lineups

# MLB Starting Lineups For Sat 8/2
ARI | ATH | ATL | BAL | BOS | CHC | CHW | CIN | CLE | COL | DET | HOU | KC | LAA | LAD | MIA | MIL | MIN | NYM | NYY | PHI | PIT | SD | SEA | SF | STL | TB | TEX | TOR | WSH | OAK

Luis Severino (+29.7%) was the most added player in fantasy baseball this past week. You know that the MLB youth movement is officially underway when even the Yankees refuse to part with their top prospects at the trade deadline in order to acquire a veteran rental for the stretch run. “I just traded Severino and Aaron Judge to the Mariners for Hisashi Iwakuma. Suckers! We just found our Hiroki Kuroda replacement, and it only took a couple of unproven kids to get him. You’re welcome, New York!” That’s pre-2015 Brian Cashman gloating about a potential deadline deal that might’ve been made in seasons past. Fortunately for Yankees fans, Severino was off-limits in trade talks and was promoted to the big league club just under a week ago instead. The 21-year-old phenom flashed his impressive arsenal (mid-90s fastball, slider, changeup) against the Red Sox in his debut and more than held his own, allowing just 2 hits and 2 runs (1 earned) over 5 innings of work while walking none and striking out 7 batters. Severino has excelled at limiting the long ball, allowing only 8 homers in 320+ minor league innings throughout his career. He’s exhibited impressive control in the minors (2.3 BB/9) while striking out just over a batter per inning (9.1 K/9) during that time period as well. However, as is the case with most young pitchers these days, Severino’s workload is likely to be closely monitored in the coming weeks. He’s already thrown over 100 combined innings this season, and he seems to be in store for roughly 35-40 more (or 6 more starts) if the Yankees follow the old +30 rule for young pitchers. He looks like the real deal, but is likely to be skipped/shut down by mid-September, limiting his fantasy value for the rest of this season. Until then – giddy up!

Here are a couple of other significant adds and drops in fantasy baseball over the past week:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

A player’s eligibility is a huge factor in evaluating their price or draft status. All else being equal, a 20 home run outfielder is very different from a 20 home run shortstop. Of course, from this season to next there will be a number of hitters losing specific position eligibility, and thus their value takes a dip as well. The season is not yet over so these could change, but as of right now, we’re losing a lot of third base eligible players.

A few quick notes:

  • The players are separated into their respective divisions. The following is not every player losing eligibility, just those most fantasy relevant.
  • I’m using Yahoo! eligibility rather than CBS or ESPN not because of any specific fondness, but Yahoo! has the most lax requirements at 10 games appeared or five games started.
  • I considered splitting up center field specific players from the general outfield, however in standard leagues no such distinction exists.
  • All these players can be plugged into a utility spot, so when I say outfield only, I’m implying UTIL as well.
Please, blog, may I have some more?

I’ve been running out of ideas for titles but this one was a slam dunk. I have said many times before that I’m a huge Steely Dan fan. They are one of a few artists to ALWAYS soothe this beast and take me to a good childhood place. But hey, enough about me, I want to talk about you, but not all of you. The “you” I can’t talk about is the top 20 overall. Due to some computer issues, we don’t have an updated master standings this week. Sorry guys… and girls, we will hopefully have them next week when Rudy returns from his vacation.

Before I move onto the RCL data, I wanted to talk up our Razzball day at the Angels game one more time. Below is my rather poor attempt at combining two pictures, sorry for the pixelation. Below is Grey and myself sporting our sweet new Razzball shirts. To show you how much I want this to be about you… and Grey, I cut my face out so we get Grey times three! If you want to buy one, let me know in the comments. To the right is Teddy Heater, with Hector Santiago (I think?), walking off the field after he threw out the first pitch. Damn our boy can throw. So proud how hard Teddy represented Razzball with his sweet jersey. I had a nice chat with Teddy about today’s topic: the RCL’S. In his first year he has really picked up on the strategies and was already talking about next years draft strategy. You guys… and girls should try to play an RCL with Teddy next year.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

 

When you think about Rob Schneider’s career, his Richmeister character was bordering on prophetic. I mean, the first time we saw the character, ok, that was fun. Annoying and yet you get the gist of it why it’s funny and it was in a small enough sample size for you to actually enjoy it and not be frustrated. And then they kept doing the skit over and over and making the skits longer and longer. The reason it was funny was that you get it, the dude is annoying. But is it really funny annoying your audience? Not really. I mean, who the eff watched Deuce Bigalow? Wait, don’t answer that, especially with a ‘yes’ cuz I want us to stay friends. Basically, Rob Schneider in small doses can work (YOU CAN DO IT!) but if you have to deal with him for longer than five minutes, you’re basically trying to annoy your audience to death. Speaking of annoying your audience to death, there’s me not talking about Luis Severino. Let’s fix that, shall we? Severino’s first start of the year wasn’t perfect but it was spectacular as he K’d 7 through 5 and only gave up 2 hits, though those two hits were smacked pretty hard and one left the yard. But said hits were in Yankees stadium and by lefties in a lefty friendly park. Progressive Field still plays well to lefties but it pales in comparison to that Bronx short porch. And though I wouldn’t call that offense lost at sea entirely, it is made up of guys still learning the game and castaways at this point as they shed payroll and try to build for 2016. Meanwhile, New York is still playing for something and Severino looked so good his first time out, I’m hard pressed not to go back to him on a day where he may go underowned because of all the other higher priced pitchers. So join me in rostering the Sevman…the Sevmeister…the Severino, won’t you? Meanwhile, Schneider looks forward to reprising his cameo roles in another Adam Sandler movie. My hatred there is for another time cuz it’s time we move on to some other calls. So here’s my red hot chick takes for this Tuesday DK slate…

New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well try out this 10 teamer of Razzball writers and friends to wet your DK whistle. Just remember to sign up through us before you do. It’s how we know you care! If you still feel helpless and lonely, be sure to subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

The Red Sox season is like the guy that knocks over the Jenga structure with the first block pulled, then manages to somehow knock every single block off the table, even the ones on the very bottom. Koji Uehara hit the DL with a fractured wrist, and is done for the season, as originally speculated here after reading between the lines at other sites. I also read between the lines that aliens constructed Tikal in Guatemala. And I thought Tikal was constructed by Method Man. Also, I have a bone to pick with read, why is the past tense still spelled read? Siri can’t even figure that shizz out to speak. You messed up, English language! Any the hoo! With Uehara out, this opens a hole for Jean Machi or Junichi Tazawa to walk through. Tazawa is Asian, though I’m not sure that’s a requirement, Machi is ugly. Again, may not matter. Either way, I’d go Machi first since Sawx manager, John Farrell, indicated that Machi would fill-in as the closer, adding, “And Sandoval is still fat.” Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

It’s always good to try and see every pitcher that you can.

I’ve never seen Henry Owens pitch, but didn’t think much of him for 2015 with a horrible walk rate in AAA (4.12 per/9).  “Is this strike zone regulation size, or what?!”  But he is a top prospect, reportedly has good stuff, and was decent in his debut against the Yanks.

You never know what you can see at the eye level, and you never know what pitchers might have a fluky bad walk rate in AAA only to find dynamite command in the Majors (cough,  Taylor Jungmann).  So I decided to check out Owens yesterday, to see how he looked on the road against the Tigers in his second MLB start:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

The term “tool” has multiple meanings around here.  A major league baseball player can have up to five tools.  A fantasy sports writer can be a tool — like when he recommends the wrong next in line to closer for the Rockies (that’s me).  Rudy Gamble makes tools — like the SAGNOF tool I talked up last week that gives you some insight on the best base stealing match-ups and like our DFS (daily fantasy) tools available here.  A commenter pointed out last week that “Using the (SAGNOF) tool, Venable (FA) faces Nelson who ranks #25…pretty stealable. Problem is, Nelson has been in top form lately so tough to get on base. I’m gonna give Venable a shot nevertheless.”  At this point I felt compelled to remind him and the rest of you that by using the tool “You can put the odds in your favor, but a one game result is ultimately a total crapshoot.”  Well, everything with such a small sample size is a crapshoot, so what I meant was that putting the odds in your favor is a good thing and something that you need to try to do consistently when it comes to managing your last few roster spots.  What happened that game?  Venable stole a base against Nelson.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

The Razzball Podcast hath return, and on this week’s Pod we talk Jose Fernandez‘s shoulder, Joe Ross and the Nationals’ rotation, and my wedding and honeymoon where Grey gets mad personal.  Hey Grey, this is a fantasy baseball podcast, not sexual healing with Lizzy Caplan!  I guess my intro flub confused him…  We then play another round of higher/lower, discuss where Carlos Correa and Manny Machado will be ranked for 2016, and a shocking run from an over-the-hill starting pitcher.  Hint, he has no elbow ligaments!  Here’s the latest edition of the Razzball Baseball Podcast:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

No, no I’m not asking for that. I mean, I would if you’d let me and if you are one of the four girl readers but if I did that, then I’d go from four girl readers to zero pretty quickly. At the very least if I WERE suggesting that, I’d end it with a ‘please’. What can I say, I’m a very polite, disgusting male pig. Nah, what I’m really telling you to do is hop aboard the Jon Niese bandwagon. Didn’t know there was one, you say? I can’t say I blame you, I think it’s probably more of a run down parade float with a missing wheel if it exists at all. Really, what I’m having you think about here is three things. One, Niese actually is pitching well at this point in the year so there’s merit in that alone. Two, the Rockies are horrendous on the road this year as they rank in the bottom 10 of wRC+ away from Coors and have the highest K% of any team away from their own friendly confines. Three, well, this is where it gets beautiful. The Rockies also happen to be terrible against left-handed pitching which is exactly what Niese is. The Rockies trail only the Padres and the Mets for K% against southpaws and are dead last against them in wRC+ at a dreadful 61. It’s not very often a Niese can get you excited (PS, don’t read that out loud in public, especially near a school yard; just a friendly warning), but today is one of those days. So get on your Niese (PPS, yeah, back to not reading out loud) and ride him to profit. But enough about weird familial relations, lets’ get to it. Here’s my kissing cousin hot takes for this Monday DK slate…

New to DraftKings? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well try out this 10 teamer of Razzball writers and friends to wet your DK whistle. Just remember to sign up through us before you do. It’s how we know you care! If you still feel helpless and lonely, be sure to subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

I’m picturing Droopy Dog saying, “Going down,” to my Excitement for Jose Fernandez. My Excitement for J-Fer is hooking up with a strobe light honey at a club, and my Excitement for J-Fer’s friend later tells my Excitement for J-Fer, “She was cute, except for that protruding Adam’s apple.” My Excitement for J-Fer just got a $300 red light camera ticket. My Excitement for J-Fer put the green trash can at the curb the day it was supposed to put the blue can and then puts the black can at the curb the day the green can was supposed to go out. My Excitement for J-Fer exclaims, “Why can’t I even throw out the trash right?!” My Excitement for J-Fer sighs and puts an emoji in its text messages that symbolizes its childhood hero Hulk Hogan being a racist. As you’ve likely heard, Fernandez is out indefinitely with a bicep strain. Hopefully, he can be fine for next spring, i.e., I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t return this year. Otherwise, as the old beer jingle will tell you, J-Fer, the pitcher to draft when you’re DL’ing more than one. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

I still can’t believe I chose this schlub to be the creeper of the week. What am I thinking? OR maybe, what am I smoking *takes another hit* to conclude that this disappointment can be a creeper? Tehol even started wavering on Domonic Brown this year, and I am here to tell you to go against all your instincts and own him… for the week… or maybe more. Actually, Tehol still has a shrine at home dedicated to the man and has some delight for him again. Really, what kind of contributor would I be if I didn’t talk about Tehol when speaking about Brown? To take it a step further, let me quote the FML (Fantasy Master Lothario) who said this past Friday “As someone who benefited greatly from Brown’s 23-homer 1st half in 2013, let me be the first person to point out that Brown is capable of great things”. This may sound more like a buy than a creep, but when it comes to Brown, lets take it one step at a time. I’ll call him Baby Steps Brown for nowTime to insert my gratuitous What About Bob? clip.

Please, blog, may I have some more?