Marcus Stroman tore his ACL and is out for the year. Remember me?” says the Fantasy Baseball Overlord. Then the opening to Seven Nation Army kicks in and FBO does a little dance. His dance partner isn’t a person, but rather a pitcher’s limb. It’s very disturbing to watch. Oh, my God, he’s taking a picture with the limb with a seven-foot-long selfie stick. Oh, this is just awful. No one over the age of 14 should ever have a selfie stick. Why do you hate such wonderful, Fantasy Baseball Overlord? Why?! “I wasn’t loved as a child.” So, Stroman is out for the year and now the Blue Jays have moved one step closer to being the 2014 Texas Rangers. All they need is Edwin to gain 200 pounds and have a boo-boo on his neck. I’m guessing that filling in for Stroman will be Marco Estrada, but I have Aaron Sanchez and Daniel Norris projected in my top 400 and think they both will see some starts and have value. It’s still too early to call on Sanchez vs. Norris, but I’d draft Sanchez first since he’ll either see starts or Brett Cecil will be nodus modus operandi. As for Stroman, well, I’ll make sure to write a 2016 sleeper post for you. Anyway, here’s what else I saw in spring training for fantasy baseball:

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

This is a post for the fantasy baseball drafters who use Excel, Google Docs, or some other war room software that automatically totals a drafted team’s stats while in the middle of a draft.  Or perhaps for those of you who do mock drafts or simulated drafts.

The below grid represents my projected 75% mark in each stat category across AL-only and NL-only 10 and 12 team leagues. These are based on the standard 2 Catcher/1B/2B/SS/3B/CI/MI/5 OF/UTIL/9 P roster format.

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You know when the Philadelphia Phillies lose to a Division II college that baseball is officially back.  Well, that and you’re fantasy drafts are coming up.  Unless, of course, you already did them, and if you did, why? Anyhow, games are starting in Florida and Arizona, which means managers finally get to take a look at what they actually have on the field.  Looking around each division, there are some interesting position battles to keep an eye on.  Over the next few weeks, we…OKAY, I will take you around the horn on which position battles to keep an eye on for each division. Let’s start with the American League West, shall we?  

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kershawshank

Well, I thought I was extremely clever when I came up with the title for this one, but then a quick Google search proved that there were others that were clever before I thought I was being clever. Darn you Google for knowing so much! And darn you Al Gore for inventing the internet! Thanks to the internet, a guy can’t get away with anything these days. Google, Facebook and Twitter have made it next to impossible for a guy to get a reach around in the back of the bowling alley from the girl that rents the shoes without everyone knowing, and every one of those people finding out about it. But I digress…

As draft dates draw nearer, I decided it was time to put together and share my head-to-head points league rankings. But before I do, I wanted to let you in on my process. Points leagues are all about one thing. Points. It’s the only category that counts for jack squat. I wonder how many dudes out there actually have the name Jack Squat? I guess it’s better than Richard Nose. I don’t care if my player gets 100 points because he had 100 RBIs or because he stole 100 bases. Whatever he needs to do to bring home the bacon is A-O-K with me. In Japanese that would be “Aoki”. I don’t even care if it’s turkey bacon! Points are points. So ranking players within the same position comes down to who will score more points. I’ll touch on comparing players across positions in my next post.

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Psst! This post is gonna list 2nd basemen that you should target in your 2015 fantasy baseball drafts. I’m whispering because you don’t want everyone to see this post. No, I can’t whisper louder, then it WOULDN’T BE WHISPERING! Okay, gig’s up (or maybe that’s jig’s up), the love I’m about to reiterately (Made Up Word of the Day!) confirm are guys I love later in drafts. I’m not going to mention Kolten Wong other than this one mention of him where I say I’m not going to mention him. I love Wong. Tis is true. Come here, let Grey massage your balls…The balls of your feet, silly! Oh, that feels good on my hands. Can I tickle your toes with my mustache? Weird? Okay. I’m not mentioning Wong other than this mention of not mentioning him because these are players that you’re looking at later and all of them have ADPs after 200. Some could be the 2nd baseman on your team, they are more than likely MIs. This is a (legal-in-all-countries-except-Spanish-speaking-ones) supplement to the top 20 2nd basemen for 2015 fantasy baseball. Click on the player’s name where applicable to read more and see their 2015 projections. Anyway, here’s some 2nd basemen to target for 2015 fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

This is the 2nd post in a series (Post #1 was about position adjustments) in which I am going to combine my thoughts on category valuation and general fantasy baseball auction value quality checks. Determining how to value a player’s contributions across each statistical category is the fundamental challenge of building a system for ranking/valuing fantasy baseball players […]

Please, blog, may I have some more?

It’s been a long, tough winter (especially for those of you who live in the Northeast), but the wait is almost over. Spring training is in full swing and the regular season is just around the corner. That means, of course, that fantasy baseball draft season is here.

Recently, we’ve attempted to identify the next Corey Kluber and looked at some hitters who displayed above average power and plate discipline over the past couple of seasons. Today, we’re going to focus on relief pitchers. If you’re looking for the latest closer rankings as well as the top handcuff and hold options, check out the Bullpen Report, which provides excellent RP analysis each and every week.

This post will attempt to identify relievers with a very specific profile: power arms with high K-rates. Players who throw hard and miss bats. It’s that simple. Well, mostly. Let’s take a look at the search filters that I used for this exercise:

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We’ve got Grey on location in Arizona!  Grey fills us in about rolling with the Razzball crew in Spring Training, including Jack Full of Hate hoping to be Jack Full of Tristan Cockcroft!  Too far?  Probably!  But it’s early in Spring Training and I’m working on the full repertoire!   We then roll through all of the early Spring injuries including no Cy for Yu!  Then wrap up with a look at the noteworthy performances in the ultimate useless small sample of the first few games through Spring.  Here’s the new edition of the Razzball Baseball Podcast:

Download from iTunes

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Well, there’s one schmohawk post I don’t have to write, right? Stutterer! Yu Darvish left a game the other day with a tight triceps. That’s what the she-dinosaur said! Huh? Then, this past weekend, it was announced he’s a candidate for Tommy John surgery. Stop sullying the word candidate with your surgery, Tommy John! I wonder if the whole -san suffix for names like Daniel-san gets confusing with Tommy John. Thomson John? Tommy Johnson? Thomson Johnson? It’s no secret that I didn’t like Darvish coming into this year. For my foray into pannin’ Asian, too much risk was attached to his arm for where people were drafting him. His NFBC ADP was 43 prior to this news, so you had to start thinking about him in the 3rd round. No thanks, Yu, I said. Of course, when I told you in my top 40 starters post to avoid him, I was beat up in the comments for losing my way. Yu was the greatest pitcher since sliced bread that had a portrait of Hello Kitty on it! Don’t Yu know, Grey?! Yu can strike out so many something-somethings that you should want to bear his children, then one day shout at him in divorce court, “These are all Yus!” I had Yu in a tier named, “Not touching them with a nine-foot pole that has twelve one-inch straws taped to its end.” One person in the comments on the top 40 starters said, “Phil Hughes ranked above Darvish, I’ve seen everything now.” Then there was someone else arguing for Darvish’s dignity like they fought with Darvish in The Great War. I don’t want to say I told you so, but I’m saying I told you so by saying I don’t want to say I told you so. Anyway, here’s what else I saw in spring training for fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Versace’d up from my thong to my neck

Pootie tang with the belt game show some respect.

Greetings! I’m blessed to still be employed by Razzball, going at it like a horny jack rabbit, and it’s a beautiful week to be alive! Unless, of course, you live on the upper east coast, for that looks absolutely hellacious. May the Elder Gods bless you with dry firewood, hot toddies a plentiful, and a bounty of desperate hookers/gigolos working at half price.  We’ve finally arrived at the always intriguing OF position, and I for one am ecstatic! In fact, I haven’t been this titillated since Clint Eastwood took his shirt off in The Bridges of Madison County!  There’s no time to waste!

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Organizational Talent Rankings via Baseball America
2014 (8) | 2013 (18) | 2012 (3) | 2011 (1) | 2010 (16)

2014 Affiliate Records
MLB: [89-73] AL Central
AAA: [76-67] Pacific Coast League – Omaha
AA: [53-87] Texas League – Northwest Arkansas
A+: [65-72] Carolina League – Wilmington
A: [57-83] South Atlantic League – Lexington

Graduated Prospects
Yordano Ventura, RHP

The Gist
The Royals went all the way to the World Series in 2014, helped in part by the pitching of rookie Yordano Ventura. He averaged 96 on his fastball, second only to Garrett Richards. The 23-year-old will enter 2015 as the ace of the Royals’ staff. No pressure or anything. Brandon Finnegan, the Royals’ first round pick in 2014, contributed to the major league club as well. While he was impressive in the bullpen, it looks like the Royals will lean towards stretching him out in the minors. Other top prospects in this system will look to “bounce back” either from injury or disappointing performances. If you’re in need of a short-term prospect for this year Terrance Gore is likely to provide some stolen bases, but he’s behind Jarrod Dyson on a crowded outfield depth chart.

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From being a consumer of Razzball for a few years, I’m sure many of you already know about OBP or On-Base Percentage league(s). Chances are, if you’re playing in an OBP league, you’re playing with some seasoned teams. The metric has eased into MLB broadcasts and has become an important measurement as to a players overall worth, more so than batting average. However, the player gets on first, whether he leaves the bat on his shoulder or gets plunked, the idea is, it’s just the same as a base knock. If you play in competitive leagues, I advocate changing from AVG to OBP. For me, it increased my understanding of different players who didn’t always get the recognition but are valuable to their teams.

Please, blog, may I have some more?