I wish filling out your fantasy roster with middle relievers was as easy as plop-plop, fizz-fizz.  But I’m sure it isn’t, because not everyone is using the same model of success.  I can dig that, I mean, I come from a long line of Smokeys that like the art of shoveling.  Listen, I get it if you don’t wanna help your team-rates and ratios by adding guys that are stout in production for basically free at the end of your draft.  Streaming relievers is a real thing, I didn’t make it up.  It does exist, and it lives in the house between Nessy and Sasquatch.  It’s not for the faint of heart and is probably not for everyone.  It is about optimizing your free innings (very useful in RCL leagues that have games started limits, which everyone wants to win).  It’s a basic theory and the patent is pending, so stick around as I get into the art of streaming relievers. And as an added bonus, I have broken down the MR corps into four separate groups.  These groups are broken down by usefulness.  We have one for straight cuffs, one for rates and holds, a straight holds, and then some stone cold sleepers for you deep-leaguers.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

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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

In past years, I’ve said the following analogy. There’s years of looking up to your father, whether you agree all the time or not. Then, one day, he takes a poop on your couch. You take him to the hospital; he’s in need of some sort of psychology examination. If the tests come back conclusive that he pooped the couch simply out of laziness, then that’s ESPN. If tests come back that he’s gone crazy, then that’s Yahoo. That’s inaccurate this year. It still holds true for ESPN, but Yahoo seems like it’s taking steps to correct past mistakes. They’ve lost The Noise from the composite rankings, and he’s always said baseball wasn’t his thing. (What is his thing…well…) Funston, Behrens, Del Don and Pianowski do a conscientious job with their rankings. No, I don’t agree with all of them, I’ll get to that. But they do take the time to actually rank, which I’m 99.9% sure can’t be said of ESPN. Yahoo could easily phone-in their rankings like ESPN, but they don’t. That is, indeed, a point for them. Yahoo still seems to be in love the stolen base and guys that can be labeled as ‘hot, unproven bats.’ They don’t rank nearly deep enough and they have some of the funkiest position eligibility decisions, but these all seem to be coming from places of conscious decisions and not, “Tristan, could you rank for everyone today? I just saw Stephen A. Smith in the elevator and he asked me to Au Bon Pain for lunch. Thanks.” That’s a voicemail message that Cockcroft gets every day. Anyway, here’s where my 2015 fantasy baseball rankings differ from the 2015 Yahoo fantasy baseball rankings:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Man, Razzball must really hate Freddie Freeman, eh? Ehhhh, hate is such a strong word. Loathe? Sure. Despise? Maybe. Disgustipated? Only amongst Tool fans (btw, you guys are awesome. Love Track #1! *Sniffs fist like Kennedy from MTV*). I mention the hate because Grey has already notified us that Freddie is, in fact, a Schmohawk this year earlier this morning. Why pile on, you ask? Well, telling you someone is overpriced is useful but since that’s covered, how about we look at this from a market exploitation angle now that we know not to buy, eh? So let’s compare the stats and the relative price differences the market offers to get your pseudo-Freddie freak on. Here’s a little draft day arbitrage for 2015 Fantasy Baseball. *Sniffs fist like Kennedy from MTV again for no good reason other than to make you google it*

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Organizational Talent Rankings via Baseball America
2014 (12) | 2013 (17) | 2012 (20) | 2011 (21) | 2010 (8)

2014 Affiliate Records
MLB: [96-66] AL East
AAA: [65-79] International League – Norfolk
AA: [72-70] Eastern League – Bowie
A+: [65-72] Carolina League – Frederick
A: [66-73] South Atlantic League – Delmarva
A(ss): [27-48] New York-Penn League – Aberdeen

Graduated Prospects
Jonathan Schoop, INF | Kevin Gausman, RHP

The Gist
The Orioles’ farm is headlined by two solid pitching prospects, although both have dealt with elbow injuries of late. Dylan Bundy may see MLB time later this year along with hitting prospects Christian Walker and Dariel Alvarez. The top half of this farm is pretty solid from a fantasy standpoint, and the Orioles already have nice young talent at the major league level in Manny Machado, Kevin Gausman, and Jonathan Schoop. Gausman was a good arm to own in the second half of 2014 after yo-yoing in the first, and may take a major step forward this year. Meanwhile, Schoop popped 16 homers in his rookie campaign. Machado is still just 22 years old and obviously has massive potential. With a bounce back from Chris Davis, this could be a very nasty offense in 2015.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Some guys are obvious they’re going to be overrated, other guys don’t reveal themselves until I start seeing where others are ranking them. Freddie Freeman fell into the latter category. I wasn’t expecting to see people rank him that much higher than I had him. I mean, I knew people love to love players that are good in real life. It’s the Poseyitis Syndrome again. The general population knows Freeman is a good real baseball player, so if some ‘perts rank him too low or say anything negative on him, then people get upset. As a general rule of thumb, people don’t want to upset other people. I grew up Jersey, so if you’re not upsetting someone else, you’re doing something wrong. You need thick skin to get by. Preferably thick, bronzed skin. When I saw some people ranking Freeman in the top 20 overall and even in the top 15 in some instances, my toes began to tingle and I knew there might be something schmohawky here. Of course, I hadn’t moved off the couch in three months, so I might’ve just lost circulation to my lower extremities. “Get off the couch, Fantasy Master Lothario!” That’s me yelling at myself. So, what makes Freddie Freeman overrated for 2015 fantasy baseball?

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Greetings all, and welcome to the first installment of The Numbers Game. “Boy, that title sounds about as exciting as it would be to draft Omar Infante in 2015.” Hey, quiet in the peanut gallery! Fantasy baseball is, as the title of this series makes blatantly obvious, all about the numbers. The idea behind these posts is to identify players who fit a specific set of search criteria using statistics accumulated over the past three seasons. The various criteria that I’ll be using will be established based on player comps and/or the MLB averages in key statistical categories. Some results will include data from 2014 only, while others will include some combination of the previous two seasons as well. The ultimate goal of these exercises is to provide a different perspective that will help to confirm your evaluations of certain players and perhaps reconsider your opinions of others. While I’ll be providing my two cents from time to time, it’ll be up to you to decide how valid the results truly are.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

uncle_grey

Welcome to another season of the Razzball Commenter Leagues! After typing that, I now know why we abbreviate that shiitake mushroom. I’m out of breath and burned 89 calories just from typing that out, and that doesn’t even include realising that I always spelled it ‘Commentator’. Apparently, I added more vowels than I needed.  Anyhow, let’s get to your first question. No, I’m not J-FOH. He’ll be around during the season for all of your RCL needs. And no, I’m not even VinWins, who will be chiming in from time to time and providing us with a whole bunch of numbers because math is hard. Heck, I’m not even VinLoses, who, interesting story, is actually the cousin of Vin’s mother’s brother’s second cousin’s friend of a friend. TOO INTERESTING. Regardless, I’m Jay, and I’m here to help launch the most important fantasy story out there this season, and that is the story of YOUR 2015 Razzball Commenter League…

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Or as I like to call it FML SMDH. That’s so pithy it should be a widely used internet acronym. Since Al Gore invented the internet as a means of discovering far-off acronyms, Al would love FML SMDH, if he wasn’t too busy ridding CVSs everywhere of aerosol cans. “Ma’am, our planet is under attack, I need your can of Aqua Net.” That’s Al at a CVS near you. So, in the past, I’ve given you snake draft fantasy baseball strategy posts under the acronym of PEDS, but I just found out that acronym was co-opted by some unseemly business. That you let me carry on for 7 years calling it PEDS, I’m not sure I can ever forgive you. *less than a second later* Okay, I accept your apology. Fantasy baseball strategies are as old as the earth, if the earth were ten or so years old. There’s a LIMA Plan (Low Investment Mound Aces) by Ron Shandler. There was a ZIMA Plan by Matthew Berry; it involved a lot of stumbling around, groping and the hiccups. There’s been a Punt One Category draft strategy. There’s been a Punt Two Categories draft strategy, which was conceived by a leaguemate of Punt One Category who just couldn’t stand being upstaged, and there’s the Forget When Your Draft Is So Your Team Is Autodrafted strategy. I love when my leaguemates use that one. Then there’s my fantasy baseball snake draft strategy, Fantasy Master Lothario’s Strategic Method of Domination Henceforth or FML SMDH. (You might even want to use this strategy for our Razzball leagues. Join now. Thank you.)

FML SMDH has five basic steps. If you follow these steps, you will place near the top in all of your leagues. No plan is foolproof because, unfortunately, they still have to play the games, but FML SMDH puts you in the best position possible to win coming out of your draft. Actually, this plan is foolproof and you should ignore the previous sentence that said no plan is foolproof. No sentence is foolproof, that’s more accurate. Okay, onto the steps:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

They call you lady luck. But there is room for doubt. At times, you have a very unlady-like way of running out. Or so the song goes. Anyways, as we discussed in our BABIP Regression piece, there are a lot of components that go into high and low BABIP over the course of the season. And just as a high BABIP has a lot to say about a player, so does a low BABIP. It should come as no surprise that players with a high FB% come with a low batting average. Go hit a towering shot to center down at the park (and by towering I mean have it clear 2nd base, you pansy) and see how long it lingers in the air. There’s your flyball. It can easily get caught. It’s also no surprise if you’re a no speed guy, if you hit a lot of grounders, you probably ain’t getting many hits. So when reviewing ‘lucky vs unlucky’ BABIPs, it’s good to keep those ideas in mind and I did my best to do so as well with these guys. And also, just like the BABIP regression post, I’ll be using 350 plate appearances just so we keep as consistent as your gram gram is after drinking her prune juice. So without further ado, lets roll on. Here are some likely BABIP bounceback candidates for the 2015 Fantasy Baseball Season…

Please, blog, may I have some more?

So with the arrival of February comes the arrival, or “un-hibernation” of Smokey.  I was just getting comfy, curled up in my crochet loogy-blanket that my grandma made me, dreaming about what else? Bullpens, of course.  So this first post of the year is to bring you up to speed on my drafting advice for the upcoming year as it relates to the closers/holds and guys who will help you do everything but start the games.  I will be here every week, to update you on the chicanery that is the MLB bullpen picture.  So sit back, relax, and just think, it’s only four more weeks of me talking about bullpens and closers…Can you feel the excitement?  If you hate me now, you will probably wanna hold my hand by week 20 and maybe go see Jared by September 1st.  Here’s my thoughts on draft strategies for saves in the upcoming year of 2015…

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Watch out, because I’m about to eviscerate someone, which Google tells me means to disembowel and I consider softening eviscerate, but decide to stick with it. That’s how mad I am! I’m ready to disembowel after deliberations! Hey, ESPN, you best get your colostomy bag ready cause you’re gonna need it. (By the by, I Googled colostomy bags for the holidays, and I couldn’t find any. I may just invent some and go on Shark Tank and wow Robert Herjavec with my pitch. “Wait, there’s more! A Passover colostomy bag because we know it doesn’t stay unleavened forever.” Don’t steal my invention ideas.) Today, I take a knife and seppuku (I’m running out of thesaurus entries for disemboweling) ESPN’s 2015 fantasy baseball rankings. To the tune of Jackin’ For Beats by Ice Cube. Commence knife to belly:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Organizational Talent Rankings via Baseball America
2014 (13) | 2013 (11) | 2012 (6) | 2011 (5) | 2010 (22)

2014 Affiliate Records
MLB: [84-78] AL East
AAA: [68-76] International League – Scranton/Wilkes-Barre
AA: [67-75] Eastern League – Trenton
A+: [71-68] Florida State League – Tampa
A: [71-69] South Atlantic League – Charleston
A(ss): [37-38] New York-Penn League – Staten Island

Graduated Prospects
Masahiro Tanaka, RHP | Dellin Betances, RHP

The Gist
The Yankees had major contributions from two rookie arms in 2014. When healthy, Masahiro Tanaka was dominant – posting a 2.77 ERA with 141 strikeouts in 136.1 innings pitched. An elbow injury ended his season prematurely, and while he never succumbed to Tommy John surgery, the health of that elbow is a big question mark heading into 2015. Meanwhile, Dellin Betances was a force in the bullpen where he racked up 135 strikeouts in 90 innings. The Yankees were major players on the international market this past July with ten of Baseball America’s top 30 J2 signees going to New York. They are also in the running for Cuban phenom Yoan Moncada, who is expected to sign with a team later this month.

Please, blog, may I have some more?