Yesterday, Pablo Sandoval hit two homers, and his third in two days to bring his season total to 11. The other day when Alberto Callaspo hit his 10th homer, I went into our Fantasy Baseball Player Rater to see who had been more valuable this year, Alberto Callaspo or Pablo Sandoval. First rule of Fantasy Baseball Player Rater Checking, if you’re looking to see how a player compares to Alberto Callaspo, there’s a problem with said player. There’s no second rule. That’s the only rule you need. Eric Hosmer or Alberto Callaspo? Oh, man, Hosmer you done messed up. Alberto Callaspo or Michael Young? Damn, Michael Young, you smell like a public restroom. Apples or Alberto Callaspo? Your apples are rotten. That’s it. Sure, Sandoval had a tough go of it earlier in the year with injuries when he mistook his hamate for a ham ‘n cheese. Still, Sandoval’s numbers are way down– Did someone just say Sandoval and weight down? No, Random Italicized Voice. Oh-kay. Sandoval is looking like a candidate for a bounce back in 2013, and, if that happens, then we might have to put him on the list with Prince Fielder for guys who make those who follow saberhagenmetrics look smart. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Ernesto Frieri – 1 IP, 2 ER and the loss. Ernesto walks into his new room and turns on the light, “Hey, what’s with all of these Mike Napoli posters?” Mike used to live there; it’s Scioscia’s dog house.
Zack Greinke – 8 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 8 Ks vs. Yu Darvish with his 8 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 9 Ks. Shoot, this was an old school duel. I mean duel-duel. I mean, like a white glove slapping, Aaron Burr on the top of a mountain saying he invented the ten dollar bill and Alexander Hamilton saying it was him-type duel.
Corey Kluber – 6 IP, 3 ER, 6 baserunners, 5 Ks vs. the Twins. Fun fact! 2,000 years ago his family changed their name from Kluberandpullherbyherhairbacktothecave.
Casey Kotchman – 3-for-5, 1 run and 2 RBIs. Whew, just under the wire I got in my yearly roundup mention of Kotchman. See ya next year, Casey!
Andy Dirks – 2-for-3 with his 7th homer, after going 3-for-4 on Tuesday. Who has two thumbs, owns Dirks, has a thick mustache, a pimp limp, a purple velvet hat and a leopard skin Speedo? This guy!
Anibal Sanchez – 5 2/3 IP, 5 ER. This comes against the A’s after throwing five straight quality starts. That’s dirty, Sanchez.
Carlos Gonzalez – Got in yesterday’s game for one at-bat, then had to leave with moans over his hammy.
Wilin Rosario – 3-for-4, 1 run and his 4th steal. This world is Wilin’s Easter egg, yeah, prepare to dye! Or maybe it’s die. I don’t know, but that song is stuck in my head and I love Wilin. Can I draft him right now for next year? I need me some!
Jeremy Hefner – 0 IP, 7 ER. It’s like Hefner managed to jam all three episodes of NBC’s The Playboy Club’s terribleness into one outing.
Juan Pierre – 5-for-6, 2 runs, 1 RBI. Oh mee gee, this would’ve been the best batty call ever. I wouldn’t have even woke up feeling all regretful, vowing to never drink again.
Chase Utley – 4-for-5, 1 run, 4 RBIs and raised his average to .266. In one game, he made his abbreviated season look decent. Is it sad or predictable or sad and predictable that I’m willing to draft Utley again next year?
Ryan Howard – 2-for-6, 2 runs, 5 RBIs and a 9th inning Grand Slam that shouldn’t have been allowed because it came in a 12-1 game. Comatose Phillies Fan, “Hey, I’ve been out since March, but it’s nice to see the team hitting on all cylinders right before the playoffs. Right? Right? Guys?”
Tyler Cloyd – 8 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks. After being staked to something like a 10 run lead, it would’ve been nearly impossible for Cloyd to lose this game, and he didn’t do the impossible.
Ichiro Suzuki – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 8th homer. This comes after his huge previous day during the doubleheader. Hey, it must be 2004 all over again. No, Yankee Stadium, that does not mean you should play Los Lonely Boys.
Ross Detwiler – 6 IP, 1 ER, 4 baserunners, 5 Ks. I saw on Twitter how people were talking about Mark Ellis breaking up Detwiler’s perfect game. Ellis hit a homer in the 4th inning. Seriously. So, if perfect games start in the 1st inning of games, Rickey Henderson broke up quite a few in his day. A 4th inning perfect game? Really? Sometimes I hate the world.
Drew Storen – Got the save yesterday because Clippard pitched both sides of Wednesday’s doubleheader. Not because Clippard pitched poorly on one side of the doubleheader. I could see Clippard muffing a few critical save chances in the playoffs and just that quickly Storen is the closer again going into next year. We’ll see. Or not. Your choice. BTW, I just referred to the Nats being in the playoffs and you didn’t even bat an eye.
Brett Anderson – Will miss the rest of the regular season after falling off the mound on Tuesday. MLB is looking into whether the groundskeeper who was in charge of the mound was playing in a H2H league against a team starting Brett Anderson.
Seth Smith – 3-for-4, 3 runs, 4 RBIs and his 14th homer. You know how certain cities adopt a player and make a whole cheering section for him? Like the Wolf Pack and Padilla’s Flotilla. The A’s should have a section of the stands where everyone is dressed in suits with purple bow ties and they call themselves, The Wailin’ Smith’ers.
Josh Donaldson – 3-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 4th steal. He had an early season audition that went about as swimmingly as a Ryan Lochte interview, but since he’s been back he’s been full-on JEAH!
Jose Iglesias – 3-for-4, 2 runs, 1 RBI and his first homer, then Iglesias sang, “To all the pitches I’ve loved before…” I’d continue to ignore Jose, he’s a glovechild.
Clay Buchholz – 7 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 4 Ks to lower his ERA to 4.16. For the first time in the history of my mustache, I may own Buchholz next year.
Andrew Bailey – 1/3 IP, 5 ER with the epic blown save. After the game, he said, “Everyone has to do their part to take the heat off our offense.”
Adam Eaton – 1-for-5 with his first major league homer. Not a whole lot for this year unless you need some steals, but I’m telling you now that a guy who had 7 homers and 38 steals in Triple-A is gonna get a lot of unprotected Grey love next preseason.
Johnny Cueto – 6 IP, 0 ER, 9 baserunners, 2 Ks, and pulled from his start after 92 pitches. In related news, Dusty was away from the club.
Alfredo Simon – Got the save yesterday because Broxton had been used on back-to-back days. Reds like Alfredo Simon because he really murders lefties.
Welington Castillo – 2-for-3 with his 5th homer in 138 ABs. Will be interesting to see if he gets the everyday job out of Spring Training next year or if it’ll be a time share with Clevenger. I like Castillo a bit more, but both guys have their flaws and neither will probably be drafted outside of NL-Only or two-catcher leagues.
Yonder Alonso – 2-for-4, now hitting over .450 in the last week and he will be in this afternoon’s Buy/Sell. It’s coming, Yonder.
Anthony Bass – Got the one out save yesterday. It doesn’t matter, because Huston Street is due back today. I’d go ahead and lose Gregerson, Layne, Thatcher, Bass, Moe, Larry, Keenan, Marlon, Damon or whoever you owned for Padres saves. If you want one guy, that would be Huston Street.
Starling Marte – 2-for-4, 1 run, 1 RBI and 2 steals. If I were him, I’d run like crazy over the last ten days so I could show my value to my team. If I were you, I’d own him for that reason. And if I were him, I’d have gold cufflinks that read, “S. Marte,” so people would say I looked smart.
Michael Fiers – 3 IP, 3 ER. I think Fiers is finally outta of gas and went ‘poof.’
Matt Dominguez – 3-for-5. He was hitting in the three hole yesterday and this Astros third baseman is really starting to hit the ball— *snooze* “Grey, this is Craig Biggio. Hey, man, sorry to come to you in your dreams, some people get freaked out about that, but the Astros shouldn’t put you to sleep. They’re playing with a lot of heart right– *snooze*” Whoa, I just had the weirdest dream. I dreamt that Craig Biggio came to me and was trying to talk up the Astros, but then he fell asleep too. Damn, meta dreams.
Allen Craig – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 22nd homer, while batting .307 over 108 games. Definitely put together a nice season, but I’m not totally in love with him like some people. He feels to me a bit like Andre Ethier. Slightly more speed and average for Craig, and slightly more power for Ethier. If Craig is drafted next year like a third outfielder or a corner man, I could see drafting him, but if he goes as a 2nd outfielder or a 1st baseman, I’m probably not going to own him.
Trevor Plouffe – 2-for-4 with his 23rd homer. Plouffe goes the dynamite! On a related note, his initials are TP. Appropriately, since he could clean up the mess on my fantasy teams with his 3 homers in the last week. On a semi-related note, you know how some put the toilet paper hanging over and some hang it under? My friend has a theory that guys do it the right way (hanging over) and females do it the wrong way hanging under. He claims that men “get it” that it needs to hang so you can see the end to rip it. This same friend also claims that all the best songs on an album are tracks five and six, and now that I type this up, I realize how bonkers this friend might be. But I Googled to see if anyone else thinks this about the toilet paper, and APPARENTLY there’s an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to this that is almost as long as World War II’s wiki page. “So, Jim, what did you do today?” “A bit of this, a bit of that…Oh, and I edited the toilet paper orientation wiki page.”
