Does anybody else remember the Adventures of the Gummi Bears? It was on the Disney Channel back in the day and it was THE Saturday Morning jam. Medieval, personified bears, that bounce like kangaroos. Where do I sign up, right? In one of the sloppiest and more unconnected openings in Razzball history, starting pitchers are nothing like Gummi Bears. No, they are not my Saturday Morning jam. They're my Saturday Morning job, digging into numerous deep dives, for hours on end, trying to figure out which players are trending where. The results of these Saturday Morning exercises are below. As a reminder these rankings are for 5x5 roto with value focused on rest of season value for 2018. So, a player like Michael Kopech is ranked for his value over the entirety of the 2018 season. Not just the next month. In previous seasons, this post was a weekly ranking with a pitching profile included. This year we will continue the weekly pitching profile, but once a month we will update the rankings. Because honestly, how much can happen in a week? One or two starts? So there's changes coming for 2018, but they're slight, and you'll still get the same quality profiles, notes, and ranks. You might also get a cupcake or a venereal disease, but no telling which one. The expiration dates will just be a little longer. On the rankings not on the cupcakes or your fresh batch of herpes.
Here's my Top 100 Starting Pitchers for 2018 Fantasy Baseball.
Last year, I won Tout Wars in a wire-to-wire cakewalk. So, before the Tout Wars draft this Saturday, I prepared like any great champ would. I took a page from Rocky Balboa and ran up a flight of stairs, hands raised in exultation. I took a page from Ultimate Warrior and ordered a group of preteen girls to tighten the slack on a jump rope and shook it furiously. Finally, I took a page from E.T. and draped myself in a blanket, squatted in a bicycle basket and had Rudy pedal me around our hotel room floor. Did E.T. have anything to do with being a champion? Not especially, but I was feeling nostalgic for some faux sentimentality and Ready Player One isn't out yet. In my mind, I was standing, arms raised, with a lone spotlight shining on me as Lin-Manuel Miranda sang how I was not going to throw away my shot at a repeat. Only it wasn't in my mind. In our hotel room, Rudy shined an iPhone flashlight on me as we played a rather tinny version of Hamilton off YouTube. I’m past patiently waitin' I’m passionately mashin’ every expectation! And I'm not throwing away my shot! *clears throat* "Um, Rudy, could you help me down from this Marriott end table? I'm getting vertigo." Anyway, here's my Tout Wars, NL-Only recap:
Welcome to Razzball’s 2018 team previews. Over the next couple of months, we’ll be previewing all of the teams and talking to writers who represent those teams around the web. We want to provide the best and most in-depth fantasy projections to go along with the asking the most useful questions to those who know their teams best. We want to talk about the players in the first half of your draft and also the deep sleepers that make you log into google and start watching Midwest Single-A ball for hours. Just kidding, don’t do that, hopefully we don’t go that far…
The Milwaukee Brewers showed an interesting way to start winning baseball games last year. After a short period of sub-par baseball, they built an efficient line up without spending a ton of money or going through a 5 year rebuilding period. Eric Thames came out of the gate tearing the cover off of the ball and Travis Shaw outproduced his projections... by a lot. Orlando Arcia and Domingo Santana both got a full season's worth of at bats and showed that they are here to stay. The Brewers also found a strike out artist in Corey Knebel to close games out. Well, this off season, the Brewers got a little more aggressive. Milwaukee added Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich who are both balanced hitters who can also scoot on the base paths. Lead prospect analyst of Rotowire,
James Anderson joined me to talk more about the BrewCrew.
With these top 100 starters for 2018 fantasy baseball, I’ve finished our (my)
2018 fantasy baseball rankings for positions. Still coming will be a top 100 overall and top 500 to see how all the positions mesh together like your mesh Redskins jersey that meshes with your burgundy sweatpants. Trust me, when you see how long this post is, you’ll be glad I kept this intro short. As always, my projections are included, and where I see tiers starting and stopping. If you want an explanation of tiers, go back to the
top 10 overall and start this shizz all over again. Anyway, here's the top 100 starters for 2018 fantasy baseball:
When you start drafting fantasy baseball teams on New Years Day, as I did this year, it feels like you're in a vacuum. There aren’t a bunch of rankings out, ADP doesn’t exist yet, and there are usually several players (more so than ever this year, as it turned out) who are sitting around in real-life free agent limbo. It can be invigorating feeling like it’s just you and your draft cheat sheet against the world, but it's also a little scary sometimes, especially wondering if you're grabbing players several rounds earlier than you need to. I always like to put together my own rankings in January, and keep that list to refer to as the pre-season progresses. Sure, my opinions will change, perhaps significantly in many cases, but I like to revisit my initial thoughts, seeing what my lists looked like before countless outside influences crept into my decision-making process. In a deep league, it’s particularly tricky to figure out which of these outside influences to buy into, since things like spring training battles for fifth starter gigs, meaningless in a standard league, take on actual importance in AL/NL-only or other deep formats. Trying to separate helpful information from irrelevant pre-season chatter can be difficult, and I find it impossible to be completely immune from the impact of reports on who’s in the best shape of his life, who swears he’s going to run more this season, or remembering how cute [player]Nick Williams[/player] looks in his uniform.
Back to the present -- with January in the rear-view mirror, it's time for me to come up with version 2.0 of my 2018 fantasy baseball prep, even though we’re still a couple weeks away from pitchers and catchers reporting. I have a couple real, money-league drafts under my belt and we all finally have a few outside sources to consult to see what other drafters and experts have been thinking (including Grey's 2018 rankings, which are coming at you fast, fun, and furious). I’m going to concentrate on NL players for this list since I just finished an NL-only draft, but stay tuned for an AL version in the not-so-distant future. Based on my January drafts, early expert analysis, the limited amount of news we've actually been getting from major league baseball teams, a close look at early NFBC ADP, and plain old gut instinct, here are some players who I already think I'm more or less likely to draft than I would have been a month or two ago:
It’s baseball season, long-lost Razzball friends! Okay, fantasy baseball season. Okay, fantasy baseball drafting season. Okay, fantasy baseball drafting season for fantasy baseball writers and mildly disturbed folk who couldn’t make it through the first day of 2018 without entering into a fantasy baseball draft (proud to count myself a member of both of those elite groups, thank you very much).
Drafting the first week of January feels downright crazy. Well, is downright crazy. Projecting stats takes on a new layer of complication right now with such a ridiculous number of draftable players unsigned, and it’s trickier than ever trying to guess how fellow owners might be valuing players. I recently completed my first official fantasy baseball draft of the year, and found my instinct taking over regularly, leading me to impulsively click on a name which was far below other, higher-ranked names on my tidy little spreadsheet, simply because I had a gut feeling. Sure, we could call it women’s intuition, if we wanted to sound like we were writing this article in 1978. (As it turns out, there are studies that support some version of women’s intuition being a biological reality, due to the fact that females are exposed to less testosterone in the womb, which leads to an extra “sense.” Google if bored).
“What’s the point, lady??!” you ask...
The Giants went out and traded for the 32-year-old Evan Longoria, who has rapidly been declining for years. Please, keep that in mind while I run down their lineup. Hitting leadoff...Steven Duggar? Is that the Christian with 52 kids who is cheating on his wife with his butler or some shizz? Maybe, it's definitely not Christian Arroyo, he was traded. Hitting 2nd...Joe Panik? We're only two guys in, but Panik, indeed. Then will come their newly-minted three-hole hitter, Longoria, followed by the 14-homer, don't-touch-his-pretty-boy-face, Buster Posey. Please never let me see another one of those commercials with Posey in it. Please. Next up! A guy whose hits are described as "belting one" because his last name is Belt, and for no other reason. It is completely and unequivocally not because he hits the ball hard. Followed by...Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it my 72-year-old aunt trying to throw a baseball? No, it's The Gangly Manbird, Hunter Pence. Next up, some combination of Brandon Crawford, Jarrett Parker and let's hope Madison Bumgarner knocks in a runner otherwise they're going to lose 95 games. As my intern, let's call him, Lalph Rifshitz would say, that's primo, bud. As for Longoria, he should feel at home with the Giants since he is used to being in places that collect old people. On the bright side, Longoria plays a lot, staying on the field. On the dim side, you kinda wish he'd take more days off. For 2018, I'll give Longoria the projections of 86/22/94/.271/2 in 608 ABs. Anyway, here's what else I saw this offseason for fantasy baseball:
Yesterday….yesterday….yesterday….
All my fantasy baseball championship titles seemed so far away.
Now it looks as though one is here to stay *sung in a very fast voice* oh, crap, nope, because I didn't draft Daniel Murphy because he didn't believe in the lifestyle of a gay,
Oh, why didn't I believe in Murphy like he didn't believe in a…gay…gay…gay.
Suddenly! David Price’s arm is not half of what it used to be.
There’s a shadow hanging over me,
Oh, it’s Giancarlo’s groin that I made of plaster of Paris to admire and it just exploded in paste on me...Suddenly!
Why the season had to go, I don’t know, it wouldn’t say… because it can’t talk, it’s a baseball season that ended yesterday...yesterday...yesterday!
Fantasy Baseball was such an easy game to play,
Now I need a mother’s basement to hide away.
Oh, I believe in yesterday…day…day.
*sniffles* Here, take a tissue. You have to excuse me, I don’t have any clean ones. What will we do for the next few months without an update on a Mets’ pitcher elbow? Will Rougned Odor reveal he was accidentally batting while crossing his eyes and that's why he barely hit .200? What will we do without a James Paxton injury update? WHAT? WILL? WE? DO? Prepare for next season, of course. But, first, let’s bask in the last day of the season. Today is the day when you realize you’ve spent 27,000 man hours this summer beating eleven other strangers to win a virtual trophy, and it feels great! Anyway, here's what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:
Let's see, all rise for the Judge. Can I get a witness for Judge? Judge, jury and executioner of fastballs. This is one Judge who should never see the bench. There's a ten from the East German for Judge! Well, you can be the Judge of that, not really tho. You can Judge a book by how hard he knocks the cover off the ball. And, of course, five minutes to Judge Mollywhopper. All right, all right, enough. Yesterday, Aaron Judge went 2-for-4, 2 runs, 3 RBIs with his 47th and 48th homer, as he hits .281. I don't want to have to bring out the caps, but he's a ROOKIE. *inserts meme of white guy blinking* He has the rookie record for walks, within one of the rookie record for home runs and the first player with 200 Ks and a .262+ average in baseball history. I looked through the last 120 years of baseball for a comparable year, and I found Mike Schmidt's best year and a not-yet-white Sammy Sosa. So, a Phillie hero and vitiligo. In the 2nd half, Judge 'only' has 18 homers, and increased his K-rate to 32.9% from 29.8, only hitting .213. In 2018, there's going to be huge risk and reward when drafting Judge. I'd be shocked if he falls further than the top 15 overall, so you're gonna have to gamble that he won't hit 40 HRs with a .240, and be essentially Khris Davis. Either way, it's gonna be tough to Judge. Ugh. Anyway, here's what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:
When Hunter Renfroe was demoted two months ago, he had to ask himself, "Did I just lose my job to Jabari?" Since he was holding down his soon-to-be-extinct home button on his iPhone, Siri responded, "You're the jabroni." This sent Hunter Renfroe into a shame spiral not seen since Lorenzo Lamas spun his laser pointer at cellulite. Then Renfroe stepped on more mental rakes that smacked him in his face. He followed The Iron Sheik on Twitter, who promptly called him a Jabroni. He wandered into a Brony convention, and a bearded man dressed as My Little Pony introduced himself as Jay Brony. It was awful! Renfroe, or as Scooby would call him, 'Renfroe,' has a batting average that is the dog's breakfast, which means it's Scooby snacks. Zoinks! That's not why you're owning him; it's for power, that he has in spades (though clubs would make more sense). If you need power in the final ten days, grab Renfroe, you jabroni! Anyway, here's some more players to Buy or Sell this week in fantasy baseball:
If you're at all familiar with management theory, then you're probably aware generally of the "Peter Principle". The concept is simple, managers rise to the level of their incompetence. Here's where you think about your current manager, and snicker. Are you done? Okay, so it's concept that many of us can relate to, some of us first hand. But what does this have to do with the subject of today's profile Marlins starter Dillon Peters? Ahhh, his name is Peters? It works right? But perhaps there's more there. Or maybe I'm overthinking. Yeah, totally overthinking it. Then again, is it possible that Peters has risen to his own level of potential incompetence here in the Bigs? His numbers over the last two years in the minors have been phenomenal, rarely letting up multiple earned runs in a game. In fact over the last two years, across 37 starts between high A and AA, Peters has amassed a 21-9 record with a 2.11 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, .224 BAA, 7.5 K/9, and 1.74 Bb/9. While allowing just 5 balls to leave the park in 191.2 innings. So to say he's on a great run the last few years is an understatement. Will that continue here in the majors or is he due for a heavy regression? Through Peters first few starts he's been solid but lucky. I actually intended to profile his start last Tuesday at Philadelphia, but pivoted to Sunday's turn for the rescheduled home game vs the Brew Crew. I figured in case things went awry in Milwaukee recency bias would win out. Here's what I saw.
To anyone from Southeastern Massachusetts my title means something to you. If you're anything like me it signifies the first time in your life you were severely disappointed. I can still remember packing into my parent's station wagon with another family my parents were friendly with. We were headed to the "
World Famous King Richard's Faire". Six year old Ralph couldn't believe I was headed to THE fair of THE King Richard. I mean he was the best king ever, and here I am headed to his fair! Me, lowly 6 year old Ralph with a golden bowl cut! Welp, much like everything else in life since, it was a massive disappointment. What was supposed to be a day of jousts, knights, kings and princesses, quickly turned into reality. That reality was drunk bikers with swords, mutton, and the inescapable smell of feces and urine. The strangest part is it smelt just as much like urine as it did poop. It was as if the two smells were competing for dominance, each pushing itself to it's limits but neither overtaking the other. Needless to say I never went back. I could have, but I did better things with my time like drinking or masturbating. What does this have to do with Garrett Richards and his most recent start? Well let's just say I was excited, only to be disappointed. That's my big market tease, trust me you're bound to be disappointed...
