Like Billy Joel, Alfonso Soriano is washed up and in a New York state of mind. Don’t tell A-Rod, Christie Brinkley is his type of gal. Soriano getting traded to the Yankees is the best news for him in some time. That’s the magical elixir calling to fantasy baseballers (<–my mom’s term!). Soriano will now revert back to his younger self — when he was still in his forties — and start mashing the ball, stealing bases and doing an extra springy hop when he catches fly balls. Playing for the Yankees is a youth tonic made of juniper berries and grounded-up mints Steinbrenner hoarded from restaurants. There’s just an air about playing with other guys in their fifties that brings everything to life. It’s a real life Cocoon in the Bronx. Don Ameche will be played by Vernon Wells, Wilford Brimley will be played by Travis Hafner and Alfonso Soriano is Steve Guttenberg! Girardi might be the third youngest guy on the bench. Birth certificates are inconclusive. Or! Soriano is who he is at this point. This second scenario seems more likely. It’s not like Wrigley is a bad hitters’ park. Nothing’s gonna change for him in Yankee Stadium. He could hit a few homers, give you a .260 average and throw out his hip at a moment’s notice. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Alex Rodriguez – He was hoping to return on Friday (today, fast thinker!), but now he’s out until August with a sore quad. I.e., the Yankees got together and were like, “Do we really want A-Rod to return? We can give him the coming-up-to-plate music “Love the Way You Lie” or hold him out until he’s suspended and have Girardi chew up his contract like a brace-faced pitbull?”
Hiroki Kuroda – 7 IP, 0 ER, 7 baserunners, 3 Ks in Arlington. Guys and four girl readers, we’re heading into August and Kuroda’s got a 2.51 ERA and 1.04 WHIP. Doode gets no respect either. I didn’t even rank him in my 2nd half rankings. Who do you want Verlander or Kuroda? Is it close? Kuroda’s on the Yankees too so you think the hype would be strong with this young brother. I get it, he doesn’t strikeout people. Do we all have to be such K whores? You kiss your mother with that K whore mouth? Let’s not answer, let’s ruminate.
Derek Holland – 7 1/3 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners, 2 Ks. New York continues to get baffled by Holland. Payback four hundred years in the making.
Lance Berkman – Contemplating retirement. As I was saying to Rudy the other day on the phone — we talk, y’all! — I gave Rudy crap about his preseason love for Berkman. Well deserved in hindsight, but really there’s no reason why Berkman couldn’t have had the season Ibanez is having. Just one of those coin flips that went tails and should’ve went Ibanez. With that said, I can’t believe how many teams we have Berkman on.
Domonic Brown – Hit the 7-day DL with a concussion. Great. Maybe this will be the first concussion to ever result in someone returning in under 45 days. I could see sidelining players in the NFL due to a concussion, but baseball is about as full contact as Parcheesi. If you’re feeling dizzy, don’t run into a wall! I used to put my forehead to the bat handle and spin 20 times and run to first, how difficult is this? Mickey Mantle once played after five Jack and Cokes and two concussions. Toughen up!
Justin Verlander – 6 IP, 7 ER, 13 baserunners, 4 Ks. Here’s you in March, “Grey has Kemp and Verlander way too low in his rankings. He’s freebasing confidence due to a dope-ass mustache. Either that or he’s drinking too much Fanta.” Here’s you in July, “I wonder what Sky’s up to over at their fantasy football blog.” Verlander’s ERA is up to 3.99, and it’s not even like he’s a scrub who gives up 3 earned runs every five innings. He’s got the 21st most runs allowed in the major leagues because he throws so many damn innings with a lousy ERA and a 1.41 WHIP. Him, Dickey, Hamels, Cain and Sabathia are just killing teams this year.
Torii Hunter – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his third homer in the last four games, but left the game with a sore Achilles. He says he’ll be fiine.
Victor Martinez – 1-for-4 and his 9th homer. Could see V-Mart being a DH into his 40’s. He reminds me of Edgar Martinez. Are they related? As a hippie once told me, we’re all related, but he was dropping acid at the time. You’ll never guess how old V-Mart is listed at. Go ahead and guess, I’ll wait. *scratches head, yawns, flips through channels, lands on The Talk, throws TV out window* He’s 34! How is that possible? Even if he’s a Latin 34, it doesn’t compute. He looks old enough to be my dad.
Jake Peavy – 7 IP, 4 ER, 6 baserunners, 7 Ks vs. the Tigers. JB was telling people yesterday to start Peavy and I was saying you should bench him. End of the day Peavy had a below 1.00 WHIP, 5.14 ERA and nice Ks with the win. I’m still not sure if that means he should’ve been started. It’s a’ight but far from a’ight a’ight.
Dayan Viciedo – 2-for-4, 1 run. He’s been in the last three roundups and will be in this afternoon’s Buy column. Sometimes you have the reaction time of a cactus.
Rafael Soriano – 1/3 IP, 4 ER. Kazaam!
Bryce Harper – 3-for-5, 3 runs, 2 RBIs and his 14th homer. Member when he had 9 homers through April and you had a rooster tattooed on your head to mimic his hair cut? Don’t worry, at some point, they’ll stop calling you a cock.
Ryan Zimmerman – 3-for-5, 1 run, 1 RBI, hitting .274. He has 11 homers on the year. This is his 28-year-old season. When he’s 32 years old, he’s going to be out of baseball or on the Astros. Tomato-tomahto, really.
Gio Gonzalez – 5 2/3 IP, 3 ER, 12 baserunners, 11 Ks. I’d take getting tied to that WHIPping post every day and twice on Muesday (which is a secret day that is between Monday and Tuesday, according to my book, “101 High Concept Movie Ideas That Hollywood Will Love”).
Josh Harrison – 3-for-5, 4 RBIs and his 1st homer. I saw his name in the box score as J. Harrison, and I so wanted him to be Jenilee Harrison, then to get traded to Houston and replace Barnes.
Gaby Sanchez – 3-for-3, 2 runs. The Upton brothers could take a cue or two from the two sisters of major league baseball, Gaby and Anibal.
A.J. Burnett – 7 IP, 1 ER, 10 baserunners, 5 Ks and his ERA is at 2.96. If you drafted Apricot Juice Burnett instead of Verlander, well, we won’t rub it in. Though, I will, there’s no we. You could’ve drafted Adam Jones instead of Verlander and drafted Apricot in the last round. Pitching’s volatile, yo, been saying it since I was a 78-year-old landing on Plymouth Rock and I will say it now that I’m three-hundred-something years old. When you get to 300 years old, you can talk to me about not remembering my age. Now get off my parcel of land!
Brian Wilson – Scouts said Brian Wilson “looked good.” Obviously that was relative to a mountain goat.
Lance Lynn – 7 IP, 1 ER, 9 baserunners, 6 Ks, 3.98 ERA. Pretty fair to middling year so far for him, and I don’t picture it getting dramatically better. He did move to 12-5 with this win and when you look at the Cardinals hitting yesterday, you’re not even sure how they scored three runs. Cardinals are the A’s in the NL. If anyone else put Matt Adams in their cleanup spot, they’d be the Royals.
Mark Buehrle – 9 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 9 Ks. For that call by the Stream-o-Nator, I’m buying it a poster of Joe Blanton for its wall.
Yovani Gallardo – 3 2/3 IP, 6 ER. You know stuff in Milwaukee is bad when you see the MIL-SD game and say, “Man, that lineup and untrustworthy starter sucks” and you’re talking about the Brewers and not Edinson and the Padres.
Yuniesky Betancourt – 4-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs, 10th homer. Fun fact! When he wears a one piece jumper, he calls it his Yuni-tard. Betancourt went ice cold for about ten months (maybe it was two), but anyone that owned him earlier in the year knows he can get hotter than a Junebug in July, or whatever that yokelism is.
Carlos Gomez – 3-for-5, 2 runs and his 16th homer. He’s obviously convinced me of his legitimateness and not his legitimate-miss. I’m now curious how high he will go in drafts next year. Do we hear top 50?
Norichika Aoki – 1-for-4 and his 5th homer. I don’t want to wish any harm on anyone (yeah, right!), but if Braun were to, say, get run over by a Rose Day parade, Aoki could be a 40/40 guy.
Carlos Quentin – 2-for-3, 3 RBIs and his 13th homer, hitting over .300 in the last week. Probably should be getting more pub from me, but maybe that’s because he attacked sweet, innocent, certifiably-insane-at-times Greinke. You don’t attack the mentally ill. That’s like rule number three after don’t return the milk carton back to the fridge with less than you need for a cup of coffee and always be trading closers.
Everth Cabrera – 2-for-4, 3 runs and his 35th steal. Razzball exclusive! Yesterday, we intercepted a phone call between Nelson Cruz and Everth Cabrera. Here’s how it went down: “Yo, E-Cab, can I call you that?” “Sure, if I can call you Da Bomb Cruz.” “I prefer you didn’t.” “All right, why are you calling me?” “Once Selig shines up his toupee for the cameras, he’s gonna suspend us. You gonna appeal?” “Well, the Padres haven’t been in a pennant race since 1984, so… The only thing I’m appealing is an orange!”
Cory Luebke – Won’t return this year. How did stashing Neftali, Beachy, Luebke and Lewis work out for you so far? Pretty good? Cool.
Brandon Morrow – Will miss the next six weeks due to his forearm. He’s right on track to begin extended Spring Training next June.
John Jaso – To the 7-day DL with a concussion. Hearing John Jaso Jingleheimer Schmidt every time he says his name would make anyone dizzy.
Steve Cishek – Got the save yesterday, moved his ERA to 3.02. Marlins said they’re not trading him. They looked at available closers to replace Cishek and surprisingly no one is being paid the league minimum for the next four years and is under the age of 19, so they figured what the hey, hold on to Cishek.
Donovan Solano – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 2nd homer. He won’t be in this afternoon’s Buy column, but he could be. He’s now batting near .400 in the last week. Before today, there was no power or speed to speak of, but he’s a middle infielder, how much more do you need? You need the total package for everyone? Well, the package up my ass, gump!
Nate Eovaldi – 6 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 4 Ks in Coors. I’m starting to think @Coors is better than @Crayola Canyon or @any-co. What’s the world coming to?! Someone shoot Spider, please!
Juan Nicasio – 7 IP, 0 ER, 3 baserunners, 9 Ks. Someone throw Saunders in Coors, I got a theory I wanna test.
Carlos Gonzalez – 0-for-1 and left yesterday’s game with a sprained finger. I bet you that he would hit the DL before hitting 27 homers and he’s at 26, so we’re about as close as we can get. No word of a DL stint for the sprained finger, but you still taking the bet? One more homer or the DL? That’s all you need to worry about. Well, that and throwing out the thing growing in your refrigerator that you call casserole.
Nolan Arenado – 2-for-4, 1 run, 1 RBI. For a guy with 200+ waiver moves on my 12-team mixed league team, I’ve been extremely patient with my hitting because I can be. I’ve had Goldy, Cano, Adam Jones, Domonic and Beltre just carrying it on offense. So, I’ve given Arenado more rope than a single take in Hitchcock’s Rope. Time will tell whether he actually rewards my patience because as of right now, I would’ve been better off with just about anyone else for the last 2 months.
Billy Butler – 2-for-3, 2 runs and his 9th homer. That’s three homers per hundred pounds. He’s gonna have to get to 900 pounds to be worth something. I just challenged him, didn’t I?
Henry Urrutia – 2-for-4, 1 run, hitting .350 since his call-up. So far The Cuban Urethra hasn’t come close to the Puig-like spotlight, or his level of dominance with homers and speed, but he hasn’t embarrassed himself either, except when Urrutia asked for frosting for crab cakes.
Wade Miley – 7 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners, 4 Ks. You know who he reminds me of? No, not Stanley Yurich. I don’t even know who that is. Miley reminds me of Kyle Kendrick. Solid streamer here and there, not really a guy you wanna go to battle with every time out.
Nate Schierholtz – 2-for-4, and hitting near .450 in the last week with two homers. Yeah, I grabbed him. Yup, in that league. Here’s to him covering for Domonic.
Nick Franklin – 1-for-4 with a 3-run homer. I was bitching in the comments about this yesterday, but here it goes again. Why do guys lock into your lineup when a game is postponed? There is absolutely no reason for this. It doesn’t make my ‘fantasy experience’ more exciting. It makes it more frustrating. Sure, glad I had two a rained out guy in my UTIL spot and Franklin on my bench. Thanks, ESPN!
Hisashi Iwakuma – 6 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA down to 2.87. Hisashi my dashi — slurp, SLURP!
Dustin Ackley – 3-for-4, 2 RBIs. He’s hitting okay in the last week, and he’s hitting ninth for the Mariners. Burp.
Mat Latos – 7 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 9 baserunners, 4 Ks. I told you in yesterday’s post to start him, then about fifteen people who don’t read the post asked if they should start and I continued to tell people to start him. I have the patience of a saint. Mother Greyesa, that’s my new name.
Todd Frazier – 2-for-4, 1 run, hitting near .450 in the last week. Only has ten homers on the year, and I have no idea where his power is, but I will like him again next year. As long as a 3rd baseman with 30-homer power is in a hitters’ park I will like him.
Eric Young – Left yesterday’s game with discomfort in his knee. Well, ain’t that a kick just above the shins. My whole outfield fell apart in the last two days with Young and Domonic and pfft. This is obviously terrible news for Young owners. SAGNOF + leg problems = Sheila E. Okay, math’s wrong there; was supposed to equal “not good.”
Marlon Byrd – 3-for-5, 1 run, 1 RBI. When he was on first after one of his singles, he was covering up half of Freeman’s jersey, so I cut the sleeves off my jean shirt, lit up a Marlboro and got my girlfriend pregnant because all I saw was Free-Byrd.
Daniel Murphy – 3-for-5, 2 runs, hitting near .350 in the last week, and has already stolen a career-high 11 bases. He keeps that up and it won’t only be CT who loves D.M.
Zack Wheeler – 6 IP, 3 ER, 6 baserunners, 5 Ks, 3.72 ERA and a 1.42 WHIP. Ain’t exactly in the running for Rookie of the Year, but he’s been fairly serviceable so far, what this really means is next year we’re gonna have another top 20 starter in Queens.
Alex Wood – 4 1/3 IP, 4 ER. I’m done with rookie pitchers. Don’t ask me about them. They’ve screwed me for the last time. The. Last. TIME! But I did drop Wood for Gerrit Cole. What? His next start is vs. the Marlins.
Freddie Freeman – 2-for-3, 2 runs and his 11th homer. Freddie Freeman is a definite Reggie Cleveland All-Star, but I was thinking there should be a category of players who sound like they’re Italian but are not. I will call them the Alfredo Figaro All-Stars.
