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Please see our player page for Cole Ragans to see projections for today, the next 7 days and rest of season as well as stats and gamelogs designed with the fantasy baseball player in mind.

Nice to see a team (the Jays) that has to play well actually play well. Feels like a rare thing this final week. It’s been like teams have been taking must-win as a challenge and saying, “Prove it!” Or like a spiteful child saying, “I don’t want to must win, you must win!” Chris Bassitt (7 2/3 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 12 Ks, ERA at 3.60) went out and must-won’d his behind off, and, from what I know of Bassitts and their rear porches, there were some dramatically wide swings and they smelled some other dog’s butts. Maybe that analogy got away from me, but you can’t spell analogy without anal. Hey now! Just opened Chris Bassitt’s player stat page, and you’re never gonna believe this, but what he’s done for the last six years? He’s doing it again! Wild, right? Chris Bassitt has made a career out of being criminally underrated. Look at his stats: 8.4 K/9, 2.7 BB/9, 3.60 ERA, and guess where he ranks for starters on the year on the Player Rater. That’s top 20 starter numbers. He will barely be a top 40 starter in drafts again in 2024. Underrated, always. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

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Mike Couillard and Jeremy Brewer have launched a pod, Cards & Categories, to discuss baseball from card collecting and fantasy angles! In our twelfth episode, we open with discussion on the tight playoff races and even more multiple superfractors surfacing. Then we review the release of 2023 Topps Update coming up on Oct. 11 (25:42). Finally, we close out by […]

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Was announced on Saturday that Shohei Ohtani is done for the year. Though, it doesn’t mean he’s done with the Angels. He can re-sign–I am effin’ around! Of course he’s done with the Angels! Be thankful he doesn’t return to Japan after playing with the Angels. He left the Angels and a 212-pound Tim Salmon was lifted off his shoulders. A 20-year Rally Monkey’s Paw curse that festered under his skin for years must now be exfoliated away with Mariners’ skin cream. Thank God, Ohtani was able to walk away from that barge of bad luck in Anaheim. The Angels turn even the most bright-eyed, bushy-tailed among us into Danny Glover on a toilet about to explode. As Ohtani emptied his locker, it became clear the Angels were one of the best teams to stream against these final two weeks, and Sawyer Gipson-Long (5 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 11 Ks, ERA at 2.70) took advantage. Long made short work of the Angels, but is he actually, pause for drama, good? He has three pitches (four but uses three).

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Can’t believe Corbin Burnes (8 IP, 0 ER, zero hits, two walks, 7 Ks, ERA at 3.47) didn’t go out there and try to finish the no-hitter vs. the Yankees. This is somehow George Kirby’s fault. Let’s hear what Mark Mulder has to say. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then bless your ears that they’re in no way polluted by the Hot Takes. Skip ahead to the first blurb if you want to remain that way. On Friday, Kirby said something like he wish he was pulled before the 7th inning because he was gassed. Then old players like Jered Weaver and Mark Mulder jumped on that saying it was the pussification of starting pitchers (told you that you wished you didn’t know). It takes the world’s quickest Google searches to see Weaver used to ask to be pulled from the game in the 7th, and Mulder was so overused in his playing days that he was out of baseball in handful of years, so maybe he should’ve managed his innings better. Old players just completely gaslit by themselves. Hate to see it. Kirby made one mistake: Telling people how he felt. He was gassed, he should’ve been pulled before allowing the home run in the 7th. It makes no sense to baby starters for their entire careers, as they are now, then force them to throw beyond their ability. Kirby should’ve been out of the game, because that’s what starting pitching is now, and how they’re trained. It’s not Kirby’s doing, it’s all starters now. What does this have to do with Burnes? Nothing really, except back in the day they prolly would’ve let him finish the no-hitter. Besides, you know Corbin Burnes is a top five starter, so what’s to say? Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:

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If you have been reading this article every week this season, then you know that I am all about finding those diamonds in the rough, especially at this point of the season.

So don’t be disappointed that I am not featuring players such as Jordan Lawlar or Jasson Dominguez. There is a reason for not featuring them – everyone should know they are top dynasty keepers. They have been top prospects for years and if you play dynasty baseball, then they are not sneaking up on you.

Thus, my search for the players who are not only offering value this season but will offer value the next several seasons. The player who falls into that category this week is Cole Ragans, a left-handed pitcher with the Royals.

Tough Road to The Show

For many, Ragans has come out of nowhere this season. But he is not a player who was drafted in the mid-rounds or lower and worked his up. In fact, Ragans is a former first-round selection of the Texas Rangers, who selected him with the 30th overall pick in the 2016 draft out of North Florida Christian High School.

Along the way to the majors, Ragans has had to overcome back-to-back Tommy John surgeries (the first operation failed) in 2018 and 2019 and then had his 2020 disappear thanks to Covid. Overall, Ragans appeared in only 17 games between 2016 and 2020.

But Ragans persevered. By 2022 he as pitching for the Rangers at the end of the season and this year he has burst onto the scene with the Royals after they acquired him at the end of June in the Aroldis Chapman trade.

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There’s no point in me pointing out that I wrote a Justin Steele sleeper this preseason. It’s so long ago now! So much has been written since then! Has anything, perchance, been written that was that illuminating that the Pulitzer committee, all 12 people in Switzerland, all drafted Justin Steele in their fantasy leagues? Does it matter that people, who have been stopped on the highway doing 120 MPH, have been allowed to leave after showing the police officer my Justin Steele sleeper? Does it matter that my Justin Steele sleeper has made advancements in medicine to cure the hiccups? No! None of this matters! What matters is I wrote that gee-dee post, snitches! Yesterday, he went 8 IP, 0 ER, 2 hits, 2 walks, 12 Ks, lowering his ERA to 2.55. But that doesn’t even matter! The hiccups are now gone! Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

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Lucas Giolito, Randal Grichuk, Hunter Renfroe, Reynaldo Lopez and Matt Moore were all placed on waivers by the Angels. Everyone makes fun of the Rockies, and they deserve it, but the Angels are the Rockies with better on-field talent. The Angels are a joke organization. They were going for it literally three weeks ago! They get nothing for any of these players, by the by. It’s not like they get draft picks or something. They just traded away prospects three weeks ago for these guys and they are just being released. All they get back is money. So, Arte Moreno can build a smaller hot tub inside his larger hot tub. On a real baseball note, the playoffs just became fascinating, since the waiver order is the reverse winning percentage, so maybe that late push by the Mariners to pass the Rangers wasn’t the best move. What does this mean for fantasy? Honestly, I doubt much. It’ll depend which teams pick up each guy, but you have to assume Grichuk and Renfroe are platoon players on better teams, and Giolito is a mess wherever he pitches. Unless he goes to the Rays, then he becomes a late-stage Cy Young candidate. As Matt Truss said, if the Angels pulled that nonsense in a fantasy league, Tommy Pham would smack the crap of out of them. Angels’ City Connect unis should just be white flags. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

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Back at some Fantasy Baseball DFS after a weekend talking pigskin in Vegas. My body doesn’t recover as fast as it used to so this article will be less of a deep dive than usual. Got home late on Sunday and have felt rough all day here on Monday as I am writing these picks, […]

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Someone who liked Friday Night Lights but can’t properly recall their favorite character says, “I’m a  Cole Ragans fan.” Well, me too! Ragans learned an all-important lesson: If you don’t let runners on, they can’t trickle down into runs. There’s no crack of the bat epidemic following this Ragans around! Cole R. sinks the A’s! Wait, that’s a pun about home appliances not the late-President. Ragans supplies “retire the side” economics! Better! So, Cole Ragans (6 IP, 0 ER, 2 hits, zero walks, 11 Ks, ERA at 3.66) threw another great start yesterday. Easy matchup, but he’s been a revelation. He’s why you don’t pay for starters ever, in redraft or dynasty. They come out of nowhere or the good ones just aren’t that good. He’s added four miles per hour (FOUR!) on his fastball, and added a slider that has a .155 xBAA or .208 actual. He already had a change that no one could hit. He now has four pitches, and three great ones (the cutter is iffy). This Ragans should get you aroused without sitting on your lap calling you Mr. T. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

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