From this post, life emerges. *toadstool morphs into frog, frog morphs into person, person types up this post* See! Darwinism at its most basic, and ‘basic’ like your girl who just wants a pumpkin spice latte and to play Candy Crush. It’s how basic is defined, yo. For these pitcher pairings, I’m going to be using our (my) 2020 fantasy baseball rankings. Notably, the top 20 starters for 2020 fantasy baseball, top 40 starters for 2020, top 60 starters for 2020, the top 80 starters for 2020 and top 100 starters. You can also just get Rudy’s downloadable War Room by signing up for the Razzball Subscriptions. Okay, formalities out of the way.  *rolls up sleeves, makes farting noise with hand under armpit, rolls down sleeve* Let’s get busy! Now, what is a pitcher pairing? It’s your plan for putting together a fantasy staff. A course of action, of course — of acoursion, naturally. If you have A pitcher, which B, C, D, E and F pitcher goes with him?  Which is different than ‘F this pitcher,’ that’s what you say by end of April about at least one of your starters. You should have six starters. The sixth starter is Pablo Lopez or take whoever you want. I suggest an upside pick. Mitch Keller comes to mind. Or Dustin May. Kevin Gausman also comes to mind. Chris Bassitt anyone? I’m going to assume you’re in a 12 team, 5×5 and some variation of 9 pitcher leagues like the Razzball Commenter Leagues, which begin signups on Monday. Put on your pants and look presentable! (NOTE: What you are about to read is massively confusing.  If it were found scribbled in a notebook, the FBI would be watching me. If Ed Kemper stood up and read this at the next prison Meet N’ Greet, no one would blink an eye.)  Anyway, here’s pitcher pairings for pitching staffs for 2020 fantasy baseball drafts:

Yo, yo, yo, it’s Money Makin’ Manhattan back again, or as the ladies call me Mmm… I just made the milkshake of Googling “mmm meaning.”  I made that milkshake even though I know what it means.  I also will be using milkshake instead of mistake as a subtle protest to Apple’s autocorrect.  Siri, you made the milkshake of messing with me!  I thought mmm just meant a sound when you’re enjoying something.  Only Google told me, “MMM means Expression of pleasure or contentment, My Main Men, Marjories and Maureens Meanderings, Manual Mind Melt, Mad Minute Monday.”  That then sent me on a two-hour journey around the internet trying to figure out what everything after ‘contentment’ means in that definition.  Are Marjories and Maureens Meanderings nomadic feminist thoughts like, “I could use directions, but Waze’s development team was 100% men and I’m not using it?”  I have a theory that at some point in the future, likely when we’re all dead and gone, people will no longer speak in words, but will only talk in acronyms.  Yes, essentially, everyone will be like the little girl in Sleepless in Seattle that grew up to not shave her armpits on Transparent and Girls.  Potatoes to chips, I’m gonna keep this Head-to-Head fantasy baseball draft strategy so succinct that it could be written on the back of a CVS receipt and still have room for a grocery list for a family of five.  Assuming the family of five has shopped in the previous two months.  If said family was in Breckenridge for a skication, and are just getting home before Rascal, Tommy and Clarafeen have to go back to school, then their shopping list might be too long to fit.  Now if they’re just getting back from Breckenridge and are bringing food with them in coolers that they accumulated over the skication, then there might still be enough room.  More or less contingent on accumulated food and their level of hunger.  Fangraphs has a formula to figure this out.  It converts a CSV table into a CVS receipt.  Quite revolutionary.  I’m surprised Carson Cistulli didn’t mention it in his 250,000 word Wikipedia entry.  Whose Wikipedia page is longer Cistulli or Rosa Parks?  I mean, all she did was refuse to switch seats, Carson hosts a podcast!  Head-to-Head, or H2H, doesn’t change a lot for our 2016 fantasy baseball rankings.  There are 300 billion suns in the Milky Way galaxy.  There are 100s of billions of galaxies in the universe.  There are at least 256,000 planets exactly like Earth.  Yet, there’s only one Mike Trout.  (Though Trike Mout on Planet Spoonerism is pretty good too.  Not a first rounder though.)  H2H doesn’t change that.  The strategy for playing in the middle of the season in H2H leagues changes.  You aren’t hoping Eric Hosmer hits 20 homers by October, but whether or not he’ll hit a homer on Sunday or if you should sit him for Jarrod Dyson to try to win steals.  It’s all about the matchups, y’all!  So you want to build a team that can match up well with any other team.  (FYI, I’ve gone over this stuff before, but some of you might need a pine tree refresher hung from your rear view.)  Anyway, here’s my head-to-head draft strategy:

For those that are new here, welcome.  I’ve gone over my fantasy baseball draft strategy previously.  Luckily for you, I will happily coddle you.  Unluckily for you, I think coddle means to fart on your pillow when you’re out of the room, causing you to get pink eye.  For all your previous misguided attempts at drafting in fantasy baseball leagues, you might be SMDH or telling yourself FML, but now you will be SMDH like, “Look at me smiling like I just smoked some reefer and shaking my damn head at my new knowledge of fantasy baseball drafts.”  Or you might be telling yourself FML, but now you mean it like, “I just got my life drunk on a case of Pabst and we’re going to screw for the first time real romantic-like.  Could someone light a candle while I eff my life?”  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:

Potatoes to chips, I’m gonna keep this Head-to-Head fantasy baseball draft strategy so succinct that it could be written on the back of a CVS receipt and still have room for a grocery list for a family of five. Assuming the family of five has shopped in the previous two months. If said family was in Breckenridge for a skication, and are just getting home before Rascal, Tommy and Clarafeen have to go back to school, then their shopping list might be too long to fit. Now if they’re just getting back from Breckenridge and are bringing food with them in coolers that they accumulated over the skication, then there might still be enough room. More or less contingent on accumulated food and their level of hunger. Fangraphs has a formula to figure this out. It converts a CSV table into a CVS receipt. Quite revolutionary. Head-to-Head, or H2H, doesn’t change a lot to our 2015 fantasy baseball rankings. There are 300 billion suns in the Milky Way galaxy. There are 100s of billions of galaxies in the universe. There are at least 256,000 planets exactly like Earth. Yet, there’s only one Mike Trout. (Though Trike Mout on Planet Spoonerism is pretty good too. Not a first rounder though.) H2H doesn’t change that. The strategy for playing in the middle of the season in H2H leagues changes. You aren’t hoping Billy Butler hits 20 homers by October, but whether or not he’ll hit a homer on Sunday or if you should sit him to try and win steals. It’s all about the matchups, y’all! So you want to build a team that can match up well with any other team. (FYI, I’ve gone over this stuff before, but some of you might need a pine tree refresher hung from your rear view.) Anyway, here’s my head-to-head draft strategy: