It was a wild offseason for the National League, one highlighted by Trea Turner’s lucrative ($300 million) transition from the Dodgers to Phillies, along with fellow shortstop Xander Bogaerts’ introduction to the NL, via the San Diego Padres and $280 mil of his own. Two of the absolute best shortstops in the game are anchored […]

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Razzball Ambulance Chasers, your fantasy baseball doom and gloom report. Sponsored by Monistat (surprise, Razzball staff!). Earlier in the week, I had the pleasure of joining Roto-Wan for Knight Of The RazzTable: Albies There For You, which you should read. Wan tasked two of us with sharing our thoughts […]

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Fresh goes better in life with Vientos, fresh and full of life! Ahh…The Metsmaker! Sorry, that was stuck in my head. Now, hopefully, it’s stuck in your head too. Mets called up their next great hitting prospect, Mark Vientos, after Starling Marte went to the IL. Can Vientos play outfield? Absolutely not. Can Vientos run? His speed has been described as “an 80-year-old baby crawling with tennis balls on its knees.” Can Vientos hit bombs? To the freakin’ moon! He kinda reminds me of a young Evan Longoria. Now take everything you’ve thought about Longoria over the last seven years, scrub it from your brain, and think about Longoria as if this is 2016. Your brain in 2016, “Rays should lock this Longoria guy up for another ten years! He’s amazing! Wait! They let Longoria go? Wow, what a mistake! They just let a perennial 30+ homer, .270 hitter go! Rays will be in last place for the next decade. What a bunch of losers!” So, your 2016 brain is kinda remembering correctly. Longo was good at that point. Mark Vientos can be good too. Prospect Itch has more concerns about his batting average in his top 100 prospects. For this year, do I want Mark Vientos in a redraft league? No, I’d want Eduardo Escobar. Or maybe even Evan Longoria. Anyway. here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:

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Deejay, “Hey, welcome back to Bleday! We are your nonstop rap, hip-hop, trip-hop, bounce, cloud rap, road rap, Christmas rap, Hanukkah rap, Jerkin’, freestyle, trap, but no Jazz rap, he’s out with a stress fracture in his back. Now, let’s boogie for the 2nd half of the season!” Wait, that was me at the end. Was it clearly not me prior to that? Yes? Okay, great. So, JJ Bleday (2-for-4, 1 run and his 1st steal) was called up by the Marlins. Fun fact! Bleday is the rap station in Los Angeles. A less fun fact is Bleday was hitting .228 in Triple-A. He hits everything in the air, which isn’t bad for a power hitter, but it will mean not a lot on average, and, while he stole on Sunday, he doesn’t have a lot of speed either. Think a young Rhys Hoskins. Call him Mees Hoskids, because the JJ stands for Jar Jar. Bleday should see playing time, along with Bryan De La Cruz (2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 7th homer), because Jorge Soler hit the IL, i.e., Bryan De La Soler is plug one. Bleday, plug two. De La Soler, plug one. Bleday, plug two. Anyway. here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:

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Welcome, prematurely balding men and five women who are married to PBMs and decided if you can’t beat them, join them! Make yourself comfortable, this is gonna be a long post. Here, enjoy some coffee. Oops, you just drank rat poison. I should’ve used different mugs. Don’t worry, it can’t be worse than rostering Jonathan India in the 1st half. Oh, you rostered him, and that’s why you drank the poison? Now, I’m following! Hey, I’m supposed to be leading! *does a teapot with both hands on hips and shakes head* Before we get into the top 100 for the 2nd half of 2022 fantasy baseball, let’s just be glad our 18-year-old selves can’t see us now, we’d get beat up! But our twelve-year-old selves would think we’re the coolest! So, as with all of the other 2022 fantasy baseball rankings, slop this up with a grain of salt. If you need a 2nd baseman, but an outfielder is above him that doesn’t mean you can’t trade that outfielder for that 2nd baseman. Also, things change in fantasy baseball. Daily. I could put Aaron Judge number one, and he could pull a–Well, we won’t even mention an injury with the top players after we lost Tatis this preseason. As I say about the Giancarlo underwear I bought off eBay, why soil a good thing? This list is a road map for where I think guys are valued. It’s not the Holy Grail in the Church of Grey, that would be my mustache. This list is NOT (caps for emphasis, not aesthetics) where I see guys ending up if you were to take their first half and combine it with the 2nd half. This is simply a list of the top hundred fantasy baseball players if you were to pick them up today. So while Juan Soto did not have the greatest first half, he will appear on this list because, well, we have to believe in miracles — my 12-year-old self would want that, and to sleep with Cher. 12-year-old Grey loved Cher. The projections are not their combined 1st half and 2nd half numbers; these are their projections for the 2nd half of 2022. I also liberally used our rest of the season Fantasy Baseball Player Rater. That’s right, we have a Player Rater that tells you what players will do. It’s like that camera from The Twilight Zone. Welcome to the future! Anyway, here’s the top 100 for fantasy baseball for the 2nd half of 2022:

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Atlanta Braves’ rookie flamethrower-slash-hotshot-slash-heartthrob, Spencer Strider turned in his best outing of the year Friday night, pitching five and 2/3 innings, allowing just five baserunners and punching out eight Pirates en route to his second win. Spencer finally hitting his Stride-er! He lowered his ratios to a real nice 2.35 ERA and 1.12 WHIP with the start and his 57/19 K/BB in just 38.1 innings was the exact same number I had on the vision board I made for my positive affirmations class. You just can’t find that kind of strikeout potential on the waiver wire, over-the-internet friends. He’s got a 36.8 K% and a 13.38 K/9. Mhmm. Oh my, is it hot in here? I need to calm myself down, I’m getting excited. *bites knuckles, does ice bucket challenge, thinks about baseball players* Wait! No to that last one! Spence, can I call you, Spence? No? OK, Spencer’s biggest knock is that he’s currently being stretched out after serving in somewhat of a long relief role, so he may not pitch deep enough into games initially to get you those sweet dubs, but Braves manager Snitker seems to be ramping him up quick. He threw 72 pitches in his first start, followed by 87 last week and 92 Friday night. That’s progress, y’all! The five and 2/3 innings was the longest outing of his young career, and even though it was the lowly Bucs, he produced a swinging strike rate of 34%. That’s 18 swings and misses, 11 of those on his stinky, stinky cheese, which topped out at 100+ mph multiple times. Yup, guy’s got gas to spare during a nationwide shortage. Basically, Braves have been ramping him up and he’s taking it in Stride-er. Sure, he’s had some cushy matchups so far with Arizona, Colorado and Pittsburgh, but he gets another juicy one next week versus the Nats. If you are looking to buy unfunny gag gifts, fart pills, embarrassing sex toys or lava lamps, I’d check out Spencer’s Gifts, but if you need starting pitching help with massive strikeout upside on a team that can’t seem to lose right now, I’d buy Spencer Strider. Maybe buy the fart pills, too, those sound fun. Here’s what else I saw Friday night in fantasy baseball:

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To try to appeal more to teenage boys, the Rangers should install a giant lotion bottle in center field, and each time Marcus Semien homers, it explodes with lotion onto the fans in the bleachers. Yesterday, there would be a lot of facials from Semien, as he went 7-for-8, 4 runs, 3 RBIs and a triple slam (4, 5, 6) and double legs (9, 10). Halleberrylujah. That might actually be the single greatest day ever. Could Semien be coming out of his early-season funk like Jason Biggs once came out of a tube sock? Okay, those other words were likely avoidable. Is Semien about to explode? Again, avoidable! Is Semien about to explode in a good way in all his glory, whole and pulsating. Okay, more very avoidable words! Here’s what I thought on our Youtube channel. Click that and click subscribe so I can feed my children (Ted, a dog).

Before you say, this rooster, Grey, is caca-cuckoo crazy. Entering yesterday’s games, he had an expected batting average of .201, and one of the worst exit velocities in the major. Everything across the board on his page is saying he really was this bad. Not unlucky. Could he turn it all around? Does Marcus Semien sound like a bath towel that you tell your mom you got paste on? Yes and yes! Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

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On Friday, @rudygamble lifted the curtain on a number of new @Razzball Roto Deluxe enhancements to assist your fantasy baseball management.  One of the new features added will also be useful for DFS picks – new and improved adjustments for wind. Do you utilize our fantasy baseball tools, including Streamonator and Hittertron, to help with […]

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Woke up yesterday morning and Googled to see if there ever was a movie made called, Call Me By Your Mom with Timothee ChalaMILF, then Christian Yelich (4-for-5, 2 runs, 3 RBIs, 5th homer) hits his third cycle vs. the Reds. Could this be a coincidence or deja vu? Whenever I think of Yelich, I think of Mr. Redleg:


Excuse me! His name is Mr. Redlegs! Wait, am I talking about cojoined twins now? Co-Dick? Corey Dickerson did nothing yesterday (or all year). Yelich was an early season goof-up by yours truly. He looks markedly better than last year. I saw his sample size — hey now! — in the first two weeks and thought we were in for another long season of ground balls, but he’s actually improved. He’s hitting everything hard, and in the air again. Yelich might not be the Yelich of old — the top 10 overall Yelich — but he could easily be a low-end top 20 outfielder. Now, I’m off to see if anyone will invest in Call Me By Your Mom. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

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Normally I like to focus on guys you can add but now that we’re nearing the end of April, I feel it’s a good time to take a wider angle and look at the bigger pitcher, I mean picture. Didn’t mean to bring up Randy Johnson there. The Big Unit was certainly an imposing figure but he’s not really an option right now, even if your league gives bonus points for birds utterly obliterated by a fastball. Sorry… got off track there for a sec. What was I saying? Oh that’s right, we’re looking at hitters who are hot. They won’t all be available and they won’t all be able to sustain their early season success for the long hall but for the time being they are hot hot hot.

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