by: Kerry Klug
Every year in December, Grey begins to roll out his sleepers, so I thought I’d take a look back at some staff picks for last year’s sleepers to see if we can gleam anything from looking back before looking forward.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Welcome to Perception Vs. Reality where we look at the player rater to determine the valuable assets in the fantasy baseball world that might cost you less or be performing better than you think. This week we should talk about values at individual categories. Shout out to the roto league grinders who might be lacking in certain categories. Let’s try and take care of some of that one this fine (possibly rainy?) Wednesday.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
by: Dan Pants
All gravy as us Italians-Americans say. New York Yankees rookie flamethrower slash phenom slash spot starter Jonathan Loaisiga made his major league debut Friday night pitching five strong shutout innings, giving up just three hits, four walks and striking out six for his first MLB vicky in ever. Called up from Double-A Trenton Johnny was 3-1 with a 3.00 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, and 58/4 K/BB ratio through 45 innings. If that K/BB just made your eyes pop like mine did, it’s because the four walks he issued last night in his debut are the same number he’s walked all season in AA. Perhaps some of the struggles he had with his control Friday night were more nerves or jitters and less indicators of what’s to come from Loaisiga. Despite the four free passes, he was excellent out of the gate, Johnny Lasagna layered on the cheese, striking out four in the first two innings with his real pretty mid-90s fastball mixed in with his slider (17 swings and misses induced) and was helped out by a couple double plays. He hit some trouble in the fourth, but managed to pitch his way out of a sticky bases-loaded two-out situation by striking out Christian Arroyo. Yankee fans are calling him “Johnny Lasagna” because he’s a-spicy meatballs-a! Mama mia! Rays manager Kevin Cash called him Little Riviera. That seems a bit over-the-top as well. Either way, I am calling him a player to watch after that performance. Lil’ Jon is telling you to Get Loaisiga, but Jon always jumps the gun on these rookie pitchers. Loaisiga’s first major league stint might be a short one, but I could see him sticking around for another start or two while Masahiro Tanaka is still on the DL and much like this whole Yankees team, his future is very bright. He lines up for another home start next week versus the red-hot Mariners, and I could see streaming him there and for the short term. Add him or no, Johnny Lasagna is not just Garfield’s new favorite player, he’s a name fantasy baseballers are going to hear a lot going forward. He was a BUY and he’s worth a grab for the upside alone, the layers of cheese and pasta are all just bonus.
Here’s what else I saw in fantasy baseball Friday night:
Please, blog, may I have some more?We’re another week into the season, so chances are another injury has come up that you need to deal with. Or maybe enough is enough and you are finally moving on from one of your struggling hitters. Perhaps you checked the standings and are scanning the waiver wire in search of adding more home runs or stolen bases. Whatever the reason may be, I’m here again to help you get ahead in your H2H leagues and Phill up your offense. Because as they always say, the best pitching is a great offense!
I am aware that there are varying league and roster sizes and that some of the guys I recommend may not be available anymore. I go by ownership percentage, but I realize the Razzball community is smarter and more well informed than your typical fantasy baseballer. So I tried to include some lower owned players, but if you would like to see more deep league options in the future just let me know below. Most of the following are owned in ~50% of leagues so at least a few of these guys should be available to you.
I have broken down these suggestions into: One guy that should be owned already in your league, four guys that could be owned, and one guy that will be owned shortly…
Please, blog, may I have some more?
by: MB
Baseball season eh? Are they going to play any? Am I right? It’s not all bad, they still have to make up the games so it should lead to more full slates and double headers. Hopefully more full slates, I’m not a big fan of the double header. Who likes to see 1-8 with a run scored next to a player for the day? Life is full of disappointments elsewhere, leave baseball alone. Like we did in the first two weeks, we are going to look at the player rater and find some gold that your league mates might be under appreciating more than you under appreciate prestige television like The Americans.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
by: Grey
Just wanna put it out there that Al Gore did a better job of inventing the internet than he did at global warming. All these postponements is a real shitshow…snow. The way we’re going there’s going to be back-to-back tripleheaders in August for some teams with the ceremonial first pitch thrown out by Joel Youngblood. Here was me trying to field a full fantasy team the last few days: I’m going to hold onto Matt Davidson through his postponed games, at least I have Freddie Freeman, and now the Braves are rained out, well, I have Miguel Andujar in a doubleheader, and…that’s been canceled, guess I can grab whomever is starting for the Royals vs. Ohtani and that game has been called. Hmm, down to one game on Sunday — Rays vs. Phils. C’mon, Kiermaier–And he’s out after one inning. FMFBBL. Any hoo! Yesterday, Starling Marte went 5-for-5, 4 runs and his 3rd homer, hitting .305. If you’re facing him, urine trouble, if you’re a PEDs tester, that is. By the way, I heard an interesting tidbit on a podcast the other day. If you wipe a baby diaper filled with pee on your face, you will stay forever young. Of course, the advice came from a prisoner serving 25 years to life in San Quentin, so there might be side effects. Coming into this game, Marte was hitting .241, and he raised his average more than sixty points, which shows you how young the season is still. Maybe the season wiped baby urine on itself. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:
by: Dan Pants
Over the passed six months I have been imprisoned, suspended in static animation in the maximum security Galactic Fantasy Federation facility, falsely accused of recommending buys I would never endorse and urging people to sell players that I actually hold very dear. A couple lucky shots from a make-shift ion blaster I was able to telepathically build in space incarceration using spare pieces from my Mark VII Quantum E-Meter and I have escaped at last. I am writing this through a secure, untraceable VPN so I can provide you loyal readers with the fantasy information you’ve come to expect from me, even if its information so sensitive and secret that the Galactic Fantasy Federation would do anything to stop me from sharing it. I have time for a quick Friday recap before the space dogs come sniffing around my hiding hole again. And I do mean quick–just eight games on a Friday!? Y tho? Regardless, one of the few games played featured the Pirates of Pittsburgh’s plundering of the poor Cincinnati Red Legs. Unlike Sea of Thieves, this Pirates game actually featured a lot of action. The Bucs scored 14 runs on 15 hits, lead by 25-year-old third baseman Colin Moran who collected four hits, scoring three runs and driving in three. I wrote about Moran last July but that may have been a bit premature. So many super prospects in Houston, it’s hard to stand out. In Pittsburgh, almost every prospect they’ve had over the past five years has been disappointing so the bar is much lower for Colin to excel. The youngster is slashing .318/.348/.545 through five games started with a homer and 8 RBI, but it’s that sexy .893 OPS that makes me raise my eyebrow, Dwayne Johnson! It’s still early, but Colin should have plenty of opportunity to show what he’s got in the surprisingly exciting Bucs line up. Buy Moran, don’t be moronic! I think he’s worth a flier in all leagues, but don’t tell the Galactic Federation I told you that! Moran is Colin you to pick him up!
Here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?Spring training is such a good time in the life of a baseballer; everyone is refreshed, excited to see each other, its prime weather, there’s golf outings every other day, the standings reset to zero, or, even better there are no standings as the games don’t count (then why aren’t they free?). Wouldn’t you like to do that at work? Three months off and then its hugs, high fives, welcome breakfasts and happy hours; no one is mad about your TPS reports from last year; it’s all new TPS reports this year! I’m all for it.
Some in fantasyland value spring stats more than others, it’s true. Me? Spring stats are to build a guy up, not tear him down, because he’ll do that all on his own, and literally get sent down to the minors.
So let’s dive in to the top OPS guys this spring:
Please, blog, may I have some more?When does excessive SAGNOF’ing become a problem? Do you like go blind if you do it too much? The winning number for steals is the number in question here. Whether that be in RCL’s or your home league. The amount of steals you think you need is based on your league. Just telling you a number like it takes 62 steals to win a league period, end of story, would be a boring article. So getting to that proverbial X number to win your league is that question here. It is subjective based on league size, shape and scoring. Leagues with smaller team numbers is obviously smaller and so on. Starting roster size plays into it as well. So what is it enough for winning or finishing in the top-3 in your league in the steals category? The main strategy to implore during your draft is to see who is going excessive for the steals. If a team comes out the gate and has one of the elite three (TT, Lin Miranda and Flash Jr.) you know what’s up. After that, it is a step down in expectancy. As those three are all projected to have 50-plus steals. So finding a great medium for filling out your set team is important, don’t punt steals all together and don’t overpay for steals too early as they never have a face later in the draft. So let’s see what the trick to getting you onto the podium for steals in most of your leagues…
Please, blog, may I have some more?
by: Laura Holt
Finally – stuff is happening! Now that there have actually been some meaningful free agent signings, injury news (nooooo, Brent Honeywell!), and we’re getting reports out of camps, it’s time to take a fresh look at a handful of situations and players within the deep-league landscape. I’m writing this just before actual spring training games start, so this will be my last chance to evaluate situations before my head is pelted with box scores and video highlights, which will no doubt cloud my judgment a bit whether I want them to or not. And since we’re talking about AL-only, NL-only, and other deep leagues, we won’t be discussing how J.D. Martinez or Yu Darvish’s values have changed. Nope, we’re all about less mainstream, but just as super-sexy topics, like how the Eric Hosmer signing might affect deep-league relevant guys like Jose Pirela. C’mon… deep-league players can be super sexy, too!
Please, blog, may I have some more? by: Grey
Steven Souza, Michael Conforto, Avisail Garcia, Corey Dickerson, Eddie Rosario, Michael Taylor. What do those players have in common? Guys that were in last year’s top 100 outfielders post that made it out like this is Orange is the New Black and those guys were Taystee. Only then Taystee got reincarcerated and brought with her that badass b*tch Vee, and Vee then started running shizz and that white ho, who the show was originally about that is annoying AF, started getting institutionalized with panty-selling and lez ho’ing and–Well, anyway, you get the point. There’s not a ton of sunshine in this top 100 outfielders, but occasionally you do get glimmers of hope. All the 2018 fantasy baseball rankings are under that link-ma-whosie. As always, my projections and tiers are included. Anyway, here’s the top 100 outfielders for 2018 fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more? by: Grey
Yesterday, Domingo Santana had a double slam (23, 24) and legs (12). Maybe it’s confirmation bias, but it feels like Domingo is just so much better on Sunday, right? Carl Jung and Sting would say I’m onto something with this synchronicity. As someone who doesn’t own Domingo anywhere, but wishes he did own him, I can understand when Jung and Sting speak of the duality of a man. I get the sense Domingo Santana will be underrated in 2018 too. Of course, I think this is crazy for a 25-year-old guy capable of a 30/15 season in a great home park. As Sting specifically sang, there’s a little black man named Sunday. He’s not the same old thing on Saturday. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
