Please see our player page for Mickey Moniak 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.

With a little more than two weeks left in the season, my home league playoffs haven’t even started yet. We’ve voted to get them moved up, of course. Commish just couldn’t get it figured out, or couldn’t remember to do it. Time went by. People forgot, and here we are, deciding the winner of a 26-week season when all but two or three teams have called it a regular season. Don’t try this at home, if you can avoid it. Another league that’s a little more actively governed has its final set up as the last two weeks of the regular season, and I think it’s generally closer to the rule than the exception for head-to-head leagues to last up until the final day. Few things bother me more than that in our game, partly because my home league has been stuck in this rut forever, partly because it’s so obviously ridiculous. 

If your league is like ours, you know that names don’t matter at all right now. Joey Meneses has been carrying my ten-team outfield of Ronald Acuña, Luis Robert and Giancarlo Stanton. Bobby Witt Jr. has been on my bench for a long time while Luis Rengifo captains a shallow-league infield headed for the postseason. Without these guys, I’d be hurting. Every hot-now bat won’t keep it sizzling, but it rarely hurts to rotate some fresh swingers in if your lineups are scuffling. I know this is Fantasy 101 stuff, but I have to remind myself to go ahead and bench some names every year. 

Dynasty leagues aren’t all that different. You’ve only got so many days left. If you’re in the hunt, you might as well try the Rodolfo Castros and Nathan Eatons of the world. They may not matter for long, but they matter now while Castro is dropping bombs and Eaton is running wild. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Julio Rodriguez (2-for-3, 2 runs) slammed (26) and leggsed (25) his way to history. Arod once went 40/40 for them, which begs the question, “Why don’t the Mariners sign more Rodriguezes?” Didn’t they learn from Baltimore when they stopped signing Robinsons? So, Julio Rodriguez becomes the fastest to 25/25 in just 125 games, beating Mike Trout (128 games), and Julio Rodriguez becomes the fastest to be the apple of my eye. The bounce in my step. The who in my ha. The cha-ching on my register. The Chachi on my Happy Days. The hill in my soap box derby. The wind beneath my Barbara Hersey wings. The TV without the motion smoothing. The cooler that holds a backup kidney if I need one. Belting at the top of my lungs, “You are my sunshine. My only sunshine!” BDon and I talk in the video at the top of the page about where do Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani fall in the 2023 fantasy baseball drafts, but Julio Rodriguez in 2023 fantasy? Is he any later than top 5? Before or after Judge? Ohtani? I’m not trying to commit just yet, but they’re all gonna be in that general vicinity. “General vicinity” is a fantasy baseball ‘pert’s greatest hedge. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Razzle Dazzlers, welcome once again to your weekly fantasy baseball injury report. The “Ambulance Chasers” article series mostly focuses on matters of the living. It is not called “Hearse Chasers” after all (but that could be an interesting spin-off).  However, give me a minute to opine about the Harry Caray hologram at the MLB Field […]

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Engine revs. It’s the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile. Only instead of a Oscar Mayer hat on its front hood, it’s wearing a Padres cap. It’s staring down a lonely country road. Directly, a mile down, aimed right at it is the Dodgers’ team bus. The Dodgers’ team bus revs.

A half mile in front of each of them, at the midpoint is “1st place in the NL West.” What we have here is a game a chicken. Who will get there first? Behind the Dodgers’ team bus wheel is Magic Johnson. Behind the Padres’ pimped-out Weinermobile is the San Diego Chicken. “You’re going mano a chicken? With the Chicken?! This is not a game you want to play, Magic?” That’s the actor who played Magic in the Showtime series on HBO shouting at Magic. “A Showtime series on HBO? Are you talking riddles, Albright?!” That’s the voice inside my head. Back to the white hot asphalt! The San Diego Chicken guns it towards the Dodgers’ team bus! Magic slams down the gas!

Careening down the road, the Chicken bawks, “They need to lose some extra weight!” To get up to speed, the Padres throw out MacKenzie Gore, C.J. Abrams, Robert Hassell III, James Wood and Jarlin Susana. For Magic to get the Dodgers to increase speed, he throws out an anecdote about him hugging Isiah Thomas at half court. “You need more speed, Magic!” The actor who played Magic in the Showtime HBO series screams. Magic says, “Have you heard about the one of me and Clyde the Glide?” It’s not enough! The San Diego Chicken is the type that drives right towards a big trade and waits for the other team to swerve. It ain’t afraid — it accepts that Gore is sometimes necessary.

So, Juan Soto goes to the Padres. They have Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Sexy Dr. Pepper? Um…

Seriously…

Like seriously seriously…

Fun the Jewels, Macho Manny and Sexy Dr. Pepper. Guys and five lady readers, I am doing a horny. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Feels like we get big prospect headlines every weekend. Makes sense on the baseball calendar. Adley Rutschman, Nolan Gorman and Matthew Liberatore all got that call this week, and I got an invitation to reshuffle the stash list.

Graduated from Volume 2: Royce Lewis Rolls Into TownGeorge Kirby, Adley Rutschman, Alek Thomas, Vidal Brujan, Nolan Gorman, Ryan Pepiot 

If you cared to look back that far, you’d see two graduates in this list from the class of Volume 1, Oneil Cruz Control featured again here in Volume 3, but that’s just the nature of the nomenclature these days. Confusing times when the top guy on the stash list just got demoted after dominating for a couple weeks, but here we are, and away we go. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Spring Training can mean different things to different people. For baseball fans, it means the season is near and there is still hope that your team can win a division title (unless you are a fan of the Pirates – then you have no hope).

For the veteran baseball players, it is a chance to work on their timing at the plate or a new pitch while basically getting the body ready for the season. Young players, however, use spring training to prove they should make the jump from the minors to the big leagues or that a disappointing 2021 season wasn’t a fluke. Alec Bohm, Mickey Moniak and Bryson Stott fell into the young players group.

Bohm starred at Wichita State University and was the third overall pick in the 2018 draft by Philadelphia. He appeared in the 2019 Futures Games and entered the 2020 season ranked as the 28th best prospect by BA  and 30th by MLB . He proved those rankings were pretty solid as he finished second in the 2020 NL Rookie of the Year voting in 2020 after slashing .338/.400/.481 with four homers and 23 RBI in 44 games.

Moniak joined the Phillies organization in 2016 after being the top overall pick in the 2016 draft out of La Costa Canyon High School. Ahead of the 2017 season he was ranked the #17 overall prospect by Baseball America (BA) and #19 by MLB Pipeline (MLB), but fell out of the BA rankings ahead of 2018 and dropped to #88 by MLB. Moniak also struggled in two stints with the Phillies, leaving him on the outside looking in when it came to having a spot on the Opening Day roster this year.

Stott was drafted by the Phillies with the 14th overall pick in 2019 out of UNLV. After playing in the Futures Game last year, he entered this season ranked as the 67th best prospect by BA and 45th by MLB.

A Bad Break

Moniak suffered a bad break, both literally and figuratively, at the end of the spring training. In the final spring game, Moniak was hit in the hand by a pitch. Initial X-Rays were negative, but subsequent X-Rays showed a hairline fracture. In the blink of an eye, Moniak went from being the Opending Day starter in center field for the Phillies to being sidelined for six weeks.

On the fantasy front, it is bad news for players in redraft leagues. But in keeper leagues with limits on the number of player you can keep, there should be an interest in examining Moniak in addition to Bohm and Stott to determine who may be the best keeper down the line.

So let’s take a look at the Philadelphia trio.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

*digs nose into an open field of grass, lifts head, eyes filled with tears* This smells of my youth!

Passerby, “My dog just peed there, so probably because you used to wet yourself.”

Baseball is back.

“Hello, Genie, I have three wishes for this baseball season. My first wish: No one I roster get hurt. My 2nd wish: Everyone I roster do well. I drafted Bobby Witt Jr., Julio Rodriguez, and Seiya Suzuki, so, really, I’m doing much of the heavy lifting for this wish. My 3rd and final wish: All 3rd base coaches send runners home by doing the Moonwalk. Thanking you in advance, Genie. Wait a second, you’re not a genie, you’re Bartolo Colon in Blue Man Group paint. Damn you!”

Glad I didn’t waste a wish on losing a closer during some janky Chris Paddack trade, because that didn’t need a wish. Chris Paddack and Emilio Pagan were moved to the Twins for Taylor Rogers, Brent Rooker and cash. This trade was done as it snowed all across the baseball community. *intern whispers in ear* It wasn’t snow? It was dandruff from all the head scratching? Oh, I see. This feels like a deal we hear about in five years when the authorities figure out the Twins were secretly working with the Padres. Incredibly, the Padres tried to give Paddack away to everyone, then the Twins paid full price. Like, what even? For a month, every team was supposedly trying to acquire Paddack, when, in reality, it was just the Padres trying to give Paddack away for anything. Chris Paddack was so highly sought after that the Padres pretended to trade him to every team. Statcast sliders aren’t good and neither is Chris Paddack. I suppose if he can fix his fastball, but, allow this small cackle of truth, why didn’t he fix his fastball while in San Diego? Didn’t feel like it? Um, okay. So, I wouldn’t suddenly be interested in Paddack, outside of AL-Only leagues. I’ll go over the Padres and Twins’ pens on the other side of the anyway. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Ah, injuries!  If you have a single fantasy baseball team that hasn’t been hit hard by them already this year, consider yourself lucky. I’m not sure how I forget every off-season just how brutal it feels to finally have baseball up and rolling, only to see players inevitably drop like flies, destroying six months worth of planning, hoping, and dreaming of fantasy glory.  I’m not sure which is worse, when a key player that was firing on all cylinders suddenly and unexpectedly officially hits the IL (Lance Lynn, um, what?!) or having to navigate vague reports about top studs without knowing whether they’ll miss a game or two, or be down for a huge chunk of the season.  I’m getting absolutely crushed with injuries in a few leagues as I’m sure many of you are — and, as we deep leaguers know all too well, an injury that’s a big bummer in a standard league or an RCL-type format, can be an absolutely crippling tummy punch in NL or AL-only, or other ultra deep formats.  I already know I’m going to have to play this week seriously short-handed in a few leagues because the weekly waiver deadline has come and gone, and/or there is almost literally no one available in the free agent pool who’ll get more than a handful of bats over the course of the week.  I’m still going to fight for every counting stat I can, though, because these are the same leagues that often somehow manage to come down to a single steal or a couple RBI making a difference in the final standings come late September.  This week, we’ll stay true to the RITD spirit by focusing on players that were recently added to teams in some of my deepest leagues or made CBS’s “most added” list while still being only a few percent owned — guys who are off the radar to most of the fantasy baseball world, but might just be able to help fill out a banged-up deep league lineup.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Howdy do, folks.

The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational (TGFBI) is well underway, and all of us writer folk are eagerly drafting and impatiently waiting between picks. Spring Training games are in full force. The weather’s getting a little warmer (at least around here). It’s just a great time of year.

But with all that, there’s of course a flip side. The flip side being that human beings are fragile things, and when games start, you can just bet your little button nose that injuries will start a-pilin’ up.

Please, blog, may I have some more?