Yesterday was a bad day to quit being young with A.J. Pollock and Carlos Gomez both hitting the DL. Together! In a non-gay way. But it would’ve been totally cool with me if it was in a gay way. Let’s start with Pollock since he is the less ethnically sensitive of the two. Pollock has a Grade 1 groin strain. When the strain happened, Pollock was reading Groin Strains for Dummies. Chapter 1: Don’t Move Your Leg In A Normal Manner. “Go to a trampoline, but don’t jump on it with your feet, fall on it sitting criss-cross apple sauce.” Pollock will likely be out for two to three weeks, and in his place the Russian Game of Thrones character, Gregor Blanco, and Reymond “You Can’t Not Think Of Daisy” Fuentes. Fuentes is the more interesting of two, since he should be on the stronger side of a platoon, and has speed. Outside of NL-Only and deep mixed leagues, I’m passing on both. As for CarGomez, he will miss four to six weeks. That’s too bad, he used to be good three years ago. Replacing him on the roster will be Jared Hoying, who looks like a Motter-fodder. Then, we have Carlos Carrasco, who is affectionately known as Cookie, and I am a Cookie Monster for him, so this one hurts me. In yesterday’s game, Carrasco had a huge lead, when he squandered that and left the game with a trainer. All you had to do with cruise to the W on the Ivictory Coast! Apparently, that’s the way the Cookie crumbles. He was diagnosed with left pectoral tightness, which doesn’t sound bad. Which, Part 2: The Return of the Which, will still likely mean a DL stint. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Mike Bolsinger
Hopefully everyone had a great Mother’s Day and if you were under a rock, this is your reminder to at least squeeze in a belated wish to all the Mother’s in your life. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the aforementioned DFS Mourners Day. Why am I referring to it as DFS Mourners Day? Well to put it bluntly, today’s pitching slate is probably the worst set of starting pitchers that I’ve had the displeasure of writing about. It’s comically bad. I want to apologize ahead of time for the subpar schedule, but I’m really going to try and stay positive considering our limited options. Unfortunately, my original lede, Carlos Carrasco is not in the mix tonight because of his early 6:10 PM start. Note to the DFS and MLB schedulers: can you work together so we don’t run into these types of situations? I mean, Mondays already suck enough as is. At least with a decent DFS schedule and my stellar writing, we typically have something to look forward to, am I right? With tonight’s starting pitching peaking at “questionable” (if that), we’re going to have to really dig into the offensive side of the game tonight. The upside of having the highest priced pitcher – Brandon McCarthy – maxing out a pedestrian $17,700, meaning we’ll have a bunch of offensive cash to throw around. Side note, I know he’s facing the Giants in SF tonight, but this is McCarthy’s first start off the DL and yet he’s still the highest priced pitcher? That is the definition of slim pickins everyone. It’s only the Best of the Worst for our Inaugural DFS Mourners Day. Without further ado, I would like to announce the two SP’s Headlining our Mediocre Monday……. I give you, Jesse Chavez, $15,000 vs the White Sox and Chase Anderson, $13,500 at the Padres. Now please give me a minute or ten to collect my thoughts. *Steps away from computer, goes down stairs to watch Derek Jeter’s number retirement ceremony, sits back at computer, reloads the rosters for today, triple checks (just in case there were some makeup games that possibly could have been missed), shakes head in defeat and continues post.* Yay! Chavez and Chase are going to dominate tonight! These two studs…I mean, duds are going to kill it. They’re both pitching in favorable pitcher parks against less than favorable offenses. On DFS Mourners Day, we really couldn’t ask for a better pair of pitchers to roster if we tried. Now that the worst is over, let’s figure out how to spend all this extra money on the offensive side…EDITOR’S NOTE: speaking of extra money, you got $5? Yeah? Wanna spend it on a better pitching slate than what we’ve got today? Well hop into the Razzball Listener’s League tomorrow night and play against your most favorite and least favorite of your Razzball friends and frenemies. Now back with the progrizzle…
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Please, blog, may I have some more?
Waiting For Bregman, And Some More Urias Analysis
May 27, 2016 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 99 Commentsby: Geoff
As the weeks go by, all of you will notice that these posts will be increasingly more influenced by your questions, and the players you the readers and commenters show interest in. In the same way, all that attended a New Kids On The Block concert in 1990, were dubbed honorary “Newest Kids”, you are all my Shitz Stiks, and will be such forevermore. So it is with great excitement and anticipation that I begin today’s post dedicated to the hottest swinging bat this side of Jackie Bradley Jr., Alex Bregman. I know a player is generating a ton of buzz not only when I get questions about them, but when people start asking Grey questions about cats in AA. It’s almost as if you people dropped the A.J. Reed punch for Bregman lemonade and have no plans of letting up. (After all lemonade is a popular drink, and it still is.) When you’re putting up the sort of crooked numbers that Bregman has for Corpus Christi that will happen. So let’s get into this helium tank and see where it leads us.
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MLB Injury Report, Preseason: From The Ethier
March 24, 2016 | Fantasy Baseball Injury Report | 1 Commentby: David A Marcillo
Now that the calendar officially says Spring has begun, Spring Training injuries start to get more and more important. Injuries early in camp have time to heal and players still have time to catch up, injuries occurring now can linger into the regular season and rehab can eat into a player’s important playing time leading up to Opening Day. Here’s a look at some of the biggest injury news of the week:
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Ethier Sheds Tears Over Shin DLer List
March 23, 2016 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 341 Commentsby: Grey
Seems like Andre Ethier followed Natalie Portman’s advice in Garden State a little too closely when she told Braff that The Shins will change your life. Dodgers announced that Ethier would miss 10 to 14 weeks with a fractured tibia. What is that, two days after I drafted Ethier in Tout Wars? Two and a half? One and one three-quarters of a tibia later? All you can do is laugh. A high-pitched, crazed laugh like when you lose your job, then step in an empty elevator shaft. One of those real crazy laughs that you expect to hear from someone pushing a shopping cart filled with Ho-Ho boxes that have been removed of Ho-Hos and replaced with dog turds. One of those kind of laughs. Filling in for Ethier will be some combo of Scott Van Slyke, Carl Crawford, Kike Hernandez and Trayce Thompson, a group that could be summarized with: Bleh, Meh, Jewish, Girl. I removed Ethier from my top 100 outfielders and top 500. Anyway, here’s what else I saw in spring training for fantasy baseball:
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2016 Team Previews: Los Angeles Dodgers
March 7, 2016 | Fantasy Baseball Team Previews | 4 Commentsby: M@
Welcome to the 2016 Razzball Team Previews! You’ll find everything you need to know about each team to get yourself ready for the upcoming fantasy baseball season. And I mean everything, folks. We’ve got line-ups, charts, Slurpees, lube, a guide for beginner electricians, and even a cactus! Well, that’s a lie. That’s what Jay had last year sitting in front of him. This year? Um…a little less lube? Take that as you will. But hey, we’ve got teams to preview and questions to ask, so let’s hop to it. We a very special guest for this post…Daniel Brim, to provide his take on what the team has in store this season. Now enough rambling, let’s see what 2016 holds for the Los Angeles Dodgers!
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When Chuck conceived his son Daniel Norris, he was working on set in Asia with Mrs. Norris still living in the US! Wait, did that make any sense… I’ll leave the Chuck Norris jokes to the frat boy posters…
Traded to the Tigers along with another nice upside pitcher Matt Boyd, Detroit got some pretty good arms for a rental and they wasted no time throwing Norris right into the rotation. And that’s with 12 walks over his last 21 AAA innings! But throw caution to the wind, don’t look both ways before crossing, run with the scissors and see what ya got, amiright?!
I had Norris all the way to 61 right before the season, getting a little too rookie nookie and slack-jawed at his Minor League stats. He wasn’t awful through 5 appearances with the Blue Jays pitching his way to a 3.86 ERA, but he was a little too wild and his pitch counts got out of hand. So with the move to a better ballpark and to a team ready to unleash him right away, I decided to break down his debut with the Tigers to see how he looked:
Please, blog, may I have some more?It’s hard to pick which Ross is hated more: the one in Friends whose character is so annoying David Schwimmer could never get work again, or the dynamite starter for the Nationals, who even after pitching mad impressive through his first few starts, wasn’t even the first SP to get the call when Stephen Strasburg went back to the DL yet again. Why wasn’t he the first call?!
After Joe Ross‘s first run in June, I kept him in the ranks a few more weeks even without a for-sure rotation spot, and when Strasburg tweaked the oblique, I was ready to vault him into the top-50. But nooooooo, instead they use, I dunno, Taylor Jordan or someone who doesn’t matter? C’mon Nats, what did Ross ever do to you?! Finally the Nationals got Ross back up to face the Mets last week in a decent – albeit underwhelming – start given the matchup, so I decided to break down his 5th MLB start at the Pirates, in a pitcher’s duel Sunday afternoon against Gerrit Cole. Here’s how Ross looked:
Please, blog, may I have some more?Yesterday, Michael Brantley went 4-for-5, 2 runs, 4 RBIs with his 7th homer. One big day for a 2nd rounder is more than Ian Desmond owners can say. Yes, everything’s better when compared to Ian Desmond. “Maw, this spinach is still half-frozen and spinach juice is dripping into my Salisbury steak.” “In some countries, all children have is a 2nd round draft pick of Ian Desmond.” “You’re right, maw, you’re right. I’m an ingrate!” That’s a 34-year-old you after coming up from your mom’s basement for dinner. One of my biggest regrets of this season was not labeling Brantley a Noid and telling you to avoid. I didn’t rank him in the preseason crazy high so you would draft him, but I didn’t outright say, “Look elsewhere, prematurely balding man.” Meh, I guess my regrets could be worse. I mean, look at Lindsay Lohan’s last ten years. If you own Brantley, I think at this point you have to hold tight and either go down with the ship or hope some of his cream rises — mixed metaphor points! If you don’t own Brantley like me, well, whew. I’m empathetic though. Kinda. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?So I just wrote 250 about why you should start Chris Sale. Then It come to my attention that Mr. Sale had been pushed back until Monday. Damn you DFS gods why have you foresaken me. So with Sale being pushed back and Carlos Rodon taking his place it can only mean one thing, I’m going to focus on Danny Salazar. You didn’t think I was going to sit here and suggest you start Rodon vs the O’s did you? I mean I already had my teeth handed to me a month or so ago by Carlos Frias. I’ve sworn off all Carlos’ until further notice. So let’s focus on Danny shall we? The young god is averaging 10.65 K/9 and as we all know K’s are the real kings of DraftKings. I know one would think it would be the drafts, but it’s not. So let’s get a couple of things out in the open before we go any further. 1. Danny’s not exactly the safest of choices, 2. he’s a bit homer prone and 3. will have his rough outings from time to time. But if you’re a Razzball reader you already knew that. You know because we have the most astute readers in the industry. Right?
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Please, blog, may I have some more? Indians Using Every Piece Of Buffalo Bill Cody
June 30, 2015 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 603 Commentsby: Grey
Cody Anderson took a perfect game into the 7th inning yesterday and ended up with a line of 8 IP, 1 ER, 2 baserunners, 2 Ks, and his ERA is at 0.57 thru two starts. The Indians staff just keeps getting sexier. Now their rotation is Cody, Corey, Danny, Trevor and Carlos. Sounds like a boy band, K-Nudo. Only Cody doesn’t strike out as many — he’s the sensitive one. Anderson has an interesting backstory. He’s from Idaho, and he signed with the Tribe out of a junior college for $250,000. Imagine that. One day, Anderson’s asking ma if they have to eat potatoes yet again for dinner and saying a lot of “Aw, geez,” then he signs for a quarter of a million dollars, which is more than the state economy of Idaho. Suddenly, he was able to purchase the state of Idaho and all its trout. (I have no idea if they have trout there, but Guy Fieri seems to stop at a Diner and/or Drive-In and/or Dive at least once a week in Idaho for trout.) “Aw, geez, ma, I have to pay to pave highways now? Money is evil!” As for fantasy, Anderson’s not quite as big city-ish. He has very few Ks thru two games, but he does throw hard-ish (93 MPH fastball) with a decent slider, and he also has decent control. His minor league numbers portend a mid-rotation guy at best and he’s not at his best yet, so there’s still room to grow, but I’d let him grow on someone else’s team in mixed leagues. If you wanna check the Stream-o-Nator on him, go for it, but outside of AL-Only leagues, I wouldn’t own him yet. Just as I wouldn’t eat trout from Idaho. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?Geez, what is it about Steven Matz?!
The puns have been outpouring faster than illogical movies by Christopher Nolan. Maybe it’s because he pitches for the Metz? I don’t know!
I’ve been… well, naive to not rank Matz to this point. Even with my standing concerns coming into his debut, he likely should’ve been ranked the last few weeks. I thought it would be at least July until he was up, and I questioned how many innings he’d really get through in the Majors. His peak is 140.2 IP last year across high-A and double-A, and he entered the Majors at 90.1 innings before yesterday’s debut. Innings concerns are a big question mark after his career started with major elbow issues (TJ and complications).
And after that debut with 4 RBI at the plate, the mythical legend might be one of the biggest gaps from perception to reality. Then again, I’m saying all this before breaking down his first start without seeing much of him beyond the numbers. What Pitcher Profiles are all about! You can’t know for sure on a guy until you really get a chance to see him pitch. So without any more noodling, here’s how Matz looked in his debut:
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