Top 50 Middle Infielders for 2020 Fantasy Baseball: Preseason Edition

February 17, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Top 50 Middle Infielders | 25 Comments

Welcome to my inaugural post for the top 50 Middle Infielder rankings for the rest of the 2020 fantasy baseball season. Throughout the year, I will be updating my rankings and calling out those movers and shakers. For those of you here looking to gather some insights, welcome. For those of you looking to steal my rankings and use them against me, I am not afraid!

Let’s take a quick look at the landscape up the middle of the diamond. Middle infield is deep this year, more specifically shortstop is stacked. This isn’t Jason Bartlett’s shortstop class of 10 years ago. The top four all have an argument for being first round picks. After that, there are all-stars abound with blemishes (Can Altuve hit without a buzzer? How often will Gleyber play against Baltimore? Will Tatis regress or grow?). Once we get past the top 20-25, there is a steep cliff that will leave you wishing you had invested earlier.

Now let’s get into a few key guys standing out from the pack in the rankings.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Yordan And Astros Wound Rays And Pour Morton’s Into It

August 28, 2019 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 306 Comments

by: Grey

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Before Charlie Morton (4 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 3.11) threw one pitch yesterday, the Astros greeted him with a highlight reel of some of Morton’s greatest Astros moments. Like the clip of him burning his Pirates jersey. And the clip of him pitching relatively solid for about 150 IP, then hitting a wall and never getting through a whole season. There wasn’t a dry eye in the stadium, especially on the Rays’ bench. I told you to sell Morton last month because he can’t ever complete a season. Any hoo! Morton seems headed for a 3-minute bread beep as he becomes toast, but this is about how the Astros hit multiple balls into orbit, which is also the name of their mascot’s scooch hole. Yordan Alvarez (3-for-5, 3 runs, 4 RBIs, hitting .329) hit his 20th and 21st homer in *hand-clapping emoji* 60 *hand-clapping emoji* games. Actually, stop and hand-clap emoji for a few minutes he’s such a thing of beauty. In total sincerity, if you haven’t seen him hit, go watch a clip. I see him hit homers and I’m puzzled, asking myself, “How does he not hit more homers?” And he hits a lot of homers! That’s how gorgeous his swing and ease-to-pop appears. For 2020, I’m going to fight with myself to not put him in the top 20, and I might lose. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Greinke The Zackstro And Nick Cubstellanos

August 1, 2019 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 372 Comments

by: Grey

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MLB teams were whistling 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover yesterday:

Just slip out the back, Zac, make a new plan, Tanner,
Don’t need to be coy, Greek God of Hard Contact, just listen to me,
Hop on the bus, Jesus, don’t need to discuss much,
Just drop off the key, Greinke, and get yourself free.

The deadline seemed to be lulling people to sleep, then the Diamondbacks stepped up and decided they were contenders, be-bopping Jazz Chisholm to the Marlins for Zac Gallen. But it turned out they were Indiana Jones, when he would replace an ancient artifact with a sand bag by switching one Zack with another Zac, so the booby trap wouldn’t expose them to trouble. See, and I always thought the idea of the outfield hot tub was to expose booby traps. Incredibly, the Cardinals announced the Zack Greinke to Astros deal hours before the Diamondbacks. The Astros rotation is now, as they would’ve said in the 20’s, bona fide. In good spirits, Justin Verlander tweeted out, “As long as we don’t get Bauer, we good.” I hear that, JV. I don’t trust home/away splits much at all, unless it’s Coors vs. non-Coors, but, if you must know 2.96 home ERA vs. 2.80 away. Usually it’s the inverse, but Greinke is a 15-year vet; you really think he’s going to pitch that differently in Houston? The answer you’re looking for is no. He’s a control artist whiz like you’d want from your child when they’re doing the pee-pee dance. Speaking of which, did every team relieve themselves of their relievers? Let’s find out! Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

FanDuel: Barria Town

July 29, 2019 | 2019 Fantasy Baseball, DFS, Fanduel |

by: Thomas Howland

On a slow day in the Majors it’s hard to find good value on FanDuel. One such place is the seventh ranked pitcher Jaime Barria ($7,200). He’s one spot above that on the Streamonator, but he’s also pitching against the 30th ranked Detroit Tigers offense at home at Angels Stadium in Anaheim. Barria loves home cooking. He’s 2-0 with a 2.04 ERA there this year. He has a high probability of more innings and strikeouts than many others today, which equals FanDuel points. Now on to the picks.

New to FanDuel? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!

Please, blog, may I have some more?

FanDuel: Royal Can Boyd

July 13, 2019 | 2019 Fantasy Baseball, DFS, Fanduel |

by: MattTruss

Welcome back DFSers, hopefully the shakes have stopped for you now that DFS baseball is back in full swing. Lucky for us, MLB has set up a sweet Saturday night schedule with 11 games going for the FanDuel Main Slate. It’s almost like a Friday night slate! With a plethora of options we have more chances to beat our competition tonight. One way I’m looking to do so is locking Matthew Boyd ($10,100) into my lineups tonight. I’ll be honest with you, I had a different intro written before pricing came out. I just assumed that Boyd was going to the highest priced pitcher on the slate given his performance so far and his opponent tonight. To my great surprise, he’s only the sixth highest priced pitcher. Can you say value? The Royals are bottom five in team OPS. Whenever I’m researching my lineups for the night I always take a peek at the team OPS standings. The Royals are also 12th in the league in team strikeouts, which is always nice to see when picking a starter. I love Boyd’s value tonight and wouldn’t be surprised with another double digit strikeout performance. Let’s take a look at some more picks for the evening slate.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

FanDuel: Hot Coors

July 3, 2019 | 2019 Fantasy Baseball, DFS, Fanduel |

by: cinthree

This is a Coors Field slate and the weather is going to be hot, so you’re going to want to jam Coors Field plays into your FanDuel lineups. The biggest issue in your quest for 4 Astros is that they are a right handed hitting lineup and Peter Lambert, while terrible, is actually pretty decent at keeping the ball on the ground vs righties (52.9% and 30.6% vs lefties), so you’re going to want to target him with fly ball righties and anyone who swings a bat from the left side. Alex Bregman (36.2%), Robinson Chirinos (33.3%) and Tyler White (39.4%) are the righties who keep the ball off the ground (Michael Brantley and Josh Reddick are the lefties who project to start and are good plays). But, Lambert isn’t someone who you avoid playing ground ball righties at Coors because he can’t get them to swing and miss at all (11.5%) so George Springer and Jose Altuve are fine plays due to the fact that you’re in Coors and those 2 are capable of making contact and they do have some raw power. On the other side, Miley is like Lambert in his ground balls, except he is fairly neutral in his splits. But he throws with his left hand and the 2 best plays on the Rockies when they face a guy who throws baseballs with his left hand just happen to be guys who hit the ball in the air with some frequency. Trevor Story (31.1%) and Nolan Arenado (36.5%) are the top plays, but this game environment is going to be so good, playing any 4 Rockies is acceptable as well.

On to the picks…

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Luzardo Montalbuyin

June 28, 2019 | 2023 Fantasy Baseball | 481 Comments

by: Grey

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From the journal of Jim Morrison, he wrote about an encounter he had with lizard wearing a crown of thorns that he alternated calling, Jesus Luzardo and The Luzard King. Here, I wish to transcribe Jim’s musings, “Today, I rode with a large Native American man to a Wawa to get some beej ferky (sic). The Native American man told me about the many lives he had lived and how he never trusted rookie pitchers. He recounted a story about how he traded all his pitchers for Chris Paddack, due to a great April in 2019. This was confusing to me, since this was 1970, but this wise Native American knew more in his head, which he covered in an Indians baseball club hat, than I’d ever know. Was this Lou Boudreau? Before we got to the Wawa, which was only three minutes away by automobile, so not sure why it was taking so long — were we lost? — the Native American man pulled over and picked up a pitchman for an insurance company which was an animated lizard. This was The Luzard King. An obvious lizard, which made it weird when it kept saying it was a gecko. The Luzard King said it had a shoulder issue early in the preseason of the 2019 season, which I had a premonition would be 38 years after my death. Also, oddly enough, I’m being fed a quote from the future from Prospect Mike about Jesus Luzardo. He will say, ‘Luzardo’s stock just continues to rise. He’s in the rarified air of ‘best pitching prospects’ now. The lefty threw 109 innings across three leagues in 2018 and posted a 129/30 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Everything is plus or better – the heater, the curve, the change, the control. He’s the total package, like the package I filled with anthrax and sent to Grey.’ Who is this Grey he speaks of? Who is Prospect Mike? Was it the peyote talking or was it something more mysterious?” And that’s me quoting Jim Morrison quoting Prospect Mike! Don’t think Luzardo is going to be up before the All-Star Break, but now is the time to stash him. He could be a top arm in the 2nd half, or at least a solid Middler like early Yonny. Call him Once Uponny. Anyway, here’s some more players to Buy or Sell this week in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Buy Everything You Need At The SuperMercado

June 21, 2019 | Fantasy Baseball Buy/Sell | 509 Comments

by: Grey

¡Hola! Me llamo es Gris. ¡Bienvenido! Hoy en el SuperMercado Barridos tenemos una venta especial. The Bumblebee Man runs through screaming, “¡ESPECIAL!” ¡Gracias, Señor Miel! Ahora, cuando digo ir, tienes que correr por el SuperMercado y encontrar un bateador que te pueda dar poder y velocidad. “¡ESPECIAL!” Okay, Señor Miel, eso es suficiente. “¡ESPECIAL!” Rápidamente se está volviendo claro por qué te vas a extinguir. “¡ESPECIAL” ¡Hayzeus Cristo, callate la boca, tienes tiempo sexy con tu madre! So, Oscar Mercado has 8 homers, 20 steals and a .305 average in 59 games, which is, ya know, your standard top 10 outfielder pace of 22/54/.300. You didn’t know he played that many games? Well, because he didn’t. I was combining his Triple-A and major league numbers, but, with how the ball is jumping out of stadiums, I think that’s fair. Don’t agree? Don’t care. Mercado is ESPECIAL! Anyway, here’s some more players to Buy or Sell this week in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

YankEEs BelievED WINning Formula Is Adding More RH Power

June 17, 2019 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 565 Comments

by: Grey

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For Mother’s Day, all MLB players use pink bats. On Father’s Day, all bats should be painted to resemble penises. I try to convince MLB of this every year, and every year I’m met with awkward silence. Another Father’s Day, another year MLB didn’t take my suggestion for an, uh, equipment update. How about they use the pink bats again, but with hanging scrotum on the knobs? They could at least call all home runs on Father’s Day “dongs,” or if the player is over the age of 35, then they’re long balls. These are not big fixes I’m asking them to do. So, Edwin Encarnacion took his long balls (see?!) to the Yankees (unintentional pun, but still worthwhile). Turns out the Home Run Parrot on Edwin’s shoulder is a better agent than Kimbrel’s. “Polly want 15%.” This made me chuckle: reporters on Saturday suggesting the new potential Yankees’ lineup had Edwin Encarnacion penciled in as a question mark like he was some mystery-flavor Dum-Dum. It’s because Encarnacion doesn’t really make sense for the Yankees — is he the DH? (Voit? Judge? Stanton?) 1st base? (LeMahieu) — but they’ll find room for him since he was the AL leader in home runs. Clint Frazier was sent to the minors, as he awaits a trade; this will completely kill Gio Urshela’s value, and might hurt DJ LeMahieu’s, as well. With Giancarlo and Judge returning, Gardner’s about to become the 4th outfielder, Maybin’s gonna get DFA’d and Aaron Hicks better make sure he doesn’t slump or he’s going to be benched too. Of course, all of this becomes moot when Judge, Stanton and Edwin all get hurt this week. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Ambulance Chasers, Week 2: Pinstripe Panic

April 3, 2019 | 2019 Fantasy Baseball | 8 Comments

by: Kerry Klug

Seven games into the season and we’ve already got some season altering injuries. A lot of injured players that are out there have been injured for a while like Salvador Perez, Michael Fulmer, Alex Wood etc. They’ve been injured for a long time so you had a plan to replace them — or not draft them at all so I won’t be talking about them.

Below are some recent injury updates that are affecting your teams. Every week I’ll be posting injury updates and my thoughts on what you should do with that player and if there are any sneaky replacements who are owned in less than 35% of leagues or so on the waivers you can pick up in their place. Often I won’t just name that player’s replacement that’s on his team. That’s lazy journalism.

However, every league is different so treat this column like a mailbag — if you suffered an injury and don’t know who to replace them with — just drop a comment with some of the best available options in your league and I’ll give you my advice!

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Top 100 Hitters, Week 2: WILD OVERREACTIONS

March 31, 2019 | 2019 Fantasy Baseball, Top 100 Hitters | 21 Comments

by: Kerry Klug

I’m not going to overreact to 20 at-bats. I will not do it. That being said, if you’re in a league with me — every one of my players is a bum and is on the block. Starting next week we’ll start to see some moving and shaking, but this list is mostly a refresher from the pre-season. There are really only six “fallers” this week and they’re all injury related. I’ll be writing more about them in my injury column which drops on Wednesday, but here’s who slipping, tumbling, sinking, fumbling:

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Jose, How’s Your Knee By Indians’ Early Plight

March 25, 2019 | Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes | 409 Comments

by: Grey

[brid autoplay=”true” video=”378040″ player=”10951″ title=”2019 Razzball Draft Kit Top 5 Busts”]

Jose Ramirez fouled a ball off his knee and was carted off the field. *long, painful swallow* Say what now? Thankfully, it turned out Jose Ramirez simply has a knee contusion and was carted off the field because he had reached his steps for the day. *claps hands* “Okay, guys, call me a cab, my FitBit says I’m done-zo.” That’s Jose Ramirez once he reaches 10,000 steps. I hear ya, Jo-Ram! I once sat down on an escalator because I had reached my “floors” for the day. I’m not over-exercising and dying young. Nuh-uh! You don’t mess with age expectancy. I’m already down on Ramirez in a non-sexual way, so this doesn’t change my stance on him, and, if you like him, it doesn’t sound like it should change your feelings either, since he appears healthy. Anyway, here’s what else I saw in spring training for fantasy baseball:

Please, blog, may I have some more?