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Those of you who have followed The Simpsons during it’s 60-or-so year run (seemingly) are probably familiar with Duffman, the ridiculous Duff Beer mascot who has hip thrusted his way into our hearts over the years. Between his partying ways and his depth of character, you could think of him as the absentee father of Johnny Manziel or the Kardashians. Hmmm… he doesn’t seem quite so likable anymore. Why did he have to inflict such pain and torture on the rest of the world?

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Miggy Jr. Fantasy sleeper. Future stud. Prince Fielder look-alike. These are just some of the terms and phrases that have been used to describe Avisail Garcia over the past few years. Ok, maybe not the last one. I’m pretty sure that was just a poor attempt at making an excuse for certain indiscretions by Fielder’s ex-wife. But the other terms have been thrown around for awhile now. Last season was supposed to be his coming out party, but a left shoulder injury sustained in April kept him out for over four months and derailed those plans. Is this the year that the soon to be 24-year-old Garcia breaks out?

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The season is here baby!  Well, that’s kinda old news at this point, but I’m pumped for the first Pitcher Profile of 2015!

Every Monday this season, we’ll be breaking down fringy mixed-league starters (usually) to get a better gauge on their value and if they’re worthy of a valuable roster spot.  And I certainly like suggestions!  Add into the comments a pitcher that’s projected to start next weekend and I very well might end up Profiling them.  Wait, not like that!

Now to our debut this year, and I’ve just never really known what to make of Carlos Martinez.  Power stuff, destroys righties, but left-handed batters have crushed him.  I had Martinez 74 in my original ranks amongst SP,  but dropped him out in my re-ranks as he was heading to the bullpen.  Then Jaime Garcia blew out his 5th or 6th shoulder – I’ve lost count – so it’s back into the starting five, Carlos!  Made him as excited as I was when I stumbled upon his Twitter a few years ago…

So I decided to tune into his 2015 debut as a starter (he threw an inning of relief on opening night last Sunday), and break down how he looked against the Reds pitch-by-pitch:

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If you take a look at the overall landscape of major league baseball, several things are likely to become apparent fairly quickly. The Padres are pulling out all of the stops in the hopes of contending this year. The Braves are not. Mike Trout is an elite professional baseball player. Skip Schumaker is not. The Cubs are a team that’s on the rise. Veteran offseason additions (Lester, Fowler), a new big ticket manager, and an impressive collection of young organizational talent (Rizzo, Bryant, Soler, Russell) has fans dreaming of finally breaking the longest championship drought in professional sports. Amidst all of the hoopla, Starlin Castro seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle somehow. Or has he?

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I love the Aussie people; they have goofy words for a barbecue and even goofier animals — koalas and kangaroos? Is Australia animated? Those things are goofy! Why not just get a duck-billed platypus and anteater and call it a day, you wacky-animal-having country! How about baseball there? Did all the fans in attendance win a Bowie knife if a player hit a home run into the big marsupial pouch? Did Crocodile Dundee throw out the first pitch? Did the batters hit with a fraternity hazing paddle? I don’t know, because it was at four in the morning! Selig really needs to stop doing this to Opening Day. The players will be exhausted from traveling and won’t be able to get their usual reps in during the spring. The first pitch of the season should be at a time when 7-year-old North American boys and girls can watch it. Not at 4 AM EST. What if the first game went extra innings or someone got hurt? Can they just call up someone from the minors for the next game? No, so then you’ll have a team playing short. Do these stunts in December as a goodwill trip. Don’t make major league baseball teams into the Harlem Globetrotters for a regular season game. Eh, whatevs, baseball is back, who cares if it comes with a big helping of Vegemite. Anyway, here’s what else I saw for fantasy baseball:

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There’s a new love of my life. No, it’s not the Georgia girl on MasterChef, though she’s all right. His name is Danny Salazar, and he’s a sexy beast that makes me want to get all flirty and shizz. I call him K-zar. It’s pronounced like czar, so it’s a soft K like his touch, but that’s where the softness ends. He was regularly hitting 99 MPH on the speed gun-measuring-MPH-thingie and even topped out at triple digits. Swoon. He made the Tigers looks like the Mariners until Miggy got a hold of one on his last pitch of the game — 7 2/3 IP, 4 ER, 6 baserunners, 10 Ks. Doesn’t matter, he gets the Twins next then the A’s in Oakland. I know, what about Corey Kluber? Who’s going to sell energy drinks and tell all the ravey Asian kids where the after-hours party is without Kluber?! Sigh, I know. We’re over him now. He’s going to be out until late-September and Salazar is taking his place in the rotation. I want Salazar in every single league. Yeah, that one. Yup, that one too. Go to it, young prematurely balding man! Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

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Today is the first day of the next month in our lives without Giancarlo Stanton. If you want, I’m holding a candlelight vigil in the garbage can behind Stanton’s house. If you come, don’t make too much noise. We aren’t technically supposed to be there. The good news about his hamstring injury is when he’s limping away from us, it’ll be a lot easier to stay exactly 501 feet away. Before he’d backpedal and it was like we were doing the lambada with 501 feet between us. The bad news is I’m writing this post with tears. Hnfcsdcnnn. That was a big, stupid tear that got away from me. Short circuit my keyboard, tears. I plead with you, so I don’t have to continue. I wonder if I can seal envelopes with these tears. That would be turning lemons into lemonade, right? Ow, I just touched my eyes, and now these lemons are burning my eyes. This is the sourest injury news ever. Make the pain go away, alcohol! Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

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I’m not sure what the L stands for, but Josh Hamilton obviously felt LAA was a good fit for him. What I’d like to know is how is California a bankrupt state? The Dodgers and Angels’ salaries combined are equal to the GDP of every country, except China and Switzerland. Mozambique couldn’t afford just Pujols and Hamilton. Forget Greinke, Hanley, Vernon Wells, Matt Kemp and Carl Crawford. Alone, Arte Moreno could sell the Angels and buy Africa. Africa Moreno, that’s what they would call it. Burundi would become Aybarundi, Djibouti would become Dbootyhole and Chad would stay the same name, because that’s a badass name for a country, but Arte would put a country-wide golf course there, because anything named Chad and golf go hand-in-hand. The Angels now have Trout, Aybar, Pujols and Hamilton at the top of their lineup. October 1st called and said Aybar just scored his 197th run. Batting fifth, Kendrys could hit .220 and drive in 100 RBIs. Howie Kendrick… Well, he’ll still disappoint, but this is slightly bizzonkers to have three of the top hitters in baseball all in the same lineup. Trout, Hamilton and Pujols alone hit 103 homers last year. The Astros whole team only hit 146. Specifically about Hamilton, I could throw a lot numbers at you about about how his June through September were well short of his April/May. How his BABIP in April/May buoyed his season average. How not quoting these exact numbers but saying how I could quote them is a lot easier. Honestly, none of these numbers matter. I’d take six months straight of 5 homers/month and a .280 average. I don’t need a .380 average month with 12 homers. The bigger issue for me is you have no idea what you’re going to get from Hamilton year-to-year. One year, he hits 10 homers; one year, he misses 30 games; one year, he misses 55 games. Last year, his K-rate wasn’t good and his homer/fly ball rate was obscene. His swinging strike rate was the worst in the majors. This wasn’t just bad for this year. He had the worst rate since 2002. Mark Reynolds set a strikeout record one year and had a better swinging strike rate. Oh, and he’s 32 years old as of May 21st. He could be in for a huge year, but he’ll probably be drafted before I’m willing to look at him. For 2013, I’ll give him the line of 92/29/109/.277/7. You think adding a top hitter to an already stacked lineup will make it exponentially better, but for fantasy it just spreads out the wealth, as the Angels and Dodgers should do. Anyway, here’s some more offseason moves for 2013 fantasy baseball:

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