Welcome back for another star-studded event! Assuming you hack into your favorite online dictionary and replace the definition of ‘star’ with “guy who lives in his mom’s basement and screams when someone finishes his Doritos,” and next to the definition of ‘stud’ you put a picture of yourself. The Razzballies are the only award show where it’s totally fine to show up in sweatpants, and for your fingers to be orange from Cheetos. We don’t judge. We will occasionally mock. Mock-judge, tomato-tomahto. Get over it! But don’t mock Judge, that’s not all right. I hope you enjoyed the clip show where I inserted myself into various baseball clips from this year. How about the clip where I was Jason Kipnis watching his team win every game he missed? Hee-lar-e-us! So, before I’m talking to no one but a room full of seat-fillers, here’s the year-end awards for the best and worst of fantasy baseball:
Fantasy AL Most Valuable Player – Before we announce our first winner, I just want to introduce the accountants from Lobstein, Kipnis and Yunel. Without them, I’d be counting the votes all on my own and I have a hard enough time counting to eleven without dropping trou. Your AL MVP, and a guy I like to personally thank for helping my offense in a few leagues, the one, the only…Sorry, having a hard time opening this envelope….Jose Altuve. In a shock to western civilization, Aaron Judge doesn’t win the AL MVP, and by ‘western civilization’ I mean the tri-state area. This is not an award for the best value compared to where a player was drafted, this is simply who was the most valuable, and Altuve wins that easily, like he’d win a contest of who can climb the fastest into a Baby Bjorn on Judge’s chest.
Fantasy NL Most Valuable Player – The NL Fantasy MVP, like the AL one, doesn’t take into account team wins and “intangibles.” Nope, here at Razzball HQ, we look at tangibles! And those aren’t fungible! This is commonsensible. Uh-oh, I’m stick in an ‘ible loop, what can I do? Listen to the Bible on Audible? What’s this in my pocket? A rookie card of Oddibe McDowell? Okay, I’m done. There’s only one man that can help, he goes by the name of Chazz Noir. That’s right! The NL MVP is a guy whose last name was protested this season, Charlie Blackmon. As with most MVP award recipients, Chazz Noir was in the top five for fantasy value from Jump Street and never had a bad week, let alone a month. Hopefully now people will no longer confuse him with Drakkar Noir.
Fantasy AL Cy Young – The NL Cy Young is a slam dunk. The AL Cy Young is a dam slunk, as in it’s obvious but still makes no sense except in backwards world. This was a tough award to, uh, award. Two years ago, Dallas Keuchel won the fantasy Cy Young, and regular one, and last year’s winner, Rick Porcello, did the same. This year, it was up to the final week between Chris Sale and Corey Kluber, but Kluber’s 2nd half was just too impressive. He had a 1.79 ERA, 0.77 WHIP and 142 Ks in 110 1/3 2nd half innings. Congratulations, Klubes, I’m only sorry your nickname sounds like pubes.
Fantasy NL Cy Young – This was the slam dunk; Max Scherzer walked away with the award like he walks away from comments like, “What the hell is up with your eyes?” Too bad the Tigers didn’t hold onto Scherzer and Verlander. They might not have started Jordan Zimmermann for 29 games and a 6.08 ERA.
Fantasy AL Least Valuable Player – Josh Donaldson looked like he was walking away with this award the first couple of months, but he came roaring back from the dead like Cecil the Tiger in that dentist in Minnesota’s dreams. I’d personally love to give this award to Rougned Odor, but 30/15 adds some merit and wasn’t truly unvaluable (Made Up Word of the Day!). Xander Bogaerts was shizzy on the stizzy, if you feelzie me, but he was ranked way after the winner. The player who won (lost?) was the guy in the background of the strip club yelling, “Yo, you gotta see this girl’s knockers!” as you tell your wife that you’re working late. The one, the only…Miguel Cabrera. He was ranked in the preseason in the top 15 collectively, and now he’s in the top 15 after the top 400 on the Player Rater. He was enough to make you want to drink, unfortunately, he drank all of our liquor too.
Fantasy NL Least Valuable Player – For the first time in history, we have co-winners of the NL Least Valuable Player award, Starling Marte and Jonathan Villar. Guess you can say Marte won the popular vote and Villar the Electoral College. One caused consternation (no idea what that means) through a suspension, and one generally missed bliss from sucking. May they both take a long walk off a short cliff.
Fantasy POS – Because you have to get an award, and there’s none more fitting, Rougned Odor, you are this year’s Fantasy POS. You did everything with power and speed we could’ve wanted, but a .200 average? Are you effin’ kidding me? We will be shipping an x-ray of Pablo Sandoval’s stomach to Upton, because a few years back Sandoval ate this award.
Fantasy Hitter You Most Likely Dropped and Picked Up A Dozen Times – “This is the year Nick Castellanos breaks out!…And my league doesn’t count exit velocity as a category so I’m dropping him…His exit velocity is leading to major power, and I’m grabbing him…And the Tigers are terrible and I’m dropping him!…And he’s hitting even on a terrible team so I’m grabbing him…And now his name is Nicholas Castellanos and I don’t think that means anything but I’m dropping him anyway…Now he’s Exitolas Velocitanos and I’m grabbing him! And dropping him! And he’s giving me a nervous breakdown…HELP!”
Player You Had Forever and Most Likely Should’ve Dropped – Carlos Gonzalez. You’re thinking to yourself there had to be worst hitters than CarGo. There were, a few. But for guys owned in 90% of leagues for the majority of the year, he finished around 350 on the Player Rater, and he did you no favors by playing in Coors, because there was constant source of hope. Well, Morgan Freeman can shove hope up CarGo’s ass.
Player On The Top Of Your Waivers That You Just Couldn’t Bring Yourself to Pick Up – Shin-Soo Choo. On the Player Rater, he’s near the top 50 overall for hitters. I know, that surprised me too.
Pitcher You Streamed So Much You Ended Up Owning Him – “Okay, I’m going to give a Whirlybird Streamer Streamstein to Luis Castillo, but if he’s bad, I’m losing him so fast it’s gonna hurt him.” And that’s the story of how you ended owning Luis Castillo for three months. Runner-up: Trevor Bauer
Player You Were Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop From, But Thankfully It Never Did – Luis Severino. “I’m fine, fine, fine, fine — FINE! — with him not quite throwing as good in the 1st half. I know not to expect it.” In the 2nd half, he had a 2.28 ERA with 106 Ks in 86 2/3 IP, as opponents hit .181 against him. Runner-up: Justin Upton
Player You Were Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop From and It Ended Up Kicking You in the Groin – Ivan Nova. In May, “He had a 1.50 ERA in April and one walk to 22 Ks. This, sir, is Ray Searage’s finest hour!” In September, “He had a 4.77 ERA in those 149 other innings?! Jesus Christ Ramirez, no wonder I lost my league.”
Player You Were Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop From and When It Did You Were Okay With It – Aaron Judge. Sure, August was a drain, but we shouldn’t doubt Richard Kiel with a baseball bat again.
Player You Traded Away That You Most Regretted – “As long as Josh Donaldson doesn’t hit 20+ homers in the 2nd half, I’m fine trading him for a closer.” *cut to three months later* “Oh, eff me.”
Player You Traded For That You Most Regretted – “I know you say never trade for a catcher, but I can get Buster Posey for Eddie Rosario and Kyle Schwarber. I have to do this, right?” In the 2nd half, Rosario and Schwarber hit .275 combined with 33 HRs; Posey hit two homers.
Top SAGNOF – Corey Knebel/Whit Merrifield. Remember, the essence of SAGNOF is cheap saves and steals. No one came close to Knebel for cheap saves and Merrifield wasn’t even owned in April, so if you grabbed a May Merrifield you TKO’d McSAGNOF.
Remember That Feeling You Had When You Walked In On Your Parents Having Sex, This Pitcher Gave You That Feeling Every Fifth Day – John Lackey. May he accidentally have a tub of mayonnaise dropped on him, then get caught in an elevator with Sandoval and Billy Butler.
