There’s only a few more roundups left on the season, then I’ll be recapping the rest of October, then rookies in November, then sleepers in December, then rankings in January, then I draft Arenado again in February and then March hits and my Cougar wife says to me, “I’ll see you again in October.” So, as you can see, we don’t have a ton of time before next year. So, Part II: So So Again; I wanted to talk briefly about the insanely sexy, hump-taker, Marcus Stroman. Yesterday, he pitched a fantastic little start — 8 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 8 Ks, to leave his ERA at 1.67 since his return, but I’m more concerned with Stroman for next year. Or as I like to call it, Sixteen after Twenty, The Year of The Stroman. If I call it that, it might give away the ending here, but I’m going to love Stroman in 2016. Stroman, my pain with his fingers. One time, one time. Well, I loved him coming into this year prior to his injury. An injury, mind you and mind the gap, that wasn’t on his arm. What’s to like about Stroman? How about this checklist: solid ground ball rate, solid Ks and excellent control. You know who that is? Dallas Keuchel. Stroman can be that dominant in 2016 too. As for 2015, he’s done, so, yo, Grey, hit the segue! Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Edwin Encarnacion – 2-for-4, 3 runs, 2 RBIs and his 37th homer. Also, in the first game of the doubleheader, Jose Bautista (1-for-4, 2 RBIs) hit his 40th homer. Cortisone Brothers’ power activate! In the form of a giant frickin’ needle!
Ryan Goins – 5-for-5, 3 runs, 1 RBI in the first game. Put another Goins in the jukebox, baby!
Justin Smoak – 1-for-6, 2 RBIs and his 18th homer. “Where there’s Smoak, there’s…*cut to Steve Harvey playing Pictionary, miming lighting a match, burning himself, stop, drop and rolling away, cut back to a blank stare on Malcolm-Jamal Warner* I got nothing.”
Steve Pearce – 3-for-7, 2 runs and his 15th homer. That was his sixth homer in September. If this were April, we’d say he were on a 36-homer pace. Though if this were April, we’d also say, “That Samardzija can bounce back!”
Chris Davis – 2-for-7 and two home runs (44, 45). What if I told you there was one Chris Davis this 2nd half and he was playing in both Baltimore and Milwaukee? Would you say I was crazy? Would you laugh at me? Would you say goodbye? Am I singing a song or talking nonsense? I got questions, y’all!
Adam Jones – Could be shut down. Aw, poor Back Spasm Jones. Wait, wasn’t the name of the actor in those 7-Up commercials?
Kevin Gausman – 8 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 10 Ks. *exhales after seeing that the Blue Jays sent their Triple-A lineup against Gausman after they clinched in the 1st game*
Joe Smith – 1/3 IP, 0 ER. The Sciosciapath said Smith is healthy and would be his closer. I also don’t believe The Sciosciapath at all, because, brucely, he’s Sciosciapathic. Did I still grab Captain Joe Smith? Like I’m a mothereffin’ fantasy Pocahontas!
Johnny Giavotella – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 4th homer, hitting over .450 in the last week. Hey, Giavotella, fist pump, you’re a hot schmotato!
David Freese – 2-for-5 and his 14th homer, and third homer this week. I’ve been saying for about that long that you should grab Freese. What are you waiting for, your mittens?
Mike Trout – 3-for-3 and a slam (41) and legs (11). I could be remembering this wrong, but I think that’s his first slam & legs this year. Definitely nowhere near as many as past years. Shoot (not you, Dick Cheney!), Trout only has two steals in the 2nd half.
Michael Brantley – Shut down for the season. Fans, who were hoping to see him the last few days, should scalp away their tickets. That would be a real slap in the face of the Indians organization.
Carlos Carrasco – 3 IP, 5 ER. In some ways, it’s poetic that his last start was this abysmal. Poetry as done by Sylvia Plath.
Francisco Lindor – 4-for-8, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and the slam (12) and double legs (10, 11) on both sides of the doubleheader for the Ernie Banks Slam & Legs Special. Me next March, “I’ll take Lindor.” The room groans, “Damn, I wanted him with my next pick.”
Jose Ramirez – 2-for-8, 2 runs, 4 RBIs and his 6th homer. Second home run this week, and hitting over .300 in that time. Hot schmotato alert!
Cody Anderson – 7 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 2 Ks. That was a backhanded compliment stream handed out by the Stream-o-Nator since I grabbed Anderson originally for his Double Down, but, due to the rain, I’m left with what might’ve been.
Joe Mauer – 2-for-8, 2 runs and his 10th homer. How many more homers would he have to hit to tie his 2nd highest home run mark in a season? If you said three, you cheated or have a good memory.
Miguel Sano – 2-for-7, 2 runs and his 18th homer. That’s in less than half a season for those not yet teary-eyed from The Sanotebook.
Byron Buxton – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 2nd homer, and 2nd in three games. Seriously, Buxton, chillax, no need to raise eyebrows the last week of the season, especially if Eugene Levy’s watching.
Eddie Rosario – 2-for-7, 2 runs and his 13th homer. I don’t know why you haven’t picked him up either.
Kyle Gibson – 6 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA ends up at 3.84. Yes, Gibson was the Twins starter to own this year, if, ya know, you were forced to own a Twins starter for some reason.
Jose Abreu – 1-for-5 and his 30th homer. Mazel tov!
Jose Quintana – 9 IP, 3 ER, 7 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA ends at 3.36 in 206 1/3 IP. Now look at the third starter on your team and his numbers vs. Quintana. Yup.
Lorenzo Cain – Left with a knee contusion. And that’s likely the end of Cain this year. The final week of H2H playoffs: You play the whole year and end up relying on Jose Ramirez.
Eric Hosmer – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 18th homer, and 2nd in as many games. Look who it is, Mr. October.
Mike Moustakas – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 22nd homer. Moistasskiss!
Jordan Zimmermann – 6 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 2 Ks vs. the Braves, ERA at 3.66. Pretty fitting yawnstipating end to a yawnstipating season. Or I guess that’s seasonn. You and your pretentious extra N!
Freddie Freeman – Won’t start anymore games this year. He has a bone spur in his wrist and doesn’t think he needs surgery. Coincidentally, I don’t think I’ll be drafting him next year either.
Andrelton Simmons – 2-for-3 and his 5th steal, has a hit in nine of ten games, and could be a light schmotato. But, get a load of this, he’s played in 144 games, and he has three home runs! Maybe that’s good on your home planet, Andrelton, but your lack of fantasy value is alien to me.
Jon Lester – 8 IP, 1 ER, 3 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 3.34. This is funny (not funny). Coming into September, he had a 3.59 ERA. If he gives up one more run in each September start, his ERA ends up around 3.75 on the year and looks totally different next March. Now, people will look at his 3.34 ERA and be like, “Why isn’t he a number one?” I’d ask his owners.
Starlin Castro – 4-for-5, 3 runs, 2 RBIs and his 11th homer. Hitting near-.400 in September with his best home run month (5), as well. Not officially in El Cubanati, but his last name and production makes him seem like he should be.
Felix Hernandez – Shut down for the season, so won’t make his final start. This comes after he had some elbow trouble, but shush, no one will remember he had that elbow issue next March. It’ll be our little secret.
Nelson Cruz – 1-for-5 and his 44th homer. So, maybe saying to sell him in June wasn’t the best call of my season.
Kyle Seager – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 26th homer. After the game, Seager called his mom to tell her he homered only to wait on hold while she finished talking to Corey.
Carlos Gomez – 2-for-4, 1 run and 2 steals (9, 10) as he returned to the lineup a day after saying he wasn’t returning to the lineup. Well, all right then, Pinocchio Gomez!
Chris Carter – 1-for-3, 3 RBIs and his 24th homer, and his 6th homer in his last eight games. Obviously he’s in some kind of crazy zone. Not a Twilight Zone, Chris Carter is more of an X-Files guy.
Luis Valbuena – 2-for-3, 2 runs and his 24th homer. Now watch Valbuena and Carter lead the Astros through the playoffs in Rob Manfred’s nightmare playoff scenario. “Please let the Cubs advance!” That’s Manfred screaming at the Pope’s motorcade through Kentucky.
Matt Kemp – Done for the season due to his partially torn tendon in his middle finger. Damn, I’m sure one of his fantasy owners has a middle finger for him.
Justin Upton – Left the game after running into the wall. What a lame Kool-Aid Man impression.
Andrew Cashner – 5 IP, 5 ER. Glad to see the Hodgepadres didn’t disappoint in continuing to disappoint all year.
Zach Davies – 7 IP, 0 ER, 7 baserunners, 6 Ks. That sound you hear is JB ripping down his Shane Greene posters.
Yasiel Puig – Running at 80%. That was also a lesser known Jackson Browne B-side.
Brandon Belt – Underwent surgery on his torn meniscus. Belt was slightly concerned when his doctor skipped into the operating room like he was Laverne & Shirley, singing, “Meniscus, abacus, B.A. Baracus, we’re gonna do it!”
Mike Leake – 9 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 1 K. Not even joking when I say I looked at the Dodgers lineup he faced and wondered, “Is that the A or B lineup?” Mattingly does so many crazy things, I can’t even tell.
Mookie Betts – 2-for-6, 3 RBIs and two more homers (17, 18), and third in two games. Ugh, I honestly want to look totally insane by how high I’m gonna rank Betts next year, so anything that subtracts from my insanity is less than cool, which wasn’t a Bret Easton Ellis novel.
Travis Shaw – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his yet another homer, his 13th. He’s gonna keep hitting them, whether you pick him up or not.
Masahiro Tanaka – 5 IP, 4 ER, 6 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA ends at 3.51. Yup, that start was totally worth waiting for.
Drew Smyly – 6 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 3.11. I’m gonna like him next year and someone is going to say, “But the AL East and the Rays offense and I don’t know. You’re handsome, but I’m not sold.” Yeah, and you didn’t want Archer this year either for the same reasons.
Steven Matz – Now the Mets are saying Matz won’t start Thursday either. Of course, he won’t. The Mets just need to stop with the pitching updates. They managed their staff about as well as Basil managed his staff in Fawlty Towers.
Yoenis Cespedes – Left yesterday’s game after getting hit on his hand. “WHY CAN’T WE HAVE ANYTHING NICE?!” That’s a Mets fan screaming at his Ralph Kiner painted portrait. Luckily, it was reported that it’s simply a finger contusion and not broken. The Mets are focused on the playoffs, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the last we see of Cespedes this regular season. Too bad he has a hundred legs but only two hands. You messed up, God!
Michael Conforto – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 9th homer. That’s in 53 games for those keeping track, though, technically, if you were keeping track, you should know.
Adrian Beltre – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 17th homer. Beltre, you had a hand in tanking my NFBC team, so don’t even try to butter me up now. I’m not your popcorn!
Gerrit Cole – 7 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 2 Ks, ERA ends at 2.60. He doesn’t win any awards at the Razzballies, which come next week, unless a few guys end up ineligible as deemed by our accountant (a homeless man I paid a dollar to wear a tie), but Cole still had a terrific year and should be very proud of how well my teams did that owned him.
Francisco Cervelli – 2-for-6, 2 runs, 4 RBIs and his 7th homer, a grand slam. As he started both sides of the doubleheader along with Tony Cruz (4-for-8, 2 RBIs and his 2nd homer), which is a head scratcher for Cervelli. I get the Cruz decision, Molina’s injured, but Cervelli needed to play both games? I honestly don’t get it. Sadly, I never would’ve imagined it either and I left both of these guys on waivers yesterday for Dioner Navarro, who saw no action in a doubleheader. Lowercase yay!
Neil Walker – 1-for-4 and his 16th homer. “Get out the tennis balls, put them on the bottom of those metal legs, we’re taking the Walker out for a stroll!” Okay, need to work on that home run call.
Matt Carpenter – 4-for-7, 5 runs and his 28th homer. I’m flabbergasted by the power he’s showing. Fun fact! Pablo Sandoval once blew a flabbergasket.
Jason Heyward – 4-for-8, 2 runs, 4 RBIs and his 13th homer. Has he been as good as, say, Lorenzo Cain this year? No, he hasn’t. Has Heyward been bad? Not that either.
Matt Holliday – 1-for-4, 1 RBI. At one point in the first game, they sent Holliday on a pitch. Interesting call, since Holliday has half the legs of a healthy Pat Burrell.
Michael Wacha – 4 IP, 6 ER. I cannot wait for the Wacha vs. Harvey playoff matchup. “Joe, it looks like they’re putting his arm into the cooler for later and he’s going to be kicking pitches. Wow, in all of my years, I’ve never seen such…ankles.”
