We started this thing like boys and four girls (but, let’s be honest, one or two of the girls are kinda manly), and we leave this season as men and four women. In March, we dazzled each other with our drafted lineups in the comments. Today, most of those people are playing fantasy football, fantasy basketball or fantasy hockey and forgetting all about their one-two punch of Ryan Braun and Josh Hamilton, that, in their words, they were just shocked to be able to draft both. Fantasy baseball isn’t made for the water cooler like the Breaking Bad finale — holy crap! — it’s made for the vending machine, because you don’t walk away from your team to talk. You rush away to get snacks and run those snacks back to your team, so you can watch as your team accrues stats or just ‘a-screws’ you. Some of you will sit with your fantasy team’s lineup open on your desktop through November like it has been for the last six months, hoping for one more day to save your season. Some of you will just close that team lineup browser window, ripping off the Band-Aid. But even if the lineup isn’t open, the player’s names will be burned into your screen because you shut off your screensaver six months ago. You should go ahead and turn that back on, or buy a new monitor. If you won your league, the salary hours you put into your teams could’ve saved the economy. Well, eff the economy, you won bragging rights! If you won your league with Henderson Alvarez and his no-hitter, then God bless your foresight, but I wouldn’t be shocked if you were really a witch. Conspiracy Theory Alert! The Tigers are securely in the playoffs and Henderson Alvarez is in the on-deck circle. Bases are juiced with two outs. The Tigers don’t want extra innings right before the playoffs and the Marlins can’t score with a prostitute and a roofie. Leyland sends the pitching coach out and tells Putkonen throw a breaking ball to the backstop and give the kid the no hitter. Either way, what a great way to end the baseball season. A sport that you just can’t ever predict gives a guy no one would’ve predicted a no hitter. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:
Todd Redmond – 2/3 IP, 5 ER. This is why Redmond was part of The Hit Squad.
Matt Moore – 5 1/3 IP, 3 ER, 9 baserunners, 4 Ks, ending the year with a 3.29 ERA. His walk rate was hideous all year and he really needs to regroup with a great pitching coach. Brrring-brrring… Dave Duncan walks to a red blinking phone. “Hello? Okay, I’m coming.” He pushes the head of a Tony La Russa bust backwards, revealing a button.
Evan Longoria – 1-for-4, 1 run, 1 RBI. And he came up one homer short of my projection. Overall, pretty up and down season from Longo, but I’ll go over my projections vs. reality in the next few days. Stay tuned! Or not. Your call.
Wil Myers – 2-for-4, 1 run, 1 RBI. Ended the year with 13 homers and 30 multi-hit games, which means he’ll be drafted around 79 overall. (13 x 7 = 91 + 30 = 121; 200 – 121 = 79) Hmm, maybe within 5 to 10 of that, but pretty close. *blows on knuckles, wipes knuckles on shirt, realizes not wearing shirt or pants*
Julio Teheran – 5 IP, 4 ER, 6 baserunners, 3 Ks, raising his ERA to 3.20. Hey, whatever makes him a slightly bigger bargain next year I’m for. I’m greedy, y’all!
Evan Gattis – 3-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 21st homer. He dedicated that homer to the Yuppies who kept tossing out perfectly good four-day-old pizza into the dumpster where he was living in 2011.
Gerald Laird – 4-for-4, 4 runs. Fun fact! Laird is Gaelic for liar. Sentence usage, “You didn’t eat your potatoes, you stinkin’ laird!”
Andrelton Simmons – 3-for-4, 3 runs, 1 RBI and his 6th steal. He has decent speed, but only steals when a player in front of him leaves on the basepaths a trail of Reese’s Pieces.
Erik Kratz – 1-for-3, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 9th homer. That’s the most homers by anyone with a last name that I always try to play in Words With Friends. It’s an exclamation for dread, no?
Sonny Gray – 5 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 8 Ks, ending the year with a 2.67 ERA. Makes me wish my name was Grey Sonny rather than Albright.
Erasmo Ramirez – 1 1/3 IP, 4 ER, ending the year with a 4.98 ERA. I’m gonna still like him next year, but he’s made it almost impossible to draft him in anything shallower than a 15-team mixed league.
Chris Davis – Left yesterday’s game with a hand injury. I wonder if it’s the same hand the devil shook.
Jacoby Ellsbury – 2-for-5 and his 9th homer to go with his 52 steals. Can I already not draft him for next year? Actually, I can since drafts aren’t for another six months.
Quintin Berry – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and a slam (1) and legs (3). Who does Quintin Berry think he is? Coco Crisp’s nephew? Actually, he is. Quintin’s dad is Franken Berry.
Nick Swisher – 2-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 22nd homer. That’s 11 homers for each sideburn.
Ubaldo Jimenez – 6 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 13 Ks. I’m still on the fence with how I’m going to rank Ubaldo next year. I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m going to think he’s overrated. The amount of garbage teams he faced in his improbable 2nd half is simply crazy, which is what friends call Mick Hucknall.
Hyun-Jin Ryu – 4 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners, 4 Ks. Pretty forgettable last start, but he did more than his share of fantasy giving if you owned him this year. Ended the year with an even 3.00 and 1.20 WHIP with a 7+ K-rate. Definitely never entered the conversation about being a number one fantasy pitcher, and not because his translator didn’t do his job.
Salvador Perez – 3-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 13th homer. Or 9 homers since P.A. (Post-Abuelita).
Bruce Chen – 6 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 4 Ks, ending the year with a 3.27 ERA. According to our Fantasy Baseball Player Rater, you would’ve been better off with Chen than Jake Peavy, Dan Haren, Johnny Cueto and Jon Niese, to name a few.
Greg Holland – 1 IP, 0 ER and his 47th save, ending the year with a 1.21 ERA. Oh, and he lost the job at one point this year! If I remember, I’ll point to this next year when a closer has a bad April. Unless that person is Carlos Marmol, who somehow finds his way to closing on the Astros. Don’t laugh; stranger things have happened. Also, don’t laugh because it wasn’t a joke. Are you stoned?
Brett Hayes – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 1st homer. Oh em gee, does Craig Gentry know his fellow Fabulous Freebird is on the Royals?
Alexei Ramirez – 2-for-3 and his 6th homer. Pee poor year for power from The Comrade. Of course, his 30 steals more than made up for it, but I doubt he ever approaches that again. Another guy I already know I won’t want (almost stutterer!) any part of next year.
Tanner Roark – 7 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 3 Ks, ending the year with a 1.51 ERA. Damn, that’s a good rum too.
Wade Miley – 7 IP, 1 ER, 9 baserunners, 2 Ks, ending the year with a 3.55 ERA. The highlight of Miley’s season was probably when he twerked with a fan’s foam finger.
Jeff Samardzija – 6 IP, 3 ER, 8 baserunners, 4 Ks, ending the year with a 4.34 ERA. Well, not all of my preseason darlings look quite that good in the harsh, fluorescent lighting of September. Hello, Todd Frazier. Samardzija’s 2.85 ERA, entering June, did have you drinking my Kool-Aid, but it turned into Crystal Light pretty quickly, and was far from Splenda.
Yu Darvish – 5 2/3 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 8 Ks, ending the year with 277 Ks. I just gulped and got a boner. I apologize. I further apologize because I’m not typing this with my fingers.
Adrian Beltre – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 30th homer. The Rangers and the Rays are going to be playing a tiebreaker game today. ESPN, CBS and Yahoo don’t count the game, which I think is lame because the stats do count towards players stats. If you play at some boutique site and they do count the games, then I’d grab every player available that could possibly get into the game. Even middle relievers and back-up infielders.
Mike Trout – 1-for-3 and his 27th homer to go with 33 steals and a .323 average. Too bad expectations were so high for him. If this teaches us nothing else, when you go out on a first date, lower expectations. Burp, fart and tell her that you forgot your wallet. It’s the only way!
Jedd Gyorko – 1-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 23rd homer. There would be some serious tongue wagging for Gyorko if he didn’t miss time with an injury. He would’ve approached 30 homers without those setbacks. Zoinks!
Hunter Pence – 2-for-5, 3 RBIs. So far, that’s $45 million per hit.
Erik Bedard – 7 IP, 0 ER, 3 baserunners, 9 Ks vs. the Yanks. Didn’t help New York at all that they had Will.i.am come in to the clubhouse pre-game and sing, “Let’s get Bedarded!”
Jon Niese – 6 IP, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, 2 Ks. On Saturday, he said, “Tell my fantasy owners they can start me.” Pretty presumptuous of him to think that he even had fantasy owners.
Eric Young – 1-for-4, 1 run, 1 RBI and two steals, to end the season with 46. May have singlehandedly won me the ‘pert RCL. Not really, but it was an opportunity for me to say I won and beat the Soul Glo out of Rudy. I only wish I would’ve done a Wrestlemania-type bet with Rudy so the winner gets to shave the loser’s head. I’d hang that afro right next to my glass-enclosed Little League jersey and the ransom note I made but never used for Giancarlo.
Marco Estrada – 7 IP, 1 ER, 2 baserunners, 8 Ks. Estrada with quite a few *pinkie to mouth* Ponch outs.
Jeff Locke – Shut down for the season. Hey, that’s like the Twins in April.
Jordy Mercer – 3-for-4, 2 runs and a homer, which was an inside-the-parker because Jay Bruce dove and missed it. If that was in New Jersey, Bruce would’ve dove and a pack of 50-year-old women would’ve caught him, raised him up and carried him to the ball.
