The Twins’ lineup could generate power for any remote control, because they’re filled with Double-A batteries. High five me! C’mon! You don’t appreciate a good snap! I’m zinging over here! Fine, be that way. The Twins traded the 29-year-old Eduardo Nunez to the Giants, which makes him the youngest player the Giants have ever acquired and the cheapest player the Twins have ever traded away. A double first! Which sounds almost like how you picture your ex describing herself on Tinder. So, Eduardo Nunez goes from a neutral park to a pitching park and from a lineup that could be best described with their two-hole hitter, Grossman, to a lineup best described as “in the middle of a panic.” Or a Panik in the middle. This move likely doesn’t change his value much, but if anything it takes him down a notch. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Max Kepler – 2-for-3, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 11th homer. Oh, boy, let the Dickerson, Gallo, Kepler, Dahl and Yasmany debates begin! The debates will be held, as most fantasy baseball ones are, in a mother’s basement. Refreshments will be provided by mom. Assuming she bought us the Doritos and fruit punch I asked for. C’mon, ma!
Adam Jones – 2-for-4 and his 19th homer, and 2nd home run in the last three days. Too bad he’s batting leadoff and missing ribbies. “Did someone say ribbies?” Easy, Matt Adams, easy.
Pedro Alvarez – 3-for-4. You know Hitter-Tron popped a metal boner for this Alvarez game. What does a metal boner sound like? Not boing. Bing? Ding? Bling?
Joe Panik – 0-for-4 as he was activated from the DL and hit third. Three hole? Panik, indeed.
Tanner Roark – 7 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 2.96. He was shelled in his last game, and, then in the 2nd inning last night, he loaded the bases with no one out. I was about to drop him, but I decided to go watch MasterChef instead. Well, thanks to Gordon Ramsay, I still have Roark on my team.
Trea Turner – 2-for-4, 1 run, 1 RBI and his 6th steal. What does he need to do to get on your fantasy team? Don’t tell me, tell him.
Jonathan Papelbon – 1/3 IP, 1 ER and the awkward man may have danced for the last time yesterday, as he was removed for Shawn Kelley to get the easy one-out save. If Kelley’s available in your league, what are you doing? Grab him!
Jose Reyes – Doubtful for today. Terry Collins said he may hold him until games next week in AL parks with the DH. Since Reyes hurt himself on a swing, I think Collins might be misunderstanding what a DH does.
Yoenis Cespedes – 0-for-0 with a walk, but didn’t start due to a flareup of his quad. He might’ve hurt it getting into his tricked out Batmobile that he bought off Matt Harvey.
Jeurys Familia – 1/3 IP, 2 ER and his 2nd straight blown save. After his first blown save on Wednesday, Terry Collins said Familia will not work on Thursday. But Familia talked Collins out of it. Apparently, Familia makes a better salesman than closer. Today, Hansel should get the save if there is one, assuming Collins can follow a simply breadcrumb trail to how to win a game.
Jacob deGrom – 7 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 2.56. He’s lost two miles on his fastball and a full K on his strikeout rate. His ERA is fine, but I’ll be damned if anything else is. WHIP up, walk rate up, homers allowed up, line drives allowed up, infield fly balls down, hard hit percentage up, and xFIP way up. This is not your slightly older cousin’s deGrom. Don’t know if it’s elbow spurs — they’re going around the Mets’ clubhouse — or something else, but he’s not pitching as well as last year by any metric except ERA.
Neil Walker – 3-for-4, and his 2nd day in a row with three hits. He’s not in this afternoon’s Buy column, because, well, it’s Neil Walker, but he’s seeing the ball well again.
Tyler Anderson – 6 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 3.33. What’s that? I’m gonna have one fantasy team next year with all Rockies hitters and two Rockies pitchers? Yeah, so what’s it to you?
Jonathan Villar – Benched due to his defense. Counsell said, while holding the microphone in a very awkward way, he wants this to be a learning experience. It has been for me. I’m learning Counsell is a putz.
Ryan Braun – Scratched from yesterday’s game as the Brewers sent out their B lineup. Though, their A lineup was kind of a B lineup, so yesterday’s lineup was more of a C lineup, though Robbie Ray made it look like he wanted D) None of the Above.
Hernan Perez – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and a slam (6) and double legs (15, 16), hitting .279. He now has six steals in the last nine games. Since there’s been less speed this year than Willie Stargell’s house right after the Pittsburgh drug trials of the 80s, Perez should find himself owned in every league. Now, to totally depress you, well, some of you. I went to our Player Rater to search for Hernan, and typed exactly that into the search box. Guess who I found ranked right by Hernan Perez, giving essentially the same amount of fantasy value on the year. Felix Hernandez. Damn, better off with Colon, because that’s offal.
Zach Davies – 6 1/3 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 3.59. If you streamed him yesterday, the Stream-o-Nator says you should consider holding him for one more start. Thanks, Stream-o-Nator, you considerate AF robot.
Kirk Nieuwenhuis – 1-for-4 and his 9th homer. Coincidentally, I have a Nieuwenhuis on my NL-Only team that’s in first place by about twenty points, and I also have a Nieuwenhuis coffee table that I got from Ikea.
Robbie Ray – 5 2/3 IP, 5 ER, 7 baserunners, 11 Ks, ERA at 4.70. It’s hard out there for the National League’s version of Pineda. Such high expectations, such beautiful Ks, such “What the eff is he doing to my ERA?”
Yasmany Tomas – 2-for-4, 1 run, 2 RBIs and his third time this week he’s been mentioned on Razzball for being hot. That’s really the icing on the cake of a career, isn’t it?
Chris Sale – 6 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 3.17, as he was reinstated from his 5-game suspension. I get it, he was wrong, but the White Sox didn’t need to have Edward Scissorhands throw out the first pitch. That was uncalled for.
Craig Kimbrel – On track to return on Monday. Didn’t it seem like he was only gone for a minute? Not an Urban Dictionary minute, which is actually a long time, but an actual minute. Why don’t my closers ever seem to come back this quick?
David Price – 8 IP, 0 ER, 8 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 4.26. It’s an early Christmas miracle. Of course, like any Jew’s Christmas, there was no present at the end with Ziegler losing the game. Tazawa may be in line for the next save, but, as I just said, Kimbrel’s got a doctor that just rubs DiDi Seven on his injuries and fixes them overnight.
Mitch Moreland – 2-for-3 and his 15th and 16th homers, and third homer in three games, and fifth homer in the last ten games. He won’t be in this afternoon’s Buy column, but it looks like Gallo lit a small fire under Moreland. Hopefully, he doesn’t just fart out only a Smoak-like stream.
Cole Hamels – 8 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 12 Ks, ERA at 2.84. This was his 12th win. With Sale turning into a 13-year-old cutter and possibly being traded, Hamels could actually win the AL Cy Young this year. Though, that might say more about AL pitching, then anything.
Yordano Ventura – 8 IP, 3 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 4.88. Now has three of his last four starts being Quality Starts with the other start being a game where he was knocked out by a comebacker, and that’s the first time that’s been said about him without him instigating anything. He still seems prone to the 4 IP, 5 ER start, but I’d start to loosen up my grip on staying away from him.
Aaron Altherr – 3-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 1st homer as he was activated from the DL. He will take over for the DL’d Bourjos. Coming into the season, Altherr had some sleeper buzz. Or maybe that’s sleeperr. Though, to be honest, because I can’t lie to your little punim, Altherr has had sleeper buzz for about three years. Still, he’s looked about as good as Nadir Bupkis. If you need an upside flyer in deep leagues, you can do worse, but I wouldn’t expect him to answer my prayers. I save prayer answering for 1-900 hotlines.
Maikel Franco – 1-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 19th homer. I get the sense that he’s going to be undervalued next year, even though, at age 23, he’s going to have 25-27 homers.
Tommy Joseph – 2-for-5, 2 runs and his 14th homer. Damn, that would’ve made a nice batty call. Not as nice as I did four days ago with Alex Dickerson. *blows on knuckles, rubs knuckles on shirt, notices there was ink on my knuckles* Intern, why is there ink on my frickin’ knuckles?!
Aaron Nola – 5 IP, 3 ER, 11 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 4.78. Yeah, this was in no way a step in the right direction, even if he did get the cheap win.
Julio Teheran – Cleared to start Saturday, said the Braves into a speakerphone while talking to 29 other teams.
Matthew Wisler – 5 IP, 6 ER. When you’re crushed by the Phillies, it could stress out anyone with close ties to Wisler. No wonder his mom looks so old.
Adonis Garcia – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs, hitting .269. Hitting near-.400 in the last week, and has only gone hitless in four games in all of July. Hey, what do you want? The guy’s an Adonis.
Aledmys Diaz – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 14th homer, hitting .313. I’ve been unfairly down on Aledmys this year, and I think I might know why. If you look at his name real fast, it looks like there’s a DMV in there, and no one wants that.
Matt Holliday – 1-for-4, and his 18th homer. Power is okay, but he sure got old fast. His .235 average screams, “Maybe he should be a platoon player.” Actually, no one has ever screamed the word maybe, but you get the point.
Martin Prado – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 4th homer, hitting .325. Currently, third in the NL for batting average and fifth in the major leagues. Martin, he so crazy.
Jose Fernandez – 5 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 2.79. At least he’s not shut down. Yet. Ugh, who invited ‘yet’ to the party?
Dee Gordon – 0-for-4 as he was activated from the PEDs suspension. Be ready for everyone to start judging his bunts for distance. If his average ball flight falls from seven feet to under five feet, people will point to the lack of PEDs.
Doug Fister – Off this weekend on paternity leave. Plenty of time for quality time with the family since Mrs. Fister’s delivery should go quicker than most.
