Looks like someone found time to transcribe Karabell’s refrigerator magnets into a blog post. ESPN’s top fantasy analyst, Eric Karabell, went through his early season favorites to be fantasy baseball’s Most Valuable Players and Cy Young. Now obviously they don’t give awards for this shizz, but Karabell’s playing in his sandbox, so grab a teat and follow along. (He didn’t mention real baseball where his AL MVP preseason choice was David Ortiz. Yes, he’s bonkers.) You have to be an ESPN Hindsighter™ to understand the extent of his nitwititude so I’ll quote the relevant passages here. For Fantasy MVP, he put Hanley Ramirez behind Nate McLouth. Zoinks! I’m Karabell and I’m chewing on a crayon! Now I’ve long expressed caution about Hanley, even going as far as ranking him 5th overall, but Nate McLouth does not have a chance in Yangzou, China in placing in front of Hanley in fantasy worth at the end of the year. Karabell said this about McClouth:
McLouth isn’t running very much, but I think he will, and he’s looking like a 25-homer guy, at least. Like Florida’s Ramirez, he’s no longer leading off, he’s hitting third. This is legit.
Then he puts Berkman at number one. I won’t argue necessarily with that (I could; I just won’t), but listen to this turd nugget:
When Berkman slows down a bit, literally and figuratively, I think McLouth will pass him on this list…
Wow. I can’t imagine he’s not throwing darts at a board. Literally and figuratively. A) McClouth’s hitting third on the Pirates and in that lineup spot he has zero home runs. B) McClouth was a career .248 hitter coming into 2008. C) He isn’t running much, but he will is probably true, but to rank him number two overall on a promise of more steals is asinine. D) I’m moving on before I shove my head into a blender.
Then Karabell lists his fantasy Cy Young candidates. Edinson Volquez comes in 2nd. Now I have Volquez on a lot of teams, so I don’t want to jinx him too bad and this was covered the other day, I’ll just say Volquez is pitching a wee bit over his head right now. The real turd nugget Karabell pinched off was by drinking the Cliff Lee Kool-Aid, who he placed number one:
I think he threatens for 20 wins and keeps his season ERA around 2.50. To me, that doesn’t make him a prime sell-high.
Lee will probably be over 2.50 by June 15th. Granted, Karabell wrote that three days before Lee’s outing where he gave up six runs in five innings. So does that excuse his stupidity? No, it illustrates it. Not to mention, Lee and Volquez placed in front of Webb, who Karabell just listed as the number one overall fantasy baseball player. Not just pitcher. I’m going to now paper cut my eyelids then submerge my face into a shark tank.
