Hey, how are you doing? Good/Bad? That’s good/bad. This is a beautiful/ugly morning/afternoon/night we’re having! What great/lousy weather. I love/hate this time of year! It’s like the beginning/middle/end of everything we love/hate. I remember when we went to (fill-in anecdote) and you said (search old emails for something they said). You are so smart/dumb about those things! I enjoy/hate your insight. Let’s please/never talk again. Oops! I meant to paste in my generic buy on Brandon Belt that I do every year and instead you got my generic break-up/let’s have sex email. Every year around this time, Brandon Belt ignites the furries in my nether regions and I go and tell you to pick him up. Here’s an idea, maybe he’s just a 2nd half hitter! I don’t know, and it’s not really pertinent right now. What is important is how he’s hitting. Since the All-Star break, he’s hitting .324 with five homers with all five of those homers coming in August, four coming in the last week. I don’t know where I’m gonna fall on Belt next year. Right now, he looks like a solid sleeper, but he looks like that every August. None of that matters, grab him now if you’re struggling at your corner infidel slot. He’s bound to do well/poorly! Hey, I found my generic Belt buy post! Anyway, here’s some more players to buy or sell this week in fantasy baseball:
BUY
Justin Smoak – The lede could’ve been a double-stuffed Oreo with Belt and Smoak, because one week of every year it seems like I focus on picking Smoak up, too. I didn’t make it a double lede because of a blog post sub-section of laws way too tedious to get into. One interesting blog post law that some of you probably aren’t familiar with is on page seventeen, Section 4b, Paragraph ten, “Reader of said blog will actually read said blog and not just ask a comment that is covered in said blog.”
Darin Ruf – I dream about a day when Ruf is owned in all leagues for his power and then someone asks to trade for him and you think they’re imitating your dog. I have weird dreams.
Jason Castro – On our Player Rater, he’s been more valuable than Matt Wieters. Yet — again with some stank on it — YET, he’s not owned in 50% of leagues. Oh. Kay. Yeah, I brought out the douchey separation of okay.
Russell Martin – He’s also not that far off from Wieters’s value. Bee tee dubya, I know Wieters hasn’t been great, and may not be a great benchmark, but he’s been decent enough and is owned in 100% of leagues, compared to Martin’s 25%.
Jedd Gyorko – I had real concerns about his health for a few weeks there. I have concerns, y’all! But he looks like he’s come out of the funk. Now, whether or not that’s because he was in Coors, we won’t be sure of until next week. I wait with bated breath, or baited if there’s fish reading.
DJ LeMahieu – I’ve finally gotten to the point where I can forgive LeMahieu for supplanting Rutledge on the Rockies depth chart. Damn, I’m growing as a person! But maybe that’s because of this pop-up window I can’t get rid of.
Grant Green – For this year, he might not be much better than what you would expect from Gordon Beckham. *shooting up* Did I fall asleep? What did I miss? Okay, who drew a penis on my face?
Kolten Wong – I just went over my Kolten Wong fantasy. It’s the bomb dot com running a dot org off the road.
Scooter Gennett – Can I be the first (I might not be the first) to say there was a huge influx of middle infield options this year. This was an even better year than usual to punt middle infield. Between Miller, Wong, Franklin, Green and Scooter, which sounds like a law firm that would handle stolen tricycles, there’s more middle infielders than anyone could possibly need.
Nolan Arenado – I love Arenado more than I should for what he’s done so far. Could be the allure of Coors. Unfortch, the Rockies go on the road for the next two weeks. Whoever made up the Rockies schedule obviously doesn’t play fantasy baseball. Commies!
Will Middlebrooks – It’s too early to say if the changes to his stance in the minors will stick and he’ll be the 25-homer, .275 average player that some thought he could be, but it’s worth the flyer on the possibility. I will say (after all the other shizz I’ve said), he looks better recently.
Juan Francisco – Three homers in the last week and hasn’t really been bad on the Brewers since he landed there. As a Nelly and Mystikal duet would say, eye-thurr way, he’s getting to be a hot schmotato in here.
Jonny Gomes – Hitter-Tron loves him tonight almost as much as he loves the movie, Tron.
Cody Asche – For all of youse who read every word and follow blog rules to the strict letter of the law, I’ll give you a little Easter egg, the moment Asche is given the everyday job next year, I’m gonna own him in every league, and probably draft him in deeper leagues even before that. He’s going to be a 17-homer, 10-steal, decent average guy for corner infidels next year with obvious upside. I promise you that ESPN won’t even rank him in their top 300 either. I know how they operate; they’ll put Prado around 100 overall and no Asche whatsoever. February Grey will also quote this in six months when they prove me correct. As for right now, Asche’s fine for some light power and maybe a steal or two.
Wilmer Flores – Imagine the bank comes to repossess everything in your mom’s basement. They leave you with nothing but your sofa because they say, “It’s unfit for humans.” So you decide to move the sofa away from the one basement window because you’re allergic to the sun. When you’re moving the sofa, you find a Game Boy from circa 1992 and the Tetris cartridge still works. That’s how the Mets feel when they find hitting prospects after the reign of Omar Minaya and Madoff.
Jonathan Villar – SAGNOF!
Jarrod Dyson – He pffts at Villar being labeled SAGNOF! That’s not SAGNOF; this is SAGNOF! That second SAGNOF there is in even bigger font, if you can imagine it.
Will Venable – This is a bit more lukewarm of a recommendation than earlier in the week because the Padres are out of Coors now. My suggestion to move Petco onto mile-high stilts still holds up, but I realize it might not be that easy. New suggestion! Put Petco on top of Tony Gwynn’s stash of Twinkies.
Andrew Lambo – I just went over my Andrew Lambo fantasy. I wrote it between the minutes of 3:45 and 3:46 PM on December 12th in the year 1924. I’m a time traveler!
Oswaldo Arcia – Has homered three times in the last week and has only gotten lost twice in a sea of people in striped shirts.
Josh Willingham – As I said the other day, “There’s a lot of stats in Willingham’s bat if he’s going to salvage this season. Wouldn’t surprise me to see him get above 20 homers on the year. I could see taking a flyer on him for power.” And that’s me quoting me!
Gerardo Parra – We’re now firmly in the area of the Buy column where upside is not as strong with these guys. Let’s get out of here…
Christian Yelich – Anyone else notice that rookies are a lot like hot chicks? You want to sleep with them so bad, then afterwards you have to listen to them talk about how they can’t wear their rain boots in the rain because they’re leather. Everyone wanted Yelich, then you own him and he does about as well as can be expected for a 11-year-old and now people are bored.
Jon Jay – Hitting near .350 since the All-Star break and ruled in favor of separating church and state.
Avisail Garcia – For this season, he may not hit better than .250 without a lot of luck. But worrying about average is for girls! No offense, four girl readers. You know I love my ladies!
Adam Eaton – Looking at his stats now, I’m having a hard time remembering why I was excited about him in the preseason. Oh, wait, this is supposed to be positive. Um, well, he did appear to be solid before he played this year….Wait, I know! He’s hitting well in August…Though not playing every day — dah!
David Aardsma – I own LaTroy Hawkins, so it’s hard for me to say this, but he’s not, how should I say this, very good. C’mon, let’s not delude ourselves, he sucks. I could’ve also listed Gonzalez Germen here, and just kinda did.
Francisco Rodriguez – I just went over my Jim Johnson fantasy. I wrote it while waiting in line at the DMV. Tommy Hunter could be here too. Not at the DMV, I mean in the Buy.
Chia-Jen Lo – In the box scores, he’s listed as C Lo. In his name there’s Jen Lo. His name is a battle of singing competitions with a grassy head.
Jerome Williams – I’ll be honest with you like the hair growing out of your face mole, I’m just going by the Stream-o-Nator for starters. There’s no reason to pick up a marginal starter this late in the year and hold him in most leagues.
Jenrry Mejia – He has bone chips in his elbow that he’ll have removed this offseason, then serve them with guac and salsa. Chips-schmips, he faces the Padres in Petco this weekend.
Alex Wood – Get on board with Wood. Pun point!
Dan Straily – He gets the Indians at home next and after that I have no idea. Does it matter? What if the Mayans pull the plug on us?
Todd Redmond – Are you chasing Ks like the Atomic Dog chases the cat? Redmond can fix you up real good. Somewhere, a schnauzer is reading this and just crossed his legs when he read ‘fix you up real good.’
SELL
Dan Uggla – If you have DL room, I guess you can wait for him to return from his eye surgery, but unless he’s having an eye transplant with Ted Williams’ frozen head, I wouldn’t.
David Wright – Sounds like he’s out for the season or might return for a couple of weeks, which is two, by the way. In two weeks, Wright is going to do what? Hit three doubles and knock in four runs? That’s a lowercase yay with an emoticon that is making farting noises with its hand under its armpit.
Starlin Castro – You guys had such high hopes for each other! You hoped he’d break out in a big way and he hoped your face wouldn’t break out in a big way. Four months later, neither have worked out, and it’s turned into a cause and effect situation. In shallower leagues, I’d get Proactiv, hop on a raft and bid Castro adieu.
