Since the dawn of time, fantasy baseball writers have used puns to title their blog posts. This is a tradition carried over from the olden thymes, eons ago when man pulped trees to create very delicate flat wisps, upon which etchings and scrawlings of everyday activities were thenceforth transcribed. Even the title phrase of Bible is a pun. Jesus Christ would shorten the term “imbibe” to “bibe,” when he was discussing his need to attend an early afternoon Pizza Hut buffet. “Judas,” he would say to his BFF, “Let us stalk two-footedly to The Hut, we must bibe the garlic bread before the Romans go on lunch break.” If the so-called great book revels in the puns, then let us not believe ourselves to be above the practice.
Another practice brings us to the title of this column, wherein the author uses a popular work of entertainment as a nest for punnery. Once you start said practice, the habit is hard to break. Upon realizing I would be comparing the blurbs between two pitchers, my first thought went to Charles Dickens “A Tale of Two Cities.” I would not call this a creative decision, moreso the machinations of a bored autonotom.
In order to shake myself of this habit, I have decided to exhaust myself of Charles Dickens-based fantasy baseball column titles. I will attempt to hit all the major works, with lesser known pieces finding their way if the fit is easy. I will not be editing this list, so what you see is the classic “first thought, best thought.” Because I messed up the formatting, I’m hopeful Truss will be able to delete the extra blank table I created. I really like my David Copperfield title, might need to trademark it.
A Blurbstomp Reminder
We will analyze player blurbs from a given evening, knowing that 1-2 writers are usually responsible for all the player write-ups posted within an hour of the game results. We will look at:
Flowery Diction – examining how words create meaning, and sometimes destroy meaning altogether
Q and Q – Quantitative and Qualitative Oddities in a given blurb
Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award – Given to the player blurb that promises the most and delivers the least.
Bob Nightengale Memorial Plaque – blurbs don’t always need to make sense, friendo
Max Scherzer Crown of Leaking Insane Rage – blurbs so angry at a player it’s uncomfortable
The hope is that by season’s end, we’ll all feel more confident about our player evaluations when it comes to the waiver wire. We will read blurbs and not be swayed by excessive superlatives, faulty injury reporting, and micro-hype. I will know that I have done my job when Grey posts, and there isn’t a single question about catchers in the comments section. Onward to Roto Wokeness!
Flowery Diction
Brayan Bello surrendered five runs in 4 2/3 innings Friday in a loss to the Cardinals.
The ability is there for Bello to be better than this, but he’s just so overrated now. The Cardinals were averaging one homer every 51 plate appearances this season before Bello gave up three to the 21 batters he faced tonight. Boston would have been better off giving his six-year deal to Kutter Crawford this spring.
Source: Rotoworld
You know your author’s tone is aces when your first sentence could ostensibly be traced to Zoolander’s “he’s so hot right now.” And while I do appreciate the Cardinals drive by, there’s something so comically strange about this here blurb. Maybe it’s the phrase “overrated?” Overrated is a word that usually applies to player valuation before the season begins, as in, “Grey believed that Elly De La Cruz was overrated on draft day.” Maybe this is recency bias on my part, but that’s a parlance that I generally avoid. There are reasons for this.
Firstly, who is overrating Bello? Real baseball fans? Fantasy owners? Fantasy owners who started him? Are there people falling all over themselves defending the honor of a major league baseball player who dares to have a few bad starts in a row? Or…
…it’s the author of the blurb. Seems like the blurbist is angry they started him in a league. I can relate. For every fantasy team, there is a real life baseball team that is struggling offensively. This is a team you confidently start your staff ace against, only to look at the final line and see your pitcher was absolutely obliterated by a Triple-A offense. The kryptonite to my 20 years of pitching staffs is the Kansas City Royals. They seem to know when I’m counting on them to continue their crap. Nothing is as darkly funny as doing a post-mortem and realizing the Kansas City Royals hit seven squibs to score four runs in an inning.
I think Bello will be fine, but that’s because I didn’t draft him as my staff ace, and looking at the money he got from the Red Sox, neither did they. But if you’re this blurbist, boy did we all get ripped off!
The Kutter Crawford line is lunacy, and once again I’m left to ponder if blurbists are seeding posts with this kind of malarkey just to see their words on this website (they don’t, and they aren’t). This is essentially giving voice to the owner’s tired argument that players are paid too much to play the game that the selfsame owners make millions in profits off every single season. And Kutter’s xFIP is almost two entire points higher than his results so far. Do I wish I drafted Kutter over Bello? Sure. But again, I drafted Bello to throw close to 200 innings as a 4th starter.
This entire blurb has the tone of an old school Gawker blind item. I’m sure they treat other pitchers who are getting blown up in consecutive games the same exact manner, right?
Flowery Diction
Bryce Miller allowed five earned runs on five hits, including three homers, across six innings in a loss to the Yankees on Wednesday. He struck out four and walked none.
Aaron Judge and Juan Soto jumped all over Miller in this one accounting for all of his earned runs with three combined homers. Miller was visibly frustrated as the pitches they hit out weren’t even bad: Soto took two sinkers on the edge to left field and Judge golfed a low and away slider into the short porch. This was the type of game you have to tip your cap and move on from. Miller will take a 3.53 ERA into his next start on Monday at home against the Astros.
Source: Rotoworld
Oh how fun. We have some real pathos from the blurbist, just what we were all missing from our “Player Recaps.” We know that we should feel bad for Miller because he was frustrated, and my personal favorite, “the pitches they hit out weren’t even bad.” It’s a game predicated on skill mixed with luck, and both those elements are combined in a split second as the hitter picks up the spin and location of the pitch headed towards their general vicinity. Great hitters destroy the best pitches because skill runs into luck sometimes.
You want to guess how much Bryce Miller is getting paid? League minimum. I guess that make him less prone to general criticism, because he was hit hard in his last start as well. His expected ERA last year was 4.86. His xERA this season is 4.17. I could keep going, but you get my point. Recognizing negative trends in a player’s performance is helpful for fantasy players. I would say that Bryce Miller is either amazingly lucky, or he’s doing something to prevent hard contact, but I’m not here to dig in. Leave that to our battery of writers with time to deep dive into a player.
Let’s go back to Bello for his most recent blurb, I’m sure cooler heads have prevailed.
Flowery Diction
Brayan Bello allowed three earned runs and four hits in a win over the Rays on Wednesday. He walked four and struck out six.
Bello keeps putting up these good but not great starts. The win and QS are nice, but there’s this next level Bello is still trying to reach. If he gets there, it will be on the heels of his improving slider. He showed a willingness to throw it back-foot to some of the Rays’ left-handed batters, but they only chased one out of the four he threw there. He’ll take a 4.04 ERA into his next start on Tuesday in Baltimore.
Source: Rotoworld
So strange, but I think I’ve figured it out. There’s a tell here: “There’s this next level Bello is still trying to reach.” Let’s insert the true to the target of this blurb into the sentence: “There’s this next level I, the blurbist, is still trying to reach.” Now it makes all the sense in the world. We all want more for ourselves. We want more energy. We want to be successful. We want better relationships. Better confidence. Better motivation. Better eating habits. Better flexibility. Better hygiene. Better vampire hunters. Better garlic strings to ward off the vampires. Better solar lamps. Better stake sharpening equipment. Better drivers who use their blinkers. Better. Happier. More productive. A pig. In a cage. On antibiotics.
Bob Nightengale Memorial Plaque
Cal Raleigh went 1-for-4 with a three-run home run on Wednesday in a loss to the Yankees.
The Orioles offense was quiet all night besides Raleigh’s blast. He golfed a changeup from Luke Weaver, which has been one of the best individual pitches in baseball this season, just barely over the right-field fence for his 11th long ball of the season. It would’ve been a homer in fewer than half of the league’s stadiums, but this was the only one that mattered.
Source: Rotoworld
Ah yes, Cal Raleigh of the Baltimore Orioles.
While a petty find, this does bring up Rotoworld’s penchant for not updating player photos for their current teams. It creates a schizophrenic reading experience, as my logic brain keeps smashing into my information processing center.
Info processing Center: Should I pick him up? Okay, looks like he had two hits and scored two runs, with-
Logic Brain: -hey he’s wearing a Mariners hat.
Info Processing Center: Hrm, anyways he got caught stealing, I hope his manager doesn’t start-
Logic Brain: (interrupting) He’s wearing a Mariners hat but he’s on the Reds.
IPC: Ok, yes, that’s true. Anyway, he should still have a green light. I should probably bid-
Logic Brain: (interrupting) He’s wearing the wrong hat. Doesn’t that bother you?
IPC: Fine, sure, it bothers me. God forbid I finish a thought!
Logic Brain: Well what are you going to do about it?
IPC: Nothing! It’s a stupid User Experience issue they missed.
Logic Brain: You sure have a lot of excuses for this faceless media corporation. And no backbone.
IPC: Fine, you want me to do something?
Logic Brain: I’ve been pretty clear.
IPC: I’m going to dig a pauper’s grave and bury my laptop in it.
Logic Brain: Hmm. Okay.
Laptop: Goodbye everyone, till next week! Hopefully, by then C.A. will have unburied me, and mmf! There’s some soil in my mouth! And mfff! Mfff!
