Hello, my dear friends. I apologize for the absence, but I was getting my butt into a master’s program (because one master’s wasn’t enough), and then some family stuff popped up. There will be no grand introduction today, as I’m already seven minutes past my deadline. I’m happy to be back but burdened by teams populated with Julio Rodriguez, Carlos Correa, and Nolan Jones.
Let Professor Xavier Edwards be my guiding light, and let’s blurb forth!
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:
Boy Scout’s Flowery Diction Badge– examining how words create meaning, and sometimes destroy meaning altogether
Mathletics Participation Ribbon – 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!
Bob Nightengale Memorial Plaque
Tyler O’Neill delivered his 19th and 20th homers in leading the Red Sox to a 6-0 win over the Cardinals on Tuesday.
Sweet revenge for O’Neill. The Red Sox would almost certainly trade him if they reverse course and sell at the trade deadline, but it doesn’t seem like things will come to that (there’s more to this blurb, but it’s all about the Red Sox playoff chances and the trade deadline, because why try to analyze the singular player?)
Source: Rotoworld
Nothing excites blurbists more than a revenge game, because they get to write “revenge game.” It’s the same thing for people who overuse the term “shove,” or say, “He ate,” so much that I smash the two words together and make HATE. This is such a beautiful blurb. We have the use of “revenge” employed in a situation where no revenge could be taken. The Red Sox were not playing the Cardinals the night this blurb was posted. They played against the Colorado Rockies. Tyler O’Neill has never played for the Colorado Rockies, although his brittle nature would be a natural fit.
This was a blurb written with the author so excited about BASEBALL POCKET NARRATIVES that they attempted to alter the very fabric of time and space to make a world where O’Neill’s wonderful game could inspire a description worthy of iambic pentameter. If only simple blurbists had that power, I’m sure it would not be abused. They would more than likely use their powers to better edit these little mistakes, which they did this time! The blurb as you see it above no longer exists, but the screenshot (thank you Grey) is forever.
Boy Scouts Flowery Diction Badge
Jackson Merrill went 4-for-5 with a double, a triple, three runs scored, and a RBI in a 12-3 beatdown against the Nationals.
Merill broke out of his July swoon in a big way with four hits and just falling a home run short of the cycle. It’s a shame Paul Skenes exists because Merrill would have a real shot at being the National League Rookie of the Year if not.
Source: Rotoworld
“It’s a shame Paul Skenes exists.”
This is why I write this column. Human being’s capacity for creating content constantly runs up against a preternatural urge to be creative and hyperbolic. This is how an independent clause like, “It’s a shame Paul Skenes exists,” is borne into this world. Based on recent pitching injury trends, this blurb will prove to be prescient. How far away is any major league pitcher from rupturing the very fabric of their money-maker?
How far is any of us from the Great Candle Snuffer in the sky? Why even put such thoughts into the world?
Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award
Jazz Chisholm Jr. went 1-for-4 a double, two RBI, and a run scored in a 6-3 win over the Orioles on Wednesday.
Chisholm is playing some of his best baseball in what could be his final week as a Marlin. He bounced a double over the third baseman’s head to put Miami up in this one and showed some real emotion after sliding safely into second base. He’s very quietly on a 20 HR, 30 SB pace in what’s been his first ever season without a trip to the injured list.
Source: Rotoworld
Jazz Chisholm showing real emotion is not noteworthy. He’s your classic guy who is happy he’s playing a game that is fun to play. Water is wet. Dirt is dirty. Bastard is old.
Is there a living baseball player who doesn’t show any outward emotional response left in the world? A guy whose frown is perma-stained like a melted crayon onto his forever stubble. A guy whose brow is so furrowed that topographical map fans have a facebook page dedicated to his folds. A guy whose dead eyes have seen the future and the past, and has realized that while destiny is not true, most of us walk on the path of least resistance. A guy who wished modern medicine didn’t exist so he could die with dignity not on a battlefield, but in a surgeon’s tent where they still think you don’t have to wash your hands and that a scraped knee meant gangrene and amputation.
Let me know if there are still any true dead faces in the league. I’m being specific in this request. I shouldn’t be able to find footage of the player celebrating a game-winning hit or grinning after their team wins the World Series.
Maybe Josh Donaldson is the closest to this mythical monolith of mundanity, but I recall him smirking when being casually racist, so never mind. How close are we to having Donaldson leading the next wave of Proud Boys?
Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award
Jack Flaherty allowed just three hits and one unearned run across six stellar innings on Wednesday against the Guardians. He struck out six and walked two in a no-decision.
Flaherty was fantastic once again. The only run he allowed came after a two out single, pass ball, and then a soft, run-scoring knock off the bat of Steven Kwan. Otherwise, Flaherty mowed the Guardians down. His fastball maintained its usual effectiveness despite being down a tick, which could be viewed as either a good or bad thing. Regardless, Flaherty has cemented himself as one of the most trustworthy pitchers in the league this season.
Source: Rotoworld
I read that last line about Flaherty being one of the most trustworthy pitchers in the league, and I immediately blanched. No, I didn’t quick boil some vegetables to make the colors pop and the crisps crackle. And I also didn’t drain the color of anything. I did almost faint, vapors-like. Surely a guy who has had some good moments but was otherwise a complete coin flip coming into the season is not “trustworthy.” Then I think about Strider. And Cole. And Freddy Peralta. And then I remember that the idea of trusting a pitcher is oxymoronic.
Trust is not a corporeal object. The old adage goes, “I can trust you as far as I can throw you,” meaning that we all need to get on Ozempic or whatever weight loss drug is in vogue (but we find out later it’s made out of asbestos) so that we’re light enough to be thrown long distance. I’ll be 6’3″ and 50 pounds, and you’ll trust me more! It’ll feel good as I soar through the air, even if I know that my nutrition-sapped bones will snap like a tired pencil upon returning to the earth.
Trust is important! And I have Flaherty all over the place and still don’t trust him. That’s pitching my friends.
Stephen A. Smith IMG_4346.jpeg Award
JP Sears was charged with eight runs (seven earned) over six innings on Wednesday in a loss to the Astros.
The final line looks a lot worse than the actual performance here as Sears managed to limit Houston’s lineup to just four runs over the first six innings of Wednesday’s series finale before the metaphorical wheels came off the wagon as he was ultimately charged with four additional runs in the seventh inning. He struck out three and didn’t hand out a free pass. He’ll bring a serviceable 4.81 ERA, 1.29 WHIP and 83/32 K/BB ratio across 112 1/3 innings (21 starts) into a road tilt on Tuesday against the Giants.
Source: Rotoworld
Sears has less than a K/inning, xFIP, FIP, and xERA all think he’s a 4.50 ERA pitcher or worse, and he doesn’t deserve the rose-colored glasses in this blurb. Maybe in AL-only leagues, but even then we should be using glasses frames with no lens. We all had the friend who would get glasses and then either pop the lenses out or find a pair with non-prescription lenses and insist that they look cool, right? This friend would be on the same wavelength as the kid who started wearing a fedora with his t-shirts and jeans to school in 7th grade, or the kid brave enough to wear a cape to school going into middle school.
Perhaps looking at JP Sears’s pitching performances through swim goggles would be more appropriate. Swim goggles are fun because for five minutes they are life-changing, showing you the beauty of a world underwater. Then they either begin to leak or fog up, and the person doing laps next to you says that washing them in the water fixes the fog issue, but it never works and now it feels there’s something wrong with you instead of the goggles.
And your tombstone reads: Here lies C.A. James, who could not de-fog swim goggles. That will be my legacy. That and replacing my meals with apples and peanut butter.
