Having spoken (written) extensively on the topic of waiver wire articles, to the point that Baseball HQ published one of my articles in their annual fantasy baseball physical magazine last year on the subject, I have fallen off the wagon outside of Grey’s weekly missives. Granted I don’t do the Patreon thing, so I’m not quite on the razor’s edge of hot infotainment, but I used to absolutely guzzle those waiver articles down like young person doing poppers at a rave type gathering (I enjoy my vague understanding of youth culture drug usage, maybe one day I’ll even watch Euphoria — psyche, I’d rather fingernail my eyeballs to death).
Now that I’ve gotten your attention, I will admit that I was baited into reading a waiver article on Rotoworld because it seemed to feature MJ Melendez. Having owned him for parts of last season, and having watched him during the current season, the part of me that hates myself clicked on that damn link and was rewarded with a feature-length Blurbstomp article.
“The Melendez breakout has not materialized. As a sophomore last year, his strikeout rate increased and he underachieved while posting some of the best exit velocity numbers in the league. So far this year, his exit velocity numbers look more like they did when he was a rookie, yet the increase in strikeouts has stuck around. At this point, he’s a candidate to be sent down if the Royals decide to get aggressive and go find some outfield help. So, what’s he doing here, you ask? Well, he’s catcher eligible in Yahoo and that makes all the difference.”
To paraphrase “He’s been terrible and should be sent down, but he’s a catcher so you should pick him up.” I’ve read my fair share of waiver articles that require a catcher recommendation, usually with the caveat that said recommendation should be mostly ignored due to the weakness of the position. Never have I experienced an article where the author acknowledges the player has been so bad for so long (more than a full season!) that he might get sent down, but then tries to make a case he should be picked up. And the case is a master class in pretzel logic:
“Melendez is a tough player to nail down. He arrived in the majors as a patient, power-hitting catcher in an organization that doesn’t appreciate plate discipline, that plays in a ballpark that doesn’t reward left-handed power and that already had an All-Star catcher. That patience is gone now; he’s swinging at over half of the pitches he sees and has just a 6.5% walk rate this year. His career homer total is 38 after 321 games. Statcast says he’d have 37 if all 321 of those games were played in Kansas City, but that he’d have 47-52 in many other ballparks and actually 65 in Cincinnati. But then there’s also the fact that he’s hit just .195 with 13 homers on the road in his career, compared to .244 with 25 homers at Kauffman.”
He’s in a bad hitter’s park for lefty hitters. His walk rate is atrocious. He could have hit 30 more homers if he played for the Reds, but also he’s somehow hit worse away from Kauffman Stadium. And his Statcast this season, despite the author contending the site believes he’s been unlucky, is a full of dark and light blue bars, indicating a player that actually deserves his statistics. Finally, we reach our stunning conclusion:
“Even acknowledging the fact that he could be back in the minors soon, I still think it’s pretty reasonable to look at Melendez as a top-12 fantasy catcher.”
The author of this article just released his Top 300 players updated for June, and you want to guess where Melendez lives on this list? Would you guess that he’s the 104th ranked outfielder? I don’t know where the 100th ranked OF would live on his own catcher list, but right now that author has Willson Contreras at 12 who will be missing at least the next month. And somehow, Elias Diaz is ranked at 23 on that list. I digress, but perhaps ignore when blurbs mention Player X is a top-12 guy. Everyone has their own list, even me. That’s why I’m still holding onto
While I applaud the wildness of such a suggestion, especially with the dearth of options in an offensive environment yet to be aided by the introduction of this year’s bouncy ball, I can’t understand any real reason it was written. Almost every metric shows that his “bad luck” is actually a result of his ever-fluctuating skill set. Could one of these fluctuations end up with some good counting stats? Sure.
For now, this waiver recommendation is akin to telling someone that the broken down firetruck parked on redneck’s front lawn perched on cinder blocks is a good purchase for every day driving.
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!
Mathletics Participation Ribbon
Joe Ryan gave up five runs over five innings while picking up a loss to the Astros on Saturday (Original Header: Joe Ryan gives up four homers in loss to Astros)
Ryan gave up eight hits, which is not great, and five of those hits left the park, which is worse. The 27-year-old was coming off an outstanding start against the Royals on Monday. This was anything but. He also walked two and struck out four in one of the worst outings of the season for Ryan. Expect better things for the right-hander against Pittsburgh next week.
Source: Rotoworld
Upon first laying mine eyes upon this blurb, I went through the following emotions: Delight, doubt, confusion, anger, fear, and acceptance. Let us wander this primrose path of the blurbstomp emotional spectrum, hands atangled.
- Delight – Ryan gave up four homers, and yet the blurbist wrote that “five of those hits left the park.” In the business of Blurbstomping, we call this easy pickings. Lowest hanging fruit.
- Doubt – As I screenshot the blurb, I go over the exact math of the first two sentences and begin to second-guess my own mathematics. Maybe he did give up five homers? Or I’m mixing up earned runs with homers?
- Confusion – I almost delete the blurb, and then read it again. I once again wonder if this column will be my legacy, and hope the world is swallowed by the sun before anyone sees that maybe one fifth of my camera roll is screenshots for blurbstomp.
- Anger – Why am I even doing this? I could have a job writing episodes for Nickeleon shows, one of those with the stepkids who hate each other, but find out through shared interests and adventures that they care about each other. Can’t tell if I’m talking about a sitcom trope or a pornhub video description, which is a private thought that should have remained private, but who actually reads this besides my Ride or Dies? I’m sure Grey or Rudy or Truss could tell me how many people actually read this thing to allow myself to fancy I am entertaining anyone, but I don’t. Why?
- Fear – I am afraid of the truth. There’s a reason I haven’t asked about readership numbers. If the numbers are good, the pressure will mount and I may even try to make sense and create a reasonable narrative thread. If the numbers are bad, then this will stand as my weekly Artist’s Way and boy this entire exercise stands as the king of a bloggist’s pyrrhic victories.
- Acceptance – I overuse the phrase “pyrrhic victory,” mostly because it’s fun to try and spell correctly (and I never have on the first pass, ever) and because it describes the act of posting anything online in a such a sweetly succinct manner.
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s just remind everyone that Joe Ryan gave up four -not five- homers in the referenced start. I assumed it was a simple mistake that would be ignored, but because I screenshot these blurbs, I realized they changed the header to “fix” the amount of homers Joe the Ryan gave up.
However, they failed to correct the section of flavor text that states “five of those hits left the yard,” rendering a criminally insane person such as myself into a dummy standing in the corner of my parent’s basement, a dunce hat appending his stupid head, praying for the end of The Blair Witch Project.
Boy Scouts Flowery Diction Badge
Rays placed OF Josh Lowe on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to May 23, with a right oblique strain.
Ugh. There was some optimism that Lowe wouldn’t be facing a lengthy absence after he wasn’t put on the injured list ahead of Friday’s series opener. The 26-year-old fantasy stalwart told reporters Saturday that he hopes to only have a minimum stay on the injured list, which is extremely encouraging. He’s been limited to just 14 games this season due to persistent injuries. It sounds like there’s a strong possibility he’ll return in early June.
Source: Rotoworld
Ugh.
I appreciate the hopefully-not-an-AI opening of such a blurb. It is a true call for pathos. I think every news story should begin with a one-word utterance that would give the reader clear foreshadowing. The word “ugh” is so universal that we all know what’s coming. Now we get to collectively experience this feeling. Unless, like me, you don’t own Josh Lowe anywhere, so one’s emotional experience can best be described as: “Welp.” One employs the “welp” because while you feel bad for Josh Lowe the person and for baseball as a sport because no one gets to enjoy watching Josh Lowe, you also feel slightly giddy because your opponents lose a healthy contributor, and (if you have any kind of heart) guilt that any part of you feels giddy about anything in this paragraph.
Bob Nightengale Memorial Plaque
Michael Harris II is hitting leadoff against the Nationals on Tuesday.
Harris will get the first crack at the leadoff spot with Ronald Acuña Jr. now out for the season with his torn ACL. With Harris in the leadoff spot, he has the chance to be driven in by Austin Riley, Matt Olson and a plethora of other quality hitters in the Atlanta lineup. There’s a lot to like about this situation, outside of the bummer that is the Acuña Jr. injury.
Source: Rotoworld
This is a quick hit but a funny one, as it is fundamentally wrong and also is completely harmless. Ozzie Albies received the first crack at the leadoff spot the game before this blurb was posted, meaning that the blurbist had completely forgotten an entire game to space and time. A bit like David Bowie not being able to remember recording the entirety of his landmark Station to Station record, just not as important. I still have trouble fathoming the creation of something as astonishing and complex (while still sounding relatively simple) as even the title track. Aggressively audacious, much like completely forgetting an entire game happened within two days of said event.
Boy Scouts Flowery Diction Badge
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters that Ohtani won’t start the second game of the doubleheader Tuesday against the Mets.
Ohtani will get a rare day off in the second game of the twin-billing. With the 29-year-old superstar out, the Dodgers will have Will Smith as the designated hitter and Austin Barnes will get the start behind the plate.
Source: Rotoworld
As everyone knows, a doubleheader (aka twin-billing) is two games played on the same day. If Ohtani started the first game of a double-header whilst heading to the bench for the second game, he did not receive a day off. If he hit the bench for both games of the doubleheader, Ohtani would definitively get the entire day off from work. This matters. Words matter.
These last two Stomps are not major, but they point to an evolvingly (I know it’s not a real word, but all real words were bizarre mutants at first blush) strange relationship Rotoworld has with the concept of time. Rotoworld is Superman, rotating the globe forwards and backwards whenever it suits them, disappearing days at will. Or maybe they’re Guy Pearce’s character in Memento, unable to coherently piece together a temporal through line. Or maybe Rotoworld is Jeremy Renner’s character in one of those Spy Kids movies one of my kids just watched, where I can’t remember specifics but I’m pretty sure time and a bunch of clocks were involved. And the Spy Kids were trying to prevent the manipulation of time while also saving their parents. Maybe Razzball is Spy Kids, and Grey is Robert Rodriguez?
Yes. Razzball is Spy Kids, and Grey is Robert Rodriguez.
Till next week, loyal ‘Stompers!
