It’ll be Father’s Day +1 for American readers when this gets to you. Hope you had a good one! If you had a terrible one and needed to focus on your fantasy teams a bit, then I hope your fantasy team is good. If your fantasy team sucks and your dad sucks and you’re just looking for groan-worthy humor, then you’ve come to the right place! Let’s see if we can get your week started out right:
That’s What I Like
Heliot Ramos (SF, OF, 19% Rostered): If you were to go to ChatGPT and say, “write me an article in the smooth, charismatic style of EWB,” your output would be like, “ENYWHEY, AHEM, You’re leegues (that’s where your legumes play with your leeks!) are tragic. Tragedy is comedy. And you’re laughing to the bank when 4/5 leagues can add the greek god of smoked ham Heliot Ramos to your team FOR FREE. What else is free? ‘Mericuh. Home of the smoked ham with leeks.” Thanks, ChatGPT. But, yeah, your league is a tragedy if you don’t have Ramos on your radar. Because I’m not on the socials anymore, I have this echo chamber of Razzball writer discord where everybody rosters Ramos and it seems like he’s 100% rostered. Then I load the Player Rater on Sunday and look for under-rostered players and nobody has Ramos. Do we not like 179 wRC+ now? Sure, Ramos has burned you in the past during his previous cups of coffee. This is why we don’t roster true rookies at a premium. Much like me, he’s now on his third cup of coffee, and this time the work is getting done. 8 homers and 30 RBI and on pace to finish the season with 40 homers and 150 RBI. Eco-friendly readers close your eyes because that’s just not sustainable. Although he comes with a first round draft pick pedigree, he’s never put up the absolute monster numbers he’s claiming right now. That said…if Triple-A stats mattered, Ramos is at 16 homers on the year with 50+ RBI, which — combined with his ludicrous batting average — would put him around Juan Soto as a comparison. Put another way, Ramos has been in the majors half as long as Anthony Rizzo or Paul Goldschmidt in 2024, and has the same HR/RBI output and a 10% better batting average. Give the guy another week and he’ll have caught up to Freddie Freeman on the leaderboards. Stop what you’re doing — yes, pause midstream you toilet readers — and add Heliot Ramos to your team. Start in all formats.
Jesse Winker (WSH, OF, 44% Rostered): Got the feature last week so I won’t embelish too much. That’s also what Winker figured he’d do over the course of the week, as he batted .300 with a .462 OBP while adding zero homers and steals. On the plus side, he’s got a couple runs and RBIs and that’s…something. Not everybody needs a Heliot Ramos. Some people play in category-based leagues and they need OBP. Maybe those are dynasty leagues and Ramos has been rostered since the pre-Covid era for $1 by Ricky from Accounting. You, meanwhile, took over a team that was abandoned and featured Bobby Bonilla as your starting outfielder. You’re just trying to make a dent in the league to build some reputation and feel a bit less numb after a day slamming your keyboard against the desk (why didn’t they tell you that was part of team building? Seems destructive rather than constructive). ENYWHEY. Winker remains in the top 100 hitters because the league average batting average is like .240. Remember folx: you may personally not like Winker’s .265 average. That’s fine. But right now he’s +3 runs above average in batting average and +5 runs above average in steals. When you roster a guy like Jo Adell (.191 average), you need a guy like Winker to get back to baseline on batting average score. Otherwise, you’re just punting the category, and batting average doesn’t play football.
Jake Irvin (WSH, SP, 8% Rostered): You ever throw 5 quality starts in a row and not get noticed? That’s Jake Irvin right now. Guy’s on the fringe of the Top 100 overall — and is actually SP29 on the year at the time of writing — and he’s free in every league. Over his last 5 starts he’s 3-1 with a 1.48 ERA. Subtracting a blowout against the Dodgers, since May he’s notched a 2.20 ERA with a 3.26 FIP while quietly putting up a 4:1 K:BB ratio. Sure it’s the Nationals and he could throw a no-hitter and still lose by 5 runs. You can’t really control Wins. ERA is kind of manageable. But control? You can’t fake that. Irvin should be rostered in all formats.
I’m the Problem – It’s Me
Justin Verlander (HOU, SP, 100% Rostered): We all want to go out on our own terms. Tom Brady, reportedly, wanted to go out on his own terms so badly that he sacrificed his supermodel wife and family. In return, Brady finished his career with a losing season. For Dark Matter (on Apple TV) fans, there’s a timeline where Brady called it quits in 2020 after winning yet another Super Bowl. There’s a timeline where Brady and Bundchen are still together and we narrate the completion of his career as “he went out on top.” Brady’s still rolling in money, but yeah, there’s some cracks in the shine. Verlander similarly seeks to finish out his illustrious career on top, but it’s just not happening this year. Verlander’s posting the worst swinging strike rates and the second worst barrel rate of the past decade, and the worst HR/9 rate his his career. Fastball velocity? Lowest it’s been since 2016. His SIERA is 4.50 and his FIP is 5.00. That FIP is particularly concerning — it’s the worst it’s been since the start of his career. On top of this, he’s dealing with neck discomfort and missing starts. Verlander can probably still provide value — especially to points leagues — by virtue of playing for the Astros and chalking up Wins over the course of the season. But for everybody else? The signs are there that Verlander’s reign as fantasy MVP is done, and right now, he’s lined up to really hurt your team. It’s best to move on in all formats.
