So after a month of silence in discussing my Razzball team, I’m back again with an update on everyone’s favorite league. The last true standings were posted on May 16th and can be found here. If you are unable to squint or read like 2 pt font, then you couldn’t see that despite my pitching staff not realizing they are being paid to suck, I was actually in 5th place out of 10 teams. My ERA was 3.73 at the time (or does it say 3.78? wayyyy too small to be sure) and my WHIP was 1.27.

Fast forward 2 weeks and I’m proud to share with all of you that my ERA has finally shot above 4.00, and now stands at 4.13. My WHIP has followed suit, currently settling in at 1.31. Unfortunately, those ERA and WHIP numbers are still only good for 3 and 1 point(s) in the standings, respectively, but I’m inching closer and closer to the teams ahead of me in those 2 categories. On the positive side, I lead the league in innings pitched (a good thing in this league), am tied for 1st in HRs allowed, and 3rd in losses, which is just as I had planned as part of my strategy to load up on innings. And for those of you itching to know, yes I still own Cliff Lee, and yes, I’m still starting him! It looks like he’s finally coming back to Earth, and I couldn’t bench him this week for a start in Texas against the Rangers.

On the hitting side, it’s tough to tell exactly where I fall right now but it seems like I’m in the middle of the pack in total offensive points. I’m kind of lagging behind in ABs because of some injuries, but my guys are now back so I should be back on the pace soon enough if I had fallen behind at all.

What actually got me to posting an update today was that I did a whole “spring cleaning” to my roster yesterday as I made 7 transactions. I thought it would be fun to share what I did. First was an add/drop on the hitting side, as Erick Aybar is on the DL and was in my MI slot. I dropped him, but had a difficult time finding anyone who was actually getting ABs while still being bad. I settled on Luis Maza who has been getting some playing time while Furcal has been on the DL and Chin-lung Hu has struggled. He should be a nice contributor across the Razzball board, although probably won’t help me in strikeouts, but I’m doing poorly in that category anyway and didn’t expect to do well given my hitting strategy.

My pitching moves were the real star attraction of my cleanup effort as I added 6, yes 6, starters. I dropped 4 pitchers who were either sent to the minors or recently designated for assignment, while a 5th was just moved to the bullpen. The 6th drop was Jorge Cantu who was sitting on my bench and not as bad as I expected. So without further ado, these were the 6 pitchers I added yesterday, with comments on each:

Homer Bailey- As soon as I read on Rotoworld that he is the favorite to be called up to face the Phillies on Thursday, I rushed over to the league to add him. To be honest, I was actually surprised I got him as several teams in the league are quite quick at adding guys. His minor league skill set still has not caught up to his top prospect status and the hype that had surrounded him, he was horrible in his cup of coffee last year, and he’s facing one of the best offenses in baseball. I am salivating at the prospect of a Razztastic start this week.

Armando Galarraga- A 4.80 xFIP, but a 3.44 ERA? A 33/22 K/BB ratio and .201 BABIP means that ERA is sure to meet that xFIP sooner or later. I’m just hoping now that with Dontrelle’s return, he could stick in the rotation long enough to do some damage to my stats.

Joe Saunders- Whaaaaa?? Joe Saunders, the same pitcher who has a 2.76 ERA and 1.09 WHIP, in a league where you want to own bad pitchers? Thaaaat’s right! Besides the fact that fewer strikeouts are better in this league, and Saunders is fantastic at not getting strikeouts, he’s been one of the luckiest pitchers in baseball so far. His xFIP is 4.51, but that low ERA is being held down by an unsustainable .237 BABIP, 82% LOB% and 7.5% HR/F. So, in other words, he’s been on the lucky side of every single luck metric. And looking at his history, he isn’t someone who’s done this before where you might conclude he is one of the exceptions. I look forward to having him on my staff for the coming blowups that are sure to occur.

Josh Banks- This was an easy one. A fly ball pitcher who doesn’t strike out anyone, coupled with an unspectacular minor league career and only 24 2/3 innings at the major league level. A 0.00 ERA in 17 innings so far this year just means even more regression to the mean, and craptacular stats for my team!

Greg Smith- If only I had picked him up before his last start. Another fly ball pitcher with an unexciting minor league track record, he actually does have decent peripherals so far this season. His ERA is still over his head though, and I’d like to be the beneficiary when it rises over 4.

Darrell Rasner- Another fly ball pitcher (notice a theme here?) who has pretty good control and that’s about it. I can’t imagine his ERA remaining below 4 all year.

What’s interesting about some of the above pitchers is that they are basically the equivalent of a “buy low” in real leagues. They have good surface ERAs, but those low ERAs are unsupported by each pitcher’s skill set. In stock market terms, this would be like “shorting”, which is actualy betting on a stock’s decline, just like I’m betting on the above pitchers’ decline.

Unfortunately I don’t have an update on the current true standings, but hopefully these will be posted soon so I could share them with you (hint, hint Grey and Rudy, how about weekly updates???).

Questions, comments, criticisms, praise, expert league invitations? Email me at FBGeneralsMike@gmail.com.