When I hear people say, “No one cares about your fantasy team,” I always want to meekly chime in that I, indeed, care about your fantasy team. I want to discuss your near misses and your debates. I want to celebrate those of us who own Jesse Winker in at least one league, especially if OBP is a category.
I play in one league where there are a couple of category shifts: AVG became OBP, SV became SVHD, W became QS. This has been a fascinating perspective shift for me and might be something to discuss given that the highest average of any MLB player is currently what? .230? The Mendoza Line was never meant to be what batters aspire to. And yet.
Anyway, I do care about people’s fantasy teams and fantasy stories. I explained to someone yesterday that I love to “give advice to people about something I sort of know about while their decisions have no actual impact on my life.” (I basically never miss being a therapist, but apparently, little bits and pieces of it hung around.)
I have been thoroughly participating in the FantasyPros Discord channel for the past week and it makes me happy and engaged. (When I excitedly told Peaches about my discovery, she reacted in a way that said, “I’m so happy you’ve found friends!” as though I’m some recluse. Later I just realized she was very excited that I found other people with whom to constantly discuss the xwBAA of Tarik Skubal.)
Is this how people who play group video games feel? Probably… except this particular channel explicitly forbids rampant misogyny, homophobia, racism, etc. I suppose that’s a huge difference.
You should check it out if you’re interested or bored with the mundane world of it being 91 degrees every day. However, if you do join and start making HR calls and catch me, I will force a team trade of your best pitcher to me for C.J. Cron. I’m the commissioner. Don’t make me pull this car over!
PLAYERS OF THE WEEK!!!
All Patrick Wisdom does is hit home runs so he sits atop the Player Rater this week… and also sits on our waiver wire because we ain’t falling for no banana in the tailpipe with regard to a guy coming up and launching 8 million home runs until teams realize he can’t, like, hit a changeup or something. I saw a post on Twitter about all these former Cardinals floating around. Randy Arozarena, Adolis Garcia, Luke Voit, Patrick Wisdom… I’d question what they were possibly thinking but they are currently getting a monthly paycheck from the Rockies for the hard work of playing Nolan Arenado so whatever. (My apologies for the reminder, Nic.)
It will absolutely shock you to know that the pitcher of the week is Jacob deGrom. Which insane stat would you like today? He has a 0.62 ERA. About 45% of batters he faces strike out. His change-up is 90 mph and is, in fact, a change. This same pitch drops THIRTY inches on its way to the plate. He’s thrown a curveball exactly 3 times on the season and I’m thoroughly convinced it was only because he got bored a couple times. He is absolutely must-see TV if you care at all about pitching. I’m sure I’ll be back next Monday to tell you more about him.
Have a good week, everyone!
Knuckles Report: Week 9
