The Kansas City Royals have been one of the most enigmatic teams in the last few years. Not because they’re small market or because they’ve been a perennial punching bag for the rest of the American League, but because expectations have been on the rise for some time now and they consistently fail to deliver. Once the worst farm system in baseball, the Royals were suddenly flush with all of this great, young talent. We saw the debuts of players like Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas and watched as they added key pieces like Lorenzo Cain and Alcides Escobar. They hadn’t quite put it all together over the last two seasons, but this year, with a revamped rotation, the Royals became darlings in the American League and some even thought they could compete for a wild card this year. But while James Shields and Jeremy Guthrie did their part early on, the hitters failed miserably. The young studs were a disaster and after a modest 14-10 April, things spun out of control as the Royals went 8-20 in May and opened June 1-2. Manager Ned Yost was at a loss. He shuffled the lineup dozens of times without success. They fired their hitting coach and replaced him with the legendary George Brett, hoping that some Royals royalty would jump start the offense. But instead, it was the nerds who got things going for the Royals. Yost put the lineup decision into the hands of the sabermetric boys and the next thing we knew, Kansas City was on a six-game winning streak. Read the rest of this entry »

What do you do when the signs point in different directions? In daily leagues, this can be a huge question. Luckily for Wednesday, there are ample options available, but what about on days where there aren’t?

Today provides a good example of these clashing signals that we have to make a decision from. Case in point:

At game time tomorrow, the temperature in Kansas City is expected to be about 89-degrees, which can significantly impact run scoring in a positive way. In addition, they are anticipating an 18 MPH wind out to right field, a ridiculously helpful boost for hitters, especially lefties.

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Young starting pitchers continue to make their presence known this year. Since the last NL pitcher rankings, owners have seen Tyler Skaggs, Michael Wacha, Gerrit Cole and, soon, Zack Wheeler reach fantasy-relevance. And that’s just in the National League. Some of those players will play major roles on championship-winning teams this year. How should they be valued? Let’s turn to the rankings. This month, I’m using Iron Chefs for the tiers. So, please allow me to introduce a veritable pantheon of baseball giants.

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Sometimes it’s a good thing to leave a draft with holes because then there is no need to think about who to drop when an attractive player appears on free agency. Of course, this is a situation I have never encountered, since all my fantasy teams are always perfect 🙂 But seriously, I literally dropped my starting middle infielder this week in my 12-team mixed league, with no healthy replacement to take his spot, because I simply had to add Hector Santiago for his start against the Astros this week.

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In case the reader was expecting Zach Sanders, he was kind enough to cover the weekend Roto Riteup in exchange for today. This isn’t just a random curveball to keep you on your toes. The reason is one of the present author’s best friends is getting married this weekend. Congratulations Andy and Melissa!

On today’s agenda:
1. Unexpected RBIs from Jonathan Lucroy
2. Jake Odorizzi is called up
3. Thoughts on Mike Zunino
4. Pablo Sandoval to the disabled list
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• Brandon League was very Brandon League last night, giving up four runs en route to his fourth blown save and third loss of the season. The best thing you can say about League’s ERA this year (6.00) is that it’s an even number. The (bad) luck card isn’t usable in this situation either as League’s FIP is 5.15, and with a mere 4.88 K/9, League doesn’t even net your fantasy team any strikeouts. It shouldn’t have taken this long, but finally with all of that said, it appears that Mattingly has named Kenley Jansen his closer.

If you know of a paid league that still has Kenley Jansen available on the wire, please invite me next year. It goes without say that Jansen must be owned and with his strikeout ability, he could be one of the better closers from here on out if he holds onto the job all year. League’s salary or whatever he was doing to hold onto the job for so long with a significant better option on the team could theoretically get him the job back at some point again this season but right now he seems so broken that I have confidence that Jansen runs away with it all year.

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Episode 24
Today’s episode of The Sleeper and the Bust stars yours truly and features RotoGraphs editor Eno Sarris. We discuss another top prospect call-up as well as more closer volatility.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @mikepodhorzer or @enosarris on Twitter and tweet us any fantasy questions you have that we may answer on our next episode.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or via the feed.

Intro by DJ Sinton (no, contrary to popular belief, I do not moonlight as a rap star).

Approximately 46 min of joyous analysis.

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As we near the mid-point of the season, I find myself happily in the mix in all of my ottoneu leagues, including a surprising 4th (I think surprising) in the FanGraphs Experts League. I’m in the top half of the league in six categories (R, SB, W, S, ERA, WHIP) and close in another (RBI), but I am absolutely bottoming out in K, HR, and AVG (10th in each).

My path to improvement is pretty clear – add pop, average, or strike outs. And I have some decent trade options, as well, as I am running away with SB (first place with 88, second has 61), and have a deep enough OF to sustain a loss there.

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There’s nothing like the threat of being sent down to light a fire under a player, and while Kyle Blanks had started his climb out of the depths before he was given his reprieve, Yonder Alonso’s broken hand may yet prove to be the turning point in Blanks’ season.

Simply put, Blanks doesn’t hit well when he doesn’t start. So far this season, Blanks has come into the game as a sub in 12 of the 41 games he has played in. In those 12 games, Blanks has hit .182/.250/.273 without a single home run or even an RBI; if he isn’t in the starting line up, he isn’t providing any type of fantasy value. If he does start, Blanks hits .311/.395/.538 with all six of his home runs, 21 RBI, and a stolen base for good measure, and this is where Alonso’s injury comes into play. Read the rest of this entry »

Hector Santiago deserves a full write-up on one fact alone: he throws a screwball. Other than Daniel Herrera — the short former Red and Met with floppy hair that hasn’t seen the majors or minors since 2012 — there’s really nobody who can claim the pitch. And with Herrera MIA, well, there can be only one. Now that Jake Peavy is down for at least six weeks with trunk issues, there’s even more reason to take a look at the new-former-new-former White Sox starter.

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