Life is hard. It comes with a lot of tough decisions and a lot of tough questions that don’t have easy answers. We are humans, and we will make mistakes, and we should forgive ourselves for those. I’ve been dealing with a lot of this philosophical life stuff recently, and it’s been difficult.

I’m talking, of course, about Brad Miller, and it seems I’m not alone, as the baseball community remains puzzled by an important visceral question: is Brad Miller any good?
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The Oakland Athletics indirectly piqued the interest of astute fantasy owners – and Mike Podhorzer – with the preseason news that they planned to slot John Jaso at DH regularly in order to help him to maintain his health. Naturally, this carried other implications, the primary of which is that right-handed-hitting catcher Derek Norris appeared to be in line for a spike in playing time.

The A’s seemed to dash hopes of fantasy owners in deep leagues, but only briefly. By the end of spring training, they’d elected to go with Daric Barton at first base and to relegate Brandon Moss to DH. That arrangement meant more time behind the plate for Jaso and less time for Norris, period, initially. Barton failed to impress at the dish after less than a month and a half, so he and his plus mitt were designated for assignment. Thus, the excitement about Norris was on again.

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I couldn’t get to all the position players where my rank was significantly different than the consensus, and mostly because there are so many dang outfielders. So Tonto, let’s jump on it.

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Hard to believe we’re already in the second half of June, but as the bats heat up — and the injuries pile up — finding quality arms off the scrap heap can be a challenge. Fortunately, we have two NL-only candidates this week who offer intriguing upside and offer help for those looking to plug rotation holes.
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Today is the next installing of my updated Pod’s Picks, comparing my rank versus the other three RotoGraphers. We’re now up to the second basemen, of which the consensus rankings published two weeks ago can be found here. I’ll generally only consider those second basemen that I ranked within the top 20 for the bullish category and those the rest of the crew ranked in the top 20 for the bearish category.

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We just finished ranking week (find them easily on the right-hand nav bar), and since I’m apparently a masochist, I’m going to jump right back in and examine where I was different from the consensus. We’ll do as many positions as possible today — I’ll focus on those players that are most differently positioned in my rankings — before checking out the pitchers.

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A couple months ago, I told you it was too early to worry about Justin Masterson. Well, we are more than half-way through June now and if I wasn’t worried before, I am now.

Dropping velocity, a lot of walks, and some bad batted ball luck were major factors in Masterson’s slow start, and all three continue to be an issue. But the walks are the real cause for concern.

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Today I continue on updating my Pod’s Picks, comparing my rank versus the other three RotoGraphers. We moved on to the first basemen this time, of which the consensus rankings were published two weeks ago. I’ll generally only consider those first baseman I ranked within the top 20 for the bullish category and those the rest of the crew ranked in the top 20 for the bearish category.

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Episode 129

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is now live! Special guest Larry Schechter, author of “Winning Fantasy Baseball,” joins Nicholas Minnix to discuss Sergio Romo, the Rays’ bullpen, the Cubs’ bullpen, Jesse Hahn, Vance Worley, the effect of Miguel Gonzalez’s return on Kevin Gausman, Oscar Taveras, Eugenio Suarez, Gio Gonzalez’s return, Shane Victorino’s return, left field for the Red Sox, Jeff Samardzija, and the Royals’ offense.

As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us or comment with fantasy questions so that we may answer them on our next episode.

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First and foremost I’d like to wish all my fellow dads a Happy Father’s Day. If possible, sit down, put your feet up, grab a cold one and enjoy the nice slate of games on Sunday. You’ve earned it.

Now on to a few bullpen notes from around the league after Saturday’s games:

–Jonathan Papelbon fanned two of the three Cubs he faced on Saturday en route to his 15th save of the season. The successful conversion moves the veteran right-hander into sole possession of 24th place on the all-time saves list in the majors with 301. On that list, Papelbon is third among active closers behind Joe Nathan (354) and Francisco Rodriguez (324). It’s still amazing to me that the combined ninth-inning achievements of Francisco Rodriguez and Jonathan Papelbon (324 + 301 = 625 saves) would still fall short of the all-time leader, Mariano Rivera, by 27 saves.
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