WorstBall
One of the risks we knew we would encounter when signing up for this WorstBall format is starting to come to fruition. We may be celebrating the best of the worst, the sultans of suck, but real MLB teams would probably not be as thrilled as we are that their pitchers are ending more plate appearances with home runs than strikeouts, or that their hitters are mired in an 0-for-17 slump with 10 strikeouts and no walks. The sad truth is, many of our best players will not be able to be performing at their “best” all season long, and teams have finally started to make the adjustments we feared they would. We lost the following incredible players this week:
Erik Stamets, he was the third-ranked hitter when he was demoted to AAA.
Daniel Palka, went hitless in his first 34 at-bats and got demoted the same day he got his first hit.
JT Riddle, all you need to know is that he couldn’t manage to stay on the Marlins’ big-league roster.
Cedric Mullins, who has posted an OPS+ of -7. I didn’t even know that number could go negative.
Corbin Burnes, gave up 11 home runs in 17.2 IP with a 10.70 ERA, and is now down in AAA.
Nick Pivetta, no more need be said.
Mike Wright, who got DFA’d by the Orioles. Sure, he has a 9.45 ERA this year, but he had a career 5.75 ERA coming into this season so I’m not really sure what they were expecting.
We’ll pour one out for all our fallen heroes. Gone, but never forgotten. Also, some of them will certainly get another stint in the majors this year, and you know we’ll be racing to pick them up. Now let’s get on to the more uplifting stuff, the weekly awards!
Hitter of the Week: Jorge Soler, Dark Knight Falls, 49 points. People have been calling Soler a sleeper for so long that I think he may have just fallen asleep at the plate. 12 strikeouts in 24 at-bats? Yikes.
Pitcher of the Week: Trevor Cahill, BuckFarmersOnly.com, 59.33 points. He never made it past the fifth inning, going 0-1 this week in two starts totaling 8.1 IP, with 9 earned runs, 5 home runs allowed, a wild pitch, and a hit batsman.
Golden Nugget of the Week: We’re getting a bit better at this whole WorstBall thing, as no one had a batter who put up a negative point total for the Week 3 matchup. We are still a bit rough around the edges when it comes to pitching though, as we had multiple contenders for this award, but ultimately it goes to Sam Gaviglio, of all people, as he had two excellent relief appearances last week for a total of negative 28 points. Luckily, Ben Palmer (who started Gaviglio) lost by over 100 points to his opponent so Gaviglio was just rubbing salt in the wound.
Wasted Player of the Week: I’m not even sure this guy was actually the best player not on a roster, but there’s nothing funnier to me than Steven Matz having, by far, the worst outing of any pitcher this season, and being on Justin Paradis’ bench. Matz put up 45 points without recording a single out, allowing 6 earned runs and 2 hit batsmen. For the hitters, the winner was Rhys Hoskins, who was buoyed by a magnificent performance last Monday as he scored 19.5 points in one game! That was 0/5, with 4 strikeouts, a caught stealing, and an error.
As always, if you’re interested in more WorstBall, follow us on Twitter. We like to start every day with Your Morning Deuce (my pick for the worst starting pitcher of the day).
Beat the Waiver Wire
I definitely had a great bounce-back week after a rough 2-7-1 loss, as this week I actually managed again to win four categories! For the third week in a row, I won both pitching ratio categories, and with four wins and three saves, I was able to tie the former and win the latter category. Now for hitting, you probably think that I won the ratio category again through sheer luck or some stupid strategy. The truth is, I managed to hit 11 home runs to my opponent’s measly four! Maikel Franco, Jesse Winker, and Daniel Vogelbach each hit two home runs, and that was enough to get me the win in that category and get me an almost-tie overall. My record now sits at 10-18-2, and I’m in ninth place, but I’ll take my small victories wherever I can get them.
I had a great week (in my opinion) playing the waiver wire, probably my best week overall. I picked up three pitchers with high ceilings in Pablo Lopez, Nathan Eovaldi, and Luke Weaver, and also grabbed three hitters who I think can be mainstays on my roster all year long. The one I’m most excited for is Christian Walker, who I think is the real deal, but I’m also hopeful that I can get 15-15 from Niko Goodrum and that Brandon Nimmo can build on last season’s 17 home run, .263 average season.
Let me know what you guys think of my roster!
Grand Theft Baseball
I’m going to keep it short and sweet this week, as we are slowly building up to the exciting weeks of big unprotected lists. This was our last week with only five unprotected players, and we’ll be ramping up to seven unprotected players for the next three matchups. For the first week all season, we didn’t have any ties, meaning all the winners got to straight up steal and didn’t have to essentially trade thefts. Starting this week, I’ll be including how many times the winning owner has had the privilege of stealing a player, so we can see as the season goes on who has had the opportunity to build a really strong roster.
Dave Fisher (2) stole Max Fried from Daniel Port
Hunter Denson (3) stole Stephen Piscotty from Austin Perodeau
Nathan Mills (3) stole Wade Davis from Brandon Lundberg
David Fenko (2) stole Jimmy Nelson from Myles Nelson
Dave Cherman (1) stole Joc Pederson from Dan Wist
This was the second week in a row that Stephen Piscotty had been stolen, and he’s the only player who’s been taken more than once so far.
Featured Image by Justin Paradis (@FreshMeatComm on Twitter)