Week 9 ass hDles - I cant quit you, baby

I may be addicted to Sweedish Fish.  When I walk into a Kwik Trip for any reason, it is almost a primordial urge to walk over to that section of the store and take that yellow bag full of little, red, deliciously chewy herring dopelgangers off the post where it hangs.  I know they arent good for me, and they certainly arent doing my weight any favors (not that I am looking to lose a bunch of weight or anything like that, but bags of gummy candy arent exactly celery sticks), but they are so ridculously mouth watering that I cannot resist.  A bag rarely lasts more than an hour.  I am to the point where I sometimes hope that the store is out of them when I go so that I dont have to try to summon the willpower to leave the store without them (and I am able to do it most of the time, I just stare at the fishes for a minute or two and then tell myself no, sometimes out loud, and walk away.  And no, I have never gotten any silly looks from other KT patrons, why do you ask?).

I have a feeling that Dusty and Zach feel that way about our two ass HDLes this week.  Both are name brand, MLB award winning players who had a lot of buzz around them coming into the season, who have struggled mightily.  Both players have such a great talent level that you dont want to take them out of the lineup in case that is the week that they turn things around, yet both have been seriously hurting their fantasy (and real life) teams by remaining in the lineup.  So finally, at least for the next couple of weeks, Dusty can quit Wil Myers and Zach can quit Carlos Gonzalez.

OF Wil Myers-
After hitting 293/354/478 with 13 HRs in 88 games and winning the American League rookie of the year award last season and being one of the most hyped super prospects in the last 10 years, Myers came into his second season with extremely high expectations.  Dusty paid $33 for him at auction, right in line with guys like Justin Upton ($35), Giancarlo Stanton ($34), and Carlos Gomez ($34).  Oops.  Myers hit the DL on May 31st with a stress fracture in his right wrist that will sideline him for at least 2 months.  He takes his 227/313/354 slash line  in 53 gameswith him.  Last season Myers OPSed 32% better than the league average, this year he is 11% under  His strikeout rate looks similar and he is walking more often, but his BABIP is 80 points lower than last year and his line drive rate is down as well.  Simply put, Myers is getting a bit unlucky with balls finding holes, but he is not helping by not hitting the ball hard.  He has been particularly bad over the last 2 weeks, hitting 118/360/294, but Dusty has started him every week thus far.  On Dusty's bench as a replacement sits Josh Willingham, who has hit 333/552/727 in those same last 2 weeks.  Myers injury gives Dusty the reason to remove the name brand Myers and put in Willingham, who actually is hitting.  Great, that is just what the rest of us need, another good hitter in Dusty's lineup.


OF Carlos Gonzalez
So award winning might be a stretch...he did win a Silver Slugger and finish 3rd in the MVP voting in 2010..so theres that.  What he has done is hit 20+ HRs and steal 20+ bases in each of the last 4 seasons all while hitting .295 or better.  CarGo always has injury concerns, but this season feels different than the last 4.  Gonzalez hit the DL on Wednesday with "left pointer finger inflammation."  I have played a lot of baseball, I have even played with jammed and broken fingers that would definitely fall under the 'inflammation' category and it has never taken multiple weeks for this to heal.  To me, it sounds like a convenient reason to get him out of the lineup for a couple of weeks and hope it clears his head.  CarGo is nearly halfway to his PA total from a year ago, when he was one of the best hitters in the National League (OPS+ 144 with a 302/367/591 slash), yet he is only hitting 255/307/449 for an OPS+ of 95.  The past 2 weeks have been particularly atrocious (091/200/227).  Part of that is injury, but I cannot help but think another factor is something else that isnt being disclosed. Baseball is a funny sport like that.  Once things start going badly, they can compound quickly.  For someone as good as CarGo, they usually dont but that doesnt mean they never will.  We have seen streaky CarGo before, but Gonzalez is playing so poorly right now that he has a -0.4 WAR according to Baseball Reference, meaning that the Rockies would be better off playing a AAA replacement player so far this season.  Zach was able to get all this amazing offensive production for a mere $60 at auction, aka tied for the 4th most money paid for a single player this season.  Probably not what he was hoping for.   Getting him out of the lineup and replacing him with Shin-Soo Choo and his 275/414/434 slash will only make the ZAttack better.

I couldnt care less about the Myers situation as I have no vested interest in him or the Rays, but the CarGo down slide hurts.  I have mentioned before that I am all in on the 2014 Rox, but I have been a huge fan of CarGo since he was coming up in the Diamondbacks system as a 19 year old.playing in the Single A Midwest league and I saw him against the Kane County Cougars (the local minor league team by where I grew up).  He was so much better than everyone else it was ridiculous...like they had let a Major Leagure come down and play with Single A...or what I imagine a minor league rehab assignment looks like, only CarGo was only 19.  I am sure that he will bounce back and be the world beating hitting machine that he is, I am just not ready or willing to put a time frame on that.

Anyways, enjoy the weekend.


OOOOH one more thing...Our anonymous German friend continues to visit us about 3 times a week, which I think qualifies him or her as an actual follower of the blog, making us Bi-national.  And for that we say "Thanks friend".  I would still love if he or she would leave a comment, but I understand if he or she doesnt.  This week, we got a hit from the Ukraine.  We will see if the Ukrainian comes back and we can hit multinational status.