Lee or Volquez?

Video courtesy of TomtheRipper407

There is one person The Jon loathes.
He is an egotistical, self-righteous blowhard and he doesn’t listen to anything but his own voice. But still, you put FreeSanJose and The Jon together and it’s gold. So c’mon FreeSanJose, arguing with The Jon will make you famous and it is time to get down to business.

Look, The Jon always seems to have all the answers, and for the most part it is true. But there are times The Jon questions himself to the point where he rocks back and forth in a four cornered room staring at candles.

Now is one of those times. The Jon can’t decide between keeping Cliff Lee or Edison Volquez.

Pitcher’s duel

It started off sweetly enough. The Oz e-mailed The Jon saying how much he respected The Jon and wished he could be like The Greatness … but it quickly turned ugly.

One bitter fantasy player with only one title talking about his poor excuse for a pitching staff to the best Fantasy Baseballer of all time … Like The Oz could ever be the champ that The Jon is with his sorry excuse he calls pitching.

Come to think of it, The Oz has always been a Magnum T.A. to The Jon’s Ric Flair. And so has his pitching staff.

Read on and judge for yourself …

Fantasy baseball frustration: See C.C. lose

TheBaseballStarsNote: We will look at the players that have been disappointments on our respective teams. Obviously Newspaperman has no disappointments because he is the Michael Jordan of baseball. Third up to bat is FreeSanJose and the debacle known as C.C. Sabathia How do we hat thee Sabathia? Let’s find out. Enjoy.

I suppose there were signs. The way he wears his hat just a little askew. The fact that he’s from Vallejo. The insistence on going by a pair of initials, rather than his actual name.
But come on, tell me there’s a more disappointing player so far this year than one C.C. Sabathia. To be fair, there are plenty of highly drafted players that have so far underperformed expectations, but good ol’ CC is in a category all to himself. Four outings and not one that looks remotely like the starts he strung together last year. He’s sporting an ERA only seen by late-season call-ups and relievers. He’s given up nine runs TWICE.

I’ll go one step further: I can’t imagine any player, ever, being a bigger disappointment than C.C.

The Tale of Jack Mother F-ing Cust

The one or two of you who were reading our site last year may remember my love affair with one Jack Cust. His out-of-nowhere performance earned him the nickname Jack Mother Fucking Cust. For the purpose of last year, I based that on his sometimes out-of-this-world performances. His 13-game stretch that introduced him to fantasy players everywhere that included eight homers and 20 RBI. His seven RBI outburst against the Tigers. His .912 OPS, 26 homers and 86 RBI in just 395 at-bats.

But, as we all know, it wasn’t all roses for JFMC. He managed to lead the league in strikeouts (164) and had several long bouts of complete ineffectiveness (two RBIs over one 24-game stretch, another eight-game stretch with 0 RBI and two other 6-plus game stretches without an RBI).

Which brings us to today. Cust has 5 RBI, just five hits and one homer so far this year.

Draft advice: Top 20 Starting pitchers

Every league has a pitching guru. Not to toot my own horn, but more times than not, I proudly proclaim that mantle. Once upon a time, I insisted on keeping five pitchers. But even I know that’s not a sound strategy. I prefer to take one or two studs early and fill in my staff with high-upside hurlers on the young side of 30 who are capable of becoming dominant. I’ll leave low-WHIP, low-ERA, low-K, low-risk guys for someone else. Our rankings largely reflect that philosophy. Although The BaseballStars had a pretty wide level of varience — some of our top-10 pitchers didn’t even appear on everyone’s top-20 list — I would feel perfectly comfortable following this list straight down.

The Jon’s five most overrated players

Fantasy baseball writers like to feel special. They like to make bold predictions of players that will breakout so they can puff out their chest and tell a faceless community that they told you so. You won’t get that from The Jon. What you got here is a champ. The Jon gets results and trophies. With top three finishes for the past 5 seasons and a championship just this past year, The Jon doesn’t need bold predictions. Just results. So without further to do, here are the five most overrated players this season.

Carl Crawford: It’s a broken record. Check out this sight long enough and you will know the quasi-love-hate relationship The Jon has for Carl Crawford.