With the third day of the MLB season comes the first day of change to the MLB Game Day Recap. The previous format was a wee bit too long and monotonous so the adjustments need to be made. Consider this a parallel to a starter making the necessary adjustments the third time through the lineup. Goodbye format, we hardly knew you.
Climbing Up
Paul DeJong absolutely mashed today and is climbing up in ownership trends. A homer to lead off the 2nd, a homer to lead off the 4th, and even two walks; Paul did it all today! This is the type of all around performance the Cardinals have been quietly expecting around once a week from DeJong. In a year where the shortstop class is super deep, fantasy managers are conditioned to forget about players like Paul. There are only so many starting spots on a roster, but buy some stock in DeJong nonetheless. Each season brings a breakout star at each position that is unexpected, and by-golly Paul DeJong certainly is on the short list to end up as that guy.
Letdown
The Cleveland Indians started the season with two losses to Detroit. Sure, the Indians are no longer a team that is going to wow, but damn, Detroit is objectively terrible. The Tribe’s offense has been putrid this year, so to say it in other words, this team cannot perform offensively without Francisco Lindor. Yes, yes, I know, it has only been two games, but it’s the Tigers! Matt Boyd and Julio Teheran are not supposed allow a combined one run over 9.0 innings. Gregory Soto and Bryan Garcia are not supposed to get back to back saves. Derek Holland and Michael Fulmer are not supposed to go back to back innings in relief successfully. Both looking like they cannot score and they’re in mid season form, Cleveland just has not found a way to score runs. It is going to be a rough year in Cleveland if this keeps up.
Who’s Hot
Yermin Mercedes is on absolute fire. This man can do no wrong since he made his first start yesterday. He went 5 for 5 on Friday, so he follows it up with a 3 for 4 today. Hot and cold streaks to start a season are always taken with a grain of salt, but this one has feel good story written all over it. Naturally we know Yermin Mercedes won’t hit .875, but the league will be rooting for it happen. Every fan will be rooting for it happen too, because players like Yermin are why we watch the game. Please keep this up big man, we are all rooting for you.
Who’s Not
Carlos Correa is slashing .231/.300/.300, which is awful. It’s only 3 games into the season so anyone can right the ship quickly, but where is the power? There is only one extra base hit in there and it was a meager double. Well, one might say a double in 3 games isn’t exactly the slowest start, but when the entire Astros offense averages over 8 runs per game it sure is. This is not a good start for the free agent to be, however there may be a glimmer of hope. That glimmer of hope is that these games were all on the road against Oakland, so odds are it is just one bad series and he’ll find a way to start bang ’em out at home.
The Emilio Bonifacio Award
Garrett Cooper hit blastoff today against a Tampa Bay starting staff that was unhittable to start the season. Cooper had an RBI single, RBI double, RBI reached on error, and RBI home run. That’s a bunch of RBIs if I do say so myself. One could also say that the entire Marlins offense was Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper, dropping 12 runs en route to a 12-7 win. Man I loved Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper and desperately wanted to shoehorn in that reference. Congrats Garrett, this is your first of hopefully many Bonifacio Awards to end up on your mantle.
The James Shields Award
The award is given to every pitcher who goes beyond 6.0 IP in game. That’s the only qualification, and just like the majority of James Shields career, this award is correlated to success on the field but not necessarily the cause of it. Today’s winners are Zack Wheeler who was filthy disgusting allowing only one base runner, a single, over 7.0 innings striking out 10. Look at how filthy Wheeler was. There also is Corbin Burnes who went 6.1 in Milwaukee, including 6.0 no hit innings, but also allowed a solo homer to Byron Buxton while striking out 11. Today both of these starts are correlated to being very, very good starts. Today was a good James Shields day.
The Brad Lidge Award
When one thinks about not getting the job done out of the bullpen, one thinks about Brad Lidge. Lidge was an excellent pitcher over the course of his career, however he will always be remembered as the guy Albert Pujols owned so bad he struggled for an entire season afterwards. A pitcher does not want to win this bad boy award as it means they were in fact a bad boy on the field. Tonight’s co-winners are Josh Sborz and John King. Neither are closers in name, but they combined for 7 earned runs over 1.0 IP and earned both a loss and a blown save in the process. Those were not good outings boys, be better.
Conclusion
Well, hello new format, here we come on the Mercedes train, with the hood scream “We on our way”. The White Sox certainly were screaming “We on our Way” as they nabbed their first win of the season while the entirety of baseball fans root for Yermin. It’s going to be really fun season if the daily topic is always Yermin Mercedes. To end each article, I will be doing a quick deep dive on Google images to see what the best combination of baseball and a certain thing is. Today’s thing is Mercedes and baseball is always baseball, so I’ll leave you with is beautiful image.
Goodnight.
- Follow James on Twitter @whatmoney3000 for his deep league dynasty rankings and all his live takes before you skim this article.
