Sportsthodoxy's 2016 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers

Every year there are guys who go undrafted at the start of the season who wind up being difference makers in fantasy baseball down the stretch. And every year, dozens of fantasy baseball publications try to identify these guys, allowing their readers to have an edge going into their drafts. Of course, since all of these publications tag the exact same guys as sleepers, their names get splashed all over the place and they're no longer sleepers because everyone knows about that, That's why we at Sportsthodoxy are taking a slightly different approach to our fantasy sleepers. Specifically, we recommend you run out and get:

Who are the Biogenesis Thirteen?

So here's the list of players suspended on Monday by MLB for their part in the Biogenesis affair:

• Alex Rodriguez
• Nelson Cruz
• Jhonny Peralta
• Everth Cabrera
• Antonio Bastardo
• Jordanny Valdespin
• Jesus Montero
• Francisco Cervelli
• Cesar Puello
• Fernando Martinez
• Sergio Escalona
• Fautino De Los Santos
• Jordan Norberto

If you're not a baseball fan, you've heard of one of these guys: A-Rod. If you're a casual fan, you may have heard of a couple more. Cruz was an All-Star this year, and has shown up on endless blooper reels for the way he played outfield in the World Series a couple of years ago. Peralta and Cabrera were also All-Stars, middle infielders with a bit of sock and a lot of speed, respectively. But one played in Detroit, where he was overshadowed by Miggy and Prince and Verlander, and the other played in San Diego, where no national reporter has dared set foot since Tony Gwynn retired. So, semi-famous at best.

Things A-Rod Was Not Responsible For, No Matter What The NY Post Tells You

By  now, we have all learned the truth: Yankees third baseman is in fact history's greatest monster, and there is no bottom limit to his depravity. He has mouthed off on Twitter. He has failed to inform his bosses as to his whereabouts. He has failed to be Derek Jeter. And, if you believe the Bill Madden types of the world, he is morally equivalent to a crime boss who killed at least 19 people, subverted the FBI and spent decades on the lam. But as we wait for the pitchfork-wielding mob to storm his penthouse apartment and bestow upon him the end he so richly deserves, we should remind ourselves that there are still a few crimes that have been committed by others. For all of his black-hearted, relentless evil, A-Rod did not yet:

• Vandalize the Lincoln Memorial
• Get an OB-GYN to clear him to play baseball
• Commission a painting of himself as Pikachu
• Talk Disney into buying Times Square
• Provide morning-after gift baskets for his sexual conquests
• Get a third-year med school student to clear him to play baseball
• Cause the managers to run out of pitchers at the 2002 All Star Game
• Ride a fixed-gear bike through Brooklyn complaining about all the goddamn hipsters in their Mini Coopers
• Deny that he's down with the Bronies
• Have Cameron Diaz feed him anything Andrew Zimmern would eat while watching a game in a luxury box
• Do a guest appearance on Hillbilly Handfishing
• Write the ending to Mass Effect 3. He did, however, refuse to play a FemShep because Jason Giambi made fun of him.
• Do a guest appearance on Storage Wars: NY, where he attempted to buy a locker with some cute adirondack chairs but ultimately got outbid by a hairy guy named "Vito" from Staten Island
• Hook up with an attractive woman from the stands to "play doctor" and then have her clear him to play baseball
• Help overthrow the rightfully elected government of the Comoros with an army of 16 geriatric mercenaries (which, to be fair, does sound like the Yankees' roster at this point)
• Steal a box of Thin Mints out of Ichiro's locker and claim it was totally Travis Hafner who did it
• Much of anything this year

A Dozen Burning Sports Questions, Answered

A-Rod vs. Brian Cashman - actual footage

Sports talk radio is mainly in the business of chewing cud, which is to say taking simple stories and gnawing on them endlessly until they're bland, mushy, and possibly in the digestive tract of a cow. With that in mind, here's Sportsthodoxy's official take on some of the most contentious issues out there - and by "contentious", we mean "taking up the most on-air segments right now"

Q: Should Dodgers rookie outfielder Yasiel Puig be an NL All-Star, despite only having a month in the major leagues?
A: Yes. Because the all-star rosters are slightly larger than my graduating class from high school so he won't be bumping anyone "worthy", and since All-Star games are designed to pique fan interest, it makes sense to put the most interesting guy in baseball in there. Also: Roger Pavlik, All-Star.

He Should Have Sent A Gift Basket, Cause That's Classy

There is a boring story, and there is an interesting story.
The boring story is this: hand and wrist injuries beat the holy hell out of your power. Alex Rodriguez is fresh off just that sort of injury, and as such, he is not hitting at all well precisely when the Yankees need him most. He is not alone in this on the Yankees' roster, but unlike, say, the case of Robinson Cano, the Yankees actually have a backup for A-Rod who can play a little, in the form of the spiderweb-fragile Eric Chavez. And so it makes sense, in an effort to jump-start a legendarily horrific post-season offense, for Joe Girardi to switch out a few parts and maybe see if he can get something rolling. And that's how A-Rod ends up on the bench.
The interesting story is this: A-Rod got pinch-hit for, and because he's such a prima donna and likes having himself painted as a centaur and he's not a team guy, he immediately turned around and passed a baseball to a coupla hot chicks in the stands trying to score some digits rather than do the officially sanctioned stand-on-top-steps-of-dugout-and-look-intense that you're supposed to do when you've been removed from the game. This violation of the unwritten rules of baseball (which sure do get written about a lot, don't they?) has called down the wrath of A-Rod's manager Joe Girardi and his GM Brian Cashman, who, despite ignoring or flat-out denying that Hot Chick Ball Gate (or whatever we're calling it) is the issue, clearly have decided that Hot Chick Ball Gate is the issue. Also, they're going to trade him to the Marlins, who love taking on older players and salary.
One is logical, one is not. One has been flat-out denied by the parties involved, one has not. One is salacious and fits into the ongoing "Whatever A-Rod does is wrong" narrative, one does not.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out which one people are going with. It's just a little sad that the choice wasn't a little harder.