Heckling at the Fantasy Ball Park

“Hope you like batteries, cause you’re going back to Triple A!”

It’s Crackerjack day at the ballpark tomorrow. This is not to be confused with the delicious 7th inning snack, it’s instead that I’ll (@clavejones) will be heading to Target Field tomorrow with fellow Crackerjacks Nash (@Nash1025) and Eric (@ERolfPleiss) to catch the Twins play the Royals.

We’ll be sure to Tweet highlights, but we’re also ready to shout some good heckles as we cheer for our home team. It’s no secret that both the Twins and Royals have some fantasy baseball under-performers – Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, and Josh Willingham, among others – and a good ‘ole fashioned heckle may be the best way to light a fire under them.

Rather than go player-by-player and seed you with zingers, I’m going to leave the creative heckling largely in your hands. Have a couple beers at the ballpark. Trust me, yelling something ridiculous is sure to follow after that. Instead, I’ll focus on the game’s two projected starters – Wade Davis and Kyle Gibson – and offer a couple fantasy thoughts, but more importantly, share some words that are sure to motivate their performance.

With Davis and Gibson on the bump, starting with some heckles for our event’s starters makes sense. For those of you who have fantasy teams that project low in pitching scoring categories, you need these heckles to work out. Give ’em all you got.

Wade Davis is a better pitcher out of the bullpen, as evidenced by his solid performance in middle relief last year for Tampa Bay. So when the Royals acquired him as part of the Wil Myers trade and converted him back into a starter this season, his numbers have tanked.  It’s not surprising that his fantasy ownership is low and he has little long-term fantasy value. But for those fantasy teams using him for a spot start or two, this heckle is for you:

"“Hey Davis, Yoko Ono controls her pitch better than you!”"

This heckle, of course, cuts to the quick of the fact that the Royals are known as a team that gives up a lot of walks. A lot of walks. But in fairness, after leading the American League in walks with 557 in 2011, the Royals dropped to third-most with 542 last season. This season their pace has been much better, and Wade Davis, in actuality does fairly well for himself, issuing a middling 3.3 BB/9 over his career.

This brings us to an important rule in heckling: your heckles need not be true, fair, or unbiased. This is sports, for crying out loud. Shouting out patently false nonsense actually works in your favor. Those in the stands around you will think one of three things:

1. You are weird.
2. You are drunk.
3. You are the most interesting person in the stadium.

Either way you have an audience for your next heckles, so make them count, because we’re now shifting to the home team.

Twins’ fans have come to expect that Twins’ pitching will be an embarrassing mess. The evidence is everywhere. In the birds of the trees, in the water that flows down the mountains, and in your immortal soul, where you know it to be true. Most importantly, it’s known in the team ERA and strikeout totals. Twins pitchers suck.

Kyle Gibson brings hope, both to Twins fans and to fantasy owners, looking to get in early on a promising pitching prospect. Minnesota, besides needed the entire state to be mosquito bombed, really need 110% out of Gibson this season. Let’s motivate him:

"“Hey Gibson, I’ve seen a better arm on a box of baking soda! How ’bout some sauce on that meatball?”"

That, of course, is a nod to his 2011 Tommy John surgery and a subtle dig that the Twins have a reputation for rostering pitchers that when Joe Mauer holds down one finger, think it means one mile per hour. For the record, Gibson’s fastball sits in the low-90s and he backs it up with a plus changeup and plus slider.

"or “Hey Gibson, why does your shortstop wear a bulls-eye?”"

This is a nod to the fact that Gibson is a ground ball pitcher, with more than 50% of his balls in play killing worms. All this will add up I suspect to an ERA right around 4 for the rest of the season, but he should be good for more K’s than the run-of-the-mill Twins hurler and leave most games with a quality start. That’s worth a fantasy flyer, or at least a spot start here or there.

I’m still going to call him a chump. I want to pretend to be a big man in front of my fellow Crackerjacks at the ballpark. However, I imagine that “chump” doesn’t work as well in Minnesota as a heckle as it would in Philly, Boston, or the Bronx, where unfettered by Midwestern ethics, they would feel free to add “F’ing” in front of it as an intensifier. Now that’s letting the heckle birds fly!