The Playoff Preview: Dave Takes Down Another Power Ranks Crown

 

Dave got on the jumbotron at the Marlins game recently. It wasn't hard, his family was the largest group there.

• In many ways, it's unfair to past seasons to compare this data year over year, because we'd never had three managers (last year) sell out so hard and give up so much on this year, and then it happened again this season into next season. BUT....Dave's dominance this year is largely independent of those variables. Sure, he made deals when there was a deal to be made, but such mass-draft-capital movement appears to be against his religion, I suppose he and Cory could be besties
• That said, this year from Dave was truly exceptional. He had no draft head start, he made no massive trades to face-lift his team, and all he did was post the best season-ending Power Rank ever at 3.07. Nearly everything went right for Dave this year. He avoided almost every draft bust, he nailed more draft picks than everyone else. He found free agent steals. He avoided his classic angry drops that could later come back to haunt him (granted, its hard to get angry at players when you're team is crushing it all year). It was Dave's year. Can he seal the deal?
• This is Dave's first Power Ranks crown since 2021 and his third overall in addition to 2016 and 2014, but he would like to write this ending differently because he did not win the league title any of those years. Dave last won the league in 2019.

• The storyline of week 24 has to be Keith squeaking into the playoffs by literally the smallest margin we've ever had: 0.5 games. Cory ended up one stupid Net Win short of making the playoffs, that one will sting. Kevin only fell one full game short and he'll likely look back on week 23 with grief over what could have been. Congratulations to Keith for making it back into the dance.
• Cory will look back and wonder what he did to piss off the fantasy gods back in March. He ends the season with a full -7 games of schedule bad luck, which he only needed one game better and he'd be the one dancing right now.
• The other storyline from week 24, though, was Paul. Paul bounced back from a horrendous month and literally was the best team in the league last week. Paul took stock of his team 7 days ago, made a number of moves, many of which I'm sure were uncomfortable, but it paid off. Paul now surges in the playoffs with a matchup against the Power Ranks Champ, Dave.
• Quietly strolling in the playoffs is Dean. Dean meandered through most of the year, holding a prospect pitcher for much of this year that never did make it up. He eyeballed and bid on a number of big trades but only walked away with a few small adds. He's had some schedule luck in his favor (which largely smoothed out by the end of the year) but largely he's simply used his major draft capital advantage that he had coming into the year to waltz his way into the playoffs. Dean has plenty of firepower to make a run, but has he been on auto-pilot too long this year to be ready for the active managing that the playoffs requires?

Next Up is the Bourbon Street Championship. To remind everyone what this is (from our league rules):

• BOURBON STREET CHAMPIONSHIP

• All 6 teams not in the League Championship Playoffs are eligible

• Teams compete during the 2 weeks of the League Championship Playoffs

• All 6 teams will compete in a rotisserie-style matchup, there is no head-to-head scoring

• The commissioner will track the statistics and ‘Power Ranking’ of all 6 teams outside of the Yahoo website and will publish the in-progress standings periodically

• The top 2 Power Ranking teams at the end of two weeks will get the top 2 draft slot selections for the next year’s draft

• Draft Slots 3 through 6 will be based on the league standings at the end of the regular season, the best remaining teams in the standings will get the better draft slots, to reward finishing well in the standings

• Each team must get to 60 innings pitched over the two weeks to be eligible for one of the top two draft slot choices

• The league champion will get the 10th choice the following year, the 2nd place team the 9th, 3rd place - 7th choice, 4th place - 8th choice.

Finally, some housekeeping.

Max and Robert are still not in compliance with our league rules for draft pick trades allowed to be held in the top 5 rounds and rounds 6 through 10. They've been notified of potential flat-value trades with prospective trade partners, though they are welcome to come up with their own deals and partners. They've been sitting on this for two weeks since I first notified them of the issue and so I've given them a one-week ultimatum to come into compliance or else they will go back to the end of the draft slot picking order. After that week, the punishments will increase if they are still non-compliant. (Sidebar: the admin work it would take to fix this on my end in the offseason is ridiculous, that is why there are punishments)

The other housekeeping thing is that we are going to do rule changes (proposing and voting) right after the season ends. I have a number I will be proposing in the vein of simplifying things either for me or for game play, as well as a few enhancements. If you have any proposals, please send them my way.

Two weeks left, let's find some champions!