Week 15: A Peek into the Standings and Playoff Race
We don’t like to focus on the Yahoo league standings much
here in Floored Fantasy Baseball League Blog-land. Standings are fluky...for some part. You are
only in as good of a position in the Yahoo standings as your opponents have
been hot. Just ask team BJ (yes, this week they are BJ). BJ has been locked
into the middle tier of the Power Rankings for the entire year, yet they have
slowly slipped in the Yahoo Standings. Why is this? Well, this year I dove into
creating a Strength of Schedule chart and we’ve been able to see how hard of a
schedule they’ve played.
‘Why bring this up?’ you say. ‘That was the blog a month
ago.’ Yes, indeed it was. Well I bring it up because BJ fell out of it this
week. They fell flat on their face in the bright spotlight of facing the number
one team, Dave. BJ got shut out 13-0. Dave had a fine week, nothing earth
shattering but perhaps a slight improvement over his recent stretch. BJ had a
bad week after a recent push they had made to be the number 2 team in the Power
Rankings. This is nothing new to BJ. If you look at their week-by-week ranks
you’ll see more volatility than in any other team. Even late into the year it
has been normal for them to jump or fall by as much as a full 1.000 in the
Power Rankings. Well that kind of fall happened last week and now they sit 23.5
games out of first place and with 5 teams in the way they would need to vastly
outplay to reach the playoffs, it is likely over. Bad Luck and Volatility
caught up with them.
Elsewhere in the rankings Cory and Dean are the latest teams
to make a break out of the middle class. They also sit somewhat comfortably in
the standings. Barring a collapse, these teams are likely playoff bound.
The real battle appears to be coming down to that 4th
spot between Paul and Michael. Paul
stopped his downward trend last week on the heels of hot-performing pickups
Justin Turner, Max Kepler, as well as team studs Nelson Cruz and DJ Lemahieu.
Paul’s bullpen is also elite and is a matchup dilemma with low innings pitched
and equally low ERAs week in and week out. Michael meanwhile stubbed his toe
last week ending his upward momentum that had been building for a number of
weeks. Michael has now turned to two hot prospects to try to turn the tide, you
can bet Max is lurking waiting to pick them up off of waivers. Paul has an 11
game edge and a markedly easier schedule down the stretch. Michael is hoping he
can keep the race tight enough going into the last week when the two face off
to have a sudden death matchup for the playoff spot.
There are 7 weeks left in the regular season. Put up or Shut
up.
All but one of the matchups was basically a wash, and I
already dug into that one, so we’ll pass on the recaps this week. Numbers across
the league were kinda eh. Arthur and Cory stole a bunch of bases, Keith won a
ridiculous amount of games, Paul’s ERA was solid, Dave and BJ both couldn’t buy
but one win, Max and Marcley were both pretty bad and it appears that Marcley didn’t
meet the minimum pitching requirements again. I may have to lock his team for competitive
balance sake, by the end of the year it will have been close to an even 9 weeks
of him being a dead team, in that case all is fair.
Monster of the Week: props to all the ballsy drops this
week: Huston Street, Carlos Gomez, Felix Hernandez, Yasiel Puig, AJ Reed and Lucas
Giolito (for various reasons). Sometimes cutting a player that has previously
been of enormous value to you is the hardest thing to do in fantasy. The good
fantasy players know when it is time….no it is NOT time on Chris Archer or Jason
Heyward thank you very much
Max of the Week: Arthur misplayed the pitching trying to
catch me in wins and lost ER, ERA, and WHIP in the process but I wouldn’t put
it to the level of a Max. He went for it, I just disagree with the strategy and
it didn’t work. The real Max is BJ, they picked up a pitcher to try to get a
win on Sunday…and then didn’t put him in the game…and then he won. Well played
sirs. They are already the heavy favorite for the number one pick, though.
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