Week 23: The Bourbon Street Championship

It may be Championship Week, but only two of you care about that. So I am instead going to talk about something that feels more fun these days.

As you may have remembered from 2 weeks ago, Keith, AKA Bourbon Street Blues, lost to the ghost team (who hadn’t legitimately wont a matchup in over 2 months). This created significant drama regarding the consolation bracket and the race for the number 1 pick because Max, who should have been competing for said pick, wasn’t, based on the Yahoo Standings. Well, then the creative juices started flowing and now all non-playoff teams are competing in a 2-week power rankings competition for the number one and number two draft slot picks. This set off a frenzy of free agent moves and emails and phone calls to commissioner demanding documents and decisions that felt like they came from the Freedom of Information Act. I love it.

So, in honor of our accidental hero. I nominate we name this new tournament in his name sake. Keith went to school at Tulane in New Orleans, he has spent more time on Bourbon Street than all of us combined. From my short time on the Street I can testify, there are no winners on Bourbon Street. In that vein, it is the perfect name for our Consolation Prize.

In week 1 of The Bourbon Street Championship we all sucked one way or another, it’s perfect if you think about it. Keith and Arthur hit some home runs (damn you Hanley Ramirez). Michael streamed and leads in wins. Max dumped all his SP and leads in ER and ERA, imagine if he had done that three months ago. Through Week 1 Brian and Josh have a slim lead, but it’s fairly close all around. A monster week from any of these teams may be enough to win it.

Through Week 1
1	BJ	2.92857
2	Max	3
3	Arthur	3
4	Michael	3.57143
5	Niki	3.85714
6	Keith	3.92857

Ok fine, on to the real championship discussion. Dean topped Paul in what was a closer matchup than the scoreboard shows. Paul’s poor early week pitching put him in a hole that could only be rectified by streaming. The 7 acquisition limit did its job here as it kept Paul from selling out and being able to make a comeback via streaming. Dean’s pitching is just on an incredible run right now. He has the best starters and the best relievers. He has been able to avoid the closer traps all summer that the rest of us fell into (even if he did have one bad outing last week) and his starters just keep putting up Ultra-quality starts and getting wins. Offensively, Dean is nothing special. His offensive K totals verge on untouchable, but everything else is beatable. His next opponent finally has the pitching chops to keep up with him, let’s see what happens.

Cory topped Dave in another close matchup. Dave just didn’t have enough firepower to keep up with Cory in this one though. Not too much to say here unfortunately. Dave streamed his way to wins in pitching W and Ks, but it cost him ERA/WHIP/ER in a matchup he was a big underdog in on the pitching side anyway. Cory had the best offensive week of all 4 playoff teams, which he will need once again to take Dean down. It was a summer Dave would like to do over again. Coming into the year with a leg up on the competition, injuries and roster flexibility woes cost him in the end from late season talent. He is still set up for good keepers heading into next year.

Looking forward to next week: a recap of the Monsters and Maxes of the year and a first glimpse at the keeper trading landscape.