Week 24: We have Champions

Congratulations to Cory! Floored Founding Member formerly known as General Meyer finally has his crown. It is the 2^nd year in a row that Floored has a first time champion, a true testament to the parity that this league contains and a beacon of hope to any and all that take the time to compete. It was not a glorious week for Cory, there were numerous mis-plays of game theory and management, but that will all be water under the bridge when he looks back at his dominant playoff run. He was truly the hottest team in the league for the most important two weeks of the year. Dean couldn’t field a full team through nagging offensive injuries for the first time in months his relief pitching faltered to the point that he had to relegate to streaming starting pitchers, playing right into what Cory needed this matchup to be once Cory’s pitching got off to a bad start to the week, a pitching shootout. There was really no stopping Cory’s offense though putting up 16 HR, 11 SB, a .296 AVG with plenty of solid counting stats to back these numbers up. It was a good weekend for Cory as he sped past Dean’s injuries and closer and streamed pitcher blowups.

Looking back on the year, as has been a common theme for the Floored blog all year, there was no dominant team. Each of the top 6 teams had a multi week stretch where they were the best in the league. Cory and Dean played a weak enough schedule to get them solidly into the playoffs and then Cory finished up the run to the Championship with two very good weeks.

In the other matchup that at least one person cared about Paul topped Dave. Oh what a fall from grace it was from the April and May darling, Dave. Paul was mostly just very good last week. It would have been a very high powered final if Paul’s offense had faced Cory’s last week.

In other news. Yellow Jersey wearing MAX took home the inaugural Bourbon Street Championship. Interestingly it was Max’s hitting that got the job done, and the relief pitching that he picked up merely kept him out of his own way enough to take home the title. Max was top 3 in every offensive category leading to an even balance that just outpaced Michael and Brian/Josh who tied for second. Using Yahoo’s playoff tiebreaker system of using head to head standings in the matchups between Michael and BJ this year, Brian and Josh will have the second draft slot pick next March. The draft slot picking order looks like this:

Draft Slot Pick Order	Manager		Draft Pick	Manager
1	Max		1
2	Brian/Josh		2
3	Michael		3
4	Niki		4
5	Keith		5
6	Arthur		6
7	Paul		7
8	Dave		8
9	Dean		9
10	Cory		10

Monsters and Maxes of the year. Over the course of this year, Max, BJ, Michael, Arthur, and Cory all received 2 Monster Awards. Nobody had more than 2, never call me partial. There were far fewer Maxes awarded because, well, I like to think I have a high standard to call someone out to the level of a ‘MAX.’ The fun part of this though is the winner of the most Maxes of the Week…is Max. He had 3. Congratulations, buddy. Big week for you.

That’s a wrap on the year, ladies and gentleman. I gotta say, the end of the year is way less stressful when you’re not in the Championship Bracket. I’m not burned out or angry or anything. So, I am probably going to keep writing periodically because I have things to research and share. The list I already have going includes: Why Floored hates Stolen Bases, how much is the SB actually worth? Why closers get overvalued yet continue to suck year after year; what IS an elite closer anymore? The advantages of low K rates for hitters; what to do with the Relief Pitcher slot in general; and last but not least, where to draft Bryce Harper? As always, I am accepting ideas and researchers. Fangraphs will be releasing their projections for 2017 soon so I have something to do when my Fantasy Football teams go to crap…every year. Congratulations again to Cory. On to 2017!