Week 4: what…just….happened?

Dean and his wife Jessie at a Blue Jays game earlier this year…yes Dean always smiles like this, not just when he wins 14-0

TOTAL			HITTING			PITCHING				Manager	Team
1	Dean	3.714	1	Dean	2.750	1	Dave	3.833		Max	My Story Begins
2	Michael	4.357	2	Arthur	3.625	2	Michael	4.000		Dean	Closing the Door
3	Keith	4.714	3	Keith	3.750	3	Matt	4.167		Arthur	DOMINATION
4	Max	4.857	4	Michael	4.625	4	Max	4.500		Paul	South Florida Gators
5	Arthur	5.000	5	Max	5.125	5	Cory	4.833		Dave	I Hate Fantasy
6	Dave	5.929	6	Brian/Josh	5.250	6	Dean	5.000		Cory	Hebrew Nationals
7	Cory	6.000	7	Paul	6.750	7	Keith	6.000		Keith	Bourbon Street Blues
8	Brian/Josh	6.000	8	Cory	6.875	8	Paul	6.667		Brian/Josh	Alternative Stats
9	Matt	6.143	9	Dave	7.500	9	Arthur	6.833		Matt	615 for the win
10	Paul	6.714	10	Matt	7.625	10	Brian/Josh	7.000		Michael	Pic'em Pelham'ed

Dean was the mover of the week, jumping an unprecedented 2.286 points in the power rankings from 6.000 to 3.714. We’ll be getting into this shortly. There is a ton to cover in the matchup recaps so I’m going to skip the blog intro for the week.

In a historic Floored blowout, Dean shut out Max 14-0. It is the second ever 14-0 matchup after Dave pulled it off last year during his initial burst to start the year. This one was a little more surprising though. Dean was a below average team so far this year until this week, he was actually 9^th!!! In the power rankings through the first three weeks. Among the incredible numbers he put up were a .360 batting average, seriously. Melky Cabrera hit .280 for the week and dragged down Dean’s average. There wasn’t a ton Max could have done to avoid a beat down, but it is ALWAYS possible to eek out a category with the right managing. The pitching Wins and Strikeout categories were both achievable this weekend if Max had streamed some pitching. The takeaways for Max are not to get too down on this. He still had a week that would have beaten a handful of teams across the league and he still sits in the upper tier year of the year to date power rankings. There was some irony earlier in the week in the team naming department, Dean was throwing some shade at Dave for a pitcher add and drop the week earlier. This led to….

Arthur overpowering Dave in a matchup of team names that lacked creativity and missed the mark (full disclaimer, Dean's name fell into these descriptors too). Last year, we had a fun week where the creative juices were flowing and the whole league kinda got into the game. Well. That didn’t happen this time around. No, the team names in the table above aren’t what I’m talking about, I’ll let you go to the league page to check it out. Inside of the fantasy matchup, Arthur is going to be a tough beat all year. His core of Bryce Harper/Manny Machado/Kris Bryant is just a burden for anyone to keep up with, and then when weeks like this one happen and Aaron Judge hits 4 HR, well, see you next week. I still can’t label him the Max of the Week because he’s winning, but this has gone on long enough. Arthur grabbed the Yankees Short Stop Didi Gregorious this week, this is on top of the NYY SS 20 year old minor league Gleybar Torres that remains on Arthur’s roster who has no path to the majors right now due to the Yankees investment in Didi, Torres sitting in his first season above single A ball, and the fact that he’s 20. But rest assured, Arthur has the Short Stop position in New York on lock. Not much to say about Dave right now, he fell to the lower tier in the power rankings and is looking for some direction with his team…and a taker for Joey Gallo in a trade.

The monstrous matchup of the week was between Michael and Cory with Michael edging Cory in enough categories to get the win. This matchup could have swung 12-1 all the way to 3-11 heading into Sunday with huge numbers on either side, the final line looks more underwhelming than it could have after poor hitting performances by both on Sunday and Noah Syndergaard tanking Cory’s pitching on Sunday. Both teams had over 45 Runs and RBIs with solid batting averages and surrounding HR and SB totals. Michael also continues to lead the league in walks. It was a good week in transactions for Michael, the Rich Hill drop looks stronger by the day and the trade with Max has been one-sided to this point…next week it’s clearly going to fall apart. Cory needs some help, his team bounced back this week but losing Syndergaard is another blow that I’m not sure this team is able to handle right now. Keep the faith, kid.

Keith beat Matt with an offense that continues to impress. Keith is third in the power rankings right now both overall and offensively, in no small part due to his Ryan Zimmerman pickup. My goodness. Zimmerman had 11 runs and 13 RBIs last week…or in other words basically what Anthony Rendon did for Dean on Sunday. In a move he’d like to have back, Keith had Matt Kemp on the bench most of the week including 3 HRs on Friday. Matt is still finding his legs in the league this year, but the good news is he made it to 30 Innings Pitched last week. On Saturday night this was far from a certainty. Matt is fighting injuries to some of his high end picks. It’s a long season. Pick up the next Ryan Zimmerman or Eric Thames and it can all turn around.

Brian and Josh beat Paul while Paul was doing his best Dean impersonation by jet-setting around the world, Paul just got back from Israel yesterday. Brian and Josh had a solid offensive week and Paul had good pitching numbers, but these teams remain in the lower half of the power rankings and will need to turn it around.  Both of these teams have the player and managerial talent to make it happen. Paul made some aggressive drops this week in Marcell Ozuna and Ender Inciarte at the first signs of trouble for either. I’m all for aggressive managing but those two players carried his team just two weeks ago and Inciarte has already been picked back up. BJ is being dragged down by low end production from their high end players. Mookie Betts hasn’t quite been a stud yet but its their Relief Pitching where their real problem is. Their 5 RPs allowed 12 runs last week. Ouch.

Monster of the Week: Matt, he played his cards just right on Sunday having faith in his RP to get into the game to his that 30 Innings...

OK sorry I was just messing. It’s Dean, that week will go down in infamy. Screen shot it. Bookmark it. If you haven’t looked at it: 62R/93H/15HR/55RBI/7SB/33BB/(only)41K/.359AVG/3W/4S/(only)6 ER/43K in 38 IP/1.40ERA/1.03WHIP

Max of the Week: It goes to Mr Max himself. Allowing himself to get shut out by not benching hitters to go for hitting strikeouts early in the week or adding Stolen Base guys over the weekend or streaming pitchers at some point. It sounds like he had some diverted priorities over the weekend, but the blog knows no life stories.