Week 18: Two times through the league

Dean is putting his Georgia Tech degree to great use immersing himself to speak Spanish in Chile. I kid because I’m jealous. Dean is starting with Boston Consulting Group next year and they’re paying for him to go get fluent in Spanish so they can make more money off him. Pretty sweet gig.

TOTAL			HITTING			PITCHING				Manager	Team
1	Brian/Josh	3.79	1	Dean	3.25	1	Michael	2.67		Max	Poorly* Managed
2	Michael	4.14	2	Arthur	3.25	2	Dave	3.33		Dean	Bitter Ender
3	Dean	4.79	3	Brian/Josh	3.25	3	Brian/Josh	4.50		Arthur	PURE DOMINATION
4	Arthur	4.86	4	Max	5.00	4	Matt	4.50		Paul	South Florida Gators
5	Max	5.36	5	Michael	5.25	5	Max	5.83		Dave	I Hate Fantasy
6	Dave	5.64	6	Keith	5.63	6	Cory	5.83		Cory	Hebrew Nationals
7	Keith	5.86	7	Paul	6.75	7	Keith	6.17		Keith	Bourbon Street Blues
8	Matt	6.07	8	Matt	7.25	8	Dean	6.83		Brian/Josh	Smoak Ish
9	Paul	7.00	9	Dave	7.38	9	Arthur	7.00		Matt	615 for the win
10	Cory	7.00	10	Cory	7.88	10	Paul	7.33		Michael	Pic'em Pelham'ed

Michael kept his run going up the Power Ranks but probably hit his ceiling this week with Dustin Pedroia and James Paxton going on the DL and guys like Eric Hosmer and Andrew McCutchen cooling off. The other big takeaways I had were Paul making a big jump in the Power Ranks, staying alive in the Yahoo Standings, and still being a major player in the playoff race. Matt was the only other riser on the week showing what good can be done with the hottest player in the league on your team, Mr. Giancarlo Stanton. BJ and Keith literally flatlined while other playoff contenders Dean, Arthur, and Dave all took a step back.

We’ve now completed TWO full rotations through the league. That’s right, everyone has played everyone twice. Despite the theoretical balanced schedule, no one is the same team all year. There is going to be some fluctuation. We here at Floored Fantasy Baseball Blog, LLC, like to talk about Strength of Schedule. We do this to point out random fluctuations in opponent quality to maybe make those underperforming teams feel a little bit better about their tough lot, but also to keep those top-end teams from getting too uppity on their metaphorical high horse. We can’t control it, all we can do is talk about it. So let’s dive back in.

Reviewing where we were at the 9 week mark:

Through Week 9
TOTAL			HITTING			PITCHING
1	Max	2.35	1	Max	2.25	1	Cory	2.33
2	Cory	3.85	2	Michael	4.37	2	Max	2.50
3	Michael	4.07	3	Brian/Josh	4.87	3	Michael	3.66
4	Keith	4.85	4	Cory	5.00	4	Keith	4.66
5	Dean	5.21	5	Keith	5.00	5	Dean	5.16
6	Brian/Josh	6.28	6	Dean	5.25	6	Dave	6.33
7	Matt	6.71	7	Paul	6.50	7	Arthur	6.66
8	Arthur	6.92	8	Matt	6.62	8	Matt	6.83
9	Dave	6.92	9	Arthur	7.12	9	Paul	7.66
10	Paul	7.00	10	Dave	7.37	10	Brian/Josh	8.16

Max had played a rather historic stretch of opponents, this included that ridiculous Dean hitting .360 week, so the numbers were a tad skewed, but even after removing everyone’s toughest opponents, Max was still getting boned by the fantasy schedulers.

Here’s where we are at now, year to date and weeks 10 through 18:

Through Week 18
TOTAL			HITTING			PITCHING
1	Michael	2.79	1	Max	2.75	1	Michael	2.67
2	Max	3.07	2	Michael	2.88	2	Max	3.50
3	Dean	4.14	3	Dean	3.50	3	Cory	4.33
4	Cory	5.00	4	Brian/Josh	4.00	4	Matt	4.33
5	Brian/Josh	5.50	5	Cory	5.50	5	Dean	5.00
6	Matt	6.00	6	Arthur	6.38	6	Dave	6.17
7	Keith	6.57	7	Keith	6.88	7	Keith	6.17
8	Paul	7.07	8	Matt	7.25	8	Paul	6.50
9	Arthur	7.29	9	Paul	7.50	9	Brian/Josh	7.50
10	Dave	7.29	10	Dave	8.13	10	Arthur	8.50

Weeks 10 to 18
TOTAL			HITTING			PITCHING
1	Michael	2.93	1	Michael	2.63	1	Matt	2.50
2	Dean	3.79	2	Dean	3.00	2	Michael	3.33
3	Brian/Josh	4.21	3	Brian/Josh	3.88	3	Dave	4.50
4	Matt	5.07	4	Max	4.50	4	Brian/Josh	4.67
5	Max	5.21	5	Arthur	5.13	5	Dean	4.83
6	Dave	6.07	6	Cory	6.75	6	Paul	5.67
7	Arthur	6.57	7	Matt	7.00	7	Max	6.17
8	Paul	6.79	8	Dave	7.25	8	Cory	7.33
9	Cory	7.00	9	Keith	7.25	9	Keith	7.33
10	Keith	7.29	10	Paul	7.63	10	Arthur	8.50

Keeping in mind that the number one ranked team in the Power Rankings this year is BJ with a 3.79 ranking, Michael and Max have been playing all-star teams all year and Dean has been playing first place teams since weeks 10 through 18 to go along with playing the 3^rd hardest schedule year to date. Meanwhile, Paul, Arthur, and Dave have been cruising playing last place teams (Paul is tied with Cory for last place in the Power Rankings with a 7.00 rating). What can we do about this? Nothing, it’s just interesting to talk about. Using Dean’s fancy calculator at the end of the year we could adjust the standings to remove some of the luck factor, but given the head-to-head matchups-playing that goes into every week, you can’t adjust the standings post-facto. Another idea I’ve had would be to change each team’s schedule the last 4 weeks after we had gone through 2 full league opponent rotations. Well, as the data shows, there is going to be variability week to week with how well a team plays. Even though Michael’s schedule down the stretch of Keith, BJ, Matt, Cory (3 of the bottom 4 teams in the league, Power Rankings) should be easier than Matt’s schedule of Dean, Arthur, Michael, Keith (4 of the top 7 teams in the league, Power Rankings)…anything can happen in any given fantasy week. It’s just better to let Yahoo assign the matchups randomly and hope for equality.

I’ll keep the recaps short since we finally had a blog intro to talk about. Most of the matchups were very tight this week.

Keith beat Arthur, but the final score was a lot closer than it was looking earlier in the day. Arthur has been scuffling lately and his team took another hit as Bryce Harper got injured and will be out for a very indeterminate amount of time 10 days? Two Weeks? Through September? We’ll see. Keith put up a few good numbers but this matchup was more about Arthur not having his A game this week.

Paul beat Michael through some incredible offense and good streaming over the weekend. Michael’s streaming was going well also all the way up until 4 PM on Sunday when his SP allowed 8 runs in about an hour, losing him the ER and ERA categories. Paul had a major bounce back week, playing Michael seems to do that to teams right now. Paul hit .324 with 15 HRs and 96 R+RBIs. Huge week.

Brian and Josh eeked out a win over Dean late on Sunday too. Both of these teams pup up fairly pedestrian numbers though. Not much to see here, BJ just won enough close categories to get the win. These two teams are doing what most of the playoff contenders are doing. They are past their peak and trying to pick up players to find a hot streak. Whoever does it most effectively will probably win the league this year.

In the final matchup with playoff implications Dave had a huge pitching week to beat Cory. Dave’s offense may be sub-optimal, but his pitching is elite. After a rough patch the Scherzer/Bumgarner/Darvish rotation and elite bullpen led Dave to a much-needed win.

It may not have been the most glamorous of matchups going into the week, but Matt and Max lit up the scoreboard with Max coming out on top. Both teams hit over .290, 16 HRs and 85 R+RBIs. It was a very impressive showing. Max’s pitching was very good too putting up a 2.80 ERA. A very good week from both of these teams. Good job, guys.

Monster of the Week: as much as my growing angst over my opponents wants to give it to Paul, Max was simply better this week. .307 AVG, 16 HRs, 92 R+RBI, a 2.80 ERA with a k/9 over 9. Max was Monstrous. Put another one in the win column.

Max of the week: can we give it to Paul yet for ‘giving up’ on the year? Yes. Predictably, Paul has kept playing through his busy summer. Charlie Blackmon is lighting it up for Keith and Paul is still sitting right there in playoff contention with a suddenly hot team. Now, Ryan Zimmerman and Justin Upton (Paul’s return for Blackmon) and on fire too, so all is not lost in the trade, it’s just the concept that he was giving up that this Max of the Week is for.