Week 23: Sorry Grandpa

The playoffs ended for Michael and Dave this past weekend. Michael’s tribute to former league member, Billy Pelham (RIP Grandpa), came up 0.00006 (0.23622 vs 0.23616) batting average points short resulting in a tie.  The tiebreaker came down to Michael and Arthur’s week 8 matchup when Michael’s team wasn’t any good yet and Arthur had a pitching weekend for the ages (that was the 26 IP/2 ER Saturday). Dave ran into a Monster in Brian and Josh last week. Team BJ figured something out the week before and kept it going. Dave made it close on Sunday but just wasn’t enough. Arthur’s team name taunts and bullying remarks are rewarded with a trip to the Championship. BJ, hope you won’t be ‘scared’ to start any of your pitchers or not have ‘faith’ in them to get the job done.

Turning our eyes to the Bourbon Street Championship. Let’s talk about the email chain from last week. I did some research into the first  (and in one case, second) overall pick since we went to the system where  there was a contest for said number one pick. I checked out who each manager took, where that manager finished that year, how that number one overall pick performed that year, and who the notable 1^st-ish round keepers were that were unavailable to be picked. Here were the results:

				Stats that year
Year	First Pick	Manager	Finish	R	RBI	HR	SB	AVG	First (or so) Round Keepers
2017	Mike Trout (injury shortened)	Max	10th	84	63	28	21	316	George Springer, Mookie Betts, Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, Nolan Arenado, Corey Seager, Manny Machado, Francisco Lindor, Carlos Correa
2016	Paul Goldschmidt	Dave	4th	106	95	24	32	309	Josh Donaldson, Nolan Arenado, George Springer, Nelson Cruz, Kris Bryant, Mookie Betts, Anthony Rizzo, Carlos Correa, Manny Machado
2015	Andrew McCutchen (1st pick)	Max	10th	91	96	23	11	292	Bryce Harper, Chris Sale, Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Abreu, Josh Donaldson
2015	Miguel Cabrera (2nd pick) (injury shortened)	Arthur	2nd	64	76	18	1	338
2014	Miguel Cabrera	Arthur	9th	101	109	25	1	313	Paul Goldschmidt, Madison Bumgarner, Max Scherzer, Mike Trout, Chris Sale, Edwin Encarnacion
2013	Miguel Cabrera	Waring	3rd	103	137	44	3	348	Bryce Harper,  Mike Trout, Edwin Encarnacion,  Max Scherzer
2012	Miguel Cabrera	Marcley	6th	109	139	44	4	330	Felix Hernandez, Jose Bautista Clayton Kershaw, Giancarlo Stanton

You can see the only person who really has anything to complain about was Max, who in 2015 had a way underperforming Andrew McCutchen. But yeah, Miguel Cabrera was deeeeeefinitely in decline these year, so much so that in 2016 after he wasn’t the number one overall pick anymore he hit 38 HRs with a .316 AVG and finished in the top 11 of MVP voting all these years… You can also see, there really isn’t much of a correlation between picking number one overall and end of year finish, that is because there is so much going on throughout the fantasy season, one player does not make or break your team. But wouldn’t you want a modern-day Mike Trout or 2012-to-2016 Miguel Cabrera compared to someone later in the first round on your team to anchor you? Another topic to consider for next year’s draft is all the studs that are re-entering the draft pool from 3 years of being kept: Mookie Betts, Anthony Rizzo, George Springer, Nelson Cruz. Next year’s early draft picks will be more filled with talent than recent years. Point is, you want the high-end draft picks; but yeah, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t get it…leading me to my next point.

Another hot topic was about waiting until mid-morning to make pickups. I had a number of conversations about this last week. Here’s the thing, all of you in the BSC and now Dave and I in the 3^rd place game are playing for ourselves and our status for next year’s draft…it’s wonderful. I love it. It’s great for the league to have the BSC tournament. But the teams in last week’s championship semi-finals and now the championship matchup are playing for glory. They’re playing for their name on the trophy…the championship ‘flag.’ The championship is more important guys, it just is. I really don’t like making superfluous rules, it’s one of the annoying things about the commissioner’s job; but to protect the league as a whole and the integrity of that championship bracket I’m making a proclamation, BJ and Arthur get priority selection on player pickups until 10 AM each day. After that anyone can go crazy. If I see any pickups before then I’m going to put them back on free agency. Starting tomorrow morning I will do this…and if I have to do it more than 1 time, I’m going to lock your team.

OK back to the fun stuff. The status of the BSC through Week 1:

Manager	r	h	hr	rbi	sb	bb	k	avg		w	s	er	k	era	whip
Dean	46	76	11	37	8	31	37	0.314		1	5	50	89	5.42	1.31
Keith	40	73	11	37	9	15	44	0.281		6	0	7	39	1.30	0.83
Paul	41	74	10	37	3	21	69	0.281		3	5	16	45	3.63	1.24
Cory	31	59	11	24	4	24	63	0.244		3	3	15	54	2.72	1.31
Matt	23	63	4	28	4	20	52	0.270		1	0	11	27	3.96	1.28
Max	34	57	16	30	6	30	45	0.259		2	2	12	35	3.15	1.19

BSC Standing
1	Dean	2.4286
2	Keith	2.4286
3	Paul	3.2857
4	Max	3.5000
5	Cory	3.8571
6	Matt	4.6429

Remember, all stats just carry over for these two weeks, so Keith’s big W lead, and Dean’s huge ER totals keep adding. Also remember you need to hit 30 IPs each week to qualify. Matt, you only got 25 innings last week but I didn’t really notice last week to notify you and this is all in fun now any way so I’ll let you get a pass and ask that you get 35 innings this coming week to stay qualified.

The blog intro went a little differently than I intended as of last week, so I’ll have to cut the year-end recaps short. Here’s the gist: Dean was awesome, deserved a playoff spot, but instead will have to get by with some great Floored-All-Star keepers for the draft next year. His block of keeping Michael from getting Elvis Andrus earlier in the season was one of the great all time moves, in retrospect. Keith made some good aggressive trades but just didn’t have a deep enough team to put up consistent numbers. Paul’s drops this year of Marcell Ozuna, Ender Inciarte, and Justin Verlander will also be a big takeaway from the year. These guys fueled playoff team runs all summer. Cory caught the injury bug early which just kept happening all year (see: Michael Conforto) and had some major keeper-player regression. Chalk it up and try again next year, 2016 champ. Matt made a fantastic add of Cody Bellinger when everyone else wrote him off to be headed back to AAA. In his first year in the league Matt showed some potential to make big moves next year, he’ll just need to stick with it all summer. Max played a legendarily tough schedule this year. He finished the year 5^th in the power rankings and should hold his head high. Pulling the wool over Dean’s eyes in a keeper trade is a nice feather in the cap too. Maybe that Alex Bregman at pick 41 was not the best idea though ;-)

One more week, guys. It’s almost over.