Week 3: Hot and Cold Starts

Paul celebrated the end of tax season last week by playing golf at Bay Hill Estates on Wednesday.

Year to Date Power Ranks through this week
TOTAL			HITTING			PITCHING				Manager	Team
1	Michael	3.21	1	Michael	2.00	1	Brian/Josh	1.17		Cory	Hebrew Nationals
2	Paul	3.57	2	Dean	3.75	2	Paul	3.00		Arthur	PURE DOMINATION
3	Cory	4.57	3	Paul	4.00	3	Dave	3.67		Dave	I Hate Fantasy
4	Brian/Josh	4.57	4	Cory	4.63	4	Cory	4.50		Brian/Josh	Smoak That Ish
5	Arthur	5.14	5	Matt	5.25	5	Arthur	4.50		Paul	CWS champion Gators
6	Dave	5.86	6	Arthur	5.63	6	Michael	4.83		Dean	Future father
7	Matt	6.14	7	Keith	6.38	7	Keith	7.00		Matt	615 for the win
8	Dean	6.29	8	Brian/Josh	7.13	8	Matt	7.33		Max	this is stressful
9	Keith	6.64	9	Dave	7.50	9	Max	8.00		Keith	Bourbon Street Blues
10	Max	7.79	10	Max	7.63	10	Dean	9.67		Michael	The Flooded Farm

Michael and Paul remained on top of the power ranks this week. The big mover was Dave whose team apparently didn’t appreciate being called out last week for basement dwelling. This week we’ll see if Max’s team can respond in similar fashion. The other noteworthy item is the pitching power ranks. Everything Brian and Josh has done has been golden with them leading the entire league in 5 of 6 pitching categories. Conversely, Dean’s strategy hasn’t panned out yet with him sitting dead last in 4 of 6 pitching categories and 9^th in the other two.

I had prepped some early season data about a number of players that have started either far better or far worse than projected, but I couldn’t figure a way to set it up for a good blog post. So I’ll just stick with the headlines. I’m worried about Joey Votto, not hitting the ball as hard and he’s not putting it in the air like he did last year. I’m all in on Didi Gregorious’ start. He’s crushing the ball, has vastly improved plate discipine, and he’s hitting the ball to all fields. This Jed Lowrie start is smoke and mirrors. Surviving on a flukey Home Run to Fly Ball Ratio (HR/FB) and way off normal Batting Average Balls in Play. My boy Ozzie Albies is showing legit signs of a breakout with an increased line drive rate and continuing his high hard contact rate from last year, but his plate discipline is going to limit him and his HR/FB is unsustainable at this rate and is going to come back to earth. Jose Ramirez is scaring me a bit with a drop in hard hit and line drive rates. Jose Martinez looks pretty legit. Nolan Arenado will be fine (and has actually been more than fine since I ran the analysis mid last week).

The crush job of last week was Dave putting the hurt on a hobbling Dean team. Dave hit .287 and had a 2.43 ERA over 60 innings pitched. It was a huge week for him. Dean, in a team fashion far contrary to how he’d plan it, led the league in HRs last week while hitting .238 with low walks and high strikeouts. Dean’s poor pitching was deflated by Ryan Madson giving up 6 Earned Runs in one outing, an outing that would lead most of us to cut bait, but Dean is holding fast to his non-closer Relief Pitcher.

Cory edged out BJ but both teams had plenty to be happy about in this one. Both teams had sub 2 ERAs over 37 innings for Cory and 49 for BJ. BJ’s impressive 11.4 k/9 led them to nearly double up Cory in the K category though. Cory hit .305 with enough of the counting stats to get the win.

Paul beat Arthur with good pitching and big Run plus RBI totals. Arthur racked up the IP to win the Win and pitching Ks categories, but Paul’s offense and bullpen was strong enough here to hold Arthur off.

Matt beat Max in what was a close battle for most of the week. Max is the the unlucky one that will shoulder the burden of having a no-hitter on one’s bench as Max , understandably so, benched Sean Manaea against the best offense in baseball on Saturday with a number of pitching categories that were close. It didn’t really cost Max in the matchup but that is still a hard pill to swallow. Matt was one of a number of teams that were pushing the 30 IP minimum heading into Sunday, the difference is he was additionally challenged because one of the pitchers he added to get to 30 had his game PPD by weather on Sunday. Luckily, or maybe smartly, he had added another pitcher and Matt got to 32 Innings Pitched.

Michael beat Keith 7-6 in a matchup that was looking a lot more one-sided as late Friday evening. Keith had a huge weekend with some stellar pitching performances and offensive production to keep the matchup close with Michael. Keith was also aided by having 44 more At Bats than Michael (23 more Plate Appearances afteer Michael’s edge in walks is accounted for) allowing Keith to win enough hitting categories to keep it close. Michael’s team finally slowed down this weekend, but that was a fun 25 days to start the season.

Monster of the Week: We’re gonna give it to both Dave (.287 AVG with 2.43 ERA over a ton of innings) and Cory (.300 AVG, sub 2 ERA) this week, they both had well rounded high end production that would have been a nightmare to play against. Sounds like Monster worthy to me.

Max of the Week: Dean’s pitching is still verging on Max worthy, but we’ll give him the pass until Ryan Madson blows up again or Mark Melancon has a setback on his DL recovery.