Week 10: Why Schedule Balance is a Myth

Max took a cruise to Cuba last week where he became well-versed in Modern-Era Communism. Hence his willingness to trade away Giancarlo Stanton for a guy who belongs on the free agent wire. I kid. I kid.

Year to Date Power Ranks through this week
TOTAL			HITTING			PITCHING				Manager	Team
1	Michael	3.00	1	Dean	2.63	1	Brian/Josh	1.33		Cory	Hebrew Nationals
2	Paul	3.57	2	Paul	2.75	2	Michael	2.83		Arthur	PURE DOMINATION
3	Dean	4.64	3	Michael	3.13	3	Dave	3.17		Dave	I Hate Fantasy
4	Brian/Josh	4.93	4	Cory	5.38	4	Cory	4.67		Brian/Josh	Smoak That Ish
5	Cory	5.07	5	Arthur	5.38	5	Paul	4.67		Paul	CWS champion Gators
6	Arthur	5.21	6	Matt	5.63	6	Arthur	5.00		Dean	First Future father
7	Dave	5.21	7	Dave	6.75	7	Dean	7.33		Matt	615 for the win
8	Matt	6.79	8	Keith	7.25	8	Keith	7.83		Max	Don't Demote  Me
9	Keith	7.50	9	Brian/Josh	7.63	9	Matt	8.33		Keith	Bourbon Street Blues
10	Max	8.43	10	Max	8.13	10	Max	8.83		Michael	The Flooded Farm

Michael made a move up the ranks this week threatening the rarified air of the 2.0s power ranking club. The other big mover of the week was Matt. Matt had a huge pitching week once he finally got rid of all those Disabled List pitchers. The free agent wire pitching talent has been quite deep this year, lot of good arms out there. The entire fantasy league ERA is lower this year, indicating there has been better pitching than last year. It also means you need a better performing pitching staff to be relevant.

Paul hit a bit of a speedbump last week. His strong run up the ranks may be taking a break due to some injuries. The strongest contenders every year deal with this, the challenge will be if he can make another move.

Max fell deeper off the chart. I refuse to widen the view on this thing, step it up, Max.

Keith continued his own downward trend. After what appeared to be a fantastic trade to buy low on Bryce Harper and acquire a good closer from Arthur by sending away an underperforming Jose Altuve and replacement level pitcher, Keith followed it up by then sending Bryce Harper right back to Arthur. This trade is still in its bidding war window though.

The middle class of the league features team talents all over the board. BJ has no offense, Dean has no pitching, Cory has a little bit of everything, Dave has inconsistency, and Arthur has an itch to make trades. Any of these teams can put it together any given week but will need to separate themselves from the field to make the playoffs. Currently Dave has an edge on the middle tier with a bit of a lead on 4^th place in the Yahoo Standings as he sits in 3^rd. Cory and Arthur are neck and neck for 4^th, while BJ and Dean are going to need a solid run over the summer to get into 4^th.

I ran the strength of schedule data from the first 9 weeks of the year, as in, one time through the league for everyone to have played everyone. Remember, this is the compiled data from each teams' opponent's weekly numbers inserted into the Power Ranking calculation. This tells you how difficult your schedule has been so far.

Through 9 weeks
TOTAL			HITTING			PITCHING
1	Matt	3.43	1	Keith	2.5	1	BJ	3.33
2	Keith	3.79	2	Matt	3	2	Michael	3.5
3	BJ	4.57	3	Max	4.75	3	Matt	4
4	Michael	5	4	BJ	5.5	4	Keith	5.5
5	Max	5.57	5	Arthur	5.63	5	Dean	5.67
6	Arthur	5.86	6	Michael	6.13	6	Paul	5.67
7	Dean	6.14	7	Dave	6.38	7	Arthur	6.17
8	Paul	6.14	8	Dean	6.5	8	Max	6.67
9	Dave	6.86	9	Paul	6.5	9	Cory	6.83
10	Cory	7.36	10	Cory	7.75	10	Dave	7.5

So far, Matt and Keith have played a schedule more difficult than the rest of the league, although their schedule has been nowhere near as difficult as Max’s was at this point last year when he had played a 2.36 power ranking. Most notably here is Dave and Cory’s easy schedule, these guys have gotten off pretty easy so far. The moral of the story here is why schedule balance is a myth. Everyone has played the exact same opponents but we have all played a different level of competition. In years past I’ve floated the idea of trying to balance the last 4 regular season weeks after we all go through the schedule twice. For reasons such as can be seen above, this is a bit of futile exercise and I’m just as likely to unbalance the schedule as balance it. Yet at the same time, its also clear that there is polarization across the league this year and anyone that plays Max, Keith, or Matt an extra time are projected to have an edge on the field. Oh well.

No matchup recaps last week, I didn’t see too much fun stuff.

Monster of the Week: Michael. Michael’s team has put together a second surge up the ranks and put up a huge week last week to do so. 16 HRs, only 43 hitting Ks, .329 AVG with 4 W, 9 Saves, 2.27 ERA and 0.96 WHIP. Big week.

Max of the Week: everyone keeps hitting 30 IP, very few silly DL holds. no Maxes for anyone.