Week 13: What is Different This Year?

Josh stepped up and sent a vacation photo in. This is one is from his and Brian’s trip to Costa Rica. The guy in the middle is a world champion half pipe skiier and was an alternate for the Olympics last go around. 

Year to Date Power Ranks through this week
TOTAL			HITTING			PITCHING				Manager	Team
1	Michael	2.86	1	Michael	2.88	1	Brian/Josh	1.67		Cory	Hebrew Nationals
2	Paul	4.50	2	Dean	3.50	2	Dave	2.50		Arthur	PURE DOMINATION
3	Cory	4.64	3	Cory	3.88	3	Michael	2.83		Dave	I Hate Fantasy
4	Dave	4.93	4	Paul	3.88	4	Arthur	4.50		Brian/Josh	Smoak That Ish
5	Brian/Josh	5.00	5	Matt	4.63	5	Paul	5.33		Paul	AT Tax Man
6	Arthur	5.14	6	Arthur	5.63	6	Cory	5.67		Dean	First Future father
7	Dean	5.29	7	Dave	6.75	7	Dean	7.67		Matt	615 for the win
8	Matt	6.14	8	Keith	7.00	8	Keith	7.67		Max	Expand the Graph
9	Keith	7.29	9	Brian/Josh	7.50	9	Matt	8.17		Keith	Bourbon Street Blues
10	Max	8.79	10	Max	8.88	10	Max	8.67		Michael	The Flooded Farm

Max fell off the graph again, I’m going to give him a week to turn it around before I do anything brash. Michael took a half step back this week but no one in the middle tier made a move upwards. Cory set an all time league record with 22 Home Runs but didn’t have a well-rounded enough week to bust out of the middle tier. An interesting trend is Matt making a move up the ranks. He’s 28 games out of 4^th place but there’s still 9 weeks left to make it. Matt was the 5^th ranked team in the league in June. 

Being competitive at fantasy is about staying on the cutting edge of the trends of the sport you’re playing. You say you drafted a WR in the first round in 2017 fantasy football drafts because so many of the first round runnings backs busted in 2016? Well the value of the Bellcow Running Back came back in full force in 2017 and now a ton of Running Backs are ranked in the first round again in 2018.

You say you waited to draft power in 2018 because everyone is hitting home runs now and the baseball is juiced? Home runs are down this year (despite what Cory did last week).

Looking at Floored league-wide trends you can see how baseball has progressed over the last 6 years. Here is the data through 12 weeks since 2012

Through Week 12
	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
HR	1022	1058	989	1060	1231	1332	1291
SB	646	576	632	588	491	560	520
AVG	0.269	0.275	0.269	0.269	0.271	0.269	0.261
K	5799	6014	6021	6090	6574	6788	7212

You can see that Home Runs had increased every year from 2014 to 2017. It is widely assumed that the juiced ball entered the game after the all star break in 2015 (aka well after week 12). But Major League Baseball took a major interest in this last summer and this offseason, and now mysteriously Home Runs are down again. A study by fivethirtyeight shows that there has been a fundamental shift in MLB baseballs this year in an effort to UN-do what it appeared to do the last few years. The data shows its working.

What do we do with this information? A drop of 1332 to 1291 home runs is only a 4% drop, its well within the margins of a weekly fantasy matchup, however if this trend continues it could quickly make power a viable fantasy asset once again.

This data cannot be used in a bubble and without context. One must also consider the shift towards analytics that has occurred over this same time frame. Teams are stealing fewer bases because they realize that players get hurt more frequently on Stolen Base attempts and that to be a viable strategic move a player must maintain an 80% success rate when stealing a base, a hard mark to maintain. Teams have learned how to shift more effectively and hitters are refusing to hit away from the shift so defenses are reducing Batting Average of Balls In Play leading to lower league-wide Batting Average. Players have been swinging for the fences more with the juiced ball so strikeouts are up, this is also a reason why Home Run rates haven’t collapsed all the way back to pre-juiced ball levels. Players are still trying to hit Home Runs.

Can these trends reverse? Of course. Commissioner Rob Manfred hates shifts, he has made public comments about how the league has taken no formal action against shifts because they have waited for hitters to hit away from shifts. If the juiced ball stays out of the game it would make sense for players to once again try to hit line drives or away from shifts instead of trying to pull home runs. The thrill of the game will be to see what happens next.

I have a quick turnaround this week, leaving for vacation tomorrow, so no full recaps. Here are the one liners: Dean crushed Michael to keep playoff hopes alive; Cory blew out Arthur in another matchup with big playoff implications; Dave beat a limping Paul team right now; Max had an incredible pitching week but didn’t take advantage of it by streaming pitchers and lost to BJ; Matt kept his good vibes going and beat a struggling Keith.

Monster of the Week: I want to give it to Matt because his team is trending up and staying alive for the playoffs, but it’s happening without him, he is barely paying attention and needs weekly reminders to help him hit 30 IP. So this award goes to 615 For The Win.

Max of the Week: Matt, 2 weeks in a row the Beej and I have had to be on his case to hit 30 IP. Let’s go.