Week 16: Having Your Trade Be Outbid

Michael and Amina took their Baby Moon across the Atlantic to the Canary Islands. Amina is super pregnant right now. Buddy is very happy about it and Diesel, the cat, couldn’t care much less; but wanted to photobomb anyway.

Power Ranks Year to Date through this Week
TOTAL			HITTING			PITCHING				Manager	Team
1	Michael	3.21	1	Paul	3.63	1	Brian/Josh	1.67		Cory	Hebrew Nationals
2	Cory	4.07	2	Dean	3.63	2	Dave	2.33		Arthur	PURE DOMINATION
3	Paul	4.50	3	Michael	3.63	3	Michael	2.67		Dave	I Hate Fantasy
4	Brian/Josh	4.57	4	Cory	3.75	4	Cory	4.50		Brian/Josh	Smoak That Ish
5	Dave	4.93	5	Matt	4.25	5	Arthur	5.50		Paul	AT Tax Man
6	Dean	5.36	6	Arthur	6.13	6	Paul	5.67		Dean	First Future father
7	Matt	5.57	7	Brian/Josh	6.75	7	Matt	7.33		Matt	615 for the win
8	Arthur	5.86	8	Dave	6.88	8	Dean	7.67		Max	Expand the Graph
9	Keith	7.64	9	Keith	7.50	9	Keith	7.83		Keith	Bourbon Street Blues
10	Max	8.64	10	Max	8.75	10	Max	8.50		Michael	The Flooded Farm

Cory’s first 7 days (not counting the first Cardinals/Cubs game), or first 325 Plate Appearances, led to this stat line: 57R, 88H, 29HR, 77RBI, .302AVG. This plate appearance number is below the max PA number this year, but the rest of these numbers are or are close to all time records. The all time high in runs is 62 by Dean during his hot stretch in week 4 in 2017, the previous high in home runs was 21 which has been done a few times, 62 was the previous RBI high all the way back in Week 20 of 2014 by Dave, and Dean had 109 hits when he hit .343 for a full week in Week 18 of 2014. So, Cory had a monstrous 7 day week. He inevitably cooled down over the weekend, but it was quite the run there for a week.

The Power Ranks middle tier is stratifiying a bit. Cory has pulled away the furthest from the pack, but Paul and BJ are right on his tail. Dave, Dean, and Arthur all took critical steps back this week. Matt kept the ball rolling and actually lept Arthur in the year-to-date power ranks, Matt is the hottest team in the league right now. Still sitting 24 games back of 4^th plce, he’ll need a helluva final 5 weeks to make the playoffs, but at least he’ll be in good shape for the Bourbon Street Championship.

…

Trading is part of fantasy sports. It is a necessary evil not only to match wits against your competitors (the challenge trade), but also to help each other out to increase each other’s chances of winning (the win-win trade). Our league has a wonderful system of Trade Bidding Wars. For those unfamiliar with our history or have short memories, we had a few…ahem…questionable trades circa 2013 and 2014 that caused significant uproar in the league. Very good players were being traded away for peanuts for motives that were not entirely clear. So, we came up with a system to counteract it, and now we can overturn trades if there is an aura of intentional collusion or one manager completely getting fleeced in a deal. Bidding wars allow for market value to be achieved in trades. If your trade wasn’t bid on, you guys likely nailed market value. If your trade was bid on, it’s somewhat of an honor that you are pushing the lines of maximum value.

This policy doesn’t come without its casualties. Most notably, the feelings of the person who gets their trade outbid, and it hurts the most the first time it happens. It sucks. We all would like to say we keep a level head about this stuff, but when you put work into a fantasy trade, you feel good about finalizing it. Then when it gets outbid, all your work is undone and you can feel mad or betrayed.

Well. Papa Smyth had his first trade outbid last week. He is not new to bidding wars, his and Arthur’s trade this preseason for keeper Jonahtan Schoop was outbid in Paul’s favor. Paul got what he deemed to be a better keeper for his ‘money.’ But when his trade was outbid at the keeper trading deadline leaving him in the dust, it was a shock to Paul, understandably. A few days have passed and the emotions have settled, and now Paul realizes he has to fight for his playoff spot with a team that keeps crumbling, this week with Stephen Strasburg and Carlos Martinez going down with injuries again.

Does this mean anyone should stay away from trades because they don’t want to be outbid and hurt? Hell no. Trades are a part of fantasy, and so is the emotion. ‘You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both, and then you have the facts of [fantasy]’ It may not rhyme, but it rings.

Welcome to the club, pops. About half of us are in the pristine organizaiton. Trade outbids are part of the game now.

…

The heavyweight matchup of the week pitted Cory and Matt. Cory had the eye popping offensive totals but Matt was very steady on the pitching side and came within one difficult start/sit decision on Sunday from actually beating Cory. With the ER category close, Matt chose to bench Zach Wheeler who threw a gem while Cory’s pitcher had a bad game. Wheeler would have won Matt pitching Ks and thus the matchup. It would have been an incredible feat to beat Cory during such a legendary week.

There were two matchups that ended up having major playoff implications with two blowouts this week. Michael crushed Arthur with great offense and incredible pitcher streaming. After Kluber and McCullers gave up 8 ERs in 7 innings to kick the week off, Michael streamed the rest of the week with 5 SPs that threw a combined 33 innings of 1.36 ERA baseball with 33 Ks. Arthur just didn’t have it this week and then his top end players went down with injury. It was bad timing for Arthur to put up a clunker; fighting for a playoff spot he needs every week to be a good one to gain ground. Arthur did get fairly lucky to win every close category. He won or tied SB, BB, and both hitting and pitching Ks by a combined 5 points across the 4 categories, without those 5 SB, BB, and Ks this would have been a skunk.

In the other blowout BJ put it on Dave. Dave’s normally reliable pitching was unimpressive, mostly due to Luis Severino putting up two clunkers. Dave did not stream as successfully as Michael in the other matchup and just couldn’t gain enough ground on BJ to matter. He did pull off a slick move of benching all his hitters at the last minute on Sunday to save hitting Ks…yes he was so far behind in the rest of the offensive categories benching his hitters was the right play. BJ had a good week, its hard to put the numbers in context due to the all star break 10 day matchup, but lets just say they moved up in the power ranks this week and are poised to be a dangerous playoff team if they can squeeze their way in.

Paul’s good offensive week just edged Max’s stellar pitching week. Max has retreated to full prospect mode hoping something clicks by September and utilizing the Elite RP strategy until then. Well….at least the pitching is working. Paul’s pitching is injured but his hitters bounced back to keep him in 4^th in the Yahoo Standings. He’ll need to keep winning to hold his spot.

Keith and Dean tied in a week that Dean will look back on as a missed opportunity. He just hasn’t been able to put it together this year. Time is ticking to the playoffs and his team performance is trending the wrong way. Keith got a great week from Zach Greinke to propel him on the pitching side. Greinke was one of Michael’s pre-season busts that hasn’t panned out.

Monster of the Week: barely eeking out a win won’t keep Cory from being the monster. Cory had 93 RBIs to 117 Hits, insane numbers even over an all star week. I’ve already doted enough. Great week, Cory.

Max of the Week: Dave played BJ, BJ gets Max of the week for not noticing the smart play that was coming from Dave and preparing for it. They had no reason to start hitters. Despite the big win for the week they had, we’re tough judges here on past champs. Do better, BJ.