Week 17: Photos from Cory!

Cory’s nifty form seen in the top photo has him in his club championship this month against some hotshot collegiate golfer from Temple…no big deal (btw love that hand and body position at the top of the swing).  In the bottom photo in his spare time he’s (right) going out on jetskis with his girlfriend Jill (middle) and some guy I’m going to call Brosef (left) because that’s what he looks like…a brosef.

Power Ranks Year to Date through this Week
TOTAL			HITTING			PITCHING				Manager	Team
1	Michael	3.50	1	Cory	3.63	1	Brian/Josh	2.00		Cory	Hebrew Nationals
2	Cory	4.07	2	Dean	3.75	2	Dave	2.50		Arthur	PURE DOMINATION
3	Paul	4.43	3	Michael	3.75	3	Michael	3.17		Dave	I Hate Fantasy
4	Brian/Josh	4.64	4	Paul	4.00	4	Cory	4.67		Brian/Josh	Smoak That Ish
5	Dave	5.14	5	Matt	4.00	5	Paul	5.00		Paul	AT Tax Man
6	Dean	5.36	6	Arthur	5.75	6	Arthur	6.00		Dean	First Future father
7	Matt	5.43	7	Brian/Josh	6.63	7	Matt	7.33		Matt	615 for the win
8	Arthur	5.86	8	Dave	7.13	8	Dean	7.50		Max	Expand the Graph
9	Keith	7.86	9	Keith	7.63	9	Max	8.00		Keith	Bourbon Street Blues
10	Max	8.21	10	Max	8.38	10	Keith	8.17		Michael	The Flooded Farm

Max is back on the graph! We are now back to the first graph extension from 7 weeks ago…and he’s back. Michael continues to follow the trend of the hot starting team falling back to the pack. Every year this happens to varying degrees. The most infamous among them was Dave’s jump in 2016 following his all his elite keepers and draft pick acquisitions. His rank reached 2.43 in week 8 before falling to 3.29 by week 20. Dave was bounced early in the playoffs that year. Michael’s fall has been even more rapid (though not as precipitous as Dean’s fall last year). Michael peaked in week 12 with a rank of 2.79 and is already down to 3.50 here after week 17. He has been managing aggressively trying to subvert naturual regression, but major injuries to his top end performers have been piling up in addition to guys like Tommy Pham and Andrelton Simmons slowing down.

Time is short for me this week and I didn’t have too many thoughts for a blog. The trade deadline passed without much fantasy fanfare. A few closers lost jobs but the only high end guy to lose his job was Keone Kela on Michael’s team…and I’ve already talked enough about his team. Paul’s Brian Dozier went from a full timer in Minnesota to perhaps sharing time (perhaps a start or three a month) on the Dodgers. Arthur’s on again, off again, BFF Jonathan Schoop certainly left a full time gig on the Orioles to a part time role on the Brewers.

For reference on how little the trade deadline actually matters, last year Dave came out of the deadline smelling like a rose. His pitcher, Yu Darvish left a bad Rangers team in a bandbox of a ballpark to go to the Dodgers, a great team and huge ballpark. In Texas he had a 4.01 ERA and 6 wins over 20 games, in L.A. he had a 3.44 ERA with 4 wins over 10 games. He was basically the same guy, minor park and team adjustments aside. His Jonathan Lucroy went from Texas to Colorado. Lucroy had been terrible into the deadline last year and actually got a good bit better. His wOBA in Texas was .279 and in Colorado it went up to .369. Even with these varying levels of changes, it wasn’t enough to power Dave into the finals. Any changes matter, they just don’t matter much.

My biggest recap notes for the week are all relative to how things are shaping up for the playoffs.

Dave edged Michael but deserved way more. Michael managed this atrociously (see below) and Dave came out hot early in the week but cooled down the stretch to keep this a close matchup. Dave maintained his precarious perch at 3^rd in the standings.

Dean beat Brian and Josh to keep hope alive for his playoff push. Dean will need to play nearly perfect ball the final five weeks to make the playoffs but beating out BJ went a long way to keep hope alive. A one on one matchup versus the guy he’s trying to catch, Paul, this week is a do or die matchup for Dean. BJ took a step back this week but is still the most talented team not currently projected to be in the playoffs.

Max couldn’t get Cory to play along with the name games (Cory: lame) but Cory was still able to hold serve on a week that Max charged hard.

Arthur couldn’t overcome Matt who just keeps climbing the power ranks. Arthur is nearing do or die this week against Max this week, needing a big win to gain ground on the playoff teams.

Paul and Keith tied, neither team able to do much offensivley but pitched pretty well. Paul is in the driver’s seat for the 4^th playoff spot but is staring at the rear view mirror with BJ, Arthur, and Dean all hoping for a opportunity to pass him.

Monster of the Week: Max, he’s back on the graph….finally

Max of the Week: Michael. After blowing out Arthur last week, Michael mistakenly shifted his whole approach to focus on the playoffs which were a whole 6 weeks away. Burning all his pickups on recovering his roster from streaming the week before and cleaning up two new DL occurrences, Michael had nothing left to manage with when Dave came out on fire and Michael’s bullpen absolutely eroded over the first half of last week. It was a terribly run week and he was saved by his offense to mange a 6-7 loss. Never afraid to call myself out for a Max. I managed last week awfully.