Week 1: Everyone’s Hurt or Crushing It, which one were you?

When Max isn’t working on his Blue Steel gaze, he’s working on his Polygraph business. Maybe with more time fielding a starting lineup and less time posing for modeling headshots and he could have a fighting chance this year.

2021 Year to Date Power Ranks
TOTAL			HITTING			PITCHING				Manager	Team
1	BJ	3.64	1	Michael	3.38	1	Cory	2.67		Michael	G and RE
2	Michael	4.07	2	Dean	3.63	2	Keith	3.00		Dave	Small Legs Big Balls
3	Dean	4.21	3	BJ	3.88	3	BJ	3.33		Keith	Bourbon Street Blues
4	Keith	4.57	4	Arthur	5.50	4	Paul	4.33		Dean	Who's your daddy?
5	Cory	4.86	5	Paul	5.50	5	Michael	5.00		Arthur	ABOVE GROUND
6	Paul	5.00	6	Keith	5.75	6	Dean	5.00		Carl	Boston Running Sox
7	Dave	6.29	7	Max	5.75	7	Dave	5.83		Cory	Hebrew Nationals
8	Arthur	6.57	8	Cory	6.50	8	Carl	6.17		Max	Small Legs Big Stomach
9	Carl	6.64	9	Dave	6.63	9	Arthur	8.00		Paul	2nd Act
10	Max	7.21	10	Carl	7.00	10	Max	9.17		BJ	Smoak That Ish

One week in and BJ is off to a hot start, pacing the league in Stolen Bases, pitching Ks, and Quality Starts. They made the most of the long week to rack up a big win. Cory had the monster pitching week but his offense left much to be desired. Max is really the only laggard after week 1, barely hitting 30 innings pitched (and probably wouldn’t have in a regular week) and not starting much of an offense. In fact, he’s off to the worst start of any team since 2017 when Paul opened with a 7.86 week 1 power ranking. The only way to go is up!

Injuries!

There was a run on injuries during the first fantasy week of the season. A total of 24 IL spots are already filled as of the end of week 1, an incredibly large number. Only a handful of these are being taken by long term injuries we knew about at the draft. Those left basically untouched by injuries…so far…include only BJ, Cory, and Carl. These teams had varying levels of performance during the first week.

The reason this was particularly frustrating this week was our 8 roster moves per week were even more restrictive in this opening 11-day fantasy week. Pops was in town this weekend visiting baby Ruth and I had to hear all about how he forgot to pace his moves through the week and he had run out by Friday…and then more of his players got hurt. I felt the same frustration at the moves restriction being unnecessarily punitive this first week and then we remembered back at feeling this during the traditional Thursday-to-11-day-Sunday fantasy week after the All Star Break. I looked into the Yahoo Commissioner Controls and I have the ability to manually control the transaction cap number on an as-wanted basis. I believe a change to this 8-move restriction rule during the long fantasy weeks is in order. For the 11-day fantasy week I am proposing a 12-move restriction that week. Any objections? We can start this during this summer’s All Star Break or next spring, I’d vote ASAP. Speak now or forever hold your peace…or complain about it when Pops crushes you with his 9^th through 12^th moves this July, your choice.

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The headline of the week, outside of injuries, was how well so many of our teams played this week, making Brian and Josh leading the league with a power ranking better than 3.64 all the more impressive. They played the role of a rude welcoming committee to Carl whose team let him down with Pete Alonso, Luis Castillo, and Cavan Biggio really struggling. BJ had it all clicking from their middling-ranked catcher, Christian Vazquez, stealing two bases…seriously…all the way to Mike Trout being Mike Trout. There wasn’t much matchup drama to discuss but I wanted to share one more anecdote from the week among these players. Carl sent the best trade offer I’ve ever received, not for the content of the players involved, but for the thought he put into it: analyzing why he understood that I had made a decision about the player I owned from the draft but sharing perspective on how the player he was offering could help me and my roster management.  In other words: it wasn’t Arthur picking up the number 1 ranked player after two days on waivers and asking for Jacob Degrom for that player in return…but ya know.

The marquee matchup of the week was set up to be Michael and Dave with the previous two season champs going at it week 1…but Dave really didn’t have it this week. Michael got off to a big pitching volume start with a ton of Ks and QSs early with decent ratios, leading Dave to decide to punt on most pitching categories early in the week. As the injuries piled up for Michael, he was unable to pivot from Dave’s hands-off management for the week, without risking the rest of his 8 lineup moves and being vulnerable to a counter-punch from Dave. By the end of the week, Michael’s 1 Win to 7 Quality Starts over 80 innings came up 1 win short of Dave’s 2 wins over 47 innings, but Dave’s offense slowed down the back half of the week to fall to an 8-4 loss.

If the BJ/Carl matchup lacked drama, the Paul/Keith matchup picked up the slack. Both teams had huge pitching weeks with ERAs below 2.60 and WHIPs below 1.00 over a combined 174 innings. The two teams also hit 38 HRs, the highest total of any matchup, by far. Paul and Keith went back and forth much of the week before Keith overtook Paul on Sunday. Both teams have a lot of talent and are in good shape to start the year.

The storyline of Cory and Arthur’s matchup was Cory’s pitching. Cory put up an eye popping 1.13 ERA over 64 innings with 7 wins and 7 quality starts. Arthur, too, was hampered by the 8 moves limit, and was unable to stream enough pitching to keep up with Cory’s output, instead adding a number of hitters during the first weekend and running out of moves by the first Sunday of the matchup. All credit goes to Cory in this one, including for having active Joe Musgrove when he threw the no hitter. Offensively, Cory has a lot of ground to gain, putting up a .220 average and over 90 strikeouts. Cory still walks away with the big win.

Finally, I guess we call what Dean and Max did “a matchup,” but it was really just Dean having an active roster during the week. He didn’t have to do much. Max put up a 5.2 ERA with a 1.5 WHIP and didn’t get an SVH. Max’s offense wasn’t terrible and may have even been good if he didn’t put up a league worst 299 At Bats, but hit pitching needs some work and attention. Dean had a good week, leading the week in Runs, hitting Ks, Batting Average, and SVH.

We’re off and running, let’s have a season!