Week 3: Nearly Skunking First Place

 

Cory and Jill bought their first house! Nestled in a suburb of Philadelphia, they can join the rest of us in becoming old people yelling at the kids making too much noise down the street.

2021 Year to Date Power Ranks
TOTAL			HITTING			PITCHING				Manager	Team
1	Michael	3.00	1	Dean	2.88	1	Michael	2.83		Michael	G and RE
2	BJ	3.79	2	Michael	3.13	2	BJ	3.17		Dave	Small Legs Big Balls
3	Dean	4.14	3	BJ	4.25	3	Keith	3.83		Keith	Bourbon Street Blues
4	Paul	4.71	4	Dave	5.13	4	Paul	3.83		Dean	Who's your daddy?
5	Keith	5.29	5	Arthur	5.13	5	Cory	4.33		Arthur	[ALL CAPS TEAM]
6	Dave	5.64	6	Paul	5.38	6	Carl	5.67		Carl	Boston Running Sox
7	Cory	6.00	7	Keith	6.38	7	Dean	5.83		Cory	Hebrew Nationals
8	Carl	6.07	8	Carl	6.38	8	Dave	6.33		Max	Small Legs Big Stomach
9	Arthur	6.29	9	Cory	7.25	9	Arthur	7.83		Paul	2nd Act
10	Max	8.07	10	Max	7.63	10	Max	8.67		BJ	Smoak That Ish

Michael had a huge week to take over a big lead in the YTD power ranks. He came within 3 hitting strikeouts of skunking the first place in Yahoo Standings and Power Ranked team heading into the week which probably would have been the most impressive week in Floored history. But as it ended, he did not quite achieve the pantheon. In other league moves, Dave bounced back from his slow start to the year to put up a well-balanced, if not outstanding, week (which is enough right now to bounce you from 8th to 6th in the ranks). Cory has continued to slip downward after his good start, his offense is quite poor even though his pitching is quite good. Last but not least…except he’s least in the ranks by a growing margin, is Max. Despite a passable pitching week, Max’s team's low low at bat total lead to poor hitting volume which is going to lead to a poor Power Ranks performance.

Dean has an informative blog planned midweek, so we’ll walk through the matchups quickly this week and go four corners waiting for him.

We have to start off with Michael trouncing Dean. As good as Michael’s week was, Dean’s was bad…and that’s the hard-hitting analysis you come for here. Anyway…Dean’s week dropped him from first to third in the power ranks but still within the top tier. He managed 5 Quality Starts over 66 IP which is a good number, but not much else stood out. Among the most impressive numbers for Michael on the week was 18 Home Runs with 4 more on his bench from Friday to Sunday. League wide HRs were still down a touch in week 3 even with Michael’s big number, it’s starting to be a reliable trend. Finally, Michael’s pitching will likely be what carries him this year, Michael had a 1.66 ERA over 70 IP with 99 Ks. Big numbers. His and BJ’s pitching are a cut above the pack right now and it should be a fun matchup in week 9 when they face off.

The week of blowouts continued with Dave taking Keith down a peg. Keith had been off to a hot start this year, but just as the Marlins hit a roadblock, so did Keith…and those two are not uncorrelated. Dave had 10 HR and 8 SB to pace his team as well as 69 pitching Ks over 55 innings. For Keith, Jazz Chisholm and Trea Turner came back to Earth and no one else was there to pick up the slack. Plenty of talent on these two teams and they should be contenders throughout the year.

The next blowout was Carl taking down the weak gazelle in Max. Max posted a league low 193 ABs which is going to be hard to compete with: that’s a full 10% less than the 2nd lowest AB total and 25% less than Michaels 253 ABs last week. Max only hit .166 with those ABs too. Carl had an OK week, enough to bump him up the power ranks a few notches. Pete Alonso has cut down on his Ks and hit 3 HRs last week to lead the way.

Brian and Josh had the blowout win against Cory who only hit .196 on the week. Cory’s pitching actually stumbled a bit this week with Glasnow getting lit up, but his rotation is still very good. Team BJ is very well balanced from top to bottom right now, capable of putting up big power numbers with good ratios and a pitching staff second only to Michael in the power ranks right now. They are a very dangerous team. Mike Trout avoiding an IL stint would help though.

Finally, it wasn’t exactly a blowout, but Paul beat Arthur mostly with better pitching. Both teams are fairly evenly matched right now but Paul’s pitching put up 7 QS and a sub 1.00 WHIP despite only being able to muster 2 Wins. Arthur made a decent jump up the power ranks with this week, attempting to separate himself from the lower tier of the league. So far so good.

That’s all for this week, on to the next week where I’m sure Michael will get brought back down to Earth and Max will jump to the league middle tier.