Week 14: Michael takes his first L and Floored breaks for the All Stars

 

Dean, seen here as the odd man out not drinking coffee and curiously without any children, took in a weekend with friends lately. There’s no truth to the rumor that they came up with the Tom Petty joke.

2021 Year to Date Power Ranks
TOTAL			HITTING			PITCHING				Manager	Team
1	Michael	2.50	1	Michael	2.63	1	Michael	2.33		Michael	G and RE
2	Dave	4.36	2	Dave	4.50	2	Paul	3.00		Dave	I Hate Fantasy
3	Dean	4.71	3	Dean	4.50	3	Dave	4.17		Keith	Bourbon Street Blues
4	Paul	4.86	4	BJ	4.88	4	Keith	4.83		Dean	Who's your daddy?
5	BJ	4.86	5	Carl	5.38	5	BJ	4.83		Arthur	[ALL CAPS TEAM]
6	Keith	5.43	6	Keith	5.88	6	Dean	5.00		Carl	Boston Running Sox
7	Carl	6.07	7	Paul	6.25	7	Arthur	6.67		Cory	Hebrew Nationals
8	Cory	6.50	8	Cory	6.38	8	Cory	6.67		Max	Pancake Nips
9	Arthur	6.86	9	Max	6.88	9	Carl	7.00		Paul	2nd Act
10	Max	8.07	10	Arthur	7.00	10	Max	9.67		BJ	Smoak That Ish

Dean (Tom Petty for his Free Fallin he’s been doing lately) continues his drop down the power ranks as Dave has now passed him. Cory’s Power Rank made a step in the positive direction but for he and Max it’s looking to be a matter of time until the trading deadline/Bourbon Street Championship because of how far back they are in the Yahoo Standings which we’ll get into in a minute.

Some quick notes on this week’s matchups because we have a topic to get into this week:

Carl ended Michael’s undefeated season. Michael didn’t have anything this week and Carl hit and pitched just well enough to pull off the upset. Big win for him as he fights to gain ground in the playoff hunt.

Dave beat Arthur and for some reason I can’t figure out Arthur thinks he was unlucky and got effed again (this is a family blog). Dave is one of the hottest teams in the league right now.

Keith beat Dean with good pitching and Dean having a rough offensive week. The All-Star break couldn’t come soon enough for Dean.

Paul beat Cory even in a week that Cory hit .310. Cory’s pitching has not held up well after its impressive April with the losses of Glasnow and sticky stuff.

Brian and Josh beat Max as the Max Scherzer/Ronald Acuna-less…Pancake Nips…couldn’t mount anything against team BJ. Now BJ will be without Acuna for the year after the ACL injury and they will be left to figure out where to turn next.

Let’s get into it.

Fourteen weeks down, nine to go. One final turn through the league before we start the playoffs and Bourbon Street Championship. We don’t talk about the Yahoo standings much in the blog because they’re very fluky week to week and often matter more about who you’ve played over a small sample size rather than actual team talent; and I’d argue that team talent is far more interesting and ‘sticky’ in a season long context.

I don’t have historical in-year standings like I do for Power Ranks, so I won’t have much historical data to give at this point in the season, but my general perspective is that this year has been one of the most stratified for standings that I can remember. Michael’s lead on second place is huge for this time of year and Cory and Max are further removed from 8^th place than I can remember the 9^th and 10^th place teams being for this time of year. What that mean is we have more clarity for what the playoff race will look like than we did at this stage in years past…unless Cory pulls off a big keeper trade and shakes things up, because Max has already made his moves. Let’s start at the top and work our way down.

Michael has had a huge year which has been well documented to this point, so we won’t linger here. His best moves have been trading away a top end keeper to pick up an extra first round pick that turned into Jacob Degrom and drafting names like Shohei Ohtani (the batter) and Kevin Gausman. Michael’s team is rather top heavy with a number of players that’d be ranked in the top 50…but then he has a lot of flack at the back end of his roster which is making him want to stash players and prospects trying to find breakouts from lottery tickets. Mixed results so far.

Dave has made a huge move up the Standings and Power Ranks lately and now sits in 2^nd place. Losing a good keeper to injury a few days before the draft, Eloy Jimenez, Dave scrambled to keep another White Sox player he had available to him, Yoan Moncada, who hasn’t been very good. Dave had a quick trigger finger with a number of his top 10 round picks like Brandown Lowe, Charlie Blackmon, and Tommy Pham, each of which cleared waivers but Blackmon and Pham were picked up relatively quickly and have been varying levels of good on their new teams since being re-added. Dave’s recent run has been fueled by Mookie Betts, Mitch Haniger, and…Michael’s former boy Robbie Ray. Sigh.

Brian and Josh have moved back up to 3^rd place, 2.5 games behind 2^nd. BJ got off to a hot start but cooled off as their offense struggled to find their way. Crushing pitching at the draft as has been discussed in previous blogs (they nailed 6 of their first 7 pitching draft picks), many of BJ’s hitting picks have busted or got injured. After showing some life after acquiring Ronald Acuna, now BJ will need to pivot again with Acuna going down for the year. Matt Olson and Ozzie Albies will try to keep this team afloat but BJ is still in good shape to stay near the top of the league.

Dean has had an up and down year, getting off to a hot start sitting in 1^st place through two weeks but then taking a backslide to now sit 18.5 games out of first place and 3 games behind 2^nd as Dean sits in 4^th place. Dean didn’t have excellent keepers entering the year, but the ones he had have underperformed and/or gotten injured (Snell, Moustakas, Mondesi). Dean’s best draft picks have been late rounders Michael Brantley, Jesse Winker, and Justin Turner. Dean does have a good team and has stayed near the top of the league all year, so he will certainly be a contender down the stretch.

Paul sits in 5^th place, the last team in the second tier: 21.5 games out of 1^st, 5 games behind 2^nd. Paul’s pitching has been excellent, sitting 2^nd best in the league, but his hitting ranks 7^th right now and could use some improvement. Part of that excellent pitching, though, has been Trevor Bauer whose future in baseball is suddenly a big question mark, but Paul does have pitching depth such that he is better able to overcome such a loss than most teams in the league. Paul’s best draft picks came in the early rounds where he nailed picks like Lance Lynn and Salvador Perez. These names help set a good base for him. With a few good moves down the stretch Paul is looking to be a contender for the playoff push.

Carl has surged from 8^th place and is now up to 6^th place, though he starts what appears to be a third tier in the ranks in terms of number of games back. Carl is 28 games out of 1^st and 12.5 games behind 2^nd. Carl’s surge has been driven by names like Pete Alonso, Max Muncy, and Joey Gallo…two names of which he’s coincidentally been trying rather hard to trade throughout the first part of the year. Carl has been very active on the trade block pulling off 4 trades with varying levels of success. His best picks were mid to late round names like Carlos Santana, Joey Gallo, and Kyle Schwarber…even if he dropped Schwarber only to re-add him mid hot streak. Carl has been a great addition to the league with lots of energy and different ideas that should help him succeed for years to come.

Arthur is in 7^th place right now, 31.5 games behind 1^st, 16 games behind 2^nd, and 3.5 games behind Carl in the third tier. Arthur has performed inconsistently most of the year but has had his moments of success. He’s been carried lately by Juan Soto, Jorge Polanco, and Anthony Desclafani and will be carried by Max Scherzer in due time, but Arthur has been lacking steady performance by most of his regulars, although has put together enough good weeks to stay competitive. Many of his draft picks haven’t panned out, but with the Scherzer trade adding a lot of value to his team for a very low cost to him now, Arthur has a strong chance to compete down the stretch.

Keith is in 8^th place right now, 37.5 games behind 1^st, 22 games behind 2^nd and 9.5 games behind Carl as the last team in this third tier. Keith was another team that started the year strong, but the difference being he has maintained his team power rank better than the other two teams in this tier, it just has not correlated into success in the Yahoo Standings. Keith holds a 5^th place in the Power Ranks despite his 8^th place in the Standings. Another team that is fairly top heavy in team talent, Keith has 8 players ranked in the top 75 and 14 in the top 110…vast majority of whom he’s owned for most of their year and good-stat-gathering. With improved week to week and matchup management, Keith has the team talent to compete for a playoff spot.

Cory is 9^th place and we’ll leave that analysis at that, he’s likely too far back to make the playoffs. Cory started out the year strong, buoyed by a strong pitching staff anchored by Gerrit Cole and Tyler Glasnow. Glasnow’s injury and the rest of Cory’s pitching staff have hurt Cory’s production lately and not much else has gone right for his team. Cory does have some pieces that could be traded at the deadline to improve his keeper prospects for next season, but he also might be better off keeping the talent for the Bourbon Street Championship to make a run at a top 2 pick.

Max has made his intentions clear, he wants that number one pick. Max has a vision for how to win the BSC and he’s going for it. Already having traded away most of his non-keepable assets worth anything to contending teams, Max has done a good job executing a strategy. Definitely not going to fault him for trying. Time will tell if it was a good strategy, I certainly have an opinion, but we’ll let the season play out.

Nine weeks to go. Put your best foot forward and let’s have ourselves a playoff race!