Week 18: Two times through the league and down the stretch they come

 

Arthur and his wife went to Greece to hang out with his buddy Ari Kappatos, from The Deuce on HBO, and Ari's girlfriend.

2021 Year to Date Power Ranks
TOTAL			HITTING			PITCHING				Manager	Team
1	Michael	3.57	1	Michael	2.88	1	Paul	2.33		Michael	G and RE
2	Dave	3.79	2	Dave	4.00	2	Dave	3.50		Dave	I Hate Fantasy
3	Paul	4.29	3	Keith	5.25	3	Michael	4.50		Keith	Bourbon Street Blues
4	Dean	5.00	4	Dean	5.25	4	Dean	4.67		Dean	Who's your daddy?
5	Keith	5.14	5	BJ	5.25	5	Keith	5.00		Arthur	[ALL CAPS TEAM]
6	BJ	5.29	6	Cory	5.50	6	BJ	5.33		Carl	Boston Running Sox
7	Cory	6.00	7	Paul	5.75	7	Carl	6.33		Cory	Hebrew Nationals
8	Carl	6.07	8	Carl	5.88	8	Cory	6.67		Max	Pancake Nips
9	Arthur	6.71	9	Arthur	6.50	9	Arthur	7.00		Paul	2nd Act
10	Max	8.29	10	Max	8.13	10	Max	8.50		BJ	Smoak That Ish

Michael righted the ship this week and in doing so put team BJ up against it to make the playoffs. BJ has only slid to 6^th in the power ranks, but being 7^th in the Yahoo Standings and 12.5 games behind 4^th place with 5 weeks left is a big hill to climb. Cory continued his own climb up the power ranks and is looking to be a strong contender in the Bourbon Street Championship…as long as he throws enough innings.

Carl had the second most impactful win on the week, beating Arthur to keep Carl’s playoff hopes alive. Carl is 9.5 games behind 4^th place and is playing BJ this week in what could be a knockout game for these two teams. Carl didn’t have an exceptional week: only hitting .260 with 7 HRs and an ERA near 5.00, but he out-streamed Arthur to get a big win. Arthur has been an enigma this year. He is in 9^th in the power ranks, but 5^th in the Yahoo Standings. Time will tell how long Arthur can keep up that divergence. The only other note here is that Arthur took 0s from catcher and 1B while Gary Sanchez and Anthony Rizzo were on the COVID IL. Arthur still managed to win RBI, SB, and BB even with 40 few ABs. A few more ABs and he probably would have won R and HR too.

Dave and Paul tied in the high powered offensive matchup of the week. Both teams hit .323 and combined for 34 HRs and 99 RBIs. Neither team pitched all that well but they split the pitching categories. These two teams are very strong right now and would be considered favorites for two of the playoff spots. They will need to keep it up down the stretch to keep the rest of the league from catching them.

Keith held serve against Max to keep Keith’s playoff chances alive. Keith is still in 5^th in the power ranks and has a very competitive team, but the matchup management hasn’t been strong leading to his Yahoo Standing lagging his power rank. He is 14.5 games back of 4^th place after the blowout win this week. He will have a chance to gain ground though, playing 5 of the 7 teams ahead of him in the standings the rest of the way. As for Max, well, he had a sub-3.00 ERA…but with a k/9 less than 8, only throwing 48 innings isn’t going to win many pitching matchups.

Dean got past Cory this week but it wasn’t pretty. Cory’s AB total of 226 would be last in the league most weeks, but it beat Dean’s AB total by 27. Cory barely got to 30 IP this week as he was distracted by all the trade bidding wars, luckily his relief pitchers bailed him out with 5 IP thrown on Sunday.

Finally we’ll get back to Michael taking down team BJ. This one was close most of the week until it wasn’t that close by Sunday evening. Michael is now down three top 10 pitchers (Degrom, Bieber, Darvish) and will need to be kept afloat by Corbin Burnes and Kevin Gausman down the stretch. BJ’s pitching fell short this week as Means, Berrios, and a bunch of streamers all had duds of an outing. BJ will need to run very clean these final 5 weeks to make a run to the playoffs.