Week 19: The Playoff Contenders Shrink by Two

 

Dean did a short triathlon recently, somehow finding time while having two kids under 3 and an 80 hour a week day job. I wonder how Jessie feels about this.

2021 Year to Date Power Ranks
TOTAL			HITTING			PITCHING				Manager	Team
1	Dave	3.29	1	Michael	3.00	1	Dave	2.50		Michael	G and RE
2	Michael	3.50	2	Dave	3.88	2	Paul	2.50		Dave	I Hate Fantasy
3	Paul	4.07	3	Paul	5.25	3	Michael	4.17		Keith	Bourbon Street Blues
4	Dean	5.07	4	Keith	5.38	4	Dean	4.67		Dean	Who's your daddy?
5	Keith	5.43	5	Dean	5.38	5	Keith	5.50		Arthur	[ALL CAPS TEAM]
6	BJ	5.71	6	BJ	5.38	6	Carl	5.83		Carl	Boston Running Sox
7	Carl	5.86	7	Carl	5.88	7	BJ	6.17		Cory	Hebrew Nationals
8	Cory	6.14	8	Cory	6.00	8	Cory	6.33		Max	Pancake Nips
9	Arthur	6.50	9	Arthur	6.25	9	Arthur	6.83		Paul	2nd Act
10	Max	8.21	10	Max	7.75	10	Max	8.83		BJ	Smoak That Ish

Dave did it, he caught Michael. After a RIDICULOUS weekend of pitching that we’ll get into later, Dave overcame a 6.07 to 2.79 Power Rank gap in week 10 to surge into first place in the Power Ranks. Michael has been able to right the ship after his multitude of high-end pitching injuries, but Dave’s surge has been stronger than Michael could hold off. The top three have made it clear who they are at this point with Paul also having pulled away from the pack as we head into the home stretch. Speaking of the pack, it tightened some more this week as Arthur ticked up as Dean, Keith, and BJ all ticked down.

As for the Yahoo Standings, two teams sealed their fate this weekend. Brian and Josh can now give their full attention to their fantasy football squads and Keith can start picking out the Bourbon to buy for the Bourbon Street Championship, both these teams were dealt crushing defeats at a bad time of year. The playoff race appears to be three teams battling for one spot: Arthur, Dean, and Carl. Each team has shown flashes, each team has flaws, one will survive to have a shot at the trophy. Conveniently, all the top teams play each other down the stretch, so there is plenty of time to gain or lose ground as we start the final four weeks.

There were some crazy matchups this week so let’s get into it.

Dave had a huge comeback win against Michael in a week that played like a playoff matchup. Michael got off to the hot pitching start with 5 wins and 5 quality starts with a sub-3 ERA before Tuesday was over…but Dave surged over the weekend posting over 50 innings and an ERA below 1 to steal all of the starting pitching points from Michael. It was incredible. Dean is running the numbers to see if it was a league record this year, but it was a gut punch to Michael, that’s for sure. Dave also lulled Michael into making a misstep that had Michael adding an RP for the weekend instead of streaming a pitcher when Michael thought Dave had no interest in streaming. That last stream could have saved Michael but instead Dave won the day. Now the only question is, did Dave peak too soon? He was 9^th in the power ranks at week 4, 8^th at week 10, and is now 1^st at week 19.

Carl took the heart out of team BJ that simply ran out of steam. BJ was first in the power ranks at week 5…but it was all downhill from there. The Trout injury and then the Acuna injury are certainly the headlines, but other teams (ok, well at least Michael) have dealt with this level of injury and survived. They put the work in, trying to make the pieces fit but nothing was able to stick. Carl had a huge pitching week with 77 innings of a sub-2 ERA and enough power to keep himself in prime position for a playoff run.

Paul ran over Keith with pitching volume and high end offense. The numbers of R+RBI won’t jump off the page, but 13 HRs and a .300 batting average headline this win for Paul…Paul also benched his hitters on Sunday to seal hitting Ks. Keith had a good ERA but didn’t throw enough innings to keep up with Paul here to keep this matchup competitive. Not for nothing but Brandon Crawford outplayed Sean Manaea this week after the infamous trade-that-shouldn’t-have-been-a-trade.

Arthur also kept the train rolling with a big win over Cory. Arthur flirted with another double digit trouncing but Cory came back a bit over the weekend. Arthur pulled the rare SVH win over Cory despite Cory holding 5 RPs with Arthur getting 7 SVH from Kenley Jansen and Chad Green combined. The numbers in this one weren’t flashy other than SVH. No team hit 10 HRs or had an AVG above .276 or had an ERA better than 3.7…but Arthur will take the win as he will need to keep racking them up to get to the playoffs. He plays Max this week before finishing with the top 3 teams down the stretch.

In the upset of the week that might leave Dean kicking himself on September 20^th if he misses the playoffs, Max toppled Dean. Max had a good offensive week hitting 14 HRs with a .290 AVG and ACTUALLY BEAT DEAN IN WALKS!??!!? Pitching continues to be a black hole that Max will need to shore up for the BSC: either you need to throw a lot of innings or your innings need to be really good, Max is doing neither of those right now. Dean is currently on the outside looking in at the playoffs and the schedule doesn’t get any easier.