Week 22, Losing Hope

 

Michael, Amina, and George went to a wedding a few months ago in Vermont. Not pictured here is Ruth, spent the reception in Nissee and Poppy’s arms

2021 Year to Date Power Ranks
TOTAL			HITTING			PITCHING				Manager	Team
1	Dave	3.36	1	Michael	3.13	1	Dave	3.17		Michael	G and RE
2	Michael	3.64	2	Dave	3.50	2	Paul	3.50		Dave	I Hate Fantasy
3	Paul	4.64	3	BJ	5.13	3	Michael	4.33		Keith	Bourbon Street Blues
4	Dean	5.21	4	Paul	5.50	4	Dean	4.67		Dean	Losing Hope
5	Keith	5.36	5	Keith	5.63	5	Keith	5.00		Arthur	[ALL CAPS TEAM]
6	Cory	5.57	6	Dean	5.63	6	Cory	5.50		Carl	Boston Running Sox
7	BJ	5.64	7	Cory	5.63	7	Carl	6.00		Cory	Hebrew Nationals
8	Carl	6.14	8	Arthur	6.13	8	BJ	6.33		Max	Pancake Nips
9	Arthur	6.50	9	Carl	6.25	9	Arthur	7.00		Paul	2nd Act
10	Max	8.29	10	Max	8.00	10	Max	8.67		BJ	Smoak That Ish

 

Dave is hanging onto his Power Rank lead but the top three teams are fairly clear at this point…not that this means an upset can’t happen in the playoffs. What is interesting is the case of Arthur, he is in uncharted territory. I went back and looked and there are 4 instances where a team had a power rank at end of season outside of the top 5 teams but made the playoffs:

Year	Manager	End of Year Yahoo Standing	End of Year Power Rank
2021 (through 22 wks)	Arthur	4th (projected)	9th (projected)
2017	Dave	4th	6th
2016	Paul	3rd	6th
2015	Arthur	2nd	7th
2011	Dave	2nd	6th

 

In past years I’ve run Strength of Schedule stats which would give some perspective on what has driven Arthur’s dichotomy of Power Ranks shortcomings and Yahoo Standings success, but that analysis is very time consuming…and as you may have noticed from the blog posts this year, I don’t have time for that. Give Arthur credit for surviving with a team that has put up underwhelming stats compared to the field…but he’s probably getting lucky too, I just can’t prove it numerically right now. Note that Carl would be a similar story, ranking 8^th. If he were to squeeze his way into 4^th place in the Standings he would join the ranks of Dave, Paul, and Arthur who made the playoffs from the 6^th or worse Power Rank spot.

There’s one week left in the regular season, let’s talk about the matchups that mattered this week and some observations I had heading into the postseason.

Down big late in the week, Dave had a big weekend to beat Dean and make Dean's path to the playoffs hard to envision. Dean has joined the #winsarestupid crew as his 10 quality starts only led to 3 wins when 5 wins would have earned him a full game in the standings. Both teams had a big week here, Dean’s resurgence likely coming too late to matter, though. 

Carl also succumbed to a strong weekend from his opponent, Paul, and Carl's path to the playoffs now requires a pair of near skunkings...unlikely. In anticipation of this dire predicament though, Carl has already notified Michael that some high end pitchers are on the chopping block as he will likely sell out at any chance at the playoffs. Unsure if Carl has thought this far ahead, but this is likely more valid with the Bourbon Street Championship perhaps having a bit less bite this year with so many top end picks being kept heading into next year. Tatis, Ohtani, Acuna, Cole, Vlad Jr, Soto, Beuhler are likely to be ranked as first round picks but all will be kept and former stalwarts of the first round like DeGrom  and Trout being suddenly wild cards heading into next year. Sounds like a good topic for a future blog I won’t have time to get to… 

Finally, Michael bounced back in a major way to beat Arthur and keep hope alive for Dean and Carl, despite their inability to gain much ground on their own. Michael nearly set Floored records for AVG and hitting BB/K rate in a week, but alas fell just short in each of these. Arthur had a big HR total and streamed pitching relatively well, but it wasn’t enough to keep up with a Monster week from Michael. This matchup between the two is looking likely for the first round of the playoffs. 

Spinning it forward, Michael, Dave, and Paul will have an eye on next week while they face Carl, Arthur, and Cory, respectively, this week. It’s an opportunity for Carl and Arthur as they face must win games against teams who only moderately care. Dave is 4.5 games behind Michael for the number 1 seed, so both will at least want to be sure lineups are set to try to lock in that number one seed.