Week 14: All Break Edition: First Half Recap

 

Dave, Tyler, and Jenn took in a Marlins game earlier this year. When asked about how it went, Dave would go on to say, “never again.” Who knew taking a 1 year old to a stadium an hour away to sit still for 3 hours would be difficult?

2022 Year to Date Power Ranks
TOTAL			HITTING			PITCHING
1	Arthur	3.50	1	Arthur	2.88	1	Dean	2.17
2	Dean	3.64	2	Cory	3.50	2	Michael	3.83
3	Carl	4.71	3	Dave	4.63	3	Carl	3.83
4	Cory	4.79	4	Dean	4.75	4	Arthur	4.33
5	Michael	4.93	5	Carl	5.38	5	Brian/Josh	4.33
6	Dave	5.14	6	Michael	5.75	6	Dave	5.83
7	Brian/Josh	5.79	7	Keith	6.38	7	Cory	6.50
8	Keith	6.64	8	Max	6.88	8	Paul	6.67
9	Paul	7.21	9	Brian/Josh	6.88	9	Keith	7.00
10	Max	7.86	10	Paul	7.63	10	Max	9.17

Arthur kept his momentum going this week setting a new high water mark for himself for this year with a power rank up to 3.50. With Michael taking a tumble, a two team tier is apparent atop the power ranks as Arthur and Dean have solidified themselves as the best teams right now. Dave made a much needed big jump up this week to save what had been trending towards a summer of suffering, but now he is right back in the thick of contention. Keith also had a big week during a make or break stretch; in the Yahoo standings he is very much alive.

This week we’ll look back at the first half with some big weekly numbers, a check on how the draft went, and what the second half is shaping up to be as we head into the fantasy playoff races.

Weekly Data

I have kept track of weekly statistics in the league since 2012. Anybody else ever say, 'hey remember that time that XXXX hit XXXX Home Runs...' Nobody else? Nah? Yeah it's probably just me. That being said, here is how this year has shaped up so far:

Average, Best and Worst Hitting Weekly Outputs this year:

2022	R	HR	RBI	SB	BB	K	AVG	SLG
Average	32.71	8.49	32.26	3.89	26.17	62.77	0.241	0.399
Best	52	19	59	12	46	40	0.318	0.577
Owner	Arthur	Dave	Michael	Carl	Arthur	Dean	Paul	Michael
Week	9	14	9	14	11	7	12	9
Worst	20	2	16	0	14	40	0.166	0.229
Owner	BJ	Max	Dave	Michael	Max	Keith	Max	Max
Week	3	5	4	2	14	7	5	5

Not too many takeaways here. Dave’s HR total in Week 14 is eye-popping, 19 Home Runs in a week is huge in this era. For perspective, Cory hit 29 HRs in one week during the juiced ball era of 2018. That Arthur 46 walk number is crazy too, nearly double league average. Carl’s 12 SBs also well-outpaced league average. None of these numbers come all that close to all-time league numbers, so we'll save those comparisons for year end.

Best and Worst Pitching Weekly Outputs this year:

2022	K	ERA	WHIP	QS	SVH	NW
Average	65.01	3.33	1.16	4.07	4.78	0.53
Best	110	1.32	0.72	12	12	8
Owner	Michael	Dean	Dean	Michael	Michael	Michael
Week	12	9	9	8	10	6
Worst	27	1.32	0.72	0	0	-9
Owner	Max	Keith	Keith	Arthur	Max	BJ
Week	4	9	9	1	3	13

In this table we have some themes that jump out. Michael’s pitching has been very good this year at high volumes at various points this year (cough, NOT the week heading in the All Star Break though), and Dean has had some amazing ratios at times, though he didn’t push the volume that week 9 where he set the ratios record for the year (or, really any week with the whopping 10 moves he’s made all year). On the worst side, you can see Max has lagged in pitching volume and that -9 NW for BJ was just absurd, they even had a very reasonable 4.07 ERA that week. Again, the NW category is stupid and I’m yet to be convinced otherwise.

Draft Review

We’re 14 fantasy weeks into the season and the draft is well in the rear view mirror. We can say by this point who crushed it and who didn’t. Let's take a look at the results. A few premises to this analysis:

·         Injured players that haven’t accumulated any stats yet are given a -3 value, this is close in value to names like Anthony Rendon, Oneil Cruz, and Brandon Belt. This is a balance in value to both show how much the player has hurt their team without overly punishing the data to the level of, say, Yasmani Grandal (-4.5 value)

·         These values consider the players’ full season stats to this point, even if a bust of a player may have been cut before ruining ones team. Everyone drafted trying to find players that would be awesome and would be held all year, so this analysis is seeing how well everyone accomplished that

·         These values represent how far above or below replacement value the sum of all ones’ players have been. Note that outliers really skew the data, but that’s representative of how they help their teams. Aaron Judge for Arthur and Sandy Alcantara for Michael have carried their teams and have values around 17.0, by themselves.

Manager	YTD Drafted Hitting Value	YTD Drafted Pitching Value
Carl	-19.8	10.1
Dean	-20.1	21.0
Cory	5.7	6.5
Max	-33.0	1.4
Keith	-35.1	-0.1
BJ	-33.1	4.2
Arthur	17.3	11.8
Paul	-31.7	-5.9
Michael	-16.0	20.5
Dave	-5.1	-11.8

 

Most of the offenses showing negative value implies that we had more picks that provided negligible positive to notably negative value than picks that provided significantly positive value. Focus on the range between top and bottom more than what the negative numbers are. What we see here is that Arthur and Cory have been carried by their breakout performers: Aaron Judge and CJ Cron for Arthur and Paul Goldschmidt and Austin Riley for Cory.

On the pitching side, Dean and Michael have been atop the pitching power ranks by a good margin for most of the year (again, until Michael faceplanted this week), so it's no surprise to see them with a gap on the field there. Dean has been carried by Aaron Nola and Alek Manoah while Michael has ridden Sandy Alcantara.

What to do about this? This chart is a good reminder that while the draft gets you on your path for the year, it does not set your fate. Comparing the numbers above to our standard power ranks, we can see how the numbers compare between only using players drafted versus how the power ranks have actualized.

Manager	Hitting Power Rank, players drafted	Hitting Power Rank through Week 14		Pitching Power Rank, players drafted	Pitching Power Rank through Week 14
Carl	5	5		4	3
Dean	6	4		1	1
Cory	2	2		5	7
Max	8	8		7	10
Keith	10	7		8	9
BJ	9	9		6	5
Arthur	1	1		3	4
Paul	7	10		9	8
Michael	4	6		2	2
Dave	3	3		10	6

 

Dave has dug his pitching out of a 10^th place hole to sit in 6^th to this point. What this means is that if he just played the players he drafted, he’d be ranked in 10^th place in pitching, but he’s not, he’s in 6^th. Similarly, Keith has improved his team from 10^th place to 7^th by moving on quickly from late drafted players that were not performing and replacing injured players like Jonathan India while he was out.

This can also show that not making moves can hurt too, Max drafted the 7^th best pitching team but has fallen to 10^th place as he has not picked up as many free agents that could have helped his squad. Paul and Michael have also fallen from their hitting drafted players ranking, but this was not due to inaction but rather just not getting enough performance from the players they added along the way to keep pace.

Playoff Race

It’s that time of year again, MLB talks about being at the halfway point, but the fantasy regular season is actually 2/3 of the way over. There are 8.5 more weeks of baseball games before the playoffs start, and this year is shaping up to be one of the crazier finishes we’ve ever had. Nine teams have legitimate shots at the playoffs and seven teams are within eight games of a playoff spot. Arthur has been at or near the top of the standings all year but the rest of the way down the standings has been all over the place. Dean and Michael have faced the toughest schedules to this point as their Yahoo Standing is far worse than their Power Rank. Conversely Dave and BJ have significantly outpaced their Power Rank to sit in playoff position design sitting in 6^th and 7^th in the Power Ranks. With as tight as the standings are, and the power ranks being without more than a two team tier at the top, it is highly likely that a lower ranked power rank team will squeak into the playoffs.

I hope everyone gets a chance to enjoy the All Star festivities tonight and has a great second half.