Week 15: The Best Laid Plans

 

The blog is so far behind on photos it isn't even going to try to keep up. Poppy (aka Paul) had the grandkids in town for a few days this month while Michael and Amina went on a cruise. George appears to be having quite the time driving the boat into the sandbar...jk.

• Carl holds onto his number one spot, but now by the slimmest of margins
• Max and Arthur continue to gain on the field. Max has literally been the best team in the league over the last four game weeks
• Cory makes a jump up here to the #3 spot even in a week that Max beat him rather handily

We are past the all star break, past the marathon 10-day matchup week AFTER the all star break, it's fully time to watch the standings as we barrel towards the playoffs. There are eight weeks left in the regular season.

Michael has one of the healthier leads we've seen for this stage of the season, comfortably 12+ games ahead of second place and ~28 games ahead of 5th place. He would likely need to literally tank games to miss the playoffs, nothing more to talk about here. Worth watching though is Michael probably peaked in mid July and now needs to figure it out again down the stretch.

Carl sits in 2nd, while at the time of this writing he still sits atop the Power Ranks. His team is very good. He also clearly has the most time to play fantasy, and his team shows the effort. He sits ~14 games clear of 5th place and in prime position for a run in the playoffs. He was saved from a undervalued deal that would have cost him his first and sixth round draft picks for injured or underperforming talent, so he still has plenty of bullets to fire to make a big move before the trade deadline.

Paul is in third place, freshly coming off of a loss to Carl. Paul took his shot in the early trade deadline furor, trading away three top ten picks for deals that are faring quite well early on. Boasting a team of Mookie, Corbin Carroll, and Ohtani the MVP hitter, Paul's team will be a very difficult out any given week. The pitching? it could use some work other than his newly acquired and suddenly reinvigorated Corbin Burnes. Paul sits about 12 games clear of 5th place and in good shape for the playoffs, but he will need to finish strong to hold off the competition.

Dean sits in the hot seat of 4th place right now, though his edge on the field is very narrow. Dean has chosen to take a very conservative approach all year to his injured players which probably should have hit the wire months ago, yet alas here he is in a dog fight for the playoffs needing every point he can get. Dean's team is designed win hitting Ks and the ratios every week, and he had been quite good at it until recently. His fate this year will rest upon his ability to...just drop Royce Lewis for goodness sake.

Keith has been the standings underperformer this year. Consistently in the top tier of the year to date power ranks, Keith has resided in the middle class of the standings most of the year and now faces an uphill climb to get back to the playoffs. His team has taken a bit of a summer vacation similar to it's manager this year, and now must gain ground on the field in the next few weeks to make it into the playoffs.

Brian and Josh have been the Jekyll and Hyde team this year. Off to a very hot start to the year, they cooled in May before getting some mojo back in late June and into July, not unlike their ace, Spencer Strider. This team is built on pitching, and they will likely ride or die as the arms go. They sit in 6th place but are well within reach of 4th to make a move.

Arthur is in 7th place, but has chosen to cash this year in for picks. Residing most of the summer near the bottom of the power ranks, his team simply hasn't bene able to put it together. If Keith has been the standings underperforming, Arthur has overperformed, only ~9 games out of 4th place despite being a distant 9th in the power ranks. This standings place would be certainly within striking distance of the playoffs, but his team might not have the firepower to do much if it got there. It has been a sellers market so far with lots of buyers looking to gain an advantage, there will likely be more picks to be gained the next few weeks.

Cory took a big loss to summer-sensation, though under-manned, Max this week. Cory had been the number four team in the power ranks before this week, and he paced the league in Home Runs with 29 in this long week, but his team couldn't do much else. New rookie Encarnacion-Strand, who Cory held for nearly two months to get the call, has announced his presence early and Cory will need all the help he can get to make a move back to playoff position.

Dave took a swing at Michael's weekly pitching strikeout total this week, and came up frustratingly short. It hasn't been Dave's year. From top draft pick flops to key injuries, it just hasn't come together. Falling in the power ranks through the summer, Dave is sitting on that edge of buying and selling, but he likely wanted to get past this past week's matchup with Michael before making any decision to disassemble the team.

Finally, Max. The best trade-deadline-selling team we've ever seen. This team has been on an absolute tear since he said I Do, but in the middle of that he's already sold away two of his top five players. Max easily has a playoff team right now, even without Albies or Burnes, but the hole he dug himself in is likely too much to come back from, and certainly without two high end players. Max still has a top 10 pick left to add and still be within the pick-holding rules, and he also has his eyes on the Bourbon Street Championship, watch out.

The standings are more stratified this year, leaving more teams to be reasonable sellers than we've seen in recent years. The new rule to be able to trade draft picks has already made this trade deadline season interesting and it is only likely to heat up the next few weeks. Enjoy.