Week 3: The Pitchers Fight Back

 

Dean, pictured here with his 3rd place finish in this weekend's triathlon and his third baby with an E first name, Ellie, aka E3, aka the first base error. There is significant truth to the rumor that I started that E1 and E2 would only pose with dad if he came in first.

Arthur extended his Power Rank lead on the pack while Max crashed back down to Earth as last week's injuries really caught up with him. Michael had a major bounce back and now is firmly back in the middle class of Floored as we are now three weeks in. Dave has had a tough two weeks after an excellent start to the season. Dean also wishes we could go back to week 1. Cory has made an even more impressive move, after having a ranking near 8 through week 1 and was in last by over a full point, he has now surged to a 5.29 rank and is in 5th place. Watch out.

The theme for this week was pitching. After two game weeks with a league ERA of 3.75 and 4.05, fantasy teams bounced back with an ERA of 3.21 this week. Two teams this week even had an ERA under 2.00. MLB is very polarized right now, there are some very good teams (see, Braves), but also even more very bad teams (White Sox, Rockies...Astros?).  That fantasy league week ERA is lower than any output we had in 2023 and you have to go all the way back to 2023, week 3, to find a week-long ERA better than this. I guess week 3 is a good time to throw all the pitchers you can.

Matchup summaries! 

The headline matchup of the week had to be between our two hottest starting teams, Arthur and Max. It was a closer matchup than the final score would indicate, but Arthur toppled Max to take over first place in the Yahoo Standings. Max's lack of pitching volume came back to bite him here. Max threw 20 fewer innings than Arthur, but only lost by 3 strikeouts and 1 quality start while still losing ERA and WHIP along the way. Arthur cooled off a bit from his pace from the first two weeks, but it was enough to beat an under-powered Max team. Arthur is choosing to roster a lot of injured (and likely below replacement level) players, a privilege a lot easier to do from the top of the Standings and Power Ranks. Max appears to be doing the same. Time will tell how long they can stay patient. 

The next biggest storyline of the week is Cory's ascension. Cory had a 1.86 ERA for the week while putting up 9 quality starts, huge numbers. His offense was stronger than Paul was able to keep up with as well. Paul's pitching was also very good, putting up a 2.32 ERA which would have gotten the job done most weeks. This is another matchup where the final score (10-3) doesn't fully paint the picture for how close this matchup was.

Michael held off Keith with a relative offensive resurgence (yes, 9 home runs was a lot this week). Michael also had...11...quality starts, one short of the all time Floored record. Michael threw a bunch of mostly good innings, but Keith's ratios were even better, putting up a 2.44 ERA and 1.11 WHIP. This was another close matchup that came down to late Sunday to decide. Keith has been off to a tough start in the Yahoo standings, but his Power Rank is just fine, don't sleep on his team.

Brian and Josh's offense was too much for Robert as they put up a .288 AVG to lead the league this week...however their pitching leaves much to be desired. Losing Strider is going to be a big hole to fill, but with a 5.45 ERA this week, this is more than a Strider-sized problem they need to solve. Meanwhile Robert's pitching was very good with a 1.78 ERA and sub-1 WHIP over 86 innings. Big numbers. It's too early to say that one team has an excess of [one thing] and needs to trade for [the other], BUT....these two teams might be well set up for a hitter for pitcher swap in the not too distant future.

Saving the saddest for last, Dave and Dean just didn't have it this week. Dean only hit two home runs and hit .176...and he won; both teams had ERAs in the bottom half of the league for the week, too. It wasn't pretty. Dean's hitting K problem isn't going away, as his team put up 93 strikeouts this week which was a 34% K rate. Historically Dean's teams (which he builds to have low K rates) are in the 15% to 20% range. The bright spots? Dean put up 9 QS with 8 SVH, very good numbers, it helped get him the win.