Week 4: Arthur, and then Everyone Else

 

Arthur took the family out boating this weekend to celebrate his excellent fantasy baseball month of April, I'm sure that was the reason why. Yep.

It's Arthur's world, we're just living in it. He has taken the surplus of early draft capital he accumulated and nailed the picks to set his team up for success this year. Led by Juan Soto, Elly De La Cruz, and Mike Trout, Arthur actually even has room for growth in the back end his roster with some rather underperforming players. Yes, it can get better. After Arthur, the other 9 of us are literally within one power rank point of each other; AKA, we have been about the same. Max's hitting is phenomenal, but his pitching is the worst in the league in literally 5 out of 6 categories. Robert has very good pitching, but that offense is trailing everyone else.

What happened last week? 

The pitchers are still outperforming the hitters, with our league ERA staying below 3.50 for the week. Some MLB-wide data about the baseball is starting to come out...and the baseball may be less bouncy again this year (https://twitter.com/BallparkPal/status/1780561581329244199). But that's out of our control. Let's talk about week to week silliness. Michael beat Max by 16 Net Wins. Yes, that's correct. The long-maligned stat that Michael has railed against for two years has turned into a strength for Michael as he modified his draft strategy to focus on pitchers on good teams instead of just good pitchers...kindly ignore Michael adding two Marlins last week though.

Dean sees this pitcher quality, and laughs, outputting 14 Home Runs last week WHILE still having a 3.25 ERA and 10 SVH. Big, big numbers. He took down what had been a very hot in team in Cory.

Dave also made a very big jump out of the cellar of the power ranks, mostly on the back of a 2.84 ERA over 79 innings. He just edged Keith who had an EVEN BETTER 2.63 ERA over EVEN MORE innings (89)...yet Keith had -2 Net Wins. Figures.

Paul and BJ tied, they both had more than the league average of Home Runs and both pitched well. It was a nice bounce back for BJ after a tough start to the year. Paul is surviving his early season draft-pick poverty. 

Arthur overpowered Robert. Robert has cooled off after his hot first week, but he has plenty of talent (and a very underperforming Matt Olson) to get this thing back on the tracks.

Michael just edged out Max, but it was extremely close the whole week. Max had 16 stolen bases, not a league record, but it is the high mark for the year so far. Michael's pitching had a very good week.