Week 22: The Final Countdown

 

 

Arthur took in the the latest superhero blockbuster and Paul took in one of America's top 100 golf courses, Chambers Bay out near Seattle. One of these managers is fighting for a playoff spot and one of these managers gets to stare at the trophy on the shelf.

• A perfect reminder for how not only are year to date numbers mostly unimportant right now (hence the new visual in the email), but how Power Ranks were always not a great short term team snapshot, Max went UP in the power ranks in a week that he lost 11-3 AND he put up a 6.01 Expected Week Wins number. 
• Max, barring a collapse this week, is going to end the year as the Power Ranks Champion. That IS a big deal, for year over year review stuff...note that its also not great for playoff performances, but more on that another time.

• now THIS table is a far more productive for today's conversation. Michael and Dave being the only teams above 7 EWW for the week means that overall our fantasy teams underperformed relative to the stats we were putting up earlier in the year, both hitting AND pitching.
• Robert and BJ both had a fortunate week to play an underperforming opponent. This moved Robert into 4th place and kept BJ's playoff hopes alive
• Michael solidified his playoff entry with a strong week...and an underperforming opponent. On the playoff bubble entering the week and playing the first place team, a week-leading 8.21 EWW (after being able to bench most of his pitchers all weekend) gives Michael a 10 game lead on 5th place. He'll make the dance.

Setup for the week

• In what has turned out to be beautiful scheduling down the stretch, all of the playoff contenders continue to play each other while they wrestle for contention.
• Arthur and BJ face each other, sitting in 5th and 6th place respectively, in a direct playoff play-in game...but they will ALSO need Dave and or Robert to slip up to make it. Arthur is 2.5 games back of 4th, BJ is 5 games back of 4th. Good news for Arthur and BJ is that....
• Robert and Dave face the top two teams this week. Bad news for Arthur and BJ, this week's matchup means very little to those top two teams so every category may not be grinded for like Arthur and BJ would want them to be.
• Dave, sitting 6 games ahead of 5th place, faces Max, though Max has is coming off his worst week since week 15 and has suddenly lost two of his trade deadline acquisition pitchers to injury.
• Robert, sitting 2.5 games ahead of 5th place and 5 games ahead of 6th place, faces Michael who is coming of two strong weeks...peaking too early perhaps?
• Let's look at how the contenders have fared the last 4 weeks, noting that two of them will make the playoffs:

• Avert your eyes, team BJ. 
• Dave is the clear leader among the 4 bubble teams, with Arthur and Robert neck and neck.
• ok but what about EWW which doesn't care the next week about how good those two Robert and Dave weeks were?

• So yeah, it's been the Dave show with Arthur a touch ahead of Robert.
• None of this matters though if these teams don't play well this week. Bring your A game and then let's go after the Belt. I hear Paul has been keeping it real clean.

For any manager not mentioned here...

The Bourbon Street Championship starts in 7 days. Reminder that we're playing for the top two draft pick slots a la the NBA draft lottery. After that, the best performing regular season teams get the best slots. We try our best not to reward tanking around here, despite what the trade deadline has devolved into.