Week 11: Regression Has Arrived

Dean, Robert, and Robert's dad took in some Coors Light's, one has to assume, while watching the Party Animals be far more entertaining than the Savannah Bananas last month. Robert is back to smiling this week with his league-leading EWW this week and maybe seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.

• The bottom may be falling out from our pace car team from the first 7 weeks. Not only have Arthur's hot starts cooled off, but the injury bug has set in. He had a head start on the field after his excellent draft, but now is when the real fantasy managing is tested. Roster construction and player selection decisions will be vitally important for the next number of weeks while Arthur works to survive this June swoon.
• Kevin has also tipped the scale downward lately. Two bad weeks out of the last 3, again after an excellent first two months, has left Kevin wondering what is real. In his favor is health, which should stabilize ebbs and flows of fantasy production, but with as tight as the Yahoo standings have become, there is minimal wiggle room to play with.
• The next notable observation from this chart is Paul's demise. It was a cinderella start after he had a major draft capital hole to dig out of. it had looked like he had done so as recently as week 7, but injuries to draft pick breakouts like Mickey Moniak have left Paul at an inflection point on the year. He's been outperforming his EWW regularly and has sat on the lucky side of the standings. The tide may be turning.
• Ok, to the upswing teams, Max. Max has not only avoided the basement of the league, he is competitive. He was basically tied for the second best team in the league last week and paced the league in home runs, the single most important statistic correlated with being the best team. Working against him is that he's also gotten injured lately. Injuries to breakout names like Munetaka Murakami and Chase Dollander hurt, but there is also some likely opportunity for cutting the chaff here to stay competitive in ABs and IPs, which last week Max was not....yes he put up an 8.48 EWW with 40 IP and about 100 less ABs than the rest of the league. Watch out.
• Michael is the next big mover. He's also avoided the basement and over the last 4 weeks is actually in the top tier of the league. He's healthy and Ronald Acuna has started playing like a first round pick again. What is really doing it for Michael is a number of the players he was forced to add with all the injuries in April and May, a number of them have become stalwarts like Josh Jung, Trent Grisham, and Spencer Steer. When names like Mookie and Vinnie P are verging on unplayable, aggressive moves had to be made. It's been working out lately for Michael.
• Dean's move upward has been a steadier climb. Re-emergence by his drafted/kept studs like Freddie Freeman and Ketel Marte has gone a long ways, but its his pitching that has carried him. Dean, notoriously conservative about dropping injured players, likely could do some soul searching about his current roster. He sits in a current playoff position so he's likely not feeling the heat, but decisions today have ramifications for August. We'll see if he plays this right.
• We'll call Robert an upswing team, though it hadn't felt like it before last week. Injuries to breakout Drake Baldwin hurt his stat lines, overpaying for Didier Fuentes hurt his pride, but its been across the board disappointments that have been the most impactful. High draft picks and keeprs like Devers and Cal Raleigh have struggled, and the early breakouts by Sal Stewart cooled off. There's still plenty to like about this team, it just needs to find its path.
• Dave is another team that can't decide which way its swinging. He's regularly been in the middle to upper tier of the Power Ranks and EWW values, but he's rarely stood out. Nick Kurtz, after an April swoon, has been one of the best players in fantasy. Pete Crow-Armstrong has been showing Dave maybe he didn't blow it by picking PCA as a keeper instead of selling Bryan Woo at a profit. Pitching has not been effective for Dave, but again, high bar because his team is good. Long ways to go for this team who's story is not yet written.
• We'll give Cory the upswinging label. Shohei the hitter is rounding back into form and Yandy Diaz has carried the freight. Cory was in 7th place in the power ranks after week 7 but has already climbed back up to 4th. This week he gets Tarik Skubal back and Hunter Green won't be far behind. This is a team to watch out for.
• Keith, well, Keith isn't really swinging either. wait. nvm. I'll just say thanks for the 13-0 week, sir.

We're two months from the trade deadline and 12 weeks from the end of the regular season. The Yahoo standings are very tight with 8 games separating the 3rd through 7th teams; but with Robert (9th place) only 13 games back of 4th place, basically all teams are still in contention and there there is a wild playoff push coming. I'd doubt there will be much of a sell-off any time soon; even our 'falling' and 'lower' power ranked teams only have a lowest Power Rank of 7.07 on the year. This time last year we had three teams that already had a power rank close to 7.5 or worse and the trades were about be flying, but this year?  Larry Bird isn't walking through the door.