Week 6 Power Rankings

1.  Grumpy Munchkins – Casten’s place in the standings caught up to his power ranking during the two week hiatus. There’s just no weak spots, though he could do better in saves (eighth – his worst category), but has been unlucky with Madson and Robertson. Most of his picks are panning out, including ADunn, who is back to monster status (and who I hate even more now).

2.  Clayton & The King – With Jason nipping at his heals, Russ gets the nod here with his thoroughly dominating offense, which ranks first in R, HR, and RBI (Thank you, Mr. Hamilton). If Berkman is healthy and productive, it makes him even better. Pitching has been more of an issue than I expected, but I expect Wainright and Minor to be OK. Still, there are enough questions marks to no longer consider this a strength, especially with his bullpen.

3.  One Nut Wonders – Beleaguered yes, but Beckett is absolutely an excellent return for Infante, whose really is just not good. Smart move that could improve a team that already ranks top 8 in every category. AJones has proven to be excellent and Middlebrooks was a good part-time pickup. The pitching staff is still sort of duct-taped together at the moment, but there's some great quality at the top.

4.  Prestige Worldwide – Opposite of his brother, Lars’ team has played well enough to be a top team but is currently out of the top six playoff spots. Encarnacion has just been a monster and he has an average offensive rank of 3.2 even with AGon yet to produce and Longo hurt, so offense is not a problem. But there's a lot of names in that rotation of guys having a good first month and a half, so this could get ugly quick.

5.  Ring of Fire – In first in the standings and fifth in statistical production, Dagan has two rather extreme points of weakness, as his total SB and K are 13th in the league and he’s top 6 in the rest (with the exception of 10th in QS). But he’s making it work with some  major injuries to Kemp, Werth, and Youk, while enduring underproduction from guys like Walden, Hughes, Latos, and Masterson. Weeks 9-11 he’ll go against myself, Casten, and Russ, so we’ll see where he is in the standings at that point.

6.  Montezuma’s Revenge – An entire week without a home run... sigh. I’m just grateful it was the week I was on vacation or I may have put a bullet in my laptop. It’s caused me to fall to 13th in HR and RBI, while I’m holding up quite well elsewhere. Should Hosmer, Upton, and Kinsler come back to life soon, this rank will change, but for now the drop is warranted.

7.  Moose is Loose – Brian’s group is pretty middle of the pack in terms of totals, with the second place rankings in RBI and saves being the outliers. His SPs are all guys who have had good years before, but tend to be very volatile (with the exception of Grienke). He’s got some offensive guys who haven’t come about as well, primarily Tulo.

8.   Keepin It Real – While you can feel bad for Pierce with the unfortunate injuries to Panda and Ellsbury, he hasn’t really managed his roster in a way that can make up for those losses. DL’d guys like SDrew, JSanchez, and Bay could all be dropped and provide three additional slots to boost those woeful counting categories (13th saves,11th in Ks, 10th in HR, 10th in steals). My guess is those three would still be available when healthy.

9.  Donkey Punchers – Chris has suffered from a lot of underperformance with guys like Gallardo, IDavis, LoMo, JWeeks, Napoli, Tabata, and Tex, but pitching has been very good (with the obvious exception of saves). If you take out the 14th ranking in saves, he has easily the top pitching with a 3.0 average (7.1 overall – 7th total). His luck could change organically, but if it doesn’t Chris may have to deal off some of that pitching to supplement the O.

10.Cowhide Joyride – Things just haven’t gone as planned for Dave. He’s 3rd in saves, then the next best total is a 6th place showing in SB. Tough to take for a team that made some good moves late last year to try to compete this year. The keepers (Posey, Weeks, Fielder, Zimmerman, Andrus and particularly Lincecum) have been weak or just OK. There’s still time and talent to turn this around though.

11. Urban Achievers – Dan’s team is actually better than the standings indicates. There’s some sneaky good moves that have paid dividends like taking on BLahair after Lars gave up on him, Alutve has been very good, ACraig sat on the DL a while but has been very productive upon return, Ruiz has been basically the best fantasy catcher, LScott has had his moments, Mous has been better than I expected, while Paulino, Bass and Burnett (minus one start) have also surprised. Good example of how active management can help a downtrodden team.

12. The Angry Pirates – The offense really hasn’t been bad, but the pitching has just been dreadful with an average rank of 12th – that’s not good. WChen was a nice find and Kyle’s lucky Sale is staying in the rotation, but everyone else has been pretty crappy. If anyone needed to trade for some balance, it’s Kyle, and he’s got the offense parts to do it.

13. Anal Hershiser – Andrew has the exact opposite problem of Kyle, with both teams having a 4.8 point difference in the average rank of their offense and pitching. However, Anal’s numbers are banking on that tidy ERA and WHIP, but the pitching counting categories aren’t so hot (12th in saves, 10th in Ks, 9th in QS). He’s started to address this by dropping Oswalt (finally) and now has 10 starters, including the surprising DSmyly and HAlvarez.

14.Billy Chapel – Mama said if you ain’t got nothing nice to say, don’t say nothin at all. But I don’t have to listen to her anymore. There are still parts that are good, but Aram, ARod, Morales, Beckett, Axford, and Kennedy have all underperformed and dragged down the rest of the team. Last in the statistical and actual rankings, Troy already has a deep hole to climb out of as he’s currently 18.5 games out of a playoff spot.