Week 13 Real Rankings

-  Maybe Chris Shannon called off the dogs a little early? His 2.7 was the fourth best of any team this season. Only three teams have posted Real Ranks of 3.0 or lower in a single week - Montezumas (me), Napalm (Gibby), and Donkey (Shannon). Only two teams have done it twice - me and Chris.  Further reasons for Chris to reconsider:

1) If he hadn't traded Soriano and Uehara, his Real Rank for Week 13 would've been 1.8! That's incredible.

2) Though 32.5 games out of first may seem like a lot for , its only 6.5 game from a playoff spot. There's still 80 games. Easy maf.

3) Overall, the Punchers are on the rise in the Real Rankings and are all the way up to 9th. As a reminder, the Real Ranks only missed the actual playoffs teams by one team (had Jason 8th instead of 9th). 

4) With a little closer chasing and some draft picks, a bullpen can be acquired easily. Chris has a stockpile of picks.

5) In the actual standings, he 10-9 the last three weeks, but he had a significant lead going into Sunday in Week 12, but ended up losing to Dave 3-6-1. Dave's real rank for the week was actually only 0.4 higher.

-  Speaking of teams dropping out, it may not be long for the former commish. Lars had a couple of promising weeks of 6.0 and 5.7 in Weeks 7 and 9, but he's averaged 10.3 the past four weeks. That said, everyone can still make the playoffs with a little luck and roster management. Even with a .319 winning %, he's 20 games out of a playoff spot with 80 to go.

-  I like to look at the last four weeks to see who is possible climbing and who is not. Again, further proof Chris Shannon may want to make a run at it as he's easily in second by a wide margin.

1    Montezuma's Revenge    3.80
2    Donkey Punchers    5.08
3    Sexual Napalm        6.08
4    I Ate The Munchkins    6.08
5    Keepin it REAL...    6.48
6    Ring of Fire        7.05
7    One Nut Wonders    7.20
8    Moose is Loose!    7.45
9    Mike Ehrman-Trout    7.53
10    Cowhide Joyride    7.60
11    Urban Achievers    7.90
12    Anal Hershiser        8.38
13    The Angry Pirates    8.80
14    Prestige Worldwide    10.28

-  If you haven't paid, you should've received a reminder email last night. Please let me know when you get a chance.

Trade Review: Prestige and Anal

Prestige receives:

SP Justin Verlander DET

Anal Hershiser receives:

SP Mike Minor ATL

A challenge trade! These can be great. Essentially a challenge trade is when two teams swap players one-for-one and see who wins the battle of wits. In this case, its slightly different in that you could easily make the case of Verlander as the preferable keeper and with Lars sitting in the basement of the standings. But both were keepers this year and had lots of promise. For this year, Minor looks like the better player. Verlander is just bad all the way around right now. His 4.59 xFIP and 4.04 FIP provide little hope of his 4.82 ERA only being a mirage. His 6.6 K/9 is worse than guys like Mike Leake and Bartolo Colon. The walks are awful – his 3.6 BB/9 is 14^th highest in the league, worse than guys like Lincecum  and Edinson Volquez.  His BABIP is a bit high at .321, but nothing terribly indicative of prolonged bad luck. And his velocity is notably down. It is to the point that when Andrew was shopping him, I wasn’t even willing to make a counter because the guy I would offer would be one of the worst guys on my roster. For 2014, he may be done.

With that in mind, he’s only 32 and while a decline in skills should be expected, he’s better than this. If he was living only on gas before, I’d say this was a bad trade for Lars. But he’s got stuff. He may need to come to grips with the lack of velocity, but I see no reason why he can’t be a top 30 starter for the next few years. Maybe he’ll figure it out this year, maybe not. But right now, I’d still rather have him going into next year than Minor.

The reason for that is track record. Minor is better than what he’s been, as his 3.48 xFIP indicates. The BABIP is high at .342 and the HR/FB ratio is elevated, but he also was kept after seasons of .272 and .252, respectively, which is low. His 3.21 ERA (3.64 xFIP), 2.02 BB/0, and 8.0 K/9, in his age 26 season were good, not great. He is an extreme fly ball pitcher, which can cause him problems. Lifetime, he’s at ERA is 3.97 (3.83 xFIP) and an 8.0/2.5 K/BB per 9. He’s good, not great. He may have a few season of borderline keeper in him, but he’ll never be what Verlander was.

Long-term, I still like Verlander as the better keeper. His stuff is too good, even if his velocity isn’t as high. For the 2014 season, Minor is your man. There’s little chance he turns things around enough to end the season with numbers good enough to justify being kept. I can’t blame Andrew for making a run this year and I can’t blame Lars for buying low. So pretty clean draw here.

Trade Review: Montezumas and Donkey

Montezumas receives:

RP Rafael Soriano WAS

18^th rounder

19^th rounder

Donkey Receives:

RP Neil Ramirez CHC

14^th rounder

16^th rounder

Nine rounds for Koji or seven rounds for Soriano? I definitely wanted Koji more, but was fine to settle here. Every year, it seems like I reach the transaction limit due in large part to chasing closer news. Barring injury, this prevents me from having to do that, with Perkins, Soriano, and KRod representing a formidable threesome, while Joe Smith could ultimately make this a transcendent bullpen. Seven rounds is high but not terribly and the impact, when split into two picks, is minimal given the guys I tend to target in these rounds. Soriano has been as good as ever, though the Ks are down quite a bit. I’m in it for the saves anyway.

For Chris Shannon, amazingly, this was his third pitcher trade and he’s accumulated 34 rounds of upgrade without taking a massive hit in any of the categories outside saves. I cover this more in the Uehera review, but Chris was smart to strike while the iron was hot. The pitchers are performing well, while there is high demand and no one selling. I always say, the team that gives up first always has the best opportunity to improve. An important part of maximizing the value of 2014 assets is selling is replacing those assets with pieces that can be sold again. If things continue and Chris ultimately doesn’t look like a playoff team, I bet he can sell Simon for five or six rounds as well, maybe Ramirez too.

That said, picks are only opportunities. Without good players for those slots, they’re worthless. Thus, I don’t have a problem giving up a bit for next year for a clearly valuable piece for this year.

Trade Review: Angry and Donkey

Angry Pirates receives:

RP Koji Uehara BOS

20^th rounder

21^st rounder

Donkey receives:

SS Everth Cabrera SD

14^th rounder

18^th rounder

This is a pretty cut and dry trade. Chris Shannon is making some smart moves as he waits to decide to go into full fledged sell mode. Dealing Weaver and getting 18 rounds and Alfredo Simon, an equally valuable pitcher thus far, was a great move. Liquidating his closers for assets won’t make or break his season. There’s certainly demand and he had two top flight guys in Uehara and Soriano. Nine rounds is a very high price to pay for a closer considering that they typically go for 3-5 rounds near the deadline. However, you’re paying for both the high quality here and the additional month and a half of service time, which is valuable. Though the picks are capped at 14^th round, there is a lot of value to be found in those rounds and Chris already has four 14^th rounders for next year. Meanwhile, he’s also maintaining a talented though obviously flawed roster. If some of his guys can rally and he makes a run at the playoffs, he can restock closers easily with his bounty of picks and at a cheaper price.

Meanwhile, for Kyle, it made little sense to keep Kimbrel and not have any other closers since it negates the one category in which he is most valuable. Getting Uehara immediately legitimizes his bullpen and puts him in a position to win the category every week. With a strong, powerful offense, the pick sacrifice was worth it.

Categorical Real Rankings

This is just a little different way to look at the rankings. For each category, there are two columns - the right column is the team's Real Ranking in just this category for the first 12 weeks of the season, and the left shows you where the team ranks compared to others. The shaded boxes are green for top 3 and red for bottom 3 in the category.

The overall average of each categorical ranking largely lines up with the overall Real Rankings. The total overall rankings differ because the average is taken by category instead of by week. No team is more than two spots out of the current Ranking.

Just another way of looking at it that didn't take too long to put together. It may or may not help you decipher where you might need help. Certainly much of the data used to create it was for previous versions of your team, so its not always an absolute assessment. Still interesting though.

Week 12 Real Rankings

NOTES
- At this point last year, the top 8 in the Real Rankings were the same 8 that went on to the playoffs. Now, keep in mind, the difference between 8th and 9th place is currently half a game and there's still 9 weeks -- or 90 "games" -- left in the regular season. Still, just thought that was an interesting tidbit.

- The rich get richer with Mike and I on top the Real Ranks this week, although that's not saying a lot as the 4.5 average is lowest average score for a leading team since Week 1.

- For the first week in quite a while, the team with the greatest discrepancy in the Real Ranks and the Actual Standings isn't Pierce. Looks like Kyle is getting the shaft in terms of where he is in the standings and where he is in the ranks.

- Overall, the Real Rankings are pretty close to the Actual Standings in terms of the top 8 teams. There are two discrepencies, as the Real Ranks say Moose and Angry should be in, but the standings show Cowhide and Ring.

- Averages over the last four weeks shows Jason's 1-9-0 week is reflective of his recent slide, as he is 9th in Real Ranks over the recent stretch.

Last 4 Weeks:

1	Montezuma's	4.9
2	Keepin it REAL.	5.2
3	I Ate Munchkins	5.5
4	Sexual Napalm	6.0
5	Ring of Fire	6.8
6	Donkey Punchers	7.0
7	Cowhide Joyride	7.0
8	Anal Hershiser	7.2
9	One Nut Wonders	7.8
10	M. Ehrman-Trout	7.9
11	Urban Achievers	8.1
12	Moose is Loose!	8.4
13	Prestige Wrldwd	9.0
14	The Angry Pirates	9.1

- Looking at the first six weeks of the year compared to the last six seeks, Jason's real rank was 5.4 in the first six and 7.8 in the last, which is the largest difference in the league. Meanwhile, Pierce's squad has made significant improvements to help justify his place in the standings, and Chris Shomphe's team has rebounded nicely from the early duldrums.

	Team	First 6	Last 6	Diff			Team	First 6	Last 6	Diff
1	Keepin it REAL...	8.30	6.15	+2.15		14	One Nut Wonders	5.38	7.83	-2.45
2	I Ate The Munchkins	7.95	5.82	+2.13		13	The Angry Pirates	6.40	8.02	-1.62
3	Cowhide Joyride	7.78	6.68	+1.10		12	Urban Achievers	7.17	8.43	-1.27
4	Sexual Napalm	5.87	5.22	+0.65		11	Moose is Loose!	6.70	7.50	-0.80

 
- Should have another interesting number breakdown ready today or tomorrow. It shows everyone's real rank by category. This should give you a pretty clear indication where your club might need improvement and where you might have a surplus.