Week 1 Real Rankings

Welcome to the first Real Rankings of 2016! A quick explanation for the new guys: I created this a few years ago as a way for everyone to assess their teams relative to the league – not just their opponent – on a week-to-week basis. The overall Real Ranking is just the average ranking in each category versus the rest of the league.

When considering how this might be helpful, Week 1 had a good example in my matchup with Keepin it Real.  Pierce lost the HR category even though his team hit 11 HRs, good enough for third in the league. He got no credit in the actual standings, but it helped his Real Ranking quite a bit. On the other hand, the actual standings would have you believe his staff deserved a win in the ERA category even though they finished at 5.60 -- 12th out of 14. A perfect example of how difficult the Actual Standings are to assess week to week. Meanwhile, even though I got the 6-4 win, Pierce’s Real Ranking has him in 5th – two spots above me. See? It’s all relative.

The best way to use this is when assessing your team needs a serious overhaul. It does a great job of sorting out luck. One drawback is the overall Real Ranking takes into account performance from earlier in the season. Given roster turnover, your scores in Week 1 will have little bearing on Week 18, so it is skewed in that respect. Because of this, I routinely provide a separate ranking for the previous four weeks later in the season.

The beauty of these rankings is they’ve proven that even though there are vast injustices in the final scores every week, there is a very high correlation at the end of the year.  Over the course of a season, every team’s Real Ranking typically falls within two spots of the Actual Standings.  This lends support to the idea that luck evens out over the course of a season and that the Head-to-Head format is not a crapshoot.

I try to post it on Monday, but keep I may not get to it until Tues or Wed sometimes. Also, most weeks, I’ll include some general observation or highlight some statistical anomalies.

-   The most prominent issue right of the bat is at #1 and #2. Both Gibby and Shomphe had weeks that deserved more than the 6 and 4 win each received, respectively. They were within three spots of eachother in six categories! Could’ve gone either way. Even though neither are probably happy with their place in the standings, both should be happy with their relative performance.

-   One thing neither the standings or rankings will show you is just how crazy Gibby’s power was last week. Sure, 15 HRs is a lot for any team, but it came from a broad swath of players crushing early season pitches. Meanwhile, half of my 14 HRs came from one guy (have I mentioned Trevor Story yet?).

-  Despite a much sturdier base on which to build, Matt lost out to Jeff in the battle of the new guys in both the final score (3-7) and the Real Ranking (4th vs. 14th).

-  The most balanced teams are at the top of the ranking, there are teams with huge differences between their hitting and pitching scores. The Revenge managed a 2.8 on offense thanks to top finishes in R, RBI, OBP and second place in HR, but finished with a 10.8 in pitching . The 41/14/28/2/.414 was almost as good as the pitching line was bad: 50/6.22/1.46/2/5. On the other side, Urban’s pitching line was much better than his hitting production (4.2 vs. 9.2).



Tough injuries already with keepers Pollock and Schwarber, along with early picks Tyson Ross and Shin-Soo Choo. As we all know though, the key to success goes far beyond keepers, draft picks, and the draft. In-season management is key and sometimes these injuries can unlock value elsewhere or cripple teams from the outset.