Week 8 Real Rankings

If there ever needed to be a case made for tracking real rankings, this is a good week. Clearly, it’s all about matchups. Dan had a huge week and finished third overall with a 4.9, but could only muster 2 wins because he played the Revenge, which decided to have its best week this season. Meanwhile, Pierce came away with six wins despite a 9.7 Real Ranking – good for third worst this week, but still better than his opponent – the woeful Angry Pirates. Luckily, these injustices seem to even out over time.

You want a nail biter? Look no closer than the Thor-Stroman matchup. They were close in runs (separated by 2), HR (1), SB (1), Ks (6), ERA (.02), WHIP (.07), QS (1), and S+H (1). They were also separated by 0.5 in the Real Rankings.  Appropriately, they split the wins this week.

With Week 8 in the books, we are 38% of the way through the season. It’s a good time and large enough sample size to take a good assessment of your team and make wholesale changes if necessary. By now, whatever you invested as a draft pick should be a distant memory and have no bearing on how you move going forward. The highest draft pick to be dropped outright for performance reasons is 11^th rounder Khris Davis by the Angry Pirates (currently on pace for 45 HR and 113 RBI for Thor’s Hammered, incidentally).

It’s important to keep in mind that every team is still in the playoff hunt – Matt and Kyle are tied for last but are still only 7 games out of a playoff spot.

If you’re considering what stats your players might achieve for the season at their current pace, at this point you can multiply production by three and that will factor in regular rest and a (approximately) DL stint. Of course, this doesn’t work for players who have returned from injury. Using this assumption, here’s your projected league leaders in our categories:

Runs:  Mookie Betts - 138

Home Runs:  Frazier, Cespedes, Trumbo, Cano – 45

RBI: David Ortiz – 141

SBs: Jonathan Villar – 54

OBP:  Ben Zobrist - .452

Ks: Clayton Kershaw – 315

ERA: Kershaw – 1.56

WHIP: Kershaw – 0.65

QS: Kershaw – 30

S+H:  Jeanmar Gomez – 54 

The projections for the top five players are as follows:

1. Kershaw (see above)

2. Jose Altuve 123/27/90/45/.403

3. Bryce Harper 96/39/102/21/.415

4. Mike Trout 108/33/111/18/.411

5. David Ortiz 78/42/141/3/.419

Going forward, you will only play every team once this season. That means the five teams you play from weeks 9-13 you only play once this season (on week 14, your opponent will be the same as it was week 1), the outcome of which can be critical when it comes to tie breakers.

Not to jinx myself, but the Revenge have yet to lose a matchup this season. Urban had my team against the ropes going into Sunday, but we were able to squeak out the close categories.  Gibby has only lost one matchup, a 3-7 hiccup vs. the Revenge. Gibby is proving to be as steady as they go in the Real Rankings and he’s currently sitting five games out of first. A week 16 rematch with the Revenge looms large.

Here are the real rankings for the last three weeks. The most noteworthy differences are One Nut (-4 spots) and Urban (+3 spots).

1	Sexual Napalm	5.1
2	Montezuma's Revenge	5.4
3	Cowhide Joyride	6.0
4	Thor's Hammered	6.1
5	Urban Achievers	6.5
6	One Nut Wonders	6.6
7	Ring of Fire	6.7
8	Stroman my Cobb Odor	6.7
9	Keepin it REAL...	7.1
10	Anal Hershiser	7.7
11	Donkey Punchers	8.3
12	Brokeback Moundmen	8.3
13	Moose is Loose!	8.5
14	The Angry Pirates	9.9