Week 7 Real Rankings/Trade Review

NOTES
We're 1/3 of the way through the season, which is a good time to start assessing where you're at and what you plan to do moving forward.

The recent trade between Jeff and Jason is an interesting one. Chatwood and Carpenter have been major disappointments while Jon Gray has done his typical flash of brilliance followed by stretches of suckdom. At this point in the season, it's perfectly reasonable to assess a player and what they will produce.  However, there's still time to overcome underperformance, so it's not set in stone. But Carp is projecting at 59/14/59/0/.323 and Chatwood at 3.70/1.62 with 150 K, while Gray is at 5.33/1.39 but with 209 K and the key difference is Chatwood is getting lucky 5.35 xFIP while Gray is decidedly unlucky at 2.94 xFIP.  Chatwood and Carpenter may very well turn it around and Carp has been better as of later, but at this point, there was no reason to give up on a solid SP4 with SP2 upside to get them. Jeff wins this one by a big margin.

Like Judge and Bellinger last year, Ozzie Albies has come up and shown the bigs really aren't THAT hard. Meanwhile, 19 year-olds like Ronald Acuna and Juan Soto are sprinting through minor league systems in one season -- both have now done the Low A to Majors route in one season or less. It's a young man's sport and identifying the right one can mean the difference between being a good team and a great one.

Speaking of great teams, Thor and Tomohawk have shown remarkable consistency, both with volatility in the 0.5 range. That's really difficult to do 7 weeks into the season, particularly when you consider Chad has the 4th best hitting and 4th best pitching.

Meanwhile, consistency isn't such a great thing when you're in the bottom. With VARs in the 1.5 range, Brokeback and Donkey should perhaps start considering making some changes. Meanwhile, Cowhide is really feeling the strain of a tough draftboard.

There's a lot of stars in the top 25 this year. Mostly keepers, Ozzie, two young RPs, a guy who was dropped by a moron, Haniger, Story, and a surprising Morton.

1 Mookie Betts Bos - OF  Sexual Napalm
2 Mike Trout LAA - OF  Montezuma's Revenge
3 Justin Verlander Hou - P  Donkey Punchers
4 Bryce Harper Was - OF  Thor's Hammered
5 Gerrit Cole Hou - P  Donkey Punchers
6 Max Scherzer Was - P  Montezuma's Revenge
7 Ozzie Albies Atl - 2B Tomahawk chops
8 Aaron Judge NYY - OF  Moose is Loose!
9 Manny Machado Bal - 3B,SS  Sexual Napalm
10 José Ramírez Cle - 2B,3B  The Angry Pirates
11 Freddie Freeman Atl - 1B,3B  Tomahawk chops
12 J.D. Martinez Bos - OF  Sexual Napalm
13 Chris Sale Bos - P  The Angry Pirates
14 Francisco Lindor Cle - SS  Take the Knebel
15 Corey Kluber Cle - P  One Nut Wonders
16 Josh Hader Mil - P Tomahawk chops
17 Charlie Blackmon Col - OF  Take the Knebel
18 Tommy Pham StL - OF  Take the Knebel
19 A.J. Pollock Ari - OF  Brokeback Moundmen
20 Brandon Belt SF - 1B,OF Anal Hershiser
21 Mitch Haniger Sea - OF Thor's Hammered
22 Trevor Story Col - SS Ring of Fire
23 Charlie Morton Hou - P Tomahawk chops
24 Adam Ottavino Col - P Cowhide Joyride

Week 6 Real Rankings

Week 5 Real Rankings

NOTES
It may take a while for a front runner to emerge here. There does seem to be a general top tier developing with Thor and Tomahawk remaining consistent and around 6.0, but they're a bad week from being in a group of eight teams around 6.50-7.00.  The key has been their consistency, as shown in the VAR column and the relative balance of their hitting and pitching.  The group  in the 7.50-8.00 range are a couple decent weeks from joining that middle tier too. 

Then, there's Cowhide Joyride in a tier all by himself and the obvious candidate to sell early a la Sexual Napalm in 2015, Angry Pirates in 2016, and Brokeback in 2017 -- all of which produced relatively successful turnarounds.


I know I've been saying it for years, but just in case you think it's my own unsupported anti-RP bias, let's take a look at the S+H leaders  Archie Bradley, Wade Davis, Edwin Díaz, Juan Nicasio, Brad Boxberger, José Alvarado, Josh Hader, Chaz Roe, Jeurys Familia, Brad Hand, Adam Ottavino, Craig Kimbrel, Bud Norris.  That's 13 RPs with 9 or more SH, 6 of which were not drafted at all. Only 3 (Diaz, Hand, Kimbrel) were drafted among the 10 highest drafted RPs.  On top of the general unreliability of them producing the one category they control, their contribution to the other categories is another consideration. With an average of 3 IP per week, each RP accounts for approximately 4% of the total for the week.  The average SP is 5.5 IP per outing, when you factor in multiple starts, its around 7 IP per starter per week, or 9.5% per starter. So while they K at a higher rate and have generally better rates, the weekly impact of most RPs is negligible because the inning totals K totals are less than half that of starters and the difference in rates (average of 3.71/1.21 for SPs and 2.92/1.10 for RPs this year) is not significant enough to dramatically improve rates. Their overall contribution is essentially 1.50 categories, which is consistent with their overall contribution to the actual game on an individual basis. This supports the role we've developed for RPs in our league and their overall contribution/value of our league.

Could this change? Certainly. Some MLB teams outright avoid having their SPs go through a lineup a third time as advanced analytics have supported such a move. This threatens the viability of the QS category, but makes the alternative (W) even less appealing. Something to contemplate.

Speaking of things to contemplate, I heard an interesting strategy for leagues struggling with the DL designation dilemma - no limit, no stash DLs.  Your roster could be 40 people as long as they were placed on the DL while on your roster. There would be no picking up DL players to "stash". I love that idea, though its an administrative nightmare I don't see Yahoo addressing any time soon. There are other more customizable platforms that could facilitate this apparently. We've always been a Yahoo league, but that is something to think about. Hopefully Yahoo attempts to address it creatively. I hate having teams be shorthanded because a valuable contributor gets place on the DL.

Thank you to those who have paid their dues. If you have not, please go to https://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/10469/finances and see what you owe.

Updated individual player rankings.  There's a lot of first round types in there, with some interesting emerging pitchers and steals like Ozzie Albies, Mitch Haniger, and Javier Baez:

Week 4 Real Rankings