Week 7 Real Rankings

Notes:
- Gibby's 9-0-1 drubbing of Jason lead to a change at the top of the Actual Standings and the Real Rankings as he finished with the second highest Real Ranking this season. His offense was utterly dominating relative to the rest of the week with a 1.4 on offense, coming in first in four of five categories and third in one.

- Remarkably, Gibby was tops overall in SBs again - the sixth time this season out of seven weeks. Only, this week it was a narrow victory by one steal with just six.

- Second straight great week for Shomphe has the Munchkins moving back up the rankings as the pitching staff has started to come together.

- Continuing on a previously noted theme, Pierce's luck ran out a bit this week. Still,  he sits at 5th in the Actual Standings despite moving to last place in the Real Rankings this week.

- Seen a lot more trade activity recently. Won't be surprised if we start seeing some real moves.

- Shannon had one of the worst offensive weeks in the league's history with a 12.6. How do I know this? Well, it couldn't get much worse, ending the week last in three categories, second to last in one, and eight in another.

- Very few teams haven't been hit by the injury bug this year. Thankfully, a handful of the TJS starters were hurt prior to the draft. Otherwise, it'd be even worse.

- Lars somehow managed to be first in homers and seventh in RBIs. Its difficult to hit 14 homers and only get 27 rbis. Shomphe had half that amount of HRs and got 39 rbis.

- For a team with 0 saves, you'd think Russ' squad would have more Ks (376 - second to last overall).

TEAMS UNDEFEATED IN A CATEGORY

• Sexual Napalm - stolen bases (7-0-0)
• Montezuma's Revenge - strikeouts (7-0-0)
• I Ate The Munchkins - RBIs (6-0-1)

TEAMS SHUTOUT IN A CATEGORY

• Ring of Fire - strikeouts (0-7-0) 
• Mike Ehrman-Trout - saves (0-6-1)
• I Ate The Munchkins - saves (0-6-1)
• Prestige Worldwide - stolen basis (0-5-2)

Trade Review: Angry and One Nut

One Nut receives:
2B Jason Kipnis CLE
OF Adam Eaton CWS
SP Juan Nicasio COL
17th rounder

Angry receives:
SP Johnny Cueto CIN
SP Drew Hutchinson TOR
23rd rounder


Ugh. I don't understand this one for either team really.

It's worse for Kyle though, as he continues to perpetuate the perception of being Jason's farm team. Kipnis is a top 20 overall player and an injury did nothing to change that. Johnny Cueto is a streaky starter, who can be dominant at times, but who has only exceeded 200 ip once in six year career and whose 7.2 K/9 is mediocre at best. It can be dangerous dealing for players who have been dominant over short sample sizes and have established track records because it is highly probably they regress back to their historical norms -- meaning Kyle may have acquired Cueto's downfall and sold low on Kipnis' upswing. It may surprise you to know that Kipnis is only one year older than Cueto, who, at 28, could certainly fits the profile of a keeper if he keeps it up. But he won't be a potential five-category stud at a premium position like Kipnis. As I noted when I called Cueto one of my worst picks, he's very talented but scout hate the twist in his delivery that has caused oblique issue in the past. Hutchinson is a great story and one of the best Mr. Irrelevant's we've seen in H&T draft history, but he has an even longer injury history. He's talented, but he lets up a lot of fly balls. If he stays healthy, he's got a legit shot at 200 ks. But that's a huge if. A staff lead by Sonny Gray, Anibal Sanchez, and Shelby Miller can compete in this league with some decent guys behind him. This does make the staff better, but that's a huge hit on offense and Kyle should've got more. And how did that pick swap get in there? Jeez. That's essentially giving Jason another player.

From a pure value standpoint, Jason did well. And while I know pitching can be acquired as teams drop out of it, you still have to be relevant in those categories until that point. A staff lead by Liriano, Buehrle, Chavez and Volquez isn't the lease bit intimidating. With Melancon as his only closer - and that's temporary - he could go weeks without a win in the pitching categories. He certainly has the offensive firepower to acquire some pitching and Lord knows he's not afraid to trade, so he's the obvious winner here in my mind as the overall value of his team increases. But I wouldn't wait long because that top spot in the standings could go away quickly with a bunch of 5-5-0 weeks.

Week 6 Real Rankings

Notes:
- Not many over- or under-achievers as this week had the smallest differential between the first and last place team all season at 4.4 and 9.9.

- Lady luck appears to be stalking Pierce like a deranged ex-girlfriend with a promise ring. There is an incredible 10 spots between his place in the Real Rankings and that of the Actual Standings. This was perpetuated this week by his matchup against a the underachieving Urban Achievers. He got a win despite hitting a meager 4 home runs this week, but Dan did worse with 2. You gotta think this will catch up to him eventually, but there he is, sitting fourth in the standings.

-  Ten teams hit more home runs than Pierce and Dan did COMBINED (6) in their matchup.

- Kyle and Jason both hammered out 14 home runs a piece this week.

- Big bounceback week for the new guy as Shomphe's nice week gave him a good bump up the Real Rankings

- Gibby continued his assault on the basepaths, with 9 steal. He has had the most SBs every week except one and has an incredible 62 total stolen bases compared to second place Andrew's 34.

Week 5 Real Rankings

I added four columns to the overall ranking so you can see how you're doing overall in hitting and in pitching. As you can see, the top teams largely have balanced teams relative to the rest of the league, with the exception of Kyle, who is crushing people in offense (4.3, 1st) but hurting in pitching (8.0, 11th).

As you can see, I've overtaken the top position by .06 over Jason after a second straight #1 real ranking.

For all those teams look at the Standings and the Real Rankings, its important to keep in mind we're only five weeks in. Enough that you know something about your team, but plenty of time to turn things around. Case in point - in week 5 last year, Brian - our champion - was 11th in the Real Rankings and 12th in the Overall Standings.

While its way too early to give up, but this is about the time we do start seeing some trade action. One way to look at needs and surpluses is by going to the standings on the main page and switch it to head-to-head stats, then select "totals". You can sort through the cumulative totals for all teams here. A good example is if someone is looking for steals, Mike's got more than enough with 53 total and Kyle is in a distant second with 30 and there's six teams with less than 20.

We're five weeks through a 21-week season, so that's about one quarter of the way. Here's the top 20 currently. Lots of hitters, 14 actually, and only six pitchers, one of which is a closer. Of course the top overall is a guy I had among the worst picks for the round he was drafted, though, in fairness, it was because of health issues not talent. It remains to be seen if he'll survive the year, but so far its been smooth sailing.

1. SP Johnny Cueto CIN, Jason
2. OF Charlie Blackmon COL, Jason
3. SS Troy Tulowitski COL, Brian
4. OF Giancarlo Standon MIA, Shomphe
5. SP Jose Fernandez MIA, Adam
6. 1B Jose Abreu CHW, Adam
7. 2B Brian Dozier MIN, Mike
8. 2B Dee Gordon LAD, Mike
9. 1B Albert Pujols STL, Dan
10. OF Jose Bautista TOR, Kyle
11. OF Nelson Cruz BAL, Dave
12. SP Adam Wainright STL, Shannon
13. RP Francisco Rodriguez MIL, Adam
14. 1B Adrian Gonzalez LAD, Jason
15. SP Tim Hudson SF, Dagan
16. 1B Paul Goldschmidt ARI, Dagan
17. 1B Jason Morneau COL, Dave
18. 3B Josh Donaldson OAK, Andrew
19. OF Mike Trout LAA, Russ
20. SP Zach Grienke LAD, Brian

Week 4 Real Rankings

Notes

• Lets talk about me - crazy week. 2.4 is easily the best output for any team in a single week so far. It's the second highest in two years, with only Mike's 2.2 in Week 9 of 2013 exceeding it. My team was able to come in first in hitting (2.8) and pitching (2.0) for the week. Meanwhile 16 homers was six more than the next best team, thanks largely to Jose Abreu, who is on pace for 58 hr and 175 rbis. Just one of those weeks you never want to stop.
• Little more about me - If you remove the SB category, my real  rank would've been 1.6. And if I started both Salazar and Richards on Sunday, I would have ended the week first in every category besides QS (2nd) and steals (10th) and ended the week with a 2.0. If Braun didn't hit one of my few basestealers in the head with a bat on Saturday, that number could've been even better.
• Pierce took a slight hit this week, with a 3-6-1 loss to Dave but continues to be in the top 3 in the standings and bottom 3 in the Real Rankings.
• Mike had an insane week on the basepaths with 16 stolen bases. Ironically, cruelly, that was about 15 more than he needed to win the category from Shomphe, who had 0 stolen bases.
• As you can see by the first third column in the overall rankings, there's still some injustice in terms of the correlation between the Real and actual rankings, but an incredible 8 of the teams are in the same position in both rankings. Statistically speaking, that's rather remarkable after only four weeks.
• After weeks of seeing his hitting outproduce his pitching by leaps and bounds, Shomphe's hitting came in last for the week (12.4) while his pitching came in second (4.8).
• Lots of lopsided victories this week, with all victors except Andrew (5-4-1 over Russ) getting at least 7 wins.
• Of the losers, Lars had the best Real Rank at 8.2, which was only 0.6 less than Jason's 7.6 for the week. Except Lars play Brian and got 1 win and Jason player Dan on a bad week and got 7 wins. For a team down in its luck, another tough break for Lars, who has a better Real Ranking than Pierce but rest 11 spots below him in the actual standings.
• While I may be ragging on Pierce, it would be disingenuous for me not to point out his pitching staff put together a 1.69/0.96 for the week. However, he lost to Dave in saves and Ks and tied in QS. Its an interesting example of the difficult balance in how to structure a roster. Pierce only has six starters, two closers, and a setup guy, while rostering four bench bats. Meanwhile, Dave has eight starters, three closers, and one setup guy. Both have less starters than many other teams, but for this week, Dave's relative excess made the difference. That is why you see so few starting pitchers available on the wire. A large group of mediocre guys can win you three categories (QS, SV, K). A small group of excellent guys can win you two categories (ERA, WHIP). Teams that have a large group of excellent guys tend to dominate this league, but it is extremely hard to do.

Week 3 Real Rankings

Few notes 3 weeks in:

• Keeping in mind the small sample size, it is interesting to see the person with the poorest draft position (Jason) on top of both the standings and the Real Rankings while the person with the best draft position (Dave) is last in both. Still lots of time for this to change, but if it keeps up, it provides further ammo for those feeling the inkling to burn through all their picks for a championship run this year. Might just be worth it! 
• Jason had the best single week so far this year at 3.1. However, being buoyed by the likes of Charlie Blackmon, Jesse Chavez, and Edinson Volquez makes me question the long-term viability here.
• The Real Rankings suggest Pierce is getting by with smoke and mirros, with the 12th best overall Real Ranking and the second best record.
• Looking at volatility, Dagan's team is a bit of a mystery, going from second-to-last in Week 2 to second overall in Week 3.
• Last year at this point, overall, Russ was first, Andrew second, and Pierce in third.
• Top 15 overall players through April 24th. Interesting divide among types. Shows you how important keepers, the draft, and midseason pickups are.

1. OF Charlie Blackmon COL (Jason) - FA
2. OF Giancarlo Stanton MIA (Shomphe) - Keeper
3. SP Adam Wainright (Shannon) - Keeper
4. 1B Albert Pujols LAA (Dan) - Keeper
5. SP Johnny Cueto (Jason) - 3rd round
6. SS Alexei Ramirez CHW (Shomphe) - 6th round
7. SS Troy Tulowitski COL (Brian) - Keeper
8. SP Felix Hernandez SEA (Shomphe) - Jason keeper
9. SP Aaron Harang ATL (Lars) - FA
10. OF Ryan Braun MIL (Jason) - Chris keeper
11. SP Jose Fernandez (Adam) - Keeper
12. OF Mike Trout LAA (Russ) - Keeper
13. 1B Jose Abreu CHW (Adam) - 1st round
14. OF Nelson Cruz BAL (Dave) - 5th round
15. SP Martin Perez (Shannon) - 13th round
16. OF Melky Cabrera TOR (Shomphe) - FA
17. RP Francisco Rodriguez MIL (Adam) - FA
18. SP Mark Buehrle TOR (Jason) - FA
19. OF Chris Colabello MIN (Andrew) - FA
20. OF Michael Brantley CLE (Dave) - 9th round

TOTALS
Keepers: 8
Draft picks:  6
Free agents: 6

Week 2 Real Rankings