Week 10 Real Ranking

NOTES
Lots of movement on the boards again this week. Perhaps they're normalizing a bit, but we still have some wide discrepencies in Actual vs. Real. The primary reason for that is pretty clearly parity. The teams ranked 2-11 in the Real Rankings are only separated by 1 point, so those teams can fluctuate week to week quite a bit. The 12-14 teams are all approximately where they should be according to the Real Rankings and you've got to wonder at what point does the master dealer -- sitting 28.5 games out of first and 18.5 out of a playoff spot -- take his one remaining nut and call it a season?

We are on the verge of the halfway point, so it's not a bad time to take stock and figure out what pieces you might need. There were as many deals in the first 40 minutes after the season than there were in April and May -- and both were considered widely to be lopsided.  While Tim Anderson is certainly not the most steady player, his overall numbers are great and Kyle Freeland's were not, so it was a bit perplexing why Dave made the trade. The Rockies subsequently optioned Freeland and Tim Anderson is 5/15 with a HR and an SB for Anal. I should note the draft picks were swapped incorrectly, so Dave shouldve received the 3 rounds, not Justin (Yahoo is fixing). Then there's the Jason trade we all didn't like but really hasn't had much of an impact. Jed's players (Gordon/Blackmon/Price) have performed well despite all spending time on the IL and two of Jason's three guys (Xander/Freeman) have been outstanding. Yet, both teams remain firmly in the basement and they have combined to have only one Real Ranking score better than 7.5 over the last 6 weeks!

Someone will have to do something to differentiate themselves at some point. My guess is there will be even more teams willing to sacrifice next year for this year given how the season is going. The team with the top draft score heading into this year's draft, Anal, is doing quite well, but the second and third place scores (Cowhide and Moose) are sitting in 11th and 12th while the three teams with the by far the worst draft scores - Montezuma's, Grit and Balls, and Sexual Napalm - are 1st, 2nd, and 4th in the Actuals. It should be noted that my team and Shomphe's have 33 transactions each.  All of this just lends credence to what I've been saying for years - inseason moves are far more important than the draft (whether by dumb luck or skill).

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Here's a look at how everyone is trending the last three weeks:

LAST THREE WEEKS
1 Montezuma's Rev 5.6
2 Take the Knebel 5.9
3 The Angry Pirates 6.1
4 Anal Hershiser 6.1
5 Tomahawk chops 6.4
6 Sexual Napalm 6.9
7 Knuckle Sandwich 7.0
8 Grit Beer and Balls 7.2
9 Donkey Punchers 7.6
10 Brokeback Mound 7.7
11 Cowhide Joyride 7.9
12 Moose is Loose! 8.2
13 Ring of Fire         8.2
14 One Nut Wonders 8.9

And here's individual players that are hot over the past two weeks - bunch of keepers and then theres the likes of Giolito, Nunez, Odorizzi, Soroka, Riley, Renfroe, Marte, and Dietrich, who were all up for grabs not too long ago:

LAST 14 DAYS

1	Trevor Story Col - SS 	Ring of Fire
2	Nolan Arenado Col - 3B 	Anal Hershiser
3	Lucas Giolito CWS - P	Sexual Napalm
4	Renato Núñez Bal - 1B,3B	Montezuma's Revenge
5	Justin Verlander Hou - P 	Tomahawk chops
6	Austin Meadows TB - OF	Donkey Punchers
7	Max Scherzer Was - P 	Montezuma's Revenge
8	Anthony Rizzo ChC - 1B 	Brokeback Moundmen
9	Juan Soto Was - OF 	Montezuma's Revenge
10	Xander Bogaerts Bos - SS 	One Nut Wonders
11	Jake Odorizzi Min - P	Take the Knebel
12	Mike Trout LAA - OF 	Montezuma's Revenge
13	Andrew McCutchen Phi - OF 	Cowhide Joyride
14	Eduardo Escobar Ari - 3B,SS	Grit Beer and Balls
15	Rafael Devers Bos - 3B 	Take the Knebel
16	Max Kepler Min - OF	Knuckle Sandwich
17	Mike Soroka Atl - P	Sexual Napalm
18	Austin Riley Atl - 3B,OF	Tomahawk chops
19	Hunter Renfroe SD - OF	Grit Beer and Balls
20	Rich Hill LAD - P	Sexual Napalm
21	Derek Dietrich Cin - 1B,2B,OF	Take the Knebel
22	Brad Peacock Hou - P	The Angry Pirates
23	Ketel Marte Ari - 2B,SS,OF	Brokeback Moundmen
24	Gleyber Torres NYY - 2B,SS 	Knuckle Sandwich
25	David Price Bos - P	Donkey Punchers

Week 6-8 Real Rankings

It's been a few weeks since the last update and a lot has happened since then. Frankly, the Real Rankings are in disarray at the moment. The most extreme examples are happening at the top.  The Angry Pirates should be a lot better off in the Actual Standings according to the Real Ranking. However, Kyle's team is also one of the more volatile and statistically his average (and therefore RR) is being boosted by early season results. Meanwhile, the top team in the Standings, my Revenge, are clearly overachieving. The team has been dealing with a lot of injuries, so this could bode well in terms of aligning future RR scores. The term "I'd rather be lucky than good" comes to mind

Over the last three weeks we've seen the emergence of a few teams, operating in the middle of the Actual Standings, so further change in leadership could be happening.

1	Take the Knebel	5.5
2	Anal Hershiser	5.6
3	Tomahawk chops	6.1
4	Sexual Napalm	6.3
5	The Angry Pirates	6.4
6	Knuckle Sandwich	6.4
7	Montezuma's Revenge	6.9
8	Brokeback Moundmen	7.0
9	Grit Beer and Balls	7.3
10	Moose is Loose!	7.4
11	Ring of Fire	7.5
12	Cowhide Joyride	8.8
13	Donkey Punchers	9.0
14	One Nut Wonders	9.4

Rather than the overall individual leaders, it's always fun to look at who is ranking high over the last month. LOTS of keepers who started off slow on the list. Meanwhile, players like Josh Bell, Rafael Devers, Mike Soroka, Brandon Woodruff, and Max Kepler are emerging, and previous UTIL/BEN players like Eduardo Escobar, Jake Odorizzi, Hunter Pence, Hyun Jin Ryu, and CJ Cron are making major contributions.

1	Josh Bell Pit - 1B	Moose is Loose!
2	Kris Bryant ChC - 3B,OF 	Ring of Fire
3	Anthony Rizzo ChC - 1B 	Brokeback Moundmen
4	Rafael Devers Bos - 3B 	Take the Knebel
5	George Springer Hou - OF 	Sexual Napalm
6	Justin Verlander Hou - P 	Tomahawk chops
7	Nolan Arenado Col - 3B 	Anal Hershiser
8	Chris Sale Bos - P 	Moose is Loose!
9	Alex Bregman Hou - 3B,SS 	Tomahawk chops
10	Mike Soroka Atl - P	Sexual Napalm
11	Hyun-Jin Ryu LAD - P	Tomahawk chops
12	Mookie Betts Bos - OF 	Sexual Napalm
13	Eugenio Suárez Cin - 3B	Ring of Fire
14	Adalberto Mondesi KC - 2B,SS 	Grit Beer and Balls
15	Eduardo Escobar Ari - 3B,SS	Grit Beer and Balls
16	Joey Gallo Tex - 1B,OF 	The Angry Pirates
17	Zack Greinke Ari - P 	Moose is Loose!
18	Brandon Woodruff Mil - P	Anal Hershiser
19	Mike Trout LAA - OF 	Montezuma's Revenge
20	Jake Odorizzi Min - P	Take the Knebel
21	Hunter Pence Tex - OF	Take the Knebel
22	Cody Bellinger LAD - 1B,OF 	Grit Beer and Balls
23	Charlie Blackmon Col - OF 	Donkey Punchers
24	Max Kepler Min - OF	Knuckle Sandwich
25	C.J. Cron Min - 1B	The Angry Pirates

Week 5 Real Rankings

NOTES
It's really safe to say there are no clear cut front runners at this juncture. Everyone seems to be up and down from week to week, with last year's champs Tomahawk Chops the most consistent. With a full month in the books, we can truly see who is emerging and who is faking. Amazing to have the top three pitchers be Chris Paddack, Tyler Glasnow and Caleb Smith - two of those guys were on my Worst Draft picks list! Shows what I know...

But really the list of the top 25 shows some pretty amazing results: Bellinger's rebound, the very realness of Adalberto's 2018 season, Baez and Story continuing to mash, EE's continued presence, Gallo's improvements, meanwhile Luis Castillo, Tim Anderson, and Luke Voit all appear to be making good on the promise they shows in short spurts last year.  Plus, we've got Pete Alonso looking like a rookie stud from the outset.

1	Cody Bellinger LAD - 1B,OF	Grit Beer and Balls
2	Christian Yelich Mil - OF	The Angry Pirates
3	George Springer Hou - OF	Sexual Napalm
4	Rhys Hoskins Phi - 1B,OF	Brokeback Moundmen
5	Mike Trout LAA - OF	Montezuma's Revenge
6	Joey Gallo Tex - 1B,OF	The Angry Pirates
7	Marcell Ozuna StL - OF	One Nut Wonders
8	Chris Paddack SD - P	Take the Knebel
9	Adalberto Mondesi KC - 2B,SS	Grit Beer and Balls
10	Javier Báez ChC - 2B,3B,SS	Anal Hershiser
11	Trevor Story Col - SS	Ring of Fire
12	Tyler Glasnow TB - P	Grit Beer and Balls
13	Caleb Smith Mia - P	The Angry Pirates
14	Edwin Encarnación Sea - 1B	Donkey Punchers
15	Hyun-Jin Ryu LAD - P	Tomahawk chops
16	Luis Castillo Cin - P	Sexual Napalm
17	José Berríos Min - P	Ring of Fire
18	Justin Verlander Hou - P	Tomahawk chops
19	Alex Bregman Hou - 3B,SS	Tomahawk chops
20	Tim Anderson CWS - SS	Cowhide Joyride
21	Pete Alonso NYM - 1B	Montezuma's Revenge
22	Whit Merrifield KC - 1B,2B,OF	Knuckle Sandwich
23	Willson Contreras ChC - C	Moose is Loose!
24	Luke Voit NYY - 1B	Tomahawk chops
25	Anthony Rizzo ChC - 1B	Brokeback Moundmen

We had our first big trade of the season, and May should prove to be fruitful with trades as teams start facing the realities of their rosters. Every year we seem to have someone give up in May and start the rebuilding process, and generally it goes pretty well, but hard to see that happening at this point given the differences between the RR and Actual at this point. Donkey seems like the only team in need of real change, and perhaps he'll get that with the latest trade.

Week 4 Real Rankings

Week 3 Real Rankings

NOTES

As is typically the case, the overall real rankings are a bit in flux at the moment. The 11th place team in the actual standings has the second highest real ranking and the top team in the actual standing is really just sitting in the middle. Plus rosters are in a constant state of flux, so your core is a little less stable.  This is when the real rankings are perhaps the most valuable because you can see early on where your strengths and weaknesses are and adjust accordingly.

The leader in RR so far is a good case study. Kyle and his band of Pirates are looking to make some noise again and have the top hitting and the top pitching so far -- not to mention they're the only team significantly outside of this 6.1-8.4 real ranking cluster. Since he's tied for tops in the standings, it's easy to anoint him the clear frontrunner.  However, teams that start out strong and stay strong generally are fueled by star keepers and a solidly drafted core of emerging talent and upstarts.  The Pirates are being fueled by four offensive players that include the ridiculous Christian Yelich, but the other three - Rendon, Gallo, Rosario - have some warts despite ISOs exceeding .400 at the moment (.506 for Yelich). Yes, Jose Ramirez has yet to get going, but there will need to be serious contributions from the rest of the roster to make up for the downswing.  Meanwhile, his pitching prowess is led by Blake Snell and James Paxton, which is great, and Cole Hamels is a solid #3, but the rest of his SPs have BABIPs ranging from .222 to .254 (outside of Paxton and Matz, who have each underperformed), meaning this squad is getting very very lucky and there isn't enough track record to be optimistic that Trevor Richards, Max Fried, Caleb Smith, and VV are going to be what they have been so far.

That's not to say Kyle's team sucks. To the contrary, but it just goes to show you that there's a lot behind the numbers -- even when you got a lot of numbers.

Week 2 Real Rankings

NOTES

NOTES

This week provides a perfect example of why Real Rankings are helpful – EVERY team ended the week with 4-6 wins. I have never seen that before! Too bad for teams like Cowhide and Tomahawk, who both ended in the top 4 but played eachother to a 5-5 tie.  

So far, there are no dominate teams emerging. As you can see by the H and P columns, most teams are either good one one side and bad on the other, or their in the middle on both. The most even at the moment are my Revenge (4^th hitting, 2^nd pitching).

It always strikes me this time of year how much time gets invested in the offseason trades, keeper considerations, but it means nothing once the games start. So much is dependent on playing time and more and more teams are willing to straight platoon players, making them difficult to keep on a roster. With that playing time, we also start to see players emerge who we never really considered like playing time beneficiaries (Kolten Wong, Dan Volgelbach), the suddenly healthy players (Dansby Swanson,  MadBum,), reclamation projects (Domingo Santana, Jayson Heyward, Michael Shoemaker), guys taking the next step (Cody Bellinger, Jose Berrios, Rhys Hoskins, Ronald Acuna, Blake Snell, Luis Castillo, Tyler Glasnow), and the last round flyers (Trey Mancini, Maikel Franco, Joc Pederson, Christian Walker, Brad Keller).

But perhaps none are more exciting than seeing rookies emerge and become the next generation of keepers.  It’s early, but this year MLB teams have allowed us to see several from the start. No one is doing it better than Austin Meadows and Peter Alonso, selected in the 13^th and 14^th round, and each appear in the top 25 below.  But we’re also seeing significant contributions from Chris Paddack, Victor Robles, Brandon Lowe, and Fernando Tatis Jr. Guys like Eloy Jimenez, Alex Verdugo, Clint Frazier, Garret Hampson, Kyle Wright has been a little slow to start while Vlad Jr, Nick Senzel, Jesus Lazardo, and Kyle Tucker bide their time.

The top 25 list is a regular addition to these notes. It’s always interesting to see early season results as only half of the list is keepers. The rest are midround guys and a few former high pedigree guys-turned-scrubs-turned-awesome again who were free agents (Alex Gordon, Wong, Heyward, Swanson). Will any of these guys actually re-emerge?

  

The pickups made in the first few weeks of the season are typically the most important.  Last year, guys like Zach Wheeler, Miguel Adjuhar, Blake Treinen, Nick Pivetta, Jed Lowrie, Stephen Piscotty, Reynaldo Lopez, Tim Anderson, Tyler Skaggs, and Kyle Gibson were all picked up as FAs before April 15 and contributed significantly over the course of the season.

Many will fall off, but the key is determining who is suffering and benefiting from luck. Determining that may determine your fate…

Also, keep in mind, we have 60 transactions for the season. Some people have blown through 25% in the first two weeks. It does slow down eventually, but something to keep in mind.  

Week 1 Real Ranking

For Chris, the Real Rankings are something I started doing a few years ago as a way for everyone to assess their teams beyond wins and losses.  Instead of matching up your team’s production vs. your opponent, the Real Rankings match them up against the rest of the league. The two tables show your Real Ranking for the week and the average Real Ranking for the season.  The lower your score, the higher your rank.

The Real Rankings have been extremely accurate over the course of the season. Obviously, there is a lot of variation week to week based solely on the variable matchups. But by the end of the year the different in the Real Rankings and the Actual Standings is usually no more than 2 spots.

This verifies that winning % is a good way to assess team performance, but allows us all to be a little more honest when assessing our team’s production. Each week there are examples that show this variation. This week, we have Ring of Fire 10th in the actual standings but in reality they had the 5th best week according to the Real Rankings -- that's because Dagan went up against Knuckle Sandwich, which ended up with the third best week in the Real Rankings. Likewise, Chris' Actual Standings was held back by his opponent. On the other end, my team, Montezuma's Revenge is second in the Actual Standings but just 4th in the real rankings thanks to a poor week by Anal Hershiser. In some cases, like Kyle and his Angry Pirates, he had the best week in the Real and Actual and his opponent had a very poor week.

For the tables, the Weekly ranking just shows where you ranked in each individual category. Going left to right in columns, the Overall ranking shows the RR (ranking), ACT (actual standings), +/- (difference between Actual and Real – this should get smaller as the year goes on), Team, OV (Overall – average overall ranking of all weeks), H (average ranking for season – just hitting), RK (ranking of H), P (average ranking for season – just pitching), RK (ranking of P), VAR (variance – shows volatility of the weekly results for the season), 1-21 (weeks)

These posts will also typically include Notes based on the week’s activity, results, trends, etc.

Always interesting to see how quickly people give up on players. It’s obviously warranted in some cases, usually because of injury or playing time concerns. So far, Jose Pereza (12th round), Reynaldo Lopez (14th round), and Craig Kimbrel (15th round) are the highest picks dropped.

Keep in mind the 60 transaction limit is still in place. It’s always a lot higher earlier in the season, but something everyone should monitor.