Andy 8 -Greg 2
First place vs. last place, no big surprises here.
Andy extends his first place lead to 6 games while Greg remains at the bottom of the league standings. Nice weeks from Rizzo and Jay Bruce helped Andy sweep the offensive categories with ease, something we all would have seen coming. Greg's offense was just awful this week. To the point where he doesn't have an active player in his util spot. So the whole category was a zero. In 4 categories that wouldn't make a difference, but he lost homers by just 1. Pretty shameful to leave a DL guy in your util spot for the whole week. Waste of a 4 homer week from Adam Jones, and now I'm kinda pissed that Bryce Harper's fantastic season is going to be pretty much irrelevant in the Franchise due to ignorance. Get it together Greg.
Surprisingly, Greg was able to take a couple of pitching categories from this year's pitching juggernaut. Samardzija and Volquez were great for the stuggling Thompson, and he was able to steal ERA and WHIP. Andy didn't have a bad week at all, Greinke, Liriano, and Storen were each superb, and helped him to win QS, NSV, and hang on to win K/9.
John 6 - Pflanz 4
A little late by holiday standards, but this matchup provided plenty of fireworks between two teams vying for a lower playoff seed. A combined 25 homers and 70 RBI's stole the headlines this week. Mike Trout's ridiculous statline of 8-5-10-.556-0 couldn't help John out in any category, as the only win he had on offense was net steals, thanks mostly to Carpenter's 2. Tough luck, as John was 2nd in homers this week, 3rd in runs, and 4th in RBI. And I should point out that Tulo would not have helped him this week. Pflanz wins the first of the weekly "offense of the week award" I'll be handing out from now on. He got crazy good weeks from pretty much his whole infield (that Grandal-Votto-Dozier-Machado 4 square looks terrifying), and Yoenis Cespedes was his offensive player of the week with 6-3-7-.344-0.
But John was able to make Pflanz pay on the pitching side. He finished the week second in ERA and WHIP, and 3rd in K/9. Kluber, Kershaw (Oh God I hate typing those two names next to each other), Ross and Bauer combined for 5 QS and John swept every pitching category to get the much needed weekly win. Pflanz had nice weeks from Shields and DeGrom knocked down by a tough Chris Archer outing, and 5.2 innings from Bumgarner is never what you want. On the whole, John's team had a fantastic week, and cut Pflanz's hold on 5th place to just half a game...and you know he'll be buying at the deadline, so watch out.
Mark 5 - Eric 4
In the battle of the two fastest teams in the league, Mark won the speed battle and the overall matchup which was very close in most of the categories. Eric had a great week for OBP and RBI's thanks to rookie Miguel Sano absolutely hitting his stride with a 3-2-6-.517-(-1) statline, and also 9 RBI's from Kendrys Morales. The runs and NSB's struggled due to an unhealthy Justin Upton, and the two teams tied in homeruns because these teams are tied in last at hitting the longball this year. Mark enjoyed 3 steals from you know who (Billy Hamilton, if you actually don't know who is stealing all his bases by now), and consistent runs across the board to split the offensive categories.
Aside from Cueto and Price, the team's respective aces, neither team's starters were very good on the mound this week, Mark won with all three ratio categories with some shaky numbers, and it only took 3 QS from Eric to win there. What was jawdropping was the 9 net saves Mark posted this week, including Jeurys Familia who somehow posted a +5!!! Mark had 9 Net Saves and even had a -1! Pretty nuts. Although the closeness of the win knocked Mark out of 3rd, he has a 3.5 game lead over Pflanz to remain in the 4 spot. This loss is a tough one for Eric as it knocks him down to 8th, although just 3.5 out of 6th.
But John was able to make Pflanz pay on the pitching side. He finished the week second in ERA and WHIP, and 3rd in K/9. Kluber, Kershaw (Oh God I hate typing those two names next to each other), Ross and Bauer combined for 5 QS and John swept every pitching category to get the much needed weekly win. Pflanz had nice weeks from Shields and DeGrom knocked down by a tough Chris Archer outing, and 5.2 innings from Bumgarner is never what you want. On the whole, John's team had a fantastic week, and cut Pflanz's hold on 5th place to just half a game...and you know he'll be buying at the deadline, so watch out.
Mark 5 - Eric 4
In the battle of the two fastest teams in the league, Mark won the speed battle and the overall matchup which was very close in most of the categories. Eric had a great week for OBP and RBI's thanks to rookie Miguel Sano absolutely hitting his stride with a 3-2-6-.517-(-1) statline, and also 9 RBI's from Kendrys Morales. The runs and NSB's struggled due to an unhealthy Justin Upton, and the two teams tied in homeruns because these teams are tied in last at hitting the longball this year. Mark enjoyed 3 steals from you know who (Billy Hamilton, if you actually don't know who is stealing all his bases by now), and consistent runs across the board to split the offensive categories.
Aside from Cueto and Price, the team's respective aces, neither team's starters were very good on the mound this week, Mark won with all three ratio categories with some shaky numbers, and it only took 3 QS from Eric to win there. What was jawdropping was the 9 net saves Mark posted this week, including Jeurys Familia who somehow posted a +5!!! Mark had 9 Net Saves and even had a -1! Pretty nuts. Although the closeness of the win knocked Mark out of 3rd, he has a 3.5 game lead over Pflanz to remain in the 4 spot. This loss is a tough one for Eric as it knocks him down to 8th, although just 3.5 out of 6th.
Russ 8 - Brad 2
Russ has come out as a buyer and will be contending this year, Brad is packing it in early this year (extremely early, I think, for a year in which everyone is pretty tightly packed in the standings - or was...). So this outcome was somewhat predictable. R-HR-RBI were all very close still, as many of Commish's hitters went cold leading up to the break. Above average weeks from underperforming players CarGo and Matt Kemp kept him afloat, and helped him take 4 out of 5 offensive categories. For Brad, New recruit Tulo didn't add much, but I'm not sure Brad wants him to at this point. It's clear it's tank city over there right now.
Commish had a big week on the pitching side, leading the league in all 3 ratio categories by a lot. For that, I have to give myself the "Pitching Performance of the Week" award for this week. 0.97-0.86-10.70-3-5 AND I left a Koji Save and a Harvey QS on the bench due to being hungover on Saturday. Fernandez, Tanaka, Salazar, and Harvery were all on point. But Buchholz to the DL will be a big loss. While I barely hit the innings minimum (that part is strategy - not hangover), Brad had a ton of volume this week, throwing 61+ innings, more than twice the minimum. It definitely helped him to post 7 quality starts, but his ratios weren't too bad either. not bad considering Kershaw and Holland left for greener pastures.
Jeremy 7 - Dan 2
The last two matchups gave us big wins from teams that desperately needed them. There were only 9 homers hit in this matchup (cut to a frustrated John, who could have matched that with 3 players), and the offenses as a whole were largely unimpressive. The only big standout was a very impressive .373 OBP for Scanlon, tops in the league this week. Arenado continued to be a beat at the plate, with a .500 OBP, but Jeremy doubled down on Rockies infielders and also enjoyed a .538 OBP from DJ LeMahieu.
Pitching was a different story, at least for Jeremy. With a 2.81 ERA (3rd in the league this week) and a 1.00 WHIP (2nd), to go along with 8.63-6-5, Scanlon pulled off a sweep of the pitching categories. Keuchel and McHugh were great as usual, while all the guys Jeremy has been waiting for finally came through, Felix, Gio, and Quintana all has great numbers. Arrieta and Syndergaard especially were great for Dan, but a few of his guys had trouble getting out of that pesky 5th (or 4th) inning, and it killed his ratios. He narrowly lost in QS and NSV. This was a pitching sweep, but not a massacre.
The victory is a big one for Jeremy, it moves him past Brad into 10th, and while he's still double digits out of a playoff spot, it's a step in the right direction. For Dan, the loss puts him under .500, and if things keep trending this way, Dan has proven he has no problem blowing things up and stockpiling picks for a future championship run.
Richie 7 - Perk 2
A great offensive week helped Richie to take down the #2 team this week. His 32-9-19-.366-5 put him in the top 3 of every offensive category (except RBI), thanks to big weeks from VMart McCutchen, and JD Martinez. Perk is certainly feeling the loss of Miggy, on top of that, Frazier went cold this week. Perk had just 5 homers, and Richie took 4 out of 5 offensive categories.
On the mound, Both tea,s struggles with their ERA and QS, but Richie's stellar 1.08 WHIP and Perk's impressive 10.10 K/9 sttod out and got them each a win. Pineda, Cole, and the God-like Chris Sale gave Richie the QS, WHIP, and just enough ERA to take 3 categories here, while Sergio Casilla added 3 much needed net saves to tie the category up. Perk's guys were all over the place, with some great starts and saves, and some he's like to forget.
Just 5 games out of a playoff spot now, Richie has his eye on the prize, while Perka clings to second after a hang your head type of loss.
Counting All-Stars
Another annual tradition, except this one means nothing! Let's check out which of our guys made the all-star game:
Perk (8): Betances, Boxburger, Cabrera, Cruz, Chapman, Martinez, Frazier, Pollock
Richie (8): Sale, Gardner, Martinez, Cole, Papelbon, Bryant, Rodriguez, McCutchen
Andy (7): Donaldson, Bautista, Burnett, Greinke, Rosenthal, Peralta, Rizzo
Pflanz (7): Archer, Dozier, Machado, Cain, Bumgarner, DeGrom, Grandal
Scanlon (7): Hernandez, Keuchel, Escobar, Pujols, Arenado, LeMaheu, Pederson
Eric (6): Davis, Gray, Altuve, Miller, Posey, Upton
John (5): Teixeira, Gordon, Trout, Kershaw, Wacha
Brad (5): O'Day, Santiago, Martin, Scherzer, Gonzalez, Tulowitzki
Greg (5): Jones, Fielder, Gordon, Panik, Harper
Russ (4): Kipnis, Crawford, Goldschmidt, Holliday
Mark (3): Price, Vogt, Melancon
Dan (2): Perkins, Stanton
Clearly this means nothing. As soon as you think you see a pattern it kind of blows up.
Commish's Power Rankings
1. Andy - 18-12 in the last three weeks, been here all year, I don't think this can be argued.
2. Eddie - Only barely after last week's loss to Richie, if he didn't crush Russ 2 weeks ago, he's one spot lower
3. Russ - Still here after beating Brad handily, although that's nothing to brag about.
4. John - Four week winning streak, watchout.
5. Mark - Has had trouble with good teams, and with not so good ones lately.
6. Pflanz - Despite the loss, he's been hanging tough against all the good teams, played Andy to a 5-5 tie two weeks ago.
7. Richie - The win over Perk showed more than any other non-playoff team has.
8. Dan - Up and Down season, hasn't had a statement win in a while, teams in 8th, 9th, and 10th are closer than they appear...
9. Eric - He's 1-6-1 in his last 8 weeks. The 1 win? Over last place Greg.
10. Jeremy - Big win this week kept hope alive, he's only lost 1 of his last 5 weeks...
11. Brad - I still think he sold too early, and too much, but maybe another year in the basement will clear his head.
12. Greg - Pick up a DH, duh
This on the other hand, clearly means everything.
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