Week 16 Recap (Late)

Apologies for no week 16 recap, was traveling all week with limited access to wifi and unlimited access to beer and food. I’ll run down a brief week 16 recap first, then we’ll look at week 17. And yes, there’s still a trade deadline recap in the works, hopefully later this week.

Week 16 mini-Recap

Dan 5 - Richie 4

Strong offense helped Dan to win this matchup by a small margin. Chris Davis (5-4-12-.393-(-1)) was the offensive player of the week, and made a huge difference here. Richie got great pitching from trade deadline prize John Lester, but Chris Sale had his worst week of the year, and only won 3 of the pitching categories. Big matchup between two teams fighting for a playoff spot, but neither got to do much moving in the standings.

Russ 8 - Eric 2

This matchup looked dicey early in the week but the buyer ended up trouncing the seller in the week after the deadline, which was to be expected. Russ’ pitching staff looked* dominant, with a team line of 1.81-1.09-9.06-5-5, good enough for the ‘Pitching of the Week’ award. Fernandez (sniff), Harvey, and Salazar were all brilliant, and Cueto was able to pitch well against his former manager. The offense was there too, as Russ was top 5 in the league in every category except NSB, thanks again to another spectacular week from CarGo (6-3-6-.483-0). Eric was busy filling his roster with spare parts off the waiver wire, as the climax of his season is over at this point.

Perka 7 - Brad 2

Big win for Perka, . But looking closer, it really wasn’t an impressive victory. He won three offensive categories with mediocre numbers (at best), and took 4 pitching categories, including winning with a 4.74 ERA and just 2 NSV. Nelson Cruz had a nice week posting 4-4-5-.406-0, but the rest of the offense was cold. It was his first win in 3 weeks but quality of opponent has to be acknowledged.

Pflanz 8 - Jeremy 0

We finally got our first shutout of 2015. In this league, shutouts are basically equivalent to no-hitters, with the 10-0 shutout serving as the ‘perfect game. This 8-0 shutout came much later than usual in the season, although we do usually see more of them in the months of August and september (with buyers and sellers having been established). It’s Pflanz’s 2nd career shutout, and first since 201. He was able to take 4 offensive categories thanks to strong performances from Machado (7-2-4-.313-1) and Cespedes (6-3-6-.400-0), and despite an average looking pitching line, he won 4 categories on that side as well, thanks to good stuff from Archer and bumgarner. Pflanz continues on his Scanlon continues to confuse the league as to why he decided to buy.

Mark 8 - Greg 2

No big surprises here. Mark continues to do well against lesser opponents, and definitely needed this big victory. It was an average offensive week for Mark, with the exception of his 6 NSB, which has become the norm for this team (Billy Hamilton contributed 5 of those 6). But even an average performance was enough to sweep, Mark’s Jose Abreu had one of the best performances of the week posting a 7-3-10-.500-0 line. Greg Sported team pitching ratios of 6.70-1.55-6.52, not tough to beat. Mark, despite a pretty ugly week on the mound, grabbed three of the 5 categories, and got a much needed win over the basement team.

John 8 - Andy 2

Huge statement win for Johnny, who is trying to establish himself as a contender. Tough loss for our oddly complacent leader in winning %. No moves were made bny Andy at the deadline.John was able to win with some overpowering offense, an ‘Offense of the Week’ award winning line of 29-17-37-.351-0 and a dirty pitching line of 1.61-0.91-8.40-5-2. Mark Teixeira(7-5-9-.500-0), Ben Zobrist (4-3-6-.375-(-1)), Matt Carpenter (5-3-5-.433-0), and Carlos Correa (4-4-5-.423-0) led this record-setting homerun barrage while Kershaw, Kluber, and Wacha continued to be one of the scariest 3 headed monsters in The Franchise. Andy didn’t put up bad numbers, Rizzo hit for 6-4-10--.393-0, but it wasn’t enough.Big win for John, big loss for Andy.

Week 16 power rankings (put yourself in last Monday's mindset)

1. Russ - Did't beat any great competition, but he moved up while those around him moved down

2. Andy - Big loss to the champ closed the gap between 1st and second

3. Pflanz - Continues to stay dominant, adding a shutout to the recent hot streak

4. Eddie - Finally got the win he needed

5. John - HUGE win over the first place team

6. Mark - A win is a win, even over a last place opponent

7. Dan - He's not out of this race yet

8. Richie - A tough loss leaves him behind the recent movers and shakers

9. Jeremy - Almost ranked below a seller

10. Eric - Football season's pretty much here!

11. Brad - see above!

12. Greg - Finally woke up and made some deals at the deadline, good to see