An 8th regular season is in the books, and now we can turn our vision towards the playoffs. For a majority of the playoff teams, there wasn't much of a race to get in, and now things will heat up quickly in our single elimination format.
Apologies for the lack of writeups down the stretch. I was caught up with football and depression about my team, and work and you know how that goes. Thanks to Richie for writing that strength of schedule piece and for keeping everyone engaged on the Groupme.
The only real race going on in week 22 was the race between John and Richie for the final playoff spot. Both were buyers at the deadline and went in hard to try and make the dance. But in week 22, John won convincingly 9-1 over 12th place Brad, and left Richie in the dust.
For the non playoff teams, enjoy football season, and for the smart ones who sold, enjoy next year's draft.
Brad will miss the playoffs for a second straight season. In 8 Franchise seasons, he's made the playoffs 4 times.
For Greg, this marks the 6th straight year missing the playoffs, an all time Franchise record. In 8 seasons as manager, he's made the dance just once.
Eric could not build upon the greatest rookie season in the last 7 years, and sophomore slumped his way to 9th place.
For Jeremy (buyer at the deadline, finished 14 games out of the playoffs), Dan (7.5 games out, and Richie (7.5 games out), this will be a tough stretch in their Franchise careers.
It's another season without the playoffs for second year manager Jeremy, who has yet to make his Franchise playoff debut.
For Richie, he missed the playoffs for the second time in his 3 year Franchise career.
Dan fails to make the playoffs for just the first time in the last 3 years, He has made the dance 3 times in his 6 years as manager, with 2 championship appearances, and 1 title.
So let's now take a look at the playoff matchups. Congrats to Andy and Pflanz, who got the coveted bye weeks.
For Andy, it's his second straight year in the playoffs, and the third time he's made it in his 7 years as manager. He really dominated this season wire to wire, and didn't falter much, this is his first time ever having a playoff bye week. His weekly record was 16-4-2, and his 130 matchup wins ranks 7th all time, pretty damn good.
On offense, he was carried by Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista, and Anthony Rizzo, all of whom ranked in the top 6 (all rankings according to Ziguana.com) in our scoring format. He really cleaned up in runs and RBI's, where he had his best offensive win-loss records, and ranked 4th and 1st respectively. There's also good balance here, as Andy was in the top half of the league in every category. But pitching is where Andy would kill you. He won 64% of his pitching matchups this year, behind Cy Young contender Zack Greinke, and super sleeper Fransisco Liriano. Andy led the league in QS, and was top 5 in all 3 ratios categories.
For Pflanz, it's his 5th career Franchise playoffs in 8 seasons, but first in the last 3 years. This is his first time ever getting a bye week as well. He led the league in Runs and homeruns, he was also top 5 in every other category. Cespedes has essentially been a one man team for the last month and Votto is playing like it's 2011. Price, Bumgarner, and Archer is a scary big 3 that might even be able to contend with Andy's pitching. Pflanz put up some truly impressive ratios, leading the league in WHIP and K/9 and placing 3rd in ERA. Pflanz , like Andy, can hurt you on both sides of the ball, especially power at the plate and strikeouts.
The first round 1 matchup is between neighborhood rivals Eddie and John, these two have never met in the playoffs despite both having managed in the league for 8 seasons. For Eddie, this is his 4th career playoff appearance, the first in 4 years. It's the offense you need to worry about with Perk, he ranked top 3 in homers, runs, and RBIs. With Pollock and Seager red hot, and a healthy Miggy back in the lineup, Perk's offense is white hot. The pitching was decent for Perk this year. Recently, Verlander is pitching great and Chapman and Betances have kept his k/9 numbers up all yeas. Eddie had a rough ERA and WHIP during the regular season, but was fantastc with K/9 and NSV. I should note however, Perk lost 3 of the last 4 weeks going into the playoffs, including a 6-4 loss to John in week 21.
The defending champ is making his 6th straight playoff appearance. This is the longest active streak in the Franchise and ties the longest ever (set by Russ in 2013). John has been on a crazy tear since week 11 (when he was sitting in 9th place!). Johnny has done it again, he's put together a great team that is good at the right time. I won't even bother with his season long numbers because he really was bad in the first half and I don't have those splits. I will say that Clayton Kershaw has been the #1 pitcher in baseball for the last month (and probably longer) and John has grouped him up with 4 other starters who have been tearing it up. John has somehow grabbed the next breakout superstar AGAIN with Carlos Correa. Don't look at the names in John's lineup, it will only confuse you as to how and why he's in the playoffs. On top of that, he's already winning 7-2.
And in the other round 1 matchup, it's Mark vs. Russ, both making their 7th playoff appearance in 8 years, meeting in the playoffs for the third time (first non championship) in a historic blah blah blah. I don't care. My belief in this team disappeared a long time ago. From week 14-19 this was the best team in The Franchise, it was completely dominant, and controlled every facet of every category. Now, it's been banged up, shut down, and wrung out. classic case of peaking too early. This team ripped off a 5 week stretch where it won 39 categories, that's just a hair under 8 per week. But in the 3 weeks leading u to the playoffs, it went 8-21. Everyone is slumping, we all know what's going on with Matt Harvey and his fucking innings limit, and no one knows what's going on with Johnny Cueto. The guy literally forgot how to pitch. 28 runs in his last 26 innings...that's not a small sample size, 5 straight starts allowing 4 or more runs. I traded a first round pick for a guy that I am voluntarily going to bench in a playoff week. Is that a fucking joke? Why can this shit never go my way?
Mark was unstoppable in steals and saves this year but average in everything else. But in this game, it only matters how hot your guys are in the playoffs. He comes into the playoffs having won 4 of his last 5 weeks, including a 7-2 win over Russ in week 20, sounds like they're clicking at the right time. in the last 30 days he's got 7 hitters and 4 pitchers in the top 100.
Sometimes it's just not in the cards. But for me, it seems to never be in the cards. Not sure what I did to deserve this, I pour more into this league than anyone, but it sucks to build such a great team and literally be helpless on Wednesday night, staring up a mountain, down 14 RBI's and over .200 OBP points already. This part of the writeup isn't funny, it isn't interesting, it's depressing. Weeks like this make me question why I do this.
But who am I kidding...I looked ahead and Harvey is pitching against A-Rod on Sunday Night Baseball this week! Ok, this might be why I do this, Chip and a chair!
Good luck everyone!
Signed,
your forever hopeful, yet always hapless Commish
