By about the time you read this, we’ll be halfway through our interesting fantasy baseball season. We’ll have completed four and a half weeks of Razzball Commenter League action and have four and a half weeks left to go. That means, if you’re planning on maxing out your pitching innings, you should be sitting at about 260 IP right now, or be planning on streaming your buns off the final month of the season. Our IP leader as of right now is Team WahooFan76 of RCL #47 with 342 IP. Bringing up the rear is the Master Batters of RCL #1 with 40 IP (not including one of Park Barkley’s 20 teams that were drafted and abandoned, including one with an illegal roster which has zero IP). That league drafted all the way back on march 1st, so chances are, the Batters have been abandoned as well. In addition to innings, we need quality innings, including a high K/9. Fortunately for you, and especially those that are bad at math, we’re tracking your K/9 for you on the Master Standings page. There, you can see that among teams with at least 40 IP/week we have Team CobraKaiMeansNoMercy with an impressive 12.2 K/9. The worst K/9 offender is Team SeniorBootyFace with 6.3 K/9 in 217 IP. That’s almost impressively bad. There’s still time to correct though, so fear not! Just snag a high K/9 reliever here and there if your current roster allows it. Something I like to do is sort players by K/9. You can do this by hitting “Extra” on the player page when viewing pitchers. Then just sort by K/9 and make sure you’re looking for players with a substantial amount of IP. It’s also going to be important to monitor your innings usage. You can click “MIN/MAX” on your team page to see your innings used and your pace. I like to keep my pace pretty close to right on the money, but your mileage may vary. Just don’t leave innings on the table if you can help it. Let’s take a look at the rest of the week that was, week 4 in the RCLs:
Each week we’ll peek in at our resident ‘perts to see who is laying claim to best “expert” RCLer in the land. We’ll take notes, check the standings and generally stalk them. The heading is also hyperlink, so feel free to follow along as we go.
Grey holds onto the lead for another week, but things have gotten much tighter as Grey dropped 5.5 points this week while The Itch gained six and Cram It gained seven to pull within 3.5 and 6.5, respectively, of the lead.
I was the biggest gainer of the week, picking up 11 points and moving up three places to seventh, I’m on the move, leading the league in batting average (.317) and steals (9) this week. B-Don, meanwhile, was the biggest loser this week, dropping 8.5 points and joining Son and Donkey Teeth in falling two places in the standings.
Each week we’ll also take a look at the top ten overall standings in our other Razzball sponsored league, the RazzSlam. This is our NFBC Best Ball league with managers from all across the industry, from content providers to fans and readers just like you.
In my best movie trailer voice: This week, in the RazzSlam standings…Ray Butler reclaims the lead that is rightfully theirs as they score 709 points to leap over the pesky Dan Richards en route to a four position gain. Todd Zola may have something to say about it, if they can keep up their hot pace, scoring the most points this week with 739. Meanwhile, Danik Buchar had a week we would all love as they scored 726 points and gained the most places in the standings, moving up 83 spots. Until next week…keep those points flowing and may Jose Abreu be in all your lineups.
TOP 10
For those too lazy to check the MASTER STANDINGS, I present to you, the current top 10
| RK | TEAM | LEAGUE | RCL PTS | LG PTS | LG INDEX | MASTER PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Capital Offense | ECFBL | 116.6 | 103.5 | 110 | 114.2 |
| 2 | Team Tokyo | Cougs R Us | 115.6 | 100 | 112 | 111.8 |
| 3 | Mattys Super Twos | RCL 2020 (#3) | 114.9 | 114 | 100 | 115.5 |
| 4 | Fat Fuckin Babies | Cougs R Us | 113.7 | 99.5 | 112 | 108.5 |
| 5 | CT Old School | RCL 2020 (#33) | 113.5 | 107.5 | 105 | 110.9 |
| 6 | Cleats Boyardee | Night of the Living Zombinos | 110.8 | 96 | 113 | 106 |
| 7 | Astro Zombies | RCL 2020 (#49) | 108.7 | 101 | 105 | 108.4 |
| 8 | mcafeeeee | Writers League | 107.8 | 100 | 104 | 109.2 |
| 9 | Savages in the Box | Night of the Living Zombinos | 107.4 | 93 | 113 | 102.8 |
| 10 | summer thunder 2 | RCL 2020 (#49) | 107.4 | 99 | 105 | 107.9 |
Cleats Boyardee took a tumble this week, losing 12 league points and clearing the way for Capital Offense to claim the overall glory. Meanwhile, Cleats fell to sixth overall.
Team Tokyo gained 7.5 points in COUGS R US and moved into second overall. There are now two COUGS teams in the top five! That champions league is living up to its name!
Matty’s Super Twos and FFB just keep hanging around the top ten overall, this week in third and fourth place overall.
CT Old School moved up 21 spots this week to fifth overall, Astro Zombies moved up from 32nd to seventh and mcafeeeee moved up from 28th to eighth, all big gains on the week.
Finally, Savages in a Box becomes the second NOTLZ team to enter the top ten (up from 18th last week) and summer thunder 2 hangs on, falling two places to tenth.
TRADES
All the trades that have gone down in the past week. Public ridicule is not only allowed, but encouraged.
| DATE | LEAGUE | DETAILS |
|---|---|---|
| 8/23/2020 | RCL #37 |
For Whom the Bellinger Tolls traded Aroldis Chapman & Stephen Piscotty to Inflamed Chicken Heads for Marco Gonzales & Carlos Santana
|
Just one deal went down this week and we now all have banners in our leagues warning of the approaching deadline on September 6th. I think I’d rather have the Chapman side in this personally, but that’s just me.
WEEKLY LEADERS
The best of the best from the week that was.
R – 74 – Oaktown Dingers (RCL 2020 (#58))
HR –30 – Team Rmuzz55 (RCL 2020 (#27))
RBIs – 77 – Vottoman Empire (RCL 2020 (#61))
SB – 14 – Team Bgazda (RCL 2020 (#14))
AVG – .349 – Dase (RCL 2020 (#51))
K – 87 – Team WahooFan76 (RCL 2020 (#47))
W – 8 – Threat Level Midnight (RCL 2020 (#40))
SV – 8 – Jerk_stoor (RCL 2020 (#14)), Backdoor Cutters (Night of the Living Zombinos) & Team razzkai (RCL 2020 (#46))
ERA (Min. 40 IP) – 1.26 – Team ochisn (RCL 2020 (#13)) (in 43 IP)
WHIP (Min. 40 IP) – 0.79 – Shmushy Funtime (RCL 2020 (#57)) (in 68.1 IP)
As promised last week, we now have weekly leaders making an appearance. The bar got set high already in runs with 74; all of last year our weekly record was 78. RCL #14 is SAGNOF R Us this week, leading the RCL universe in saves and steals! Nice work everyone!
TEAM OF THE WEEK
Our weekly shout out to the team that killed it the previous week.
Team: AL KOHOLIC
League: Original Recipe
Stats: AVG: .287, R: 69, HR: 22, RBI: 52, SB: 7
IP: 74, ERA: 3.01, WHIP: 1.179, K: 84, W: 4, SV: 0
Summary: You may recognize Al as a frequent commenter and that’s because he’s been commenting around these parts for longer than you’ve been “renting” your mom’s basement. Original Recipe is one of the very first RCLs and Al is one of its original members. That’s a lot of originality in one blurb! Al gained 14 points this week to move up from third to first in Original Recipe and he did it without Jose Abreu, but he does have Mookie Betts, who also went ham this week. This was simply a case of every player knocking a couple dingers and having solid weeks. The saves aren’t there, Al only has Karinchak and Edwin Diaz for relievers and eight saves on the season, but that’s still good for five roto points in this whacky year. If Al can make a move for some saves down the stretch, this could be a runaway with five weeks to go. Congrats on the fine week Al, it’s always great to write up the Razzball regulars in these columns!
Want to be Matt’s Twitter pal? That’s kinda creepy, but you can follow him here: @MattTruss
