It is the end of April, so that must mean the Master Standings have arrived! (You can access this via the Leagues menu up top). Remember last season how embarrassed you were to finish 380th? Now that’s in the top half of the field! Congratulations! Mauledbypandas (Josh Hamilton’s Fake Stache – Cracking The WHIP) and Pops (Sin City Sinners – Modesto Nuts) are at the top of the heap with 105 points after four weeks of action.
Mauledbypandas had the first overall pick and wisely grabbed Miguel Cabrera. He then took Ian Kinsler and Clayton Kershaw with the 24-25 picks. In the 5th round he added Yu Darvish, giving him a 1-2 pitching combo that has so far recorded 7 wins and 96 strikeouts with an ERA of 1.70 and 0.86 WHIP. In the 14th round he selected his first RP, Sergio Romo. His most successful late pick so far has been Mark Reynolds (19th round) and his team-leading 7 home runs.
Pops started his team taking Andrew McCutchen with the 4th pick, followed by David Wright and Kinsler. He then snapped up a couple of aces, Cliff Lee and Adam Wainwright. The Sinners got great value with Mariano Rivera at pick 148 (ADP: 109), Jim Johnson at 189 (150), and David Ortiz at 220 (153). In comparison, Josh Hamilton’s Fake Stache took Ortiz 100 picks earlier. Besides Kinsler and Ortiz, both teams also drafted Mike Napoli.
The Top 10
| # | RAZZBALL HANDLE | TEAM NAME | PTS. | Last |
| 1 | mauledbypandas | Josh Hamilton’s Fake Stache | 105.4 | 2 |
| 2 | Pops | Sin City Sinners | 105.4 | 5 |
| 3 | Hannover Hotspurs | 101.0 | 9 | |
| 4 | Ottoneu Bay Stormtroopers | 100.9 | 6 | |
| 5 | ichirosan | Insert Catchy Player Pun | 100.2 | 4 |
| 6 | nhv STEELERS | 99.7 | ` | |
| 7 | Dan Pants | Team blairtch | 98.5 | 3 |
| 8 | Jack Full of Hate | Go Get Your Shinebox | 97.6 | ` |
| 9 | Team Vanaski | 97.1 | ` | |
| 10 | I Am A Celtic | 97.1 | ` |
Free Agents: Remember the excitement over Anthony Rendon? Well, Rendon is so last week. He’s now owned in just 12 leagues, while Nolan Arenado is the man of the hour. Currently NA is available in just 3 RCLs (but 84% of other ESPN leagues; 62% available on Yahoo).
League Stats: The League Competitive Index for all leagues can be found here. Night of the Living Zombinos (104.8), International Razzball (103.6), and Cougars Welcomed (103.2) are the early leaders for toughest league. Maybe the ECFBL won’t coast to another title in 2013. Of course, it must be noted that leagues who have used a higher percentage of their allotted starts early can have an inflated LCI. The Zombinos are in the top 10 in strikeouts, wins, saves, and stolen bases.
EXPERTS: Mike Podhorzer (RotoGraphs) held on to first place, but Rudy made a big jump and is now just 1.5 points behind. Grey added half a point to his total, but dropped 3 spots in the standings. Scott Pianowski had a disastrous week, losing 18.5 points to 45.5. Mike’s team was once again excellent in the Runs (46) and RBI (47) categories, and also had a 2.82 ERA with 5 wins and 7 saves. The return of David Ortiz (.478/7 Runs/9 RBI) certainly sparked Team Podhorzer. Rudy again led the experts in home runs, with 14, and also had 14 pitching decisions (6 Wins/8 Saves). Nelson Cruz, Evan Longoria, and Buster Posey led his offense, but 9 different players homered for his team. Felix Hernandez anchored Rudy’s pitching with 2 wins and 16 Ks. You can find all Expert League unofficial Week 4 stats here.
Writers: Slim Smitty took over first place as Andrew Nordmeier lost 10-and-a-half points. Slim recorded 12 decisions (5 wins/7 saves) with a 3.30 ERA and 1.06 WHIP for the week. Trevor had one of the top offensive weeks in the RCL, hitting .308 with 58 runs, 14 home runs, 50 RBI, and 6 stolen bases. Check out all the writers’ week 4 stats.
You can find links to these two leagues (and the other 62 RCLs) here.
Trades: 27 deals involving 83 players have been completed since the last update, running the year-to-date totals to 84 trades and 261 players. One owner, with two teams named Todd Hoffman, made 4 trades in 4 days. But the one that had tongues wagging occurred in Original Recipe, where Coco Crisp was enough to acquire Gio Gonzalez. In the ECFBL, Jose Bautista was dealt for Kershaw, Arenado, and Hyun-Jin Ryu. Paulie Allnuts traded Joey Votto for Ike Davis and Josh Hamilton. In another league, Hamilton was exchanged for Jay Bruce. How about Starlin Castro for Danny Espinosa and Bobby Parnell. Jason Heyward for Jed Lowrie and Clay Buchholz. David Price went for Shin-Soo Choo in my league and Yoenis Cespedes in another. Cespedes and Wil Myers brought back Chris Davis and Edward Mujica in the league of Champions. Pablo Sandoval was traded for Mat Latos and also for Desmond Jennings. Lots of interesting deals. Prince Fielder, Giancarlo Stanton, Adrian Beltre, Robinson Cano, Bryce Harper, Adrian Gonzalez, Tony Cingrani, and Mike Trout also changed teams this week. You can check out all the trades in the Fantasy Baseball Forums.
Weekly Leaders
Vonn Trapp Family Ballers (Bang Bang Boom Boom) had a nice week at the plate, hitting .283 with 49 runs, 17 home runs, 47 RBI, and 10 stolen bases. The team’s top 3 draft picks all made nice contributions, with Edwin Encarnacion blasting five home runs to lead the way. He also scored 8 and drove in 8. Evan Longoria scored 5 and knocked in 5, and Matt Kemp hit .350 and stole a base. Alcides Escobar (.381/4 Runs/1 HR/3 RBI/2 SB), Alex Gordon (.318/5 Runs/2 HR/7 RBI/1 SB), and Kyle Seager (.346/5 Runs/2 HR/5 RBI) also made key contributions.
Average: .330 (Josh Hamilton’s Fake Stache – Cracking The WHIP)
Runs: 58 (Grey’s Semen – Razzball Elites)
HR: 20 (Saskatchewan Grizzlies – Razzball League)
RBI: 63 (Drunk Synergy – International Razzball)
SB: 16 (Smart Alex Gordon – Razzball League)
Chalk It Up (Greys a BITER, says Garner) was blessed with both Anibal Sanchez’s 17-strikeout performance and Tony Cingrani’s 11-K outing on their way to putting up the top pitching line for the week. They finished with 100 Ks in 92 innings and 8 wins with an ERA of 2.45 and 1.03 WHIP. Shelby Miller, Kevin Correia, Felix Doubront, and Jose Quintana also contributed nice games. The bullpen added 10 saves, with Jim Johnson recording 3.
Ks: 111 (Tucson Isotopes – Bang Bang Boom Boom)
Wins: 11 (Sultans of Swing – Modesto Nuts)
Saves: 13 (Schmidt Heads – Razz Canada)
ERA: 0.89 (40 IP min) (Sarama Beach Ninjas – Ones are GOOD right?)
WHIP: 0.70 (40 IP min) (Darth Ripken – No Go Romo)
Daily and full season stats are available, and in the RCL forum there are team and league of the day threads, as well as the top batting and pitching lines.
 Baseball Cougar |
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| 94/324 (.290) 49 R/15 HR/62 RBI/5 SB |
62.0 IP 49 K/5 W/2.90/1.00/10 S |
| Baseball Cougar gained 10-and-a-half points and moved from 6th to 3rd in Night of the Living Zombinos this week. Miguel Cabrera had another big week, hitting .450 with 8 RBI. Nelson Cruz drove in 9 runs while hitting .360. Brandon Crawford and Chris Davis each knocked in 7, and Howie Kendrick hit .375 and added another 6 RBI. Jean Segura chipped in 3 steals. A couple of key adds highlighted the pitching side, as Kevin Gregg immediately saved two games, while Justin Grimm threw 7 shutout innings for a victory. Gio Gonzalez gave up 1 run over 8 innings for another win. Jim Johnson had a win and 3 saves, and Joe Nathan also saved 3. | |
