Welcome to trade deadline week for the Razzball Commenter Leagues. Once Saturday at midnight ET rolls around, you’ll be stuck with the team you have. Well, minus the plethora of free agents out there on the waiver wire of course. This is the time of year where you can really see some overpaying. Just remember, if it helps you win, who cares. Scrutinize those standings and uncover every avenue for gaining points. This is easily one of my favorite parts of fantasy baseball roto leagues. I love analyzing where I can gain the most points, or where you can trade a player to ding an opponent. There’s nothing to be gained by winning HRs by 50, especially not if there are points to be gained in another category. Be diligent, leave no stone unturned and happy trading!
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.
In the “battle for who finishes behind Son”, things got a lot closer this week. Coolwhip slipped below 90 points for the first time since week four. Laura and I are waiting to pounce. Coolwhip lost 3.5 points this week, the most of anyone, while Laura gained 4.5, the most of anyone. My two-point gain wasn’t enough to hold off Laura’s charge and she leap-frogged me into a tie for second with Whip. We’re all separated by just half a point and the battle for second should be fun down the stretch.
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.
We have entered Round 2 of the RazzSlam playoffs and I don’t know about you, but I am officially eliminated from play. Chris Sale couldn’t make it back in time to do me any good. Round 2 of the playoffs features the top 30 teams from Round 1 of the Championship Tier plus the top 3 Wild Card teams. The three teams making the jump to the Championship Tier are Bob Cyphers, Alain de Leonards, and Kelly Anderson. Nice work!
Leading the RazzSlam at the conclusion of Round 1 of the playoffs is Razzball’s own, Dan Pants! Dan scored a whopping 763 points last week, more than anyone else, and rode that wave to the top spot. Nice work Dan!
Scores rest from here, each team’s Round 2 total is calculated by adding 25% of their Round 1 Total Score, to their team totals from Aug. 9 to Aug. 29. The Top 9 teams in the Championship Tier will advance to Round 3 with one team advancing from the Wild Card Tier. The Wild Card Tier for Round 2 is the top 30 from last round’s Wild Card standings plus the bottom 30 from last round’s Championship Tier. Clear as mud, right? You can read for yourself how this all shakes out HERE.
In addition to Dan Pants, a whole slew of Razzballers are in the running still for the Championship including, Son, JKJ, RotoWan, and Coolwhip.
TRADES
All the trades that have gone down in the past week. Public ridicule is not only allowed, but encouraged.
| DATE | LEAGUE | DETAILS |
|---|---|---|
| 8/2/2021 | RCL #19 |
Team B_don traded Manny Machado to Tears for Fiers for Starling Marte
|
| 8/2/2021 | DFSers Anonymous |
FANTASY ICON traded Diego Castillo to Vegans for Javier Baez
|
| 8/4/2021 | RCL #23 |
Bring Back The Mexican Pizza traded Aroldis Chapman & Jeff McNeil to Dunphy’s Joint Venture for Jarred Kelenic & Justin Turner
|
| 8/5/2021 | RCL #22 |
Team Bartilotta traded Frankie Montas, Taijuan Walker & Kenta Maeda to RE-UP for Jake McGee & Kyle Finnegan
|
| 8/6/2021 | Perts League |
MattTruss traded Zack Wheeler & Ryan Mountcastle to Cram It for George Springer
|
| 8/7/2021 | ECFBL |
Creative Chaos traded Kevin Gausman to Backdoor Splitters for Matt Barnes
|
| 8/8/2021 | RCL #23 |
DFresh traded Matt Olson to Caught Napping for Lance Lynn
|
| 8/8/2021 | NOTLZ |
JamScandal traded Kris Bryant to Creative Chaos for Kevin Gausman
|
| 8/8/2021 | RCL #22 |
Eleazar traded Edwin Diaz to Team Bartilotta for Robbie Ray
|
We had another nine trades completed this week, including one that went down right here in the comments last week when Cram It and I decided to shake things up. Crammy got a Wheeler shutout and I got a 4/1/6/0/.266 weekend from Springer, so we’re both happy so far.
Creative Chaos has seen enough Kevin Gausman this year it seems, as he had a fire sale of his shares.
I expect plenty of actions in this final week of trading and I look forward to next week’s recap.
LEAGUE STATS
While Ruday and the RCL Bots remain out, I’m going to borrow some number crunching that former RCL Update host, VinWins compiled this week. You can check out his post over in the forums, HERE. You can open that page and peruse the numbers yourself, bounce back and forth as you read along here, or just get the TL:DR right here.
What this boils down to is showing just why Cougs R Us has the highest League Competitive Index. The league has made more moves than any other league by almost 500 moves. Cougars is our league of champions, it’s the best of the best from the past couple of years, and it shows. A few things that fascinate me about these numbers are that Cougs is third in Innings Pitched and yet leads the RCLs in Wins by 15. That just goes to show you how impactful those middle relievers can be, as the Cougs league is always turning over roster spots to keep their rosters full of potential saves and win vultures. Speaking of saves, many props to RCL #9 for keeping pace with Cougs in that category. Usually, they’d be running away with that category. Cougs also leads in every offensive counting stat except steals. Cougs needs to get with the SAGNOF, they are just 13 steals behind the leader there. This is how you play the RCLs to their fullest potential, take notes on this league and improve your game for next season.
Want to be Matt’s Twitter pal? That’s kinda creepy, but you can follow him here: @MattTruss
