I hope you all had a wonderful tenth week of the Razzball Commenter League season.  The injuries seem to really be piling up for my squads. I’ve got Acunas, Buxtons, Pollocks, Hills, Rays, a lot of Andrew Millers and now an Ohtani on various teams.  Ohtani stings since FanTrax was the one place you could utilize his dual-eligibility. I know Grey was touting the “I told you to avoid/sell him” game the other day, but with Ohtani’s horrid spring training, he actually came at a discount later in the draft season.  He went from being drafted between pick 55 and 80 early on to being drafted after pick 100 and even as late as 213 in one league (ECFBL – Nice grab Ralph!). After pick 100, or about the 9th round, I don’t consider this a make or break point in an RCL draft. Losing Ohtani won’t kill your season unless you traded away your entire pitching staff or something.  It sure stings to lose a dynamic player though, especially one you grabbed at a decent price who was out-performing that draft day price tag. As I said, I liked Ohtani in this format with the new moves limit for the flexibility he gave on short schedule days, etc. Maybe Ohtani can rest this off like Tanaka has managed to do, but either way, it’s to the DL and look on the bright side, now you have a streaming spot available!  Hello Jack Flaherty. Now that we’ve lamented our week 10 loses, let’s take a look at the rest of the week that was in the RCLs:

The calendar has flipped to June and the Razzball Commenter Leagues are in full swing.  This is also the time of year where I like to take a look at which RCL teams are killing us in win-rate and which teams have just had some crap luck in the win column.  Now, Rudy will tell you that Wins are actually predictable as shown by his Ombotsman.  While the data and the bots may tell you this, as a human, it still seems like they are luck-based, do they not?  Today we’re going to take a look at “win luck”. There’s no doubt it takes some luck to win a fantasy baseball league.  Injury luck is probably the biggest factor in winning a league. As good a manager as we think we are, if your number one pick goes down for the year, you’re going to be at a disadvantage.  That’s just common sense. “Win luck” is another area that is seemingly out of our control. Let’s face it, wins are brutal. I’m a big proponent of the mantra, “Make your own luck” and I certainly think that can be applied to “win luck”.  “Win luck” is a term often tossed around to describe a team that is raking in the wins and/or a team that can’t seem to buy a win. Can you make your own luck in regards to wins? Of course you can. You can stream those valuable middle relievers, especially the ones that frequently work multiple innings in the middle of games (Jeremy Jeffress perhaps).  When a lead change occurs, these relievers are typically the benefactors. It’s no guarantee of course, but it can’t hurt your luck any. There are other ways to increase your win luck too. Let’s take a look at another big one as well as who is getting lucky and who got luck this week in the week that was, week 9:

I hope everyone had a fabulous Memorial Day weekend.  I was lucky enough to take in a game this weekend and see the Sawx take on my beloved Braves in Fenway Park.  The Braves lost, but I got to see Acuna live and in the tilde, Ozzie Albeast and my man-crush, Freddie Freeman.  Massachusetts native, Sean Newcomb started the game, so there were a lot of Braves support there for him. The camo unis underwhelmed this year, black on black camo just looks solid black from the stands but the olive drab green high socks were pretty sweet.  Anyway, we’re all recovered here at Razzball Commenter League HQ and ready to fill you in on all the goings on this week. We had a change at the number one spot for a second straight week, a certain prospector continued their dominance of the ‘Perts League and a couple of weekly records were broken.  More details and the rest of the week that was week 8 in the RCLs below:

The rookies are coming, the rookies are coming!  That’s Ralph Lifshitz aka Prospect Jesus on his way to the waiver wire to hog all the Juan Soto goodness for himself.  Also making an appearance this past week was Austin Meadows. Nick the Dick seemed to grab him in just about every league I’m in with him.  I think I might play with the same managers in too many leagues. Hopefully, you don’t have the same problem and you were able to grab some sweet rookie nookie in an Razzball Commenter League or two.  It’s pretty exciting when a fresh rookie makes the jump. Meadows has gotten out to a hot start, it will be fun to see what Soto can do at 19. Now, if only Vladito would get the call. Vlad Jr. is being stashed in most leagues, but if he hasn’t been scooped up yet, now would be the time.  Grey already told you to hit the add button and he’s a man of his word, currently stashing him in the ‘Perts League.  Could Vladito be the key to Grey overtaking Ralph for the top spot in the league? Wouldn’t that be ironic?  Prospector Ralph done in by his own true love. Let’s see how far Grey has to go to catch Ralph and all the other goodness from week 7 in the RCLs:

We’re six weeks into the Razzball Commenter Leagues now and I think we can finally stop saying “It’s still early”.  What do you think? I’ve about had it with Yu Darvish, Chris Archer, and Josh Bell. Jeff Samardzija and David Price have already worn out their welcomes as well.  I’m cutting some slack for Carlos Santana and he’s showing signs of life. Aaron Hicks is getting a little extra leash as well. Ian Desmond’s batting average is pretty miserable, but 6 HRs and 3 SBs are hard to quibble with.  I’m also holding my shares of Scott Kingery. For now, I’m still looking forward to a second half worth rostering. Who are some struggling players you’re cutting bait with? Anyone that you are holding onto for dear life hoping and forming a prayer octagon that they return some value?  I was curious about who has struggled the most so far and what players have been carrying teams with their draft day value. Click below and you can curse your under-performers with everyone and praise your draft day steals!

Five weeks are now in the books.  With twenty to go, quick math tells us we are ? of the way through our season.  To those ahead in your Razzball Commenter Leagues, that might be exciting, but to those at the bottom of the barrell, that could be unwelcome news.  Is it possible you’ve already accumulated ? of your final stats for the season? The Inning Pitch limit should be easy to plan for, you should be right around 280 IP right now.  If you find yourself a bit behind, stream an extra starter or two per week to pick up the pace. If you are way over-paced, maybe add some high strikeout middle relievers I talked about last week.  It can be much harder to make up ground in the Games Played race though. This is an area where having some lineup flexibility is key. With just three bench spots, you have to use them wisely. I like to think of the waiver wire pool as my floating bench, always there with a batty call when needed.  I routinely rotate out between 3 and 5 positions on my team for this purpose. Do I occasionally miss out on a break out player? Maybe. I was streaming J.A. Happ the first few weeks of the season before he was added and held. I’ve also added and dropped Jake Junis a hand full of times for streams, never once did I think about holding him.  I’ve added Jeimer Candelario more times than I can count and Matt Adams has been a recent hot add as well. The next time ol’ Matty Adams has an off day or is out of the lineup, guess who’s heading back to the wire? It’s a fine line, but I tend to never fall in love with a batty call, there’s always someone out there producing and keeping the flexibility to make these moves is key in the daily format with no GS limits.  There are free counting stats out there for the taking, you just need to find them.  Now, for the rest of the week that was, week 5 in the RCLs:

Back in the old days (last year) of the Razzball Commenter Leagues I preached about the importance of keeping an eye on your strikeouts per Game Started or K/GS.  With the move to FanTrax and the change from GS to Innings Pitched (IP) the K/GS stat goes out the window. However, we have a new stat you should be keeping an eye on now, and that is your K/9.  Since every team is limited to only 1400 innings strikeouts essentially turn into a ratio stat; a counting ratio stat I suppose, but a ratio nonetheless. Once your innings are up, you are stuck with the number of strikeouts you have.  This makes those high K/9 relievers such as Chad Green, Adam Ottavino and king of the K/9 this year, Josh Hader very valuable pieces. This also dings some of the streaming options out there like everyone’s favorite, Bartolo Colon who might go 7 innings but strikeout only 2.  If you don’t have a high-K/9 reliever or two to help balance that out, you could be doing more long term damage than good. It’s important to monitor and keep a balance. 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 there are 4 teams leading the pack with an impressive 11.6 K/9.  Among those are frequent commenter Great Knoche and our Excel War Room guru, Hot Rods. Bringing up the rear is Cheddar Bob with 7.0 K/9 in 231 IP.  I like to try and maintain a K/9 of around 9.5 or so.  If you’re below that mark, find yourself an Andrew Miller if you can.  If you’re above that mark, awesome!  Just make sure you’re keeping pace with your league in Wins and you should be golden.  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 very.  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:

Week three sure was eventful in the Razzball Commenter Leagues.  In fact, it brought about an entirely new rule to the RCLs. In fairness, this is a rule we had back when the leagues were on ESPN, but I thought it was nice to not carry it over.  Unfortunately, as with all privileges, the few spoil it for the masses. If you have made a trade in the RCLs yet, you would have noticed that your trade went through immediately. There was no waiting period, no vetoing, nothing.  You clicked “Accept” and poof, the players were swapped. Well, several very lopsided trades later and we decided enough was enough. Now when you make a trade, there will be a two week waiting period where the league can veto your trade.  It takes four managers vetoing to cancel a trade. This is especially helpful in the money leagues where apparently even $10 is enough to turn people in colluding cheaters. We’re better than this RCLers! Just in case though, hopefully this new rule helps leagues police themselves so Rudy and myself aren’t in the business of judging trades.  More trade talk and the rest of the week that was, week three below: