As we creep up on the All-Star Break, one team has separated themselves from the rest of the Razzball Commenter Leagues pack.  It’s a bit unprecedented for a team in a league with a very high League Competitive Index to win in the Master Standings. Typically a league with a high LCI is filled with active managers that makes the league race very tight, which limits how far out in front a team can get.  Teams have done it before, Cram It comes to mind in 2015 when the FCL had an LCI of 112. Other than that, the highest LCI of a #1 team was Josh Hamiltons Fake Stache in 2013 when League: Cracking the WHIP had an LCI of 105. Every other #1 team has been in a league with an LCI of 100-102.  That brings us to the STL Squat Cobblers who currently sit with 108 league points in ECFBL with it’s 106 LCI. That’s enough to create a 5.4 RCL Point cushion over the second place team. If the Cobblers keep this up they’ll be looking at reaching rare waters indeed. Granted, it’s only a little over halfway through the season, a lot can happen, but it’s still fun to extrapolate.  Let’s look at the rest of the Master Standings and the week that was, week 14 in the RCLs:

Happy 4th of July Razzball Commenter Leaguers!  This week not only marks the birthday of our fine U.S. of A., but more importantly, marks the halfway point of the fantasy baseball season!  We just finished ~13 weeks and there are ~13 weeks remaining. While we typically use the All Star Break to mark the halfway point, this week is the real deal.  If you were exactly on pace with your innings pitched, you would have 700 on the button. You can use that as a nice gauge to see if you need to be streaming your buns off the next 13 weeks or if you can chill out a bit and wait for the choice match-ups.  This week, in addition to the weekly leaders we will take a look at our halfway point leaders. It will be a quick shoutout to those teams that have started hot in each of the roto categories. Obviously, our team of the halfway point is the leader of our Master Standings.  Who might that be you ask? Let’s take a look at that and the rest of the week that was week 13 in the Razzball Commenter Leagues:

There’s a new sheriff in town atop the Razzball Commenter Leagues Master Standings.  The STL Squat Cobblers are riding their 103 league points in ECFBL with it’s 105 LCI to Master Standings glory.  You can really see the importance of LCI on the Master Standings when you look below the Cobblers at my RCL #23 team with 108.5 league points but just a 100 LCI.  This led me down a rabbit hole of top LCIs and how the LCI correlates with total league moves. It would make sense that a league making the most moves would be a league full of attentive managers, racking up counting stats and thus have a high LCI.  There are four leagues with a LCI of 105 or greater. Cougs R Us has the highest with a 106. ECFBL, Night of the Living Zombinos and RCL #62 all have an LCI of 105. There are two teams (RCL #51 and #61) with an LCI of 91, the lowest of any league. RCL #51 has a team with an illegal roster since day 1 and has collected no stats on the year.  RCL #61 has a team that was trying to make terrible trades, got them denied and has since benched their entire team and seemingly quit the league. So, it takes some extreme examples to get an LCI that low. Click below and you’ll be magically transported to the rest of the week that was, week 12 in the RCLs as well as a table showing which leagues have made the most moves so far this season:

Last year in the Razzball Commenter Leagues, ERAs were up across the board.  A 3.50 may have led your league. I’m not sure if the change in format has had an effect on the way managers are attacking their pitching or if this is a baseball result, but the ERAs seem better this season.  Last year we had the juiced balls, maybe this year they toned it down a bit, who knows, but let’s compare the past few seasons of RCLs with this year. Last year the average ERA for the RCLs was 3.87. The year before that the average ERA was 3.71.  That’s a pretty significant bump. This year, we’re heading in the other direction with a 3.60 average ERA thus far. Now, we still have the hot, humid summer months left to go, but early trends show a decrease in offense. It tickles me a little that everyone is hot and heavy for launch angle and exit velocity only to see offense decrease.  I’ll be curious to see if this trend continues and if it leads to hitters returning to the old notion of hitting line drives and manufacturing runs. Maybe this is just pitchers combatting launch angle with elevated fastballs and other strategies. It’s interesting nonetheless, and facts you should know for RCL success. Let’s check out more RCL facts from the week that was, week 11: