Shake up alert, shake up alert, shake up alert!  We have a new number one sitting on top of the Master Standings!  It’s been the Son show since week three, so this is some big news.  After one week without Master Standings, we’re back and things are all shaken up.  Maybe Son’s moves are catching up with him as he slows down a bit to preserve a few for the final month of the season.  Son still leads all RCLers with 311 moves and he has three of the top four move-making teams.  League Competitive Index came into play also, as the new top team has a slightly higher LCI in their league compared to the ‘Perts League.  Typically the number of moves a league makes has a good correlation to a high LCI.  This makes sense, right?  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 currently 12 leagues with over 1,000 moves made and surprisingly, the top league is not one that Son is in.  We’ll take a look at the top ten move-makers, the most active leagues, and take a look at the new top ten, all that in more in the week that was week 12 in the Razzball Commenter Leagues.

With so much talk of sticky stuff, the state of the game of baseball, and how many runs are or aren’t being scored these days, I thought I’d take a look at our very own data sample and see what our average ERA in the Razzball Commenter Leagues looks like this year versus years past.  One of my favorite things about keeping all the RCL data over the years is being able to look back at it for things likes this.  Let’s start with 2016 where our average ERA was 3.72.  Not too shabby.  2017 saw a bump to 3.88 but 2018 fell back down to 3.79.  2019 got ugly and we had an average team ERA of 4.07.  A shortened 2020 season was even worse with an average of 4.18.  We’ve been slowly creeping up over time.  So, how are we looking this year?  As of right now, we’re looking at an average team ERA of 3.51.  I’d say they sure deadened the ball alright.  What will the hot, humid summer months and umpires patting pitchers down do to these numbers?  I’m going to guess we end up somewhere right in the 3.85 ERA range, in other words, get ready for some offense.

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 (Yusmeiro Petit 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 lucky this week in the week that was, week 9: