Hello again Razzball Commenter Leagues friends.  As the title indicates, there are changes afoot in the RCLs for 2018.  No, Grey will not be changing your socks for you, but that hole in your toe is pretty big, you should throw those out.  Instead we are moving our host site from ESPN to Fantrax.  That change is 100% happening and we here at Razzball HQ are pretty excited about it.  Where ESPN had no shizzes (shizzi?) to give, Fantrax has plenty of shizz to give.  Fantrax is first and foremost a fantasy site, not a cable company owned by a mega-corporation that happens to host some fantasy leagues.  This means better service for the players and a better experience all-around.  If if there was a problem, yo, they’ll solve it, check out the hook while my customer support rep revolves it.  I’ve been in touch with Tim Wagner of Fantrax plenty since the announcement and he welcomes any and all feedback you all might have.  In fact, the worse the better.  These guys are really looking to make this a great experience for everyone, so let’s hear it.  Along with this move comes the chance to shake things up in the RCLs a bit.  Click below and you’ll see a survey magically appear in the article space.  There you can vote on such RCL issues as the number of DL spots, a moves limit or the hotly debated GS vs. IP limits.  You can also pipe up if you’d like to play the RCLs for cash.  Vote now or forever hold your gripes.  We don’t want anyone to be blindsided when RCL sign-ups begin so do us a favor and tell your friends.  Thanks for taking the time to make your voices heard.

Well, that’s a wrap on the Razzball Commenter Leagues everyone.  Twenty-six weeks down and now we have twenty-six more until the start of next year’s fantasy baseball season.  It’s perfect symmetry, because fantasy baseball is the perfect fantasy sport.  Speaking of perfect, Returning Champ went near perfect on us in route to an overall Championship.  This ties for the second highest finish in RCL history with Rank Railheads of 2012 Championship fame.  Returning Champ really rakes it in, winning themselves a $250 Best Buy gift card!  More importantly though, Returning Champ gets a Razzball T-Shirt and RCL glory.  Who can put a price on that?  Oh, it’s $25, well then, moving on.  I don’t believe Returning Champ has checked in via comments at all this year, but now would be the time.  It’s time to heap on the praise and accept your congratulations.  Personally, I’ve been curious all year where the Champ has returned from.  Is this a previous RCL winner or were they just lost at sea?  I have questions!  Either way, Returning Champ fended off some very tough competitors this year to claim the RCL crown.  Cram It gave it a run, Grey was pushing for a top spot for awhile there and an army of RCL robots invaded the standings as well.  This is Returning Champ’s moment though, so hopefully they show up, take a bow and soak it up, they earned it.  Here’s what else what happened this year and this final week of the RCLs:

It’s hard to believe there’s only one week to go in the Razzball Commenter Leagues.  This marathon of a season has seen us torture ourselves for 25 long weeks, agonizing over batty calls, dipping into the streamers with mixed results, cursing players and praising others.  We’ve ignored our families, our jobs and our personal hygiene and now it all comes down to the final week.  You may smell like stale Funyuns, but dagummit, that virtual fantasy trophy is all yours!  Speaking of trophies, Returning Champ all but sealed is overall championship this week.  When you’re already the #1 team in the Master Standings and then you go out and win Team of the Week honors in the second to last week of the season.  Well, that is just the clutchiest of the clutch moves right there.  Last week Returning Champ held a 2.9 point lead over Cram It, this week that lead is up to 5.7 points.  Those numbers don’t even take into account that as of Monday morning, Returning Champ hit 119 league points.  Last year saw the first perfect score in the RCLs when Team Levy hit 120.  Until that time the highest league score had been 119, set by the Rank Railheads back in 2012.  Both Team Levy and Rank Railheads were in leagues with an LCI of 98, so Returning Champ has his league’s 101 LCI working for him.  Unfortunately, Returning Champ will have no shot at a perfect score since one of the teams in The Giant and the Jew has hit all the home runs.  Hot Ham Water currently has 390 HRs to Returning Champ’s 329.  329 is good enough for 2nd in the category, but unless Giancarlo wallops 60 dingers this week, 119 will be the best Returning Champ can muster.  That should still be plenty good enough to take home the overall championship.  Come along, there’s plenty more about Returning Champ and the rest of the week that was, week 25:

It’s that time of year again, when teams looking to max out their counting pitching stats (strikeouts and wins) or who hope to get lucky (or have nothing to lose) and lower their ratios, stack up nine starting pitchers on their final day of starts and see what happens.  This is a strategy that has caused quite a bit of consternation over the years of the Razzball Commenter Leagues, but in the end, it’s not against the rules and if you want to take the risk, that’s your prerogative.  Y! Leagues feature the same characteristic where, on the day you go over your IP limit, all stats count.  This is no different. Thus far, 4 teams have maxed out with 188 Games Started.  I have two teams that have taken the plunge, as has Simply Fred of ECFBL and # Sozo of Cougs R Us.  ECFBL and Cougs R Us are routinely two of the most competitive RCLs and, speaking on behalf of the 5 years I’ve played in ECFBL, typically 75% of the league will hit the 188 threshold.  Strikeouts and wins are usually so tightly contested, that every inning counts.  Unless you are holding a slim lead in the ratios that you don’t want ruined, there’s not much to lose in maxing out your stats.  So, how have our trio managers made out?  We’ll look at that and more from the week that was, week 24 below:

Three weeks remain in the battle for overall Razzball Commenter Leagues dominance and Grey is once again pushing for the top spot.  How fun will it be if Grey actually wins this thing?  Will we ever hear the end of it?  Doubtful.  Deity of choice knows that Rudy will never hear the end of it.  If Grey does win, what will he buy himself with the Best Buy card?  Who wants to speculate?  It would have to be something absurd, right?  Maybe that mini, waterproof television he can install in his toilet so he can watch TV while taking a pee?  A Swagtron perhaps?  My vote is for a pocket drone to track Ted and take aerial photos of him.  Alas, we may never know, that is, if Returning Champ has anything to say about it.  Returning Champ boosted his league total to 116 points this week.  That, with a 101 league index, is good for 108.3 RCL Points or 4.1 more than Grey.  It’s going to be a fun final 3 weeks, that’s for sure.  We’ll look at the race to the top of the Master Standings, as well as the other close races around the RCLs and more in the week that was, week 23:

Knock Knock.  Who’s there?  The robots.  Oh shizz, we’re in trouble now!  It’s been a little while since we’ve talked about the Razzball Commenter League robots.  They all seemed to have a little summer swoon.  Back in week seven there were three bots in the top 10 and four in the top 12.  By week 14 all the bots had dropped out of the top 10.  Rudy is Snooty came storming back into the top 10 a couple weeks later and was the lone bot in the top 10 until recently.  Rudy is Booty has since reappeared and now Grey is Bae has jumped into the top 10 with Rudy is Booty lurking in 19th overall.  Back in week 7 I gave the robots a 25% chance at winning the overall crown.  With three bots in the top 20 and two in the top 10, I’m sticking by that statement.  The bots had a killer week, more on that below, and they will be pushing Cram It and Returning Champ in the final four weeks.  Don’t let up boys, these bots don’t sleep (and if they did, they’d dream of electric sheep).  More on the bots and the rest of the numbers from the week that was, week 22 below: