No doubt you’ve heard the old expression, “It’s better to be lucky than good”.  Today we’re going to take a look at one of the biggest areas of luck in the RCLs, “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.  Mike Trout owners can relate right now I’m sure.  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 (most of my teams this year it seems).  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 (Mychal Givens this year is a prime example).  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:

The humans are making their move now!  Mad Beach Bums (Rakers Nation) continues to put the heat on Rudy Is Snooty and our human hero, Cram It has vaulted up the standings into third overall.  It might be slightly unfair for the robots as Cram It seems to be half human, half Razzball Commenter League machine.  We’re all pulling for you Cram, make us humans proud!  Only two of the four bots remain in the top 10 overall, however, all four remain in the top 20.  Of course, two of those four bots are in the top four overall.  They are the bread to the human sandwich of MBB and Cram.  It was yet another excellent week for our Fantasy Master Lothario, Mr. Grey Albright.  Despite this, he slipped back a spot from 7th overall to 8th overall.  It was a very busy week of trading in the RCLs with a whopping 19 being completed.  Some of the most competitive leagues were very active with three trades being completed in each of the ‘Perts League, ECFBL and DFSers Anonymous.  All this, plus a familiar name makes an appearance as the team of the week.  Come check out this and more in the week that was, week 8:

It was quite the week for trading in the Razzball Commenter Leagues this week as we saw 16 trades completed, several of which caused some commotion and consternation.  Those 16 trades don’t include the several vetoed trades (looking at you Cougs R Us) nor the few trades that were accepted Sunday but won’t be processed until Monday.   Those will be included in next week’s data.

Mike Maher and myself got the party kicked off last Tuesday morning, a couple hours before last week’s update hit.  You may have seen last week’s comments filled with talk of Bryce Harper.  In the deal I sent Mike Ryan Braun ($19.0), Miguel Sano ($18.7), Dallas Keuchel ($16.0) and Travis Shaw (-$10.2).  In return I received Bryce Harper ($38.0) and Carlos Santana ($20.0).  Those values in parentheses are the Rudy/Steamer Rest Of Season values as of Monday afternoon.  That comes out to (ignoring Travis Shaw, who was a throw in) $53.7 for Mike and $58.0 for myself.  At the time of the trade Ryan Braun wasn’t on the DL yet so his value was a bit higher.  This also doesn’t take into account the lineup flexibility I gain from the deal.  For example, I was able to add Alex Wood, who could end up being this year’s Dallas Keuchel circa 2015 if the Dodgers don’t yank his chain too much as well as a streaming spot for hitter/RP/streaming starter.  Grey was chirping and the consensus was that I had ripped off poor Mr. Maher.  In fact, Tehol posted two days AFTER the trade processed that the league should “do the right thing” and veto the deal.  This led Mike (who you should totally follow on Twitter – @mikeMaher) to break out the following Twitter Poll.  Only 4 out of 20 of Mike’s Twitter followers seemed to think I won that deal, with one Twitterer going on to say it wasn’t even close (which Mike agreed).  So, what does the rest of Razzball nation have to say about this deal?  I hate to make the entire lede about a deal that involved my team, so let’s bring this back to trades in general.  I’m entirely anti-veto.  Unless there’s money on the line and something can be proven that two parties are conspiring with one another to win a league and split the prize, I say let the deal stand.  In general, these RCLs are filled with people who don’t really know each other, just like a public league on any other site.  The only thing most of us have in common is reading Razzball.  Bryce Harper could snap any number of tendons tomorrow and then I’m left standing in the rain, cold and sad.  Managers evaluate talent differently, what you view as a good deal, I might not.  It’s your team though, so you do you, I’ll do me and we’ll ridicule your trade in the court of public opinion in the comments below.