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:

Is it just me or is half the league on the DL right now?  Everyone seems like they have a strained this or a sore that.  Can the Razzball Commenter Leagues go to five DL spots next year?  I never thought I’d miss Rougned Odor so much. Ozzie Albies is helping to ease the pain though, thanks Ozzie.  Now, if Ronnie Baseball could go ahead and join Ozzie with the big club, that’d be swell. I know I’m not the only one itching to see Ronald Acuna called up ASAP.  His ADP was 79.58 and that was with early drafts having him go off the board around pick 100. The closer we got to Opening Day, the higher he was drafted, spiking at pick 47.  Team cdwiz26 was the big winner, able to nab Acuna at pick 117. Is it too soon to worry if you’re falling behind in stolen bases or some other category? Probably not yet, especially if you have a guy like Acuna waiting to make an impact.

It’s the silly season for our leagues at this point, where we can have huge swings in the standings based on 2-3 good days of stats.  Thanks to Rudy and the Robots (also the name of my Depeche Mode cover band) we have a starting point for the Master Standings. Big thanks to Rudy for working with FanTrax to get this rolling even earlier than we did last year with ESPN.  Who’s the number one team after the first couple weeks of the season? You’ll have to click below to see that. Let’s take a look at the standings as well as some trades in the week that was, week two in the RCLs: