RCL Update: The Week That Was, Week 1.5

Technically the first “week” of the Razzball Commenter Leagues was from Opening Day, March 29th to Sunday, April 1st, but that was just too short, with too few games and just didn’t feel right.  Instead, I’m going to combine that short week, with this week to form week 1.5. How has the first week plus gone for you? Are you an Ohtani owner jumping for joy and retweeting every Ohtani GIF, stat and record broken so far?  Or maybe you are a Joey Votto owner, quietly crying and gently rocking in the corner. Either way, you can all use the same mantra, “It’s still early”. Everyone wants to start the first week leading their league, but only one team can.  I always dream of going wire to wire, but it’s a long season, plenty of time to win these things. Jose Ramirez won’t hit .061 all season. Just in case, let’s form a prayer decagon, shall we?

Already the RCL battle has been waged on the waiver wire as the race to grab that sweet SAGNOF started early.  Mark Melancon made a surprise DL appearance and Hunter Strickland was the first add of the year for those seeking cheap saves.  Corey Knebel collapsed in a heap and the race was on for the next Brewer fireman. This, of course was followed by the great “Jacob Barnes lockout” of 2018.  More on that below, but maybe FanTrax was trying to tell us something. Let’s take a look at that as well as which RCL teams are getting an early jump on their league standings:

As I’ve said many times already, the move to FanTrax has been met with bumps in the road.  As with any change, it hasn’t been totally smooth. Hopefully, my last RCL Update: Group Therapy helped you get your teams set up a little more user friendly and a little bit more like what we’re all used to.  I know Grey learned a lot from that post. As I’ve also said many times, FanTrax has been incredibly receptive to feedback, good and bad from it’s customers and they are nothing if not responsive.  For example, someone in the comments mentioned how much of a pain it is to view each team’s innings pitched. I brought this to FanTrax and now the Standings page for the RCLs features IP as a column.  Little things like this go a long way. You’re not shouting into the void like on ESPN. FanTrax wants to be the best, so help them out by telling them what you want. If you don’t want to tell them, tell me and I’ll tell them for you.  You be good cop, I’ll be bad cop. For those that would like to have their voices heard, FanTrax has created a Slack chat you can join HERE.  Once you’re in, there’s a channel for “Baseball Improvements”.  There you can talk about anything you’d like to see improved. In the “General” section you can generally whine and complain about anything and know someone will hear you.  This is where I went when the Jacob Barnes (or any adds for that matter) fiasco happened last Thursday morning. You can also follow FanTrax on Twitter: @FanTrax.  Be heard fellow RCLers!  FanTrax is looking to crush the competition but they can’t do it unless they here from us.

‘PERTY ‘PERTS

Each week we’ll peek in at our resident ‘perts to see who is laying claim to best “expert” RCLer in the land.  We’ll take notes, check the standings and generally stalk them.  The heading is also hyperlink, so feel free to follow along as we go.

Well, well, what have we here?  The autodrafter lives! Granted, “still early”, but I won’t complain about this start.  It’s funny, Brian Dozier, Dee Gordon and Eric Thames, all guys I pretty much avoided drafting everywhere else are pacing my team’s offense right now.  Interesting what an autodraft will do for you. Also, Ohtani, enough said. Now, if only one of these ‘Perty Perts would trade me a closer! SAGNOF people, I’m practically giving you pitching points here.  Grey, how much do you need to win Saves by while clinging to that 1.485 WHIP? Honestly though, it’s still very early and a lot will change here in the coming weeks, except for Tehol, he’s not moving. Just remember, if you’re going to hang an autodrafter, make sure you hang ‘em high!

TOP 10

Typically, this will be a quick view of the top of the Master Standings.  Since it takes a couple weeks to get those up and running, this week we’ll just that a look at the top 10 highest scoring RCL teams based on roto points.  Here’s how it shakes out after 1+ weeks:

Team Annihilation takes the early lead with a 109.5.  That’s an impressive start! More on Annihilation below, but a shout out to the Squat Cobblers and Backdoor Cutters for their early large leads in ECFBL and Night of the Living Zombinos, two of the toughest RCLs for many years running.  These 10 teams can take a bow, but don’t celebrate too long!

TRADES

All the trades that have gone down in the past week.  Public ridicule is not only allowed, but encouraged.

Wow, I wish I could pull this trade off in the ‘Perts League!  Nice haul for Ruth…errr…Ohtani there.

TEAM OF THE WEEK

Our weekly shout out to the team that killed it the previous week.

Team: Team Annihilation

League: RCL 2

Stats:   GP: 135, R: 70, HR: 22, RBI: 67, SB: 10, AVG: .284

IP: 87, ERA: 2.17, WHIP: 1.057, K: 93, W: 7, SV: 6

Summary: I’m not 100% sure if the Team of the Week will be a thing this year or not.  It all depends on what data we can mine from FanTrax. I found a way to view the weekly data but it involves manually entering a date range.  We’ll see and I’ll keep you posted. I’d hate to see it go, shouting out the top each week is one of my favorite parts of this gig. Typically, there’s no set numbers I’m looking for here, just a team that has displayed dominance on both the hitting and pitching side of the equation.  This week is pretty easy, we can look at the top scoring RCL team and clearly see their numbers are superb. Team Annihilation picked fourth on draft day and snagged Bryce Harper, who is leading the world in offense to start the season. Severino, Berrios, Morton, Bundy and Taillon are setting up some pretty insane ratios as well.  Nice start here, let’s see if Team Annihilation can keep it up!

Want to be Matt’s Twitter pal?  That’s kinda creepy, but you can follow him here: @MattTruss