The prospects are coming, the prospects are coming! At least that’s what every Sawx fan was screaming this Sunday. What fun the end of week 16 brought with Rafael Devers getting the call for the Sawx. I’ll be curious to see how he fares right off the bat and where they decide to hit him. I was lucky enough to catch Devers in Portland earlier this year and he mollywhopped one almost out of the building. So yes, the power is legit. To begin the week, we lost a Razzball Commenter Leagues first rounder in Carlos Correa. What a tough go the first round middle infielders have had with Trea going down and now Correa. Raise your hand if own both of them in an RCL. I feel your pain. Colin Moran was quickly stashed and almost as quickly dropped when face met ball. I’m on the fence about what to do with Correa myself. Obviously, if you have a DL spot, you stash him, but if you’re all full up, it’s a bit of a pickle. Lucky me, I own Correa in 3 of my 4 most competitive RCLs. Lower case yay. Let’s see how these injuries and call-ups affected the Master Standings and what else transpired in the week that was, week 16:
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.
Things are getting tight atop the ‘Perts League standings. Late Sunday, Prospector Ralph pulled within 3 points of Grey, making things very interesting. Ralph has been on an 8 week rise from 66.5 points in week 8 to 95.5 in week 16. Meanwhile, Grey hasn’t fallen below 96.5 points at any point since week 6. Steady as she goes. Rudy and I are trying to make this a four team race, but right now it’s Grey and Ralph sprinting to the finish line.
JB had the largest gain of the week, adding 4 points to his total and jumping up one spot from 7th to 6th. Matt Hayes had the biggest drop of the week, losing 7 points, but remaining in 9th place.
TOP 10
For those too lazy to check the MASTER STANDINGS, I present to you, the current top 10
| RK | TEAM | LEAGUE | RCL PTS | LG PTS | LG INDEX | MASTER PTS |
| 1 | Cram It | Sponge-worthy Anti-Dentites | 104.6 | 112 | 102 | 94.4 |
| 2 | Vottoman Empire | DFSers Anonymous | 101.8 | 104.5 | 104 | 92.2 |
| 3 | Team Albright | Razzball ‘Perty ‘Perts | 100.8 | 102 | 106 | 89.5 |
| 4 | South Side Hitmen | Von Hayes and Confused | 98.9 | 108 | 99 | 92 |
| 5 | Hollywood Knights | My Nightly Fantasy | 98.7 | 106.5 | 100 | 90.3 |
| 6 | Swamp Donkeys | Straight Cash Homie | 98.4 | 105 | 99 | 93.2 |
| 7 | Mount Fupa Squat Cobblers | Smokey Joe’s Chamber of Death | 97.8 | 108 | 98 | 90.9 |
| 8 | Rudy is Snooty | Take On M@ 3 | 97.8 | 101 | 103 | 90.5 |
| 9 | Rudy is Booty | We’re All Winners | 97.1 | 107 | 99 | 88.6 |
| 10 | Returning Champ | The Giant and the Jew | 97 | 102 | 101 | 89.8 |
Cram It is an RCL machine. We joked last week that it was going to take a perfect 120 to win it all this year with the team he has in league, Sponge-worthy Anti-Dentites, with it’s 102 LCI. Maybe it won’t take a perfect year to do it after all. Cram It came out this week, gaining 3 points to push his league total to 112. That, along with Vottoman Empire losing 2.5 points, was good enough to jump over Vottoman Empire and into first place overall. Keep at it Cram.
Team Albright held serve in third overall and South Side Hitmen snuck up him, moving from 5th to 4th.
Hollywood Knights made big gains this week, jumping from 17th to 5th thanks to a 6.5 point gain in league, My Nightly Fantasy.
The Swamp Donkeys moved from 7th to 6th this week and the Mount Fupa squat Cobblers took a tumble from 4th to 7th.
The bots are fighting back, raging against the humans. After a week with no bots in the top 10 overall, two move back in this week. Up from 12th and 15th to 8th and 9th, Rudy is Snooty and Rudy is Booty both make a comeback. Rudy is Booty clearly took offense to league, We’re All Winners trying to cheat their way to the top and has gained 6 points in the league standings since the lopsided trades went through. I hate that the league has put me in a position to root for the robot, but I sorta am. Keep that in mind oppressive robot overlords, MattTruss was on your side!
Finally, rounding out the top 10 this week is Returning Champ who falls from 8th to 10th.
TRADES
All the trades that have gone down in the past week. Public ridicule is not only allowed, but encouraged.
| DATE | LEAGUE | DETAILS |
| 7/23/2017 | Chicks dig the deep Razzballing! | Cheeky Nandos traded Ivan Nova to Ypsitucky Greennecks for Zach Britton |
| 7/23/2017 | It’s Time For Dodger Baseball!! | Bad News Bears traded Dee Gordon to I Traded Judge for Lo Cain for Josh Harrison & Greg Holland |
| 7/20/2017 | RLC Champions League | Mission From Rob traded Carlos Santana to Goldschmidt On This Team (Mike Maher) for Todd Frazier |
| 7/20/2017 | Master Batters | Team Chao traded Billy Hamilton to 50 Shades of Jon Gray for Miguel Sano |
| 7/19/2017 | Johnson’s Ornithology E.O.D. | Johnny Utahs traded Jim Johnson to “Don’t Panik!” for Michael Wacha |
| 7/19/2017 | Johnson’s Ornithology E.O.D. | Section 31 traded Rougned Odor & Chris Davis to Red October for Dee Gordon & Raisel Iglesias |
| 7/19/2017 | Night of the Living Zombinos | Pittsburgh Lumber Company traded Marcell Ozuna to Satchel Rages for Alex Wood |
| 7/19/2017 | ECFBL | Johnny Utahs traded Tommy Pham to Simply Fred for Aroldis Chapman |
| 7/18/2017 | The Giant and the Jew | JB traded Alex Colome & Chris Devenski to Hot Ham Water for Justin Verlander & Jacob Faria |
| 7/17/2017 | Original Recipe 2017 | Team AL KOHOLIC traded Max Scherzer to Team Booher for Kris Bryant |
Ten more trades were completed in the RCLs this week. Not a whole lot doing on these but I do love the buy low on Britton by the Cheeky Nandos. If Britton gets traded, obviously you’ve got bupkis, but it’s a great risk/reward move for Ivan Nova, who is fairly replaceable in an RCL. JB for some reason traded a closer and stud RP FOR Justin Verlander. Here I am dropping Verlander three weeks ago in my RCL…go figure.
WEEKLY LEADERS
The best of the best from the week that was.
R – 68 – Rube Waddell’s Shiny Objects (FCL) & Team Longfellow (Take on the Jay 4)
HR –25 – Man or Stroman? (Take On M@ 3)
RBIs – 74 – Gomes’ Gnomes (Johnson’s Ornithology E.O.D.)
SB – 16 – Section 31 (Johnson’s Ornithology E.O.D.)
AVG – .357 – Burnt Sienna Miller (BATTAMANIA)
K – 94 – Greyt Success! High Five! (The Prospect Podcast League)
W – 8 – St. Louis L7 Weenies (It’s Time For Dodger Baseball!!) & Emperor Beddict (Sons of Beddict)
SV – 14 – LA Lil’ Chucks (Jobu Needs A Refill)
ERA (Min. 40 IP) – 1.51 – Cram It (Razzball ‘Perty ‘Perts) (in 71.1 IP)
WHIP (Min. 40 IP) – 0.80 – Chalk It Up Further (Von Hayes and Confused) (in 45 IP)
No weekly records were broken, but I still wanted to call attention to a few special cases this week. First, check out Johnson’s Ornithology E.O.D. league with TWO managers making the weekly leaderboard. Nice work there. Also of note, is Cram It. Most weeks the ERA/WHIP leaders squeak by with 40-50 IP, but not Crammy. This week he not only led the RCLs in ERA, but did so with a whopping 71.1 IP. With all that ERA goodness, I’m surprised it only resulted in a 3.5 point gain in the ‘Perts League this week.
TEAM OF THE WEEK
Our weekly shout out to the team that killed it the previous week.
Team: Victoria’s Siegrist
League: The Camp Fire
Stats: H/AB: 96/310, AVG: .310, R: 56, HR: 22, RBI: 70, SB: 7
IP: 51.1, ERA: 2.81, WHIP: 1.34, K: 45, W: 3, SV: 3
Summary: No, I am not just catering to the Razzball’s own here, VictoriaB really has won TOW two of the past three weeks. I just do what the numbers tell me folks, and two of the past three weeks, Vicky’s had the numbers. To boot, her partner in crime led the RCLs in HRs this week. Not a bad week for the dynamic duo. Despite the two week of TOW honors, Victoria is still chasing Doctor Easy in The Camp Fire league standings, now just 5 back. This race should make for some interesting inter-home wagers down the stretch. Are you #TeamEasy or #TeamVicky? Tune in 10 weeks from now for the exciting RCL conclusion!
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