RCL Update: The Week That Was, Week 3, 2025

It’s funny to me that every season we forget the ridiculous amount of pitcher injuries that happened the season before.  This year may seem like we have a lot of pitchers getting hurt, but this is literally every season.  Can you remember April of 2024 when we lost Spencer Strider, Shane Bieber, and Eury Perez in the first two weeks of the season?  People were Tweeting about the pitch clock, only using resin, as well as the “pitchers shouldn’t throw 100” crowd, or “high schoolers shouldn’t throw 95 or throw curveballs” group, or my personal favorite, “pitchers are babied now…back in MY day” dudes, because let’s face it…it’s always dudes.  Anyway, it’s a tale as old as time and as much as it sucks to lose Justin Steele or Reynaldo Lopez, this is the nature of the game.  This is why we don’t invest huge draft capital in starters and we know how to stream when an arm goes down.  We know what to look for to find the next Spencer Strider.  We read EWB and MarmosDad and we pounce on a roleless rob or the next hot call-up and we move along.  Jakob Junis?  Zebby Matthews?  Step right up.  Of course, I had the two highest ERAs in the RCLs this past week, so what do I know?  Onward, to the week that was, week 3:

‘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.

Coolwhip, from the top rope!  Whip gained 15 points, led the league in everything but steals, saves, and pitching ratios, takes over the lead, and led the RCLs in HR & RBI for good measure.  Not too shabby.

Cram It was the victim of Whip’s lashing, losing 17 points and falling to seventh.

RAZZSLAM STANDINGS UPDATE

Each week we’ll also take a look at the top ten overall standings in our other Razzball sponsored league, the RazzSlam.  This is our NFBC Best Ball league with managers from all across the industry, from content providers to fans and readers just like you.

I’m going to expand to the top 16 overall this week for no reason whatsoever.  The Razzball crew is looking pretty good to start the year.

Fifth overall, Jamie Auslander gained the most points this week (721) and Grant Washburn moved up the most places (137) on the back of 659 points.

TRADES

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

Two swaps this week with an exchange of starters and Jazz returning a haul.  I think I still want Jazz here, but I guess it’s fair.

WEEKLY LEADERS

The best of the best from the week that was.

R – 54 – jgumbel (RCL 24)

HR –23 – Coolwhip (Perts League)

RBIs – 54 – Coolwhip (Perts League)

SB – 18 – The Bananas (Crab Army), My Balls Are Juiced (RCL 9), & Lars Baar (RCL 17)

AVG – .328 – Juselman (RCL 9)

K – 108 – FuzzyD (RCL 17) & IronRipken (RCL 25)

W – 9 – Diamond Archers (RCL 18), Bzerko13 (RCL 9), & Gunk Squad (Cougs R Us)

SV –  12 – Texas Leaguer (RCL 25)

ERA (Min. 40 IP) – 0.43 – Springfield Isotopes (RCL 13) (in 42.1 IP)

WHIP (Min. 40 IP) – 0.646 – Gunk Squad (Cougs R Us) (in 52.2 IP)

Offense was down a bit this week, which paved the way for some new pitching records.  We set new highs in weekly strikeouts, saves, and ERA.  The Isotopes had a sub 0.500 ERA, here’s how they did it:

0.00 – Kevin Gausman – 8 IP

0.00 – Max Meyer – 6.1 IP

1.42 – Cristopher Sanchez – 6.1 IP

0.00 – Framber Valdez – 6 IP

0.00 – Jeff Hoffman – 5 IP

0.00 – Tanner Bibee – 4.2 IP

3.00 – Carlos Estevez – 3 IP

0.00 – A.J. Puk – 2 IP

0.00 – Mason Miller – 1 IP

Very nice!

RCL 9 is well represented with three different teams hitting the leaderboard this week!

A few more stats from the week from VinWins:

13 teams had an ERA under 1!

38 teams hit under .200  (7 last week)

5 teams hit over .300.

9.6% of the schedule has been completed. 96 IP would be on pace for the 1000 IP minimum. 135 IP is on pace for the maximum 1400 IP.

MOVES:

33 teams have made 0 moves.

The average # of moves is 16.

The most active team:

80 moves: Dunphy’s Joint Venture (RCL 34)

TEAM OF THE WEEK

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

Team: TEAM PINKMAN

League: RCL 1

Stats:   AVG: .276, R: 51, HR: 20, RBI: 50, SB: 10

IP: 62.1, ERA: 1.16, WHIP: 0.834, K: 50, W: 4, SV: 5

Summary: Sometimes a TOW happens with a crazy output on offense, sometimes it’s a ton of IP, but I most enjoy when it’s a crazy offensive output and some ridiculously great pitching.  The stars aligned this week for TEAM PINKMAN who was near the top of the offensive leaderboards this week and somehow also cruised to a 1.16 ERA and sub 1.00 WHIP.  If I had to pick nits, it’s be the K/9, but that’s really splitting hairs here.  The big week saw PINKMAN hit 108 points for a 35 point lead atop RCL 1.  Isaac Paredes, Spencer Torkelson, and Kyren Paris each hit three home runs, while Jackson Chourio added two more and drove in eight. Pete Crow-Armstrong also hit two out of the park, plus stole three bases.  Michael King (2 Wins/10 Strikeouts/1.84/0.886) led the pitching staff, while Nick Lodolo and Brandon Pfaadt each threw 6 shutout innings and earned wins. Framber Valdez also gave up no runs in 6 innings of work. Kyle Finnegan (2 saves), Ryan Helsley, Justin Martinez, Dennis Santana, and Ryan Walker combined for 5 saves and 10 K in 10 and 2/3 innings without allowing a run.  Nice stuff from PINKMAN.

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