RCL Update: The Week That Was, Week 5, 2026

I hope everyone is finding their way through the injury minefield this week.  Around every corner, there seems to be a sore shoulder, forearm, neck, or oblique waiting to lay waste to your best-laid fantasy baseball plans.  The Razzball Commenter Leagues are both the easiest and the hardest leagues to recover from an injured player.  The easiest, because the waiver wire is filled with promising players and streaming options.  Batty calls and speed dials abound!  It’s the hardest because, with three bench spots and three IL spots, you end up making difficult decisions about who to keep and who to cut.  As soon as you hit four IL players, you start doing mental math on whether it’s worth the dead roster spot for ten days.  Of course, there’s also trying to stash a promising youngster like Colt Emerson, but that somehow feels different.  Untapped potential, I suppose.  Here’s to speedy recoveries of dislocated fingers and strained hips.

I’m hopeful that next week will bring our first RCL standings update!  Always exciting to see how your teams are doing compared to everyone else.  For this week, we have Perts League updates, weekly leaders, and more for the week that was, week 5.

‘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 held onto the top spot this week.  He led the league in HR, RBI, and SB.  Not bad.  There wasn’t a ton of movement overall, as things start to equalize a little.  Several teams moved up or down a spot or two.  I was the biggest gainer this week, picking up 9.5 points and moving from tenth to ninth (lol).  Cram It was the biggest loser this week, dropping 9.5 points and falling two places to eighth.

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.

RazzSlam standings seem to hardly budge, and TopherV remains firmly atop the leaderboard for another week.  Roto_Wan and Mike C are continuing to hold things down for the home team, and Andy Behrens stays in the top five.  If ever there was a tournament for Andy, it is RazzSlam.  You mean I can ignore pitching for 15 rounds?  SOLD!

J Schmoey had the most points this week with 721 as they moved into 12th overall.  The biggest mover was @return2earth who scored 685 points and moved up 108 places to 87th overall.

TOP TEAMS

Again, I’m hopeful we have Master Standings next week, and it’s possible a recent FanTrax change will make creating the standings even easier, which means we could go back to weekly updates.  We’ll see, Rudy has the bots on the project.  In the meantime, our teams with 100+ points:

There’s a drive hasn’t left this list since week two, and finally claims the top spot this week.  McQuat and Capital Offense join the list this week as Mudville Nine, DaveCoffee, and B’more like 1983 all fell off.

TRADES

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

Eight deals this week, as RCLers got busy making deals at the five week mark.  Jackson Merrill was moved twice, in COUGS, this comes just two weeks after being traded for.  I guess TripleBs was having seller’s remorse.  TripleBs have now traded  Vlad Jr., Kirby, and Matt Chapman for Tarik Skubal, Jonathan Aranda, and Caleb Durbin.  I love the deal for Ohtani by AD.  Ohtani is such a cheat code, I would gladly make that deal, especially with the depth at catcher this year.  Caballaro for Beeter is pocket lint for dried earwax.

WEEKLY LEADERS

The best of the best from the week that was.

R – 62 – olaxsoxo (RCL 35)

HR –25 – olaxsoxo (RCL 35)

RBIs – 67 – Krusty Krab (CRAB ARMY)

SB – 18 – farley101 (RCL 2)

AVG – .330 – New Team 4 (FCL) & LargeBoat (RCL 27)

K – 97 – PlatanoPowers (RCL 22)

W – 12 – PlatanoPowers (RCL 22)

SV –  8 – milothecat (NOTLZ), Team Tokyo (RCL 11), & Mostly Harmless (RCL 1)

ERA (Min. 40 IP) – 1.93 – Tacorover (RCL 5) (in 42 IP)

WHIP (Min. 40 IP) – 0.816 – Clerno (RCL 34) (in 41.2 IP)

We set a new weekly high mark in HR, AVG, strikeouts, and wins this week.  Nice work, everyone.

Some more weekly stats from VinWins:

Four teams had an ERA under 2, while 40 teams were over 6.

Six teams hit under .200, and 31 hit over .300.

And some yearly notes:

17.3% of games have been played. 173 IP is on pace for 1000. 243 IP is on pace for the max 1400.

Crab Jake (Crab Army) has 22 wins in 209.67 innings for the RCL best 9.5 IP/Win.

21 teams have made 0 moves. The average is 27 moves. TrixMcGee (RCL 26) and WAR Bacon (RCL 20) lead with 116 – 87 moves is on pace for the maximum 500.

Shining a spotlight on McQuat, who has five of the top ten K/9 rates in the RCLs right now:

12.11 McQuat ( RCL #23 ) 191.67 IP

11.59 McQuat ( RCL #24 ) 219.67 IP

11.42 Danfucious ( CRAB ARMY ) 223 IP

11.30 Topps Talent ( CAUGHT LOOKING ) 192 IP

11.23 TheThreeReynolds ( RCL #5 ) 263.67 IP

11.10 Team Tokyo2 ( COUGS R US ) 214 IP

11.04 Oh LL ( FREQUENT COMMENTERS ) 245.33 IP

11.02 McQuat ( RCL #4 ) 192.67 IP

10.98 McQuat ( RCL #10 ) 227 IP

10.98 McQuat ( RCL #25 ) 177 IP

And a quick look in at the wrong end of the ERA equation, our current worst ERAs in the RCLs:

5.03 Dude, Wheres My Team? ( RCL #31 ) 216.33 IP

5.04 password is taco ( RCL #21 ) 166 IP

5.04 Mr Big & Bud Goode ( RCL #34 ) 255.33 IP

5.04 Packers2019 ( RCL #4 ) 176.67 IP

5.13 ShruteFarms ( RCL #20 ) 250.67 IP

5.13 Wonderboy ( RCL #29 ) 215.67 IP

5.21 password is taco ( RCL #4 ) 210.67 IP

5.38 password is taco ( RCL #7 ) 197.33 IP

5.50 Dazed And Confused ( RCL #10 ) 203 IP

5.52 cpp186 ( COUGS R US ) 189 IP

Password is taco is having a rough go of things to start the year.  I have my fair share of terrible ERA teams as well (Perts, for starters), so I get the struggle.  Best of luck turning that ship around.

TEAM OF THE WEEK

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

Team: Oh Thank Heaven

League: RCL 21

Stats:   AVG: .293, R: 60, HR: 17, RBI: 57, SB: 14

IP: 58, ERA: 2.64, WHIP: 1.224, K: 65, W: 6, SV: 4

Summary: I never enjoy writing up my own teams, really feels like a massive jinx waiting to happen.  Another team was leading the TOW race heading into Sunday, but they proceeded to go 4 for 40 with no homers, and so I squeaked in there.  A solid, but not especially spectacular in any one thing kind of week for me, which is honestly how I try to build my teams.  Well-rounded, keep me competitive in every category, and hope to get ahead in one or two with some luck.  This is about as balanced as it gets.  Four players lead with six runs batted in – Drake Baldwin (8 Runs/2 HR/1 SB), Daylen Lile (2 HR), Matt McLain (2 HR/1 SB), and Manny Machado (2 HR). Josh Naylor hit .474 and added a home run and four stolen bases. Munetaka Murakami blasted three long balls, while Shohei Ohtani had a homer and three steals along with six shutout innings and seven strikeouts on the mound. J.R. Ritchie, Casey Mize, and Shane McClanahan each won their start and struck out seven. Foster Griffin and Noah Schultz contributed eight Ks as the young talent had a good week. It was a good week for streaming, finally.  Lucas Erceg recorded two wins and a save in four appearances. Robert Suarez and Riley O’Brien chipped in a save apiece.  I’m pleased, and hope Naylor is finally heating up.  I kinda wish I had tried trading for him last week when everyone was saying he was cooked.

Want to be my internet pal?  That’s kinda creepy, but you can follow me on the bluest of skies: @matttruss.bsky.social