RCL Update: The Week That Was, Week 6, 2024

*BLOWS TRUMPET*

*Bangs out dust as the trumpet has been in storage since 8th grade band*

*BLOWS TRUMPET WITH GUSTO*

The time has come and we have our very first Razzball Commenter Leagues overall standings update of the year!  BIG thank you to VinWins for collecting the data and to Rudy for plugging it all into the bots and getting the kinks worked out.  For those who can’t remember or didn’t read my first article of the season, we’ll be updating the standings on the first Monday of each month.  We hit some snags in scraping data from FanTrax and this was the best compromise we could come up with.  So, what did our first update of the year tell us?  Who is leading the RCL universe after the first 6 weeks?  Let’s find out!

 

‘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.

First things first, let’s check in on our neighborhood ‘perts.  Kirksey held onto the top spot this week and gained 1.5 points in the process.  The biggest gain this week belongs to B_Don who picked up 9.5 points and moved up seven places!  There is an eight team log jam at the bottom of the league with all these teams within 9 points of each other.  For example, Laura lost 1.5 points this week and fell 4 places.  It’s chaos.

 

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.

Eric Erhardt stole first place from Clark Olson this week.  Our boy Kirksey fell out of the top ten, but friend of the show Yancy Eaton has pulled into his spot.  Ariel Cohen has also aggregated his way into ninth overall.  Robert Snyder jumped into the top ten this week thanks to the most points scored (663).  Joe Asher (2021 RazzSlam champ) moved up the most spots this week (96) to move into 139th place thanks to 635 points scored.

 

TOP 20

For those too lazy to check the MASTER STANDINGS, I present to you, the current top 20

RK	TEAM	LEAGUE	RCL PTS	LG PTS	LG INDEX	MASTER PTS
1	Longballers	COUGS R US	105.5	102	104	103.4
2	Stop looking at me Kwan!	20	104.9	102.5	102	103.6
3	Rube Waddell`s Shiny Objects	7	103.6	104	100	103.7
4	Blue Squadron 22	22	102.7	107.5	98	100.8
5	Hugh`s Bots	20	100.3	98	102	99
6	Bluefield Baby Birds	13	99.9	98.5	102	98.2
7	Row Cubbies Row	8	98.8	106.5	93	101.5
8	password is taco	2	98.3	101.5	99	96.7
9	Man or Stroman?	19	98.1	94.5	103	96.9
10	dwightford	1	97.8	101.5	99	96.3
11	Revenge of the Witt	12	97.7	99.5	101	94.7
12	Gunk Squad	13	97.1	96.5	102	94.7
13	The Back Fields	3	95.2	92	101	96.5
14	The Losers Club	9	95.1	98	99	94
15	Lord Bacon Von Beefsweats	28	94.7	98	99	92.9
16	Pawnee Rangers	25	94.6	94.5	101	94.1
17	cubbiehead	31	94.3	95.5	101	92.3
18	Imaginary Sportsball	8	94.2	100.5	93	97.8
19	Wellhungarian	31	94	95	101	92.3
20	cubbiebluez	15	93.3	100.5	93	96.6

Because we are doing this so infrequently I am expanding to the top 20 to celebrate everyone who has come out swinging.  Longballers sits atop the champion’s league and the RCL standings.  Over 100 points in that league is no joke and will absolutely put you in position to win this thing.  The trick is maintaining over 100 for the entire season.

My only good team so far this season sits in third overall.  Rube Waddell`s Shiny Objects is doing a lot of heavy lifting for team Truss as so many of my teams are starting slow.

The rest of the top ten is filled with names we’ve seen as teams of the week or weekly stat leaders.  Give everyone in the top 20 a hearty cheer.

 

TRADES

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

DATE	LEAGUE	DETAILS
4/29/2024	COUGS R US	Again and again traded Andy Pages to Sturgeon King for Garrett Crochet
5/2/2024	RCL 35	tHosE guYs traded Robert Suarez & Bailey Ober to bellow for Michael Busch & Teoscar Hernandez
5/3/2024	FCL	Organic Pringles traded Jose Altuve to NoUseForAName for James McArthur & Bailey Ober
5/4/2024	Original Recipe	VinO traded Logan Webb to Ducks Eat Free at Subway for Josh Hader

Baily Ober got moved twice this week and Josh Hader was moved.  I think I’d be looking to buy low on Hader if possible right now.  Good move, Vin.  I’ve also been looking to add Crochet where possible, those K’s are very tempting.  I feel Again and again’s pain as I have RCL teams with 17 OFs on the roster and can’t seem to drop any.

 

WEEKLY LEADERS

The best of the best from the week that was.

R – 54 – password is taco (RCL 9)

HR –19 – Bluefield Baby Birds (RCL13)

RBIs – 63 – La Crescenta Retrievers (RCL 23)

SB – 18 – Ducks Eat Free at Subway (Original Recipe)

AVG – .298 – cjsullivan3 (RCL 29)

K – 99 – Dansby Swanson: A Swan Song (RCL 23)

W – 7 – 4 Teams Tied

SV –  8 – 6 Teams Tied

ERA (Min. 40 IP) – 0.88 – cubbiebluez (RCL 15) (in 41 IP)

WHIP (Min. 40 IP) – 0.66 – BookemDanno (RCL 11) (in 66.2 IP)

We tied the RBI and SB mark this week and for the first time in a while the high batting average is under .300.  This is in line with Vin’s note that batting average dropped to .248 this week.  Congrats to RCL 23 for having two high marks this week.  However, in a very symmetrical statistic: 45 teams had an ERA over 5, 48 teams had an ERA under 2, and the average ERA was 3.47.

 

MONTHLY LEADERS

The best of the best from the month that was.

R – 282 – STL Squat Cobblers (ECFBL)

HR –75 – Strawberries (RCL 21)

RBIs –268 – Prairie Dogs (RCL 5)

SB – 66 – Ducks Eat Free at Subway (Original Recipe)

AVG – .279 – Munson’s Mustache (RCL 23)

K – 452 – MarmosDad (RCL 35)

W – 34 – Zissou (RCL 16) & Josheast (NOTLZ)

SV –  52 – Stretch Run Punchouts (RCL 10)

ERA (Min. 240 IP) – 2.17 – Blue Squadron 22 (RCL 22) (in 306.1 IP)

WHIP (Min. 240 IP) – 1.009 – Lipmanpike (RCL 28) (in 268.2 IP)

 

Some unreal numbers after six weeks, but this ERA might be the most impressive.  VinWins did a deep dive for us into how Blue Squadron got here:

1.44 Jose Berrios 43.2 IP

2.57 Jared Jones 35 IP

2.91 Yoshinobu Yamamoto 34 IP

1.71 Seth Lugo 26.1 IP

1.88 Reynaldo Lopez 24 IP

1.54 Cristian Javier 23.1 IP

0.00 Clay Holmes 16.1 IP

1.15 Javier Assad 15.2 IP

1.88 Kyle Finnegan 14.1 IP

6.91 Logan Allen 14.1 IP

0.66 Evan Phillips 13.2 IP

0.00 Shane Bieber 12 IP

3.86 Craig Kimbrel 11.2 IP

5.40 Bobby Miller 11.2 IP

2.61 Spencer Turnbull 10.1 IP

 

Some additional numbers from our first update courtesy of Vin:

 

SAVES:

Average: 16

38 teams have 0 saves.

47 teams have 30+ saves.

 

STOLEN BASES:

Average: 19

68 teams have 50 +steals.

 

MOVES:

19 teams have made 0 moves.

The average # of moves is 34.

18 teams have made 100+ moves.

 

The most active teams:

191 Rmuzz55 ( 9 )

158 Diamond Archers ( 33 )

134 Laura Holt ( NOTLZ )

133 Laura Holt ( 13 )

123 Longballers ( COUGS )

123 Vottoerotic Asphyxiation ( 34 )

 

And finally, some league data:

AT BATS (Average is 19,079): COUGS R US > 20314

HR (Average is 637): COUGS R US > 677

SB (Average is 453): COUGS R US > 495

IP (Average is 3448): RCL > 17

WINS (Average is 233): PERTS  > 257

ERA (Average is 3.53): PERTS  > 3.44

No surprise to see our Champion’s league dominating the field, but it is a bit surprising our Perts are killing the pitching game.

 

TEAM OF THE WEEK

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

Team: Bluefield Baby Birds

League: RCL 13: The Laura Holt Challenge

Stats:   AVG: .297, R: 49, HR: 19, RBI: 54, SB: 15

IP: 58.2, ERA: 2.91, WHIP: 0.955, K: 65, W: 1, SV: 3

Summary: You may remember the Baby Birds as last year’s Beat Laura Holt league champ.  It would appear they are back to their old tricks, taking over first place with an absolutely killer week.  The Birds hit all the homeruns this week (leading the RCLs) and paired that with nearly a slam and legs AND ridiculous ratios.  The big week was good for a 12.5 point gain and a move into first place.  Willy Adames, Riley Green, and Shohei Ohtani each hit 3 dingers with Adames chipping in two steals.  Altuve stole three bags for good measure while hitting .346.  On the pitching side, Luis Castillo picked up the only win and 7 Ks in 7 shutout innings.  If this isn’t a poster child for why wins are dumb…Nestor Cortes Jr. added 9 strikeouts in 6 1/3 innings and Jhoan Duran pitched 3 shutout innings and recorded 2 saves in his first week back from the IL.  Nice work, Baby Birds!

 

Want to be my internet pal?  That’s kinda creepy, but you can follow me here: @MattTruss or here: @matttruss.bsky.social