RCL Update: The Week That Was, Week 9, 2022

We are in the midst of June now and baseball and the Razzball Commenter Leagues are in full swing.  Players seem to be finding their groove and so are fantasy managers.  This is also the time of year where I like to take a look at which RCL teams are killing us in win-rate and which teams have just had some crap luck in the win column.  Now, Rudy will tell you that Wins are actually predictable as shown by his Ombotsman.  While the data and the bots may tell you this, as a human, it still seems like they are luck-based, do they not?  Today we’re going to take a look at “win luck”.  There’s no doubt it takes some luck to win a fantasy baseball league.  Injury luck is probably the biggest factor in winning a league.  As good a manager as we think we are, if your number one pick goes down for the year, you’re going to be at a disadvantage.  That’s just common sense. “Win luck” is another area that is seemingly out of our control.  Let’s face it, wins are brutal.  I’m a big proponent of the mantra, “Make your own luck” and I certainly think that can be applied to “win luck”.  “Win luck” is a term often tossed around to describe a team that is raking in the wins and/or a team that can’t seem to buy a win.  Can you make your own luck in regards to wins?  Of course, you can.  You can stream those valuable middle relievers, especially the ones that frequently work multiple innings in the middle of games (Michael King perhaps).  When a lead change occurs, these relievers are typically the benefactors.  It’s no guarantee of course, but it can’t hurt your luck any.  There are other ways to increase your win luck too.  Let’s take a look at another big one as well as who is getting lucky and who got lucky this week in the week that was, week 9.

Another nice way to increase your win luck is to borrow a tip from the DFS side of the fantasy baseball landscape and utilize the Vegas odds.  I know not everyone dabbles in DFS waters, but Vegas is a good companion there and in your season-long leagues.  Here’s how to use it.  First, find yourself a website that lists all the Vegas consensus odds for the day.  There are several out there, but I typically run with THIS ONE.  Go ahead and bookmark that for future reference.  If you aren’t familiar with Vegas terminology, you want to look at the “Money Line” which is the number greater than 100 with either a “+” or a “-” in front of it.  This shows you how much you would have to bet on a team to win $100 (in the case of the negative amount) or how much you would win if you bet $100 on a team (in the case of the positive amount).  The negative value indicates the favorite.  So, if a team is a -140 favorite, you would need to bet $140 on them to win $100.  If a team is +140, if you bet $100 on them, you would win $140.  You can start to see where this might come in handy.  Anything over about -140 is pretty good.  Take a look at those odds, check to make sure the over/under (run total) for the game isn’t too huge, use some common sense, or at least some risk/reward management, and stream away.  If you’re a really savvy roto player, you’ve purchased access to the Streamonator where you can filter by day and sort by wins.  There you would see that Chris Flexen is the player with the best shot at a win today that is available 89% of RCLs.  Chasing wins may seem to some like a fool’s errand, but you can take a couple of steps to make your own luck.

Here are the best (“luckiest”) and worst (“unluckiest”) teams in the RCL universe in terms of win % (Wins/IP * 100):

Asynda Boil from Crab Army is leading the charge in win luck with 41 wins in 434 IP, good for a 9.45 win%.  Cjsullivan3 is right behind them with 32 wins in 340 IP, a 9.41 win%.  They really need to pick up the IP pace though if they want a shot at winning.  One of my teams is next on the list with 44 wins in 480 IP.  That’s about the only thing this team is doing right as I’m wasting my win luck on a team in 6th place in RCL #34 and 217th in the overall standings.  My only worse team is my Writer’s League team at 219th.  It’s interesting that of this top ten group, none are in the top 25 overall and only three are in the top 100 overall.

On the unlucky side, DeGrom DeDamnit! Has the fewest wins per innings pitched of any team in the RCLs.  13 wins in 321 IP is pretty bad, a 4.05 win %.  It makes sense if they did in fact draft Jacob deGrom.  At least they have plenty of innings to catch up with and hope that luck neutralizes.  My Writer’s League team meanwhile is on pace with 522 IP and has only grabbed 23 wins.  At least I have Blair and JKJ to commiserate with over our bad breaks.

‘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, we’ve flip-flopped again.  Son wouldn’t go away and following a six point loss this week, I have fallen to second.  Despite leading the league in IP, Saves and Ks, my eight homer/30 RBI week was so bad, Son’s 64 RBIs and 53 Runs earned him the top spot despite losing three points himself.

Cram It had the best week, gaining 4.5 points and moving up two places to fifth, passing Grey who lost four points and fell three places 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 hope everyone remembered their final FAAB bids last week.  I did, but I still left $200 on the table.  FAAB math with only two bidding periods is a different animal.  In the standings, it’s Clark Olson, same old, same old at the top.  Zach and Nate remained in the top ten this week, holding things down for team Razzball.  JKJ slipped out and made room for Vlad Sedler, who I’m sure many of you know from his high-stakes play and Twitter presence.  Yahoo’s Triple D had the most points scored this week with 729, boosting him up twenty spots to 22nd overall.  Christopher Deary and Kenyatta tied for the biggest jump this week, each moving up 44 spots thanks to 682 and 660 points respectively. 

TOP 10

For those too lazy to check the MASTER STANDINGS, I present to you, the current top 10

My tumble in ‘Perts left the door open for my DFSers squad to take over the top spot and Hungry Like the Wolf (formerly tberkman) jumped up to second, leaving Son in third overall.  So, even though he’s beating me in ‘Perts, at least I still have this…for now.

DonkeyCorns move up four spots to fourth and stechsjj jumps up one place to fifth this week.

My ‘Perts team fell all the way to sixth with a sub-par performance and Scoboticus fell from fifth to seventh.

FFB dropped one place to eighth this week and then we have a double dose of your RCL host to round us out.  That’s four teams in the top ten right now for me, which is a little insane.  For good measure, I’ve got a team in 15th and one in 29th waiting in the wings.  It’s been a pretty good season so far, but we’ve still got a long row to sow.

TRADES

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

There were a full dozen trades this week as RCLs were busy wheeling and dealing.  A huge deal went down in Cougs R Us, the champions league with Juan Soto on the move with Emmanuel Clase (and Jake Cronenworth) for Kyle Tucker and Xander Bogaerts.  Shaking things up!

Cronenworth was moved twice this week along with Alek Thomas and Carlos Rodon.  Speaking of Rodon, I don’t know what’s going on in RCL #30, but I wouldn’t be happy about it.  Auto-22 may need some public shaming.

WEEKLY LEADERS

The best of the best from the week that was.

R – 63 – Surprising Barbarians 3 (RCL 2022 (#30))

HR –24 – Scoboticus 2 (RCL 2022 (#17))

RBIs – 64 – Son (PERTS LEAGUE) & Vin 25 (RCL 2022 (#25))

SB – 16 – spacecadet25 (RCL 2022 (#19)) & Portland Mavericks (RCL 2022 (#11))

AVG – .345 – Chazz Jisholm (RCL 2022 (#26))

K – 89 – FakeTeams824 (RCL 2022 (#34))

W – 9 – Fart Butt (RCL 2022 (#42))

SV –  10 – The Sneetches (RCL 2022 (#34))

ERA (Min. 40 IP) – 0.76 – Greetings from the Humungus (RCL 2022 (#9)) (in 47.1 IP)

WHIP (Min. 40 IP) – 0.687 – Pussy Juice Mustache (ECFBL) (in 43.2 IP)

Greetings from the Humungus set a new low in weekly ERA for this season with a 0.76.

TEAM OF THE WEEK

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

Team: Bossmanjunior

League: RCL 2022 (#27)

Stats:   AVG: .286, R: 46, HR: 15, RBI: 51, SB: 5

IP: 77, ERA: 2.10, WHIP: 1.052, K: 83, W: 7, SV: 1

Summary: Good in everything, great in nothing is a nice way to describe this week’s TOW.  All these stats are incredibly solid, but none are next level.  The pitching really shines with a nice k-rate to go along with sterling ratios.  Sandy Alcantara and Justin Verlander were the big reasons for the ratios and Byron Buxton accounted for a third of the team’s homers this week.  The solid week moved Bossmanjunior up eight points in RCL #27 but they remained in third place, albeit, a little bit closer to league leader, Nate Marcum.  Nice week!

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