We are into 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 when 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 regard 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 (Hector Neris 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 Martin Perez is the player with the best shot at a win today that is available in some leagues and JP Sears is available in many more. 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):
| Team | League | W | IP | Moves | Win % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B_don | RCL 20 | 43 | 469.1 | 24 | 9.16 |
| Hammerin Hank | Original Recipe | 40 | 441.2 | 27 | 9.06 |
| Over-Nite Sensation | FCL | 44 | 489.1 | 9 | 8.99 |
| Stolen Vortex | RCL 6 | 42 | 476.1 | 129 | 8.82 |
| Dancin Homer | RCL 26 | 41 | 469 | 12 | 8.74 |
| JamScandal | NOTLZ | 46 | 532 | 60 | 8.65 |
| We’re Only In It For The Money | Original Recipe | 46 | 534.1 | 12 | 8.61 |
| Zrnelson | Writers League | 38 | 447.1 | 7 | 8.49 |
| EarlThePearl# | RCL 11 | 46 | 541.2 | 140 | 8.49 |
| The Back Fields | RCL 21 | 33 | 389.1 | 24 | 8.48 |
Our very own, B_Don is leading the charge in win luck so far with 43 wins in 469.1 IP, good for a 9.16 win%. Hammerin Hank is right behind him with 40 Wins in 441.2 IP, a -.06 win %. The Back Fields is the only team on the lucky list who really needs to pick up the IP pace in order to make sure they hit the 1400 threshold, or close to it. Ideally, teams should be around 500 IP right about now.
| Team | League | W | IP | Moves | Win % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team Name | 3 | 14 | 380.1 | 2 | 3.68 |
| johnnyhobbes | 10 | 18 | 444.2 | 23 | 4.05 |
| DRKSHP | WRIT | 15 | 359 | 0 | 4.18 |
| Hobson Homers | 10 | 14 | 333.1 | 3 | 4.20 |
| milothecat | NOLZ | 21 | 489.2 | 58 | 4.29 |
| Ashley Schaeffer BMW | 29 | 23 | 533 | 49 | 4.32 |
| FLIBWIP | 12 | 18 | 412 | 23 | 4.37 |
| Vin | 27 | 21 | 476.2 | 144 | 4.41 |
| Detour Du Jour | 2 | 23 | 515.1 | 4 | 4.46 |
| Texas Chainsaw Massacre | 32 | 21 | 458 | 94 | 4.59 |
Going the other way, on the unlucky side, is Team Name. Team Name has clearly checked out, they couldn’t even be bothered to update their team name…they have made two moves and called it a season. They have 14 Wins in 380.1 IP (3.68 win%) and not much hope of doing anything worth noting here. Johnnyhobbes has at least made 23 moves but still only has 18 Wins in 444.2 IP, a 4.05 win% and some real bad luck. Vin also cracks this list with 21 Wins in 476.2 IP, despite making 144 moves. Talk about some bad luck.
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.
Cram It earned back all of the 11.5 points he lost last week and added two more for good measure, leading the league with 13.5 points gained and moving up two spots in the standings. MarmosDad, meanwhile, lost all but one of the 9.5 points they gained last week and dropped four places in the standings. Crammy led the league in every offensive category but Runs and also led in Wins. Quite an impressive bounceback! Son remains atop the league, with Grey looking up from a ways back.
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.
Ryan Beck held onto the top spot for another week, but Christian Dopp has overtaken Yatta for the second spot this week. Strutz and Eng swap spots and Mike Maher held onto sixth. Frequent Commenter, Frank Grimes cracked the top ten this week, congrats, Grimey!
Joe Pisapia was the biggest mover this week, gaining 652 points and moving up 54 places to 95th overall.
TOP 10
Vin’s points, a rough estimation of the Master Standings until we’re up and running:
| RK | TEAM | LEAGUE | VIN PTS | LG PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wake – N – Rake | RCL 12 | 106.98 | 106.5 |
| 2 | Starfish & Coffee | RCL 33 | 106.71 | 107 |
| 3 | Merry Band of Schmohawks | COUGS R US | 106 | 101.5 |
| 4 | TheSpaceman | RCL 31 | 102.78 | 102 |
| 5 | Swing Away | RCL 3 | 99.86 | 104 |
| 6 | LauraHolt | NOTLZ | 99.73 | 96 |
| 7 | Stolen Vortex | RCL 6 | 98.78 | 98 |
| 8 | Vin34 | RCL 34 | 98.69 | 98 |
| 9 | El Duderinos | RCL 37 | 97.52 | 95.5 |
| 10 | Tuck It In | RCL 29 | 97.5 | 96.5 |
Merry Band of Schmohawks took a slip this week, and is now down to “just” 101.5 points in COUGS R US. It’s SO hard to win these brutal leagues by a wide margin and the Schmohawks are feeling that this week. As they fall to third, leaving Wake-N-Rake and myself one and two. TheSpaceman & Swing Away leap over Laura this week and Stolen Vortez and Vin each move up a couple spots. Nice work to our top 10.
TRADES
All the trades that have gone down in the past week. Public ridicule is not only allowed, but encouraged.
| DATE | LEAGUE | DETAILS |
|---|---|---|
| 6/2/2023 | RCL 33 |
olaxsoxo traded Anthony Volpe to Hambone for Logan Webb
|
| 6/2/2023 | RCL 20 |
Hoboknives 20 traded Mark Leiter Jr. to B_don for Taylor Walls
|
| 6/3/2023 | RCL 21 |
StlPerfectos traded Jake Burger & Domingo German to Analyzing Unathletic Success for Nestor Cortes Jr. & Kris Bryant
|
| 6/4/2023 | RCL 31 |
RamblinWreck traded Manny Machado to Pitch Slapped for Kyle Schwarber & Bryce Elder
|
After a very busy week last week, we only had four trades processed this week. In some of the worst luck I’ve ever seen in a trade, StlPerfectos traded for both Bryant and Nestor Cortes as both land on the IL. Dang.
WEEKLY LEADERS
The best of the best from the week that was.
R – 53 – Retro Vertigo (ECFBL)
HR –18 – Vegans (FCL)
RBIs – 70 – Vegans (FCL)
SB – 19 – Dancin Homer (RCL 26) & Analyzing Unathlethic Success (RCL 21)
AVG – .331 – Roto_Wan (RCL 26)
K – 94 – Bad News Cocaine Bears (RCL 25), Vegans (ECFBL), & Big Red (RCL 16)
W – 9 – Fly147 (RCL 19)
SV – 10 – The Great Knoche (PERTS)
ERA (Min. 40 IP) – 0.90 – GMoney Squared (FCL) (in 60 IP)
WHIP (Min. 40 IP) – 0.782 – chronosaurus (RCL 19) (in 47.1 IP)
AB – 336 – Son (PERTS)
Hits – 103 – Vegans (FCL)
No new weekly records this week, but Vegans had himself a week, even sneaking two different teams in the list. ECFBL, FCL, RCL 19, and RCL 26 each appear in the list twice as well.
VinWins had a few more interesting tidbits to share this week:
22 teams hit over .300; 14 teams hit under .200
39 teams had an ERA under 2.00 (13 last week); 98 teams had a 5+ ERA
14 teams had 0 Wins; 62 teams had 0 Saves.
All teams stole at least 1 base. 130 had 10+ (94 last week). The average was 7.
TEAM OF THE WEEK
Our weekly shout out to the team that killed it the previous week.
Team: Vegans
League: FCL
Stats: AVG: .328, R: 48, HR: 18, RBI: 70, SB: 5
IP: 59.2, ERA: 2.26, WHIP: 1.022, K: 72, W: 5, SV: 3
Summary: Weeks don’t get much better than this. A giant batting average, leading the RCLs in HR and RBIs, amazing ratios, an enormous K/9…Vegans really did it all. The huge week moved Vegans up from 11th place in FCL last week to third this week and only three points out of first. Eat your vegetables, kids…they’re good for you. Vegan power!
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