LOGIN

Start the drum roll!  Twenty-Six weeks down and now we have 26 more until the start of next year’s fantasy baseball season.  It’s perfect symmetry because fantasy baseball is the perfect fantasy sport.  But, before we turn our eyes to next season we first have to recap this past season and with that, our overall Razzball Commenter Leagues Champion…Milo The Cat!  Congratulations to Milo for sneaking past FFB in the final week!  This makes two seasons now where FFB has led the pack down the stretch only to lose the overall lead in the final week, this time, slipping to third.  Milo is no slouch though, they have played in Night of the Living Zombinos, one of our toughest legacy leagues, (and a $100 league) since 2016 and finally take the league down.  They finished in third last season and hit 36th overall in the Master Standings, but this year is obviously much sweeter.  I’m always partial to our legacy leagues and love seeing an overall winner come out of one of them.  This year, it’s the entire top three!  That high LCI can be a blessing and a curse as FFB has found out, and I’ll get more into that later.  Milo had just 0.5 more league points than FFB, but that was enough combined with the better pitching to earn more Master Points and take the lead, topping Stl Squat Cobblers who rode a runaway ECFBL victory to second overall.  It was a bit of a down year for ECFBL, with just a 106 LCI, had that been a little higher the Cobblers may have won the title.  Milo The Cat really rakes it in, winning themselves a $250 Best Buy gift card!  More importantly, though, they get a Razzball T-Shirt and RCL glory.  Who can put a price on that?  Oh, it’s $25, well then, moving on.  If you catch Milo popping into this post, be sure to heap on the praise and congratulations.  They fended off some very tough competitors this year to claim the RCL crown.  This is Milo’s moment though, so hopefully they pop in, take a bow and soak it up, they earned it.  

Here’s what else happened this year and this final week of the RCLs:

‘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.

Laura gained another 2.5 points in the final week, finishing the season with her high watermark for points at 104.5.  What a season from Laura.  When we thought no one was catching Son back in August Laura said “O RLY?” and proceeded to go ham on us.  For a minute, I thought I’d have the horses to catch Son, but then Laura whizzed by both of us and I got whiplash watching it happen.  Son dropped 5.5 points in the final week but hung onto second place by one point.

Grey was the biggest gainer in the final week, picking up 11 points as he passed Coolwhip and took fourth place.  Blair was our biggest loser as he and Donkey Teeth have moved onto football and both missed the IP requirement.  Blair lost 16.5 points and fell to last place.  I think Grey was the benefactor of several of those ERA and WHIP points.

Congrats again to Laura, who dominated on offense with 56 of 60 possible points and 48.5 in pitching thanks to running away with the wins category with 117 wins to the next closest, 99. 

TOP 20

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

I’m expanding the top 10 to the top 20 for the final standings.  Stand up and give a hearty pat on the rear end to your end-of-season top 20.  Most of these teams made an appearance in the top 10 at some point this year and it takes some serious effort to make the top 20 at season’s end.  The end of season IP penalties shook up the LCIs quite a bit, causing a stir, so be sure to check out where everyone finished:

RK TEAM LEAGUE RCL PTS LG PTS LG INDEX MASTER PTS
1 Milo The Cat Night of the Living Zombinos 114.5 105.5 109 109.1
2 Stl Squat Cobblers ECFBL 113.6 111 106 106.1
3 Fat Fuckin’ Babies Cougs R Us 113.1 105 110 105.5
4 Orlando Calrissians RCL 2021 (#32) 112.5 113 102 109
5 Dunphy’s Joint Venture RCL 2021 (#23) 111.3 108 105 106.4
6 Brian’s team RCL 2021 (#37) 109.5 108 102 107.8
7 Stl Squat Cobblers RCL 2021 (#27) 108.8 106.5 103 106.3
8 FlowersbangsAl waysRoyalmom… RCL 2021 (#36) 108.6 106.5 104 104.3
9 Astro Zombies RCL 2021 (#20) 107.7 108 100 107.7
10 Backdoor Splitters ECFBL 106.9 102 106 102.4
11 Team Truss RCL 2021 (#35) 106.8 105 106 98.3
12 WM & D RCL 2021 (#13) 106.2 106 101 105.2
13 Bad River RCL 2021 (#33) 106 108 99 105.5
14 Laura Holt PERTS LEAGUE 105 104.5 101 103.9
15 Athletically Unathletic RCL 2021 (#29) 104.2 106 97 107.4
16 Diamond Archers RCL 2021 (#22) 103.5 103 102 101.6
17 Laura Holt RCL 2021 (#9) 103.2 101.5 103 100.8
18 Team bnrgoalie RCL 2021 (#1) 102.8 105 101 99.9
19 DFresh RCL 2021 (#36) 102 98.5 104 99.4
20 Backdoor Cutters Night of the Living Zombinos 101.9 95.5 109 95.3

Again, Milo The Cat claimed the top spot, let’s take a quick peek at their team here, shall we?  Here’s how Milo started their draft this year: 

Um, OK, wow.  Just throw sand in the face of everyone at Razzball why don’t ya Milo?  Cole/Giolito/Scherzer to start things off, Whit Merrifield and then another pitcher in Hader.  That’s not at all what I expected when I peaked under the hood.  What’s even more amazing to me is that all these guys stayed on Milo’s team all season.  In fact, Milo only made 174 add/drops all year, proving that you don’t have to be a chronic rosterbator to win this thing.  Next, we have Starling Marte, so that makes 22 HRs in the first six rounds.  Yeesh.  How did Milo end up swatting 354 dingers then?  Sal Perez didn’t hurt, knocking 48 from the catcher spot.  Mitch Haniger down in round 20 hit 39.  Then Milo made the solid move of adding Austin Riley off waivers in week 2.  Speaking of awesome early moves, Milo also traded for Matt Barnes and Lou Trivino early, setting themselves up quite nicely in the saves department.  Basically, everything came up Milo!  A heck of a job with this squad!

Stl Cobblers jumped up one spot to second, pushing FFB to third.  There’s a comment from a few weeks ago that’s been bugging me since it was posted, and I’m finally going to respond to it here:

So, here’s the thing, YES, Cougs does treat minor places more importantly than other leagues I guess.  Cougs is a Champions League.  It is a mish-mash of the top 12 finishers from 2019 and a few of the top 10 finishers from last year.  (By the way, top 13 finishers this year, drop me a note and let me know if you’re interested in joining Cougs for next season!)  This is a league full of managers who do whatever it takes to win.  You’re not finishing in the top 12 sitting on your laurels.  We are all fighting and clawing for every last league point.  Five of us went mega-max on our final starting pitching, eight of us hit the 1400 limit.  FFB dropped five points in the final week as teams in seventh and third passed them in strikeouts.  I maxed out my starters and fell just six strikeouts shy of passing them as well, I was trying my darndest, even if I was in eighth place.  There are no gimme points in Cougs, there are no dead teams, no wasted moves, that’s why the LCI is 110, the highest of any league.  That LCI can boost you, but being in an ultra-competitive league also means, you might get passed by cellar-dwelling teams in the final week in a random category.  It’s a blessing and a curse.  It’s like the Rays playing the Yankees tough as nails in the final game of the season when they have nothing to gain, just to try and make them play an extra game.  As Grey said on Sunday, that’s my level of petty, and clearly, it’s the level of petty of every manager in Cougs R Us.  I’m happy to be in a league of like-minded managers.

Now that my rant is finished, let’s move on.  Orlando Calrissians passed Dunphy’s Joint Venture to nab fourth overall.

Brian’s Team had a nice final week, moving from tenth to sixth, while Stl Squat Cobblers had a great final week in RCL #27 to move from 14th to seventh and place a second team in the top ten!  Impressive!

Grimey clawed their way back into the top ten, finishing in eighth after a week in first overall that we’ll always remember.

Astro Zombies jumped up four places to finish the year in ninth and rounding us out is 2019’s overall champ, Backdoor Splitters, who tried like heck to chase down the Cobblers in ECFBL.

The remainder of the top 20 includes my team, both of Laura’s teams, a second team from Brian (and one he took over post-draft on accident, Team bnrgoalie), the 2020 overall champ, DFresh, and another squad from team Backdoor.  In other words, just some of the best RCLers in the game…and me.

WEEKLY LEADERS

The best of the best from the week that was.

R – 62 – One Trick Pony (ECFBL) & 75-49er (RCL 2021 (#35))

HR –21 – Team GhostYu (RCL 2021 (#33))

RBIs – 61 – PDX Pickles (RCL 2021 (#15))

SB – 14 – Astro Zombies (RCL 2021 (#20))

AVG – .349 – Team Jbond56 (RCL 2021 (#7))

K – 121 – Vladmania (RCL 2021 (#20))

W – 9 – Team S.Adams RCL (RCL 2021 (#32))

SV –  11 – Cleats Boyardee (Night of the Living Zombinos)

ERA (Min. 40 IP) – 1.28 – Team Coriell9 (RCL 2021 (#19)) (in 42.1 IP)

WHIP (Min. 40 IP) – 0.707 – We’re Only in it for the Money (RCL 2021 (#25)) (in 41 IP)

We didn’t set any new records in the final week.  I really expected the strikeout record to fall as everyone looked to max out their innings, but in the end, it held on by two strikeouts.  Vladmania did have the most IP this week with 134.1 (they earned a 5.49 ERA and 1.429 WHIP for the effort).  Eight other teams topped 100 innings, but we didn’t have anyone top 123 strikeouts, so that record, along with the rest below all stand:

WEEKLY RECORDS

The best of the best from the weeks that were.

R – 78 – Disgustipated (RCL 2021 (#27))

HR –28 – Tears for Fiers (RCL 2021 (#19)), Team Winners_DO (RCL 2021 (#4)), Retro Vertigo (ECFBL), & Disgustipated (RCL 2021 (#27))

RBIs – 75 – Team B_don (Writers League) & Backdoor Knucklers (Cougs R Us)

SB – 17 – Jerk_stoor (RCL 2021 (#4))

AVG – .373 – Team the_chaz (RCL 2021 (#10))

K – 123 – 6ft Away Sucka (RCL 2021 (#12))

W – 11 – Fat Fuckin’ Babies (Cougs R Us) & Vin Security (RCL 2021 (#29))

SV –  13 – Team Bartilotta (RCL 2021 (#22))

ERA (Min. 40 IP) – 0.22 – Fenway Franks (RCL 2021 (#18)) (in 41 IP)

WHIP (Min. 40 IP) – 0.563 – Butterscotch (RCL 2021 (#24)) (in 42.2 IP)

These are the best weekly outputs in each category from the year that was.  If you would all stand up to receive a round of applause, that would be lovely.

None of these numbers broke any of our RCL weekly records, we came within one run of the 2016 run record, but that was all.

Laura came within 5 wins of the overall record, which was set back in 2016 AKA, “The ESPN Days” when we had no IP limit and instead used a GS limit.  The Wins leader, Samuel Colt Debate Team, used 1511 IP to reach 122 Wins.  So, how did Laura manage 117 wins in just 1397.1 IP?  Former RCL Updaters never die and VinWins did a detailed breakdown of Laura’s squad for me over in the forums, check it out HERE.  TL;DR: Adam Ottavino was a cheat code.

TEAM OF THE WEEK

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

Team: Team S.Adams RCL

League: RCL 2021 (#32)

Stats:   AVG: .283, R: 47, HR: 14, RBI: 53, SB: 5

IP: 69.1, ERA: 1.69, WHIP: 0.966, K: 81, W: 9, SV: 1

Summary:  Being in a league where the league leader is in the top ten overall almost all season can be frustrating, but props to S Adams for not quitting on the season.  We love to see it.  Adams put together a masterful final week, with some incredible pitching and enough hitting to keep them in it.  Brandon Lowe was a one-man wrecking crew on offense while Walker Buehler, Logan Webb, Alek Manoah, and Charlie Morton made the pitching shine.  All this effort got Adams was a 7.5 point gain in RCL #32 and that wasn’t enough to move them out of sixth place. Still, I for one, admire the fight.  Nice final week S.Adams!

TEAM OF THE WEEK OF THE YEAR

I thought it would be cool to look back at each TOW from this past season and see which week was the best week.

WEEK TEAM LEAGUE POINTS
3 Son PERTS LEAGUE 272.43
4 Team RCL 2021 (#30) 297.28
5 Butterscotch RCL 2021 (#22) 282.53
6 Fat Fuckin’ Babies Cougs R Us 293.72
7 Hammerin’ Hank RIP RCL 2021 (#10) 312.35
8 Stl Squat Cobblers ECFBL 289.21
9 Nothing Going RCL 2021 (#21) 312.93
10 Backyard Baseball Night of the Living Zombinos 282.24
12 Team WilliamDyer RCL 2021 (#10) 551.52 *Double Week
13 Team mdubs RCL 2021 (#2) 317.09
14 A Man Named Brady RCL 2021 (#35) 249.5
15 Mo Mohicans RCL 2021 (#19) 171.9
16 Los Boricualizers RCL 2021 (#15) 300.87
19 Dunphys Joint Venture RCL 2021 (#23) 797.2 *Triple Week
20 WM & D RCL 2021 (#13) 318.93
21 DFresh Crab Army 306.35
22 MattTruss223 DFSers Anonymous 295.21
23 Vin Garr RCL 2021 (#1) 340.12
24 Diamond Archers RCL 2021 (#22) 288.36
25 Bad River RCL 2021 (#33) 320.84
26 Team S.Adams RCL RCL 2021 (#32) 277.82

Taking away the extra-long weeks that followed a hiccup from the RCL Update machine it was VinWins’ week 23 performance that was the best of the best this year.  Their 340.12 points were the best of the best.

Three of our top five finishers managed a TOW honor.  No teams double-dipped this year and no manager that I can see made the list with multiple teams this season.  Only RCL #10 sent multiple teams to the TOW ring of honor.

The points mean little here, they only come from a formula that VinWIns and I made up and tweaked to try and capture the most well-rounded team each week.  I think it’s fitting that Vin takes the top TOW honors this year.  Speaking of Vin, he does a lot of great work behind the scenes on the RCLs and he wrote up a nice little recap of each league winner this year along with plenty of juicy tidbits.  Please enjoy:

LEAGUE WINNERS RECAP

RCL 1 – Mattheb9 took over the abandoned Team bnrgoalie right after the draft and cruised to the title, racking up 105 points.

RCL 2 – Team mdubs and Team anb11788 finished the season tied at 93 points, but mdubs secured the title with a 3-pt correction when 2 teams lost their ratio points for failing to reach the 1000-IP minimum.

RCL 3 – The Cherry Stones (Wake Up) scored a 3-point victory over STL Cardinals, finishing with 96 points.

RCL 4 – Team Rmuzz55 crushed this league, scoring 101 points and finishing 23 ahead of the 2nd place team.

RCL 5 – Savoy Special put up 95 points for a 7.5-point win.

RCL 6 – SanPedro Guitarristas scored 103.5 for a 21.5-point win as Wake Up notched his 2nd league title.

RCL 7 – Torres, led by both Sal Perez and Vladdy, won with 102 points.

RCL 8 – A Michael Fulmer save on the final day scored Team cubbiebluez an extra half point and sent them to a 96.5 – 96 win over RBV.

RCL 9 – Laura Holt cruised to a 23-point win, finishing at 101.5. She needed only 1133 IP to do it, with Brandon Woodruff, Freddy Peralta, and Trevor Bauer leading the way.

RCL 10 – Hughbot won with 91 points.

RCL 11 – BallBusters’ 91 points were enough to squeak out a 2.5-point win over Team spicescat.

RCL 12 – CornHolio’s Bunghole racked up 105 points for a 13-point win.

RCL 13 – WM & D tallied 106 points and won by 19.

RCL 14 – Kramerica Industries went into the final day with a 1-point lead over Lucky Bucky and stretched it out to 5.5 by the end.

RCL 15 – GMoney Squared led 90 – 88.5 over Los Boricualizers entering the final day. When the day ended they were up 88.5 – 88, but, once again, a correction when 2 teams lost their ratio points for failing to reach the 1000-IP minimum changed the outcome.  Los Boricualizers took the title 90 – 89.5.

RCL 16 – Team BillyAngel took this tight league with 82 points. Only 7 points separated the top 5 teams.

RCL 17 – El Marco edged Team Shlomo 95 -92 for the win.

RCL 18 – Fart Butt scored a 7-point victory, putting up 95.5 points, crediting his April 15 trade of Jose Urquidy for Salvador Perez

RCL 19 – Pachoka was league champion with 97.5 points.

RCL 20 – Two teams broke the century mark, with Astro Zombies (Fred Garvin MP) besting The TeePee 108 – 100.

RCL 21 – Lake Titicaca Bungholes defeated Racehorse 102 – 96.5, giving Darrell his 2nd league title.

RCL 22 – Diamond Archers (Teddy Ballgame) topped Team Bartilotta 103 – 99.

RCL 23 – Dunphy’s Joint Venture piled up 108 points on their way to a 16-point win.

RCL 24 – Gunk Squad edged Mr Big & Bud Goode 98 – 95 to win the league.

RCL 25 – Deadites finished with 94 points and narrowly topped VottomanEmpire by 1.5.

RCL 26 – NCPhilly Fanatics gave VottomanEmpire another tough loss, outscoring them 99 – 96.

RCL 27 – Stl Squat Cobblers sailed to a 10 and a half point win, finishing at 106.5.

RCL 28 – SJQ and Virginia Patriots were tied at 90, but for the 3rd time a league was decided when a correction took place for teams failing to reach the 1000-IP minimum. SJQ ended up ahead, 95 – 93.

RCL 29 – Athletically Unathletic scored 106 points and just slid past my Vin Security team by 16.5 points.

RCL 30 – Ikor scored 92 points to win the league.

RCL 31 – Wharf Rats edged Texas Flood 96.5 – 95 to take the title.

RCL 32 – Orlando Calrissians (Fred Garvin MP??) cruised to a 28-point victory while rolling up 113 points.

RCL 33 – Bad River scored 108 to take the league by 13 points.

RCL 34 – CPWinos overcame a 3-point deficit on the last day to edge Man or Stroman? (Dr Easy) 92 -91.

RCL 35 – Team Truss put up 105 to take a 12-point win.

RCL 36 – FlowersbangsAl waysRoyalmom… (Frank Grimes) won by 8 with 106.5 points.

RCL 37 – Brian’s Team scored 108 for Mattheb9’s second dominating win.

Frequent Commenters League – Rube Waddell’s Shiny Objects gave Truss his 2nd title as they edged Dfresh 104 – 101.

Cougs R US – FFB used all 500 moves to win this tough league  by 13.5 with 105 points.

Original Recipe – Fred Garvin MP took his 3rd title this year, scoring 99.5 to win by 13.

Crab Army – Dfresh turned the tables and edged BIG TRUSS by a half point!

NIGHT OF THE LIVING ZOMBINOS – Milo The Cat scored 105.5 to win by 10.

ECFBL – Stl Squat Cobblers took this tough league with 111 points.

DFSers ANONYMOUS – Vegans scored 93.5 to win this competitive league. They made a big move April 17, acquiring Shohei Ohtani for Anthony Santander. Ohtani provided 33 HR and 13 SB along with 5 wins and 57 Ks before the Vegans dealt him along with Wander Franco for Edwin Diaz (8 saves) and Jack Flaherty (1 win).

Writers League – Team B_don scored 58 of a possible 60 pitching points on his way to a 6.5-point win.

Perts League – Laura Holt dominated the second half of the season and finished with 104.5 to win her 2nd title.

YEARLY LEADERS

The best of the best from the year that was.

R – 1332 – Fat Fuckin’ Babies (Cougs R Us)

HR –402 – Kailuaboys (RCL 2021 (#20))

RBIs – 1257 – WM & D (RCL 2021 (#13))

SB – 220 – STL Cardinals (RCL 2021 (#37))

AVG – .284 – Team the_chaz (RCL 2021 (#10))

K – 1754 – Team Truss Takeover (RCL 2021 (#29))

W – 117 – Laura Holt (PERTS LEAGUE)

SV –  143 – The Great Knoche (RCL 2021 (#2))

ERA (Min. 1000 IP) – 2.97 – Team allslugs (RCL 2021 (#34)) (in 1195 IP)

WHIP (Min. 1000 IP) – 1.038 – Team allslugs (RCL 2021 (#34))

IP – Gunk Squad (RCL 2021 (#24)) – 1450.1

K/9 (Min. 1000 IP) –Team mpaltrow (RCL 2021 (#1))– 11.2

MOVES – 500 – Fat Fuckin’ Babies, Stl Squat Cobblers, Vegans, Nothing Going, Auto-21, & Team HoosierBoss

Worst Place – Team thomasnace (RCL 2021 (#5)) – 16.2 RCL Points, 19.0 League Points with a League Index of 88.

We didn’t manage to set any new yearly records this season, but we can get an idea for how offense was down a bit as this year’s run leader was about 100 runs under the 2019 leader (who was also FFB FYI).  The HR leader was about 40 off the mark and RBIs were off by about 50.  Our ERA leader this year was 0.13 points under the 2019 leader as well.  We also lost about 40 saves from one leader to the next.  The steals leader was 15 steals over the 2019 mark though.  All of this isn’t saying a ton, one team stacking closers can skew those numbers, but it’s interesting to make note of.

TOP LEAGUES

I’ve mentioned in the past that I have a bias for high LCI Leagues.  I’ve played in several and commish one of the best, so naturally, I want to give them their due.  Here are the top 10 leagues in order of LCI:

Cougs R Us – 110

Night of the Living Zombinos – 109

DFSers Anonymous – 109

RCL 2021 (#25) – 107

ECFBL – 106

RCL 2021 (#35) – 106

RCL 2021 (#19) – 106

RCL 2021 (#8) – 105

RCL 2021 (#23) – 105

RCL 2021 (#34) – 105

There you have it, the top ten most competitive leagues.  Well done leagues!  I’m not very surprised that the superleague was the most competitive.  I’m willing to bet it will be next year too.  Not a single team missed the IP limit, only two teams made fewer than 100 moves with three making around over 480.  It was a real battle royale, I finished eighth here and am thrilled to have placed 11th overall so I can join again next season.  Nice work to all my leaguemates!

It’s the usual suspects otherwise.  NOTLZ, ECFBL, and DFSers are perennial top LCI leagues and this year is no different.  Cougs R Us was dominate in offense this season, they led in Runs, HRs, & SBs, plus Strikeouts.  NOTLZ took the RBI crown, edging Cougs by 13 RBIs.  RCL #9 squeaked past Cougs for the Saves lead, by just 1 Save (918 total).  DFSers Anonymous tallied the most total innings but RCL #14 had the lowest average ERA and WHIP.  The highest average Batting Average came from RCL #28 who batted .260 as a league.

The winners of all these leagues deserve major kudos.  It’s not easy winning an RCL and certainly not one with an LCI north of 105.  Take note of the league names and maybe reach out next year when the time comes if you want to play in one of the top leagues.  I’m almost always looking to fill a few spots in these leagues each year.  You have no one to blame but yourself for not being in a competitive league.  I played in six of the ten leagues listed above and each one was a total blast.  

It has been an absolute pleasure bringing you these updates every week.  Thanks to everyone who read, lurked, commented, and/or gave a kind word.  A million thanks go out to Rudy for collecting data behind the scenes and making my job easy as well as Donkey Teeth for editing these bad boys!   Thanks to Vin for providing extra insight and a second look at all the numbers.  I love these crazy, time-consuming leagues, I love the daily moves and the competition it creates and I hope that was evident in my weekly reports.  Is it perfect?  Nah, but darn it, it’s fun as hell.  I like to think of it as the daily fantasy of season long.  I also love the community it brings together, pitting commenter against commenter, ‘Pert against random lurker.  Is there another place on the interweb where you can play against 500+ other people all with weekly Master Standings updated as well as a weekly report on the goings ons?  I think not.  Thank you to Grey and Rudy for creating this beautiful monster known as the RCLs.  Let’s dedicate this season to Andy Spiteri AKA: GasDoc and Mike Tagliere (RIP brothers) and enjoy our winter of hibernation.  See all you crazies next year.

PSYCH!  One last quick note, FanTrax wants to make ULTRA sure there are no stat corrections and locks all our money leagues until October 10th.  I will process payouts Monday the 11th and the money should then be in your FanTrax account.

Want to be Matt’s Twitter pal?  That’s kinda creepy, but you can follow him here: @MattTruss