RCL Update: The Year That Was 2025

Start the drum roll!  Twenty-seven weeks down, and now we have twenty-five more until the start of next year’s fantasy baseball season.  It’s (almost) 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…Ernocl!  Ernocl took down RCL 34 in dramatic fashion, coming back on the final weekend to sneak past Blow Jobes for the league win and the overall championship.  He finished with 107 league points in what turned out to be one of the toughest leagues this season.  The high LCI (107) was second only to COUGS R US and NOTLZ, two very tough leagues.  That league index helped make sure all those points counted.  The 107 league points were the fifth highest this year, but the team that finished with the most (cpp186 – 113) was in RCL 7 with only a 90 LCI.  It’s key to find a tough league, but not too brutal where you can get out to a big lead.  It’s a fine line.  What I thought would just be a friendly $20 league where you got to play against me turned into a killer league with two managers in the top five overall, and everyone really scraping for every last point.  As much as I adore the legacy leagues, it’s pretty cool seeing a league come together out of nowhere to be one of the hardest to win.  Ernocl was a contender from the jump, too!  Our first update saw them debut at 28th overall, the next month it was 48th, and they would never fall out of the top 25 overall again, just lying in wait for the time to strike…the final Saturday of the regular season.  The RCLs remain one of the best competitions in the fantasy baseball land, and winning this is harder than just about any industry league and probably harder than anything but an NFBC Main Event.  A HUGE congrats to Ernocl on the accomplishment. Ernocl 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 Ernocl popping into this post, be sure to heap on the praise and congratulations.  They fended off some very tough competitors to claim the RCL crown.  This is Ernocl’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.

Kirksey did something I didn’t think could be done.  I thought for sure when Son took the lead Friday night, the lack of moves and not maximizing ABs would finally catch up with Kirksey, and he’d lose it right at the end.  In what is one of the closest finishes in the Perts League, Kirksey held on for a 0.5 point win.  To make things even crazier, Grey could have dropped Giolito and activated Trevor Megill, earning one more win, taking a half point from Kirksey, and creating a tie.  Tiebreaker would have gone to Son.  No word yet if the flaming bag of poop on Grey’s doorstep is related to this event.  Razzball News 1 is investigating.  So, to recap, Kirksey used 32 moves all season, Son used 500.  Just so we’re clear.  In other words, Kirksey drafted a near-perfect draft. 

The Aaron Judge/Cal Raleigh combo was devastating, Crochet and Hunter Brown were a perfect 4-10 pairing, and Robert Suarez was a saves machine.  I’m impressed.

 

TOP 20

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

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 20 at some point this year, and it takes some serious effort to make the top 20 at the 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	MOVEMENT
1	Ernocl	RCL 2025 #34	113.1	107	107	107.3	5
2	gilsonschmilsson22	RCL 2025 #22	112.7	110	102	112.4	7
3	Longballers	RCL 2025 #35	112	112	100	112.8	-2
4	Blow Jobes or Rosterbation?	RCL 2025 #34	110.7	104.5	107	105.3	-2
5	Jerk Store	RCL 2025 #33	109.2	103.5	107	104.6	3
6	Password is taco	RCL 2025 #26	108.6	107	103	105.2	-2
7	SquatCobblers2	RCL 2025 #17	107.4	104	104	104.5	-2
8	Gilson Schmilsson	COUGS R US	107.4	97	108	105.9	-1
9	Raleigh round the Family	DFSers ANONYMOUS	107.2	101	106	104	-6
10	Man or Stroman?	ORIGINAL RECIPE	106.8	102	104	105.3	2
11	Gunk Squad	The Laura Holt Challenge	106.2	99.5	107	101.8	2
12	Isotopes	RCL 2025 #33	105.8	100	107	101.7	10
13	TripleBs	RCL 2025 #8	104.4	102	101	105.1	-3
14	Ohtani Betts on Tong Contests	RCL 2025 #18	102.6	101	103	99.7	-3
15	Tulsa Carpetbaggers	RCL 2025 #15	102.5	108.5	97	100.9	1
16	cpp186	RCL 2025 #7	101.7	113	90	106.9	-1
17	The Gas Station	RCL 2025 #29	100.4	100	99	102.3	-3
18	Team Tokyo	RCL 2025 #5	100.3	101	100	99.4	5
19	Judge, Jury, & Executioner	RCL 2025 #32	100.2	100	101	98.5	11
20	Orlando Calrissians	ORIGINAL RECIPE	100.1	94	104	100.4	23

Again, Ernocl claimed the top spot. Let’s take a quick peek at their team here, shall we?  Here’s how Ernocl started their draft this year: 

Doesn’t exactly look like a team you’d expect to win it all, does it?  No Aaron Judge, no Cal Raleigh, and he overcame a second-half swoon from Elly.  Ernocl’s top to RPs ended up being set-up men post trade deadline as well.  That means he was putting in some WORK all season.  Yamamoto was a stud, so was Woo, and Langeliers was Raleigh-lite.  Chapman was a nice RP bargain, but overall, this looks like a solid build, nothing that screams CHAMP.  Ernocl didn’t make a single trade this year, and honestly, the final roster was pretty similar looking:

Health is the key here, with most of these draft picks staying healthy all year, including an 18th-round Byron Buxton.  Buxton was a bit of a league winner…finally.  Also, adding Andy Pages at the end of April ended up being a huge pickup as well.  Anyone could have had him, and Ernol pounced.  Erncol used 196 moves to win it all, right around the sweet spot, I think.  No need to murder yourself streaming bats every day, but enough to keep those counting stats rolling.  A nice combination of draft and timely pickups gets it done for Ernocl.  By the way, here are the final standings for RCL 34.  Vin also collected all of Erncol’s season stats HERE.

As we’ll see in a bit, gilsonschmilsson22 put on a show in the final week to earn second place honors.  They got dinged with a 102 LCI, as did Longballers, who held the top spot last update.

Joe had a heck of a season, but fell just short in the end, finishing fourth overall.  Still, two in the top ten and three in the top 15 make this a very successful season for the polarizing commenter.  I think he hushed his critics a bit.

Jerk Store made a nice final push to finish out the top five, bumping perennial top RCLers, password is taco, and Squat Cobblers out.

Gilson placed two teams in the top ten, including winning COUGS R US, with a 108 LCI it and NOTLZ were the top two toughest.

Man or Stroman? had another wonderful season and is also turning into a perennial top 20 fixture.  They earn a spot in the Champions League once again by winning Original Recipe.  This is a fine time to mention that all top twelve teams make it to our Champions League, and we’ll keep working down the list until we fill COUGS R US, which you can see, is a VERY competitive league.

Gunk Squad once again wins the Laura Holt Challenge. Impressive work there.

The remainder of the top twenty includes some familiar names from previous updates, including Isotopes, The Gas Station, and Team Tokyo, an impressive list.

 

WEEKLY LEADERS

The best of the best from the week that was.

R – 56 – gilsonschmilsson (RCL 22)

HR –27 – gilsonschmilsson (RCL 22)

RBIs – 69 – gilsonschmilsson (RCL 22)

SB – 14 – PlatanoPowers (RCL 5) & mrmoops (RCL 21)

AVG – .344 – StrikeFirst (DFSers Anonymous)

K – 190 – chronosaurus (RCL 21)

W – 11 – gilsonschmilsson (RCL 22)

SV –  9 – Clear Vision (RCL 20)

ERA (Min. 40 IP) – 1.02 – mdthomp24 (RCL 20) (in 44.1 IP)

WHIP (Min. 40 IP) – 0.647 – tkdc (RCL 12) (in 46.1 IP)

Geez, I wonder who TOW might be this week?  Gilsonschmilsson really left it all out there to finish the season, even tying the weekly HR record!  Impressive finish.

Meanwhile, chronosaurus absolutely smashed the weekly strikeout mark, tossing out 174 innings, streaming everything that moved, and hitting 190 Ks.  Wowza!

 

2025 WEEKLY RECORDS

The best of the best from the weeks that were.

R – 73 – Big Boppers (RCL 26)

HR –27 – JamScandal (NOTLZ) & gilsonschmilsson (RCL 22)

RBIs – 77 – Swanson TV Dinners (RCL 17)

SB – 21 – tberkman (RCL 18)

AVG – .352 – baugh151 (RCL 20)

K – 190 – chronosaurus (RCL 21)

W – 12 – STL Squat Cobblers (ECFBL)

SV –  14 – Texas Flood (RCL 21)

ERA (Min. 40 IP) – 0.43 – Springfield Isotopes (RCL 13) (in 42.1 IP)

WHIP (Min. 40 IP) – 0.531 –  Raleigh round the Family (DFSers Anonymous) (in 43.1 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.

The 190 strikeouts fell a little short of the all-time weekly record of 218 set by Roto-Wan back in 2019.  Pitching stats went crazy that year.

 

TEAM OF THE WEEK

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

Team: gilsonschmilsson

League: RCL 22

Stats:   AVG: .274, R: 56, HR: 27, RBI: 69, SB: 3

IP: 120.2, ERA: 3.21, WHIP: 1.119, K: 137, W: 11, SV: 8

Summary: Just a crazy awesome finish to the season here.  The amazing week gained gilson 4.5 points, pushing them to 110 as they ran away with RCL 22. They led the RCL in home runs, runs, runs batted in, and wins this week and were also second in saves and third in strikeouts!  Seiya Suzuki (.318/5 HR/12 RBI) and Giancarlo Stanton (.333/3 HR/10 RBI) powered this team to a dominant Team Of The Week win. James Wood hit .450 with four homers. Colson Montgomery and Byron Buxton each contributed three long balls. Luis Arraez hit .450 and chipped in a home run as well. On the pitching side, they mixed and matched TWENTY different starters, securing top 100 fantasy starts from Aaron Nola, Jesus Luzardo, Cam Schlittler, and Shane Smith. Sandy Alcantara, Zebby Matthews, J.P. Sears, Edward Cabrera, and Shane Bieber also won games. Equally impressive was the management of the relief corps, with 6 different closers earning saves. Jose Ferrer and Emilio Pagan had two each, while Aroldis Chapman, Kenley Jansen, JoJo Romero, and Riley O’Brien tallied four more.  Outrageously good finish to a great season, congrats, gilsonschmilsson!

 

YEARLY LEADERS

The best of the best from the year that was.

R – 1268 – Longballers (RCL 35)

HR –428 – JamScandal (NOTLZ)

RBIs – 1242 – Swanson TV Dinners (RCL 17)

SB – 272 – password is taco (RCL 12)

AVG – .275 – baugh151 (RCL 20)

K – 1610 –  Raleigh round the Family (DFSers Anonymous)

W – 110 – jproctor24 (RCL 10)

SV –  178 – Texas Leaguer (RCL 25)

ERA (Min. 1040 IP) – 2.83 – Benchbat (RCL 14) (in 1043.2 IP)

WHIP (Min. 1040 IP) – 1.034 – Lindorphins (RCL 30) (in 1182.1 IP)

IP – Vin Thirty (RCL 30) – 1448 IP (back-to-back years for Vin with this honor), 198 teams hit the 1400 mark (Average: 1289)

44 teams failed to reach the 1000 IP minimum

ABs – 8875 – Swanson TV Dinners (RCL 17) (average: 7288)

K/9 (Min. 1000 IP) – 10.7 – Lindorphins (RCL 30) in 1182 IP

MOVES – 500 – Dad (Perts League), The Gas Station (RCL 29), TripleBs (RCL 8), STL Squat Cobblers (ECFBL), password is taco (RCL 12), Afternoon Delights (COUGS R US), HoosierBoss (RCL 25), nomad Inc. (RCL 19), Backdoor Splitters (ECFBL)

Worst Place – BrodyRules (RCL 16) – 15.8 RCL Points, 12.0 League Points with a League Index of 101. Honestly, impressive that the rest of the league could pick up the slack to get the LCI over 100, and also impressive to get ones in every category. 

JamScandal had been on pace to set a new HR record (440), but ended up falling just short as they focused on winning their league vs all-time glory.  Smart play.

 

Vin broke down the moves made, along with how many titles each range brought.  Thanks, Vin!

Four champions made the maximum 500 moves.

 

The fewest moves made by a winner:

14 runtheezstreets ( RCL #4 )

32 Kirksey ( PERTS )

50 Chrismannella ( RCL #6 )

 

Titles won broken down by moves:

500: 9 teams  – 4 titles

400 – 499: 29 teams –  6 titles

300 – 399: 41 teams –  3 titles

200 – 299: 55 teams –  13 titles

100 – 199: 97 teams –  11 titles

51 – 99: 93 teams –  6 titles

1 – 50: 184 teams –  3 titles

0: 32 teams  0 titles

Last year, no team making 50 or fewer moves finished first.

 

Vin also provided some interesting notes on some league winners.

45 first place finishers (1 tie)

Position at the ALL STAR BREAK:

1st:  26

2nd: 13

3rd: 2

4th: 3

5th: 2

The biggest deficit at the break by an eventual champion was the Squat Cobblers 4 (RCL 24) who were in 5th place, 19 off the lead. They also gained the most points, jumping from 74.5 to 97 (+22.5).

 

And some data on draft slot:

1st-place finishers by draft slot:

1: 1

2: 6

3: 5

4: 5

5: 6

6: 5

7: 4

8: 4

9: 3

10: 2

11: 4

12:1

 

8 champions selected Aaron Judge, and 8 took Kyle Tucker.

5 – Elly De La Cruz

4 – Bobby Witt Jr.

4 – Shohei Ohtani

3 – Juan Soto

3 – Corbin Carroll

3 – Fernando Tatis Jr.

3 – Francisco Lindor

2 – Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

1 each for Tarik Skubal, Jarren Duran, and Jose Ramirez

 

Just some fun data you can do with what you like.  I always think this stuff is fun to peruse and appreciate Vin taking the time to collect it all.

 

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 – 108

Night of the Living Zombinos – 108

The Laura Holt Challenge – 107

RCL 34 – 107

RCL 33 – 107

ECFBL – 107

DFSers Anonymous – 106

Perts League – 105

Original Recipe – 104

RCL 17 – 104

There you have it, the top ten most competitive leagues.  Well done, leagues!  I’m not very surprised that the Champions League was the most competitive (or NOTLZ for that matter).  These two were also the top two last season and will likely continue to be.  What is surprising is these $20 and $10 buy-in leagues that are right there with the best of the best legacy leagues.  If you want a competitive RCL next year, look at these buy-in leagues.  It’s the usual suspects otherwise. ECFBL, and DFSers are perennial top LCI leagues, and this year is no different.  Nice to see the Perts League near the top for the third year in a row.

COUGS was definitely the most dominant league this year; they led in Runs, HRs, RBIs, Saves, ERA, and made the most moves of any league.

NOTLZ led in stolen bases, strikeouts, and innings pitched, while RCL 3 led in batting average, and RCL 21 took home the lowest WHIP.

RCL 34 led the way in Wins.

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 104.  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.  I was practically begging to fill the last spot in DFSers Anonymous this year.  You have no one to blame but yourself for not being in a competitive league.  I played in seven of the top ten leagues listed above, and each one was a total blast.  Probably also why I only won one league this year.  

It has been an absolute pleasure to bring you these updates every week.  Thanks to everyone who read, lurked, commented, and/or gave a kind word.  A million thanks to Vin for collecting data and stats for the Master Standings and my weekly updates.  A big thanks to Rudy for running those standings.   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 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 Mr. Baseball, Bob Uecker, Dave Parker, also Octavio Dotel and Tony Blanco, RIP.  Enjoy your winter of hibernation, and I’ll see all you crazies next year, much love.

PSYCH!  One last quick note, FanTrax wants to make ULTRA sure there are no stat corrections and locks all our money leagues until October 5th.  I will try to process payouts the first day I can, and the money should be in your FanTrax account shortly thereafter.  If you don’t have it by Wednesday, 10/8, let me know in the comments.

 

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