Despite it only being a three day work week for us fantasy baseballers, there’s no rest for the weary here at RCL HQ. We’re still here, crunching the numbers and cranking out standings for you all. Many of you took advantage of the time with no games to do some self-reflecting. Looking inward you identified your team’s weaknesses and set about addressing them. Like any good rehabilitation process, you’ve come to terms with your team’s issues and now it’s time to fix them. After only eight trades last week there were eighteen this week. Looks like you all are gearing up for that second half run. Let’s take a look at those trades and what else happened in RCLs in the shortened week that was, Week 15.
Each week we’ll peek in at our resident ‘perts & other industry names to see who is laying claim to best “expert” RCLer in the land. We’ll take notes, check the standings and generally stalk them. Click the heading above to check out the ‘Perts League home page and follow along.
Not much to report on in the ‘Perts league standings. Three days was only enough for a couple swaps in the standings. Team Gianella gained the most points in the shortened week (3.5) while Smokey’s crew fell apart after the break. Clearly they got into his stash and couldn’t concentrate on finding the ball. Smokey lost six points and fell to 10th and Team Gianella passed him. J-FOH’s team did absolutely nothing this week and was passed up by Triple-D, Yahoo’s Dalton Del Don who took over 4th place with a 2.5 point gain.
TOP 10
For those too lazy to check the MASTER STANDINGS, I present to you, the current top 10
| RK | TEAM | LEAGUE | RCL PTS | LG PTS | LG INDEX | MASTER PTS |
| 1 | Team Lion | South Side Titans | 105.3 | 105 | 102 | 103.2 |
| 2 | Cram It | DFSers Anonymous | 103.8 | 102 | 103 | 100.4 |
| 3 | Backdoor Sliders 1 | FCL | 103.4 | 101 | 104 | 100 |
| 4 | You had to make it weird | Nico Sux Dico | 103.1 | 105 | 100 | 101.4 |
| 5 | Fatuous Jeffreys | Cougs R Us | 102.9 | 99 | 104 | 100.9 |
| 6 | Chicken Shack | American Dream | 102.8 | 101.5 | 101 | 103 |
| 7 | S’All Goooood, Man | Razzballero1 | 102.7 | 101.5 | 102 | 100.8 |
| 8 | Simply Fred | ECFBL | 102.4 | 99 | 104 | 99.2 |
| 9 | T 1000 | RCL 1000 | 101.7 | 98.5 | 101 | 103.6 |
| 10 | Team Bromelia | Cougs R Us | 101.3 | 94.5 | 104 | 102.5 |
Apparently, we’ve found Cram It’s weakness. His kryptonite is a short week. Team Lion of the South Side Titans ran his league total up to 105. The Titans as a league have surprised me with a 102 League Index so far. This is the league you may recall where Cody Allen was drafted in the first round, so you can understand my surprise a bit more. Not only was that enough to open up a 1.5 point lead over Cram in the overall standings, but now Backdoor Sliders (Frequent Commenter, The Big Yabu) FCL team is only 0.4 points behind Cram for second place. The rest of the top 10 jockeyed around a bit in the shortened week, but all the teams remained in tact save for one. Team Frost lost their spot in the top 10 to fellow Cougs R Us leaguer, Team Bromelia as the top three teams in that league continue their epic battle.
TRADES
All the trades that have gone down in the past week. Public ridicule is not only allowed, but encouraged.
| DATE | LEAGUE | TRADE |
| 7/13/16 | 2016 Shades of Grey | Swag Monsters traded Corey Kluber and Victor Martinez to Team bachman for Carlos Correa and Wade Davis* |
| 7/13/16 | HodgePadres ‘R’ Us | Matzo Balls traded Kenley Jansen and Ryan Buchter to Zulu Zippers for Carlos Carrasco and Steven Wright |
| 7/14/16 | Oscar’s Gambling on this League | Papi’s Last Stand traded Zach Britton to Screamin Yetis for Carlos Beltran |
| 7/14/16 | The Viz vs. The Commenters | Hockey Withdrawals traded Drew Pomeranz to Llama Taboot Taboot for Jason Heyward |
| 7/15/16 | All Hail Beddict Tha God | Grey’s Balls traded Adam Wainwright to Team Levy for Billy Hamilton |
| 7/15/16 | ECFBL | Simply Fred traded Edwin Diaz, Jose Bautista* and Willson Contreras to Team AL KOHLIC for Bryce Harper, J.T. Realmuto and Josh Bell (Simply Fred dropped Tyler Naquin) |
| 7/15/16 | Razzball Lurkers | Fargo Baseball Confederacy traded Jason Heyward and Joakim Soria to TEAM BROKEBACK II for Koji Uehara and Lance McCullers |
| 7/15/16 | Rosterbators Anonymous | Hail HYDRA traded Carlos Carrasco, J.A. Happ and Michael Fulmer to The Phantom Yoenis for Curtis Granderson and Joey Votto (The Phantom Yoenis dropped Josh Tomlin) |
| 7/15/16 | The Heat Is On | A**y’s Fish Fry traded Aaron Sanchez, Marco Estrada* and Marcus Stroman to I.K.S. Rotarran for Aroldis Chapman, Hector Rondon and Matt Holliday (A**y’s Fish Fry dropped Seth Smith) |
| 7/16/16 | DFSers Anonymous | Chicago Mark traded Jon Lester and Mark Trumbo to Samuel Colt Debate Team for Dee Gordon and Seung Hwan Oh |
| 7/16/16 | Hey Ladies! Get Funky | I Was Saying Booher traded Billy Hamilton to Vin and Jack Hate for Dellin Betances |
| 7/16/16 | League Of Shadows | The Great White North traded Jon Lester to The Road Warrior for Alex Colome and Jonathan Villar |
| 7/16/16 | Play with FOH | Team bacon traded Matt Kemp to The Great Knoche for Wade Davis |
| 7/16/16 | RCL 1000 | Mauer? I barely even know her! traded Chris Sale and Neil Walker to T 1000 for Cole Hamels and Jose Altuve |
| 7/16/16 | That’ll do Puig | New Jersey DOMINICAN traded Jake Arrieta to Team Quintus for Joey Votto |
| 7/17/16 | Great Knocks | Diamond Dragons traded Jay Bruce to The Great Knoche for Drew Pomeranz |
| 7/17/16 | RCL Razz | Team E traded Will Harris to Team The Flock for Matt Shoemaker |
| 7/17/16 | Nico Sux Dico | Cooperstown Dreams traded Max Scherzer to You had to make it weird for Starling Marte |
Here’s where the action was this week. Eleven of the eighteen deals this week involved a closer or high strikeout reliever (that could become closer). Six deals involved teams picking up some stolen base help and three of them contained both. SAGNOF is always in demand it seems.
I’m most impressed with A**y’s Fish Fry. The Fish Fry has been sitting at 179 GS for two weeks now and in that time they have traded Max Scherzer, Michael Fulmer, Aaron Sanchez, Marco Estrada and Marcus Stroman for A.J. Ramos, Jeurys Familia, Aroldis Chapman, Hector Rondon and Matt Holliday. What a haul! That sets them up quite nicely for the second half I’d say.
MauledByPandas got away with one in DFSers Anonymous swapping Dee Gordon and Seung Hwan Oh for Lester and Trumbo. People do crazy things for SAGNOF!
For four leagues (The Viz vs. The Commenters, Play with FOH, RCL 1000 and Nico Sux Dico) this week marked the first trade of the season. No time like the present I guess. I feel sad for these leagues. I’d go stir crazy myself, but I’m glad they all got off the schnide.
This got me to wondering how many leagues are yet to make a trade this year. Employing the help of my RCL buddy, VinWins, he found that there are still 19 leagues yet to make a trade! What’s the matter with you guys? Do you have no needs? No weaknesses? You drafted a perfect team? Get out there and strike up a deal!
WEEKLY LEADERS
The best of the best from the week that was.
R – 28 – Fat Freddy’s Feral Cats (RCL Razz) & Boggy Depot Winged Monkeys (Talkin’ Baseball)
HR –11 – Donkeycorn Apocalypse 4 (12 Monkeys Clicking), I Hate My Guys (My Church) & Team Lion (South Side Titans)
RBIs – 27 – SWALLOW MY NUT (RCL FIPping the Bird 2016)
AVG – .347 – NB Shrivel Twigs (Trout Mask Replica)
SB – 8 – All Hail The Glow Cloud (DFSers Anonymous), PabloSandoval’s PersonalTrainer (High Heat), Cannonball Titcomb (Smoke Show) & Team harris (The Third Greatest) (Back to back weeks with a share of the RCL lead)
W – 7 – Iowa Smokeyes (Smoke Show) & Team Codo (The Force Awakens) (Back to back weeks with a share of the RCL lead)
K – 68 – Rudy is Booty (Baba Booey)
SV – 8 – kumamoto expungers (Fountains of Ralph), . DTD . (Robust Herd) & Bronx’s Best Apostle (The Heat Is On)
ERA (Min. 18 IP) – 0.00 – Bana cek (Sons Of Sparky Anklebiter 2) (in 30 IP)
WHIP (Min. 18 IP) – 0.22 – The People’s Champ (The Heat Is On) (in 18 IP)
**This week’s stats won’t count towards the weekly records, but here they are none the less.
TEAM OF THE WEEK
Our weekly shout out to the team that killed it the previous week.
Team: The Strongest
League: Prospecter Ralph’s Cavern
Stats: H/AB: 42/146, AVG: .288, R: 24, HR: 5, RBI: 24, SB: 6
IP: 49.1, ERA: 1.46, WHIP: 0.75, K: 51, W: 3, SV: 5
Summary: Not bad for three days work! The Strongest wasted no time cranking out counting stats this week and gained more SBs in three days then most teams get in an entire week. Paul Goldschmidt, Starling Marte and Javier Baez led the charge there. On the pitching front, Hector Santiago, Brandon McCarthy, Matt Shoemaker, and Cole Hamels all gave up zero runs in their starts and Michael Fulmer pitched an 8 inning, 2 ER gem as well. Scary thing is, The Strongest owns both Clippard and Daniel Hudson who combined to give up 5 ER in 1.1 IP Sunday, so the numbers could have been even better. With numbers like these, it’s easy see why The Strongest is dominating the Cavern.
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