2015 Owner's Luck
I will admit from the jump that I am posting the following data purely to make me feel better about myself. My self-esteem has hit an all time low in this league as each week a new Shocker is stuffing me into a locker and bullying me to tears. I used to be confident and I used to hang with the cool crew but something's changed since our last winter break. Now I'm hanging out with Meyer, Rich, and Pep at the Sbarro's in a food court on the weekend while my former buddies are living it up at the top of the standings buying Coors O with fake ID's and totally touching tits on some sophmore cheerleaders. It certainly couldn't be my own fault, right? I mean, I'm like THE SHIT at fantasy baseball. Nah, it's someone or something that is out there, altering the fantasy universe to fuck me over and I must find out who or what is doing this to me.
The bully that has victimized all of us at some point in this league is bad luck. Bad luck strikes randomly and without warning and some years it picks on particular owners while letting others roam around the league, worry free. We'll aim to see who is getting picked on the worst by the bad luck bully and we'll break it down by owner.
I ran a similar exercise at the end of last season to see who has been the luckiest in terms fantasy stats against and we'll take a look at the 2015 stats to date to come to similar conclusions about our teams. Much like fantasy football, you have absolutely zero defense against the opponent's players, which means there's nothing you can do when the opponent goes off. It's the same in fantasy baseball. When you're up against a player with a crazy power surge like Harper or Joc Peterson, you can't pitch around the guy. When your opponent it sending out his aces for a two start week, you have to bite your lip and face them. You can find your team putting up great stats and still losing while you look around the league scoreboard and realize you would've beaten everyone else if it weren't for playing the wrong team at the wrong time. Doesn't matter if you hit 15 homers in a week and lose that category or if you hit 3 and lost, it's still a bold lettered "L" on your record. I'll break it down as best I can by team and then we'll pull all the owners in the same room to see how we all compare in terms of our luck when facing the opposition. This is a long post so you might want to make sure you wait until you're particularly backed up in order to read this on the shitter at your house. Just try to avoid getting a swirlie from the bad luck bully while you're in the boys room.
We'll lead off with our current first place owner, Bryan "Arch" Archuleta.
The bully that has victimized all of us at some point in this league is bad luck. Bad luck strikes randomly and without warning and some years it picks on particular owners while letting others roam around the league, worry free. We'll aim to see who is getting picked on the worst by the bad luck bully and we'll break it down by owner.
I ran a similar exercise at the end of last season to see who has been the luckiest in terms fantasy stats against and we'll take a look at the 2015 stats to date to come to similar conclusions about our teams. Much like fantasy football, you have absolutely zero defense against the opponent's players, which means there's nothing you can do when the opponent goes off. It's the same in fantasy baseball. When you're up against a player with a crazy power surge like Harper or Joc Peterson, you can't pitch around the guy. When your opponent it sending out his aces for a two start week, you have to bite your lip and face them. You can find your team putting up great stats and still losing while you look around the league scoreboard and realize you would've beaten everyone else if it weren't for playing the wrong team at the wrong time. Doesn't matter if you hit 15 homers in a week and lose that category or if you hit 3 and lost, it's still a bold lettered "L" on your record. I'll break it down as best I can by team and then we'll pull all the owners in the same room to see how we all compare in terms of our luck when facing the opposition. This is a long post so you might want to make sure you wait until you're particularly backed up in order to read this on the shitter at your house. Just try to avoid getting a swirlie from the bad luck bully while you're in the boys room.
We'll lead off with our current first place owner, Bryan "Arch" Archuleta.
You can see that we're going to break down your season-to-date record by statistical category (stategory?) along with showing how much, on average, you and your opponents are putting up for each stat. You will also see a "Season Difference" row that will show the +/- for that stat for season-to-date. For clarification, if you are a net positive on the Batting K stat for Season Difference, that's a good thing because it means you are striking out that much less than your opponent. When you are in the positive in the pitching loss category, that's also a good thing. I know that seems a bit backwards but that's how I had to do the calculations. A negative in the ERA and WHIP is a good thing, as that means you are that much lower than your opponent on the season. The bottom blue line shows the league average so you can see how you and your opponents fare against the rest of the league and if you've been a little lucky or unlucky so far. Finally, the bottom orange line shows your aggregate record for batting and pitching.
OK, now on to Arch, who has our second best roto team and our best head-to-head team so you can guess that it's mostly skill and a little luck as to why he's been so great this year. The only stat that Arch has been worse than his competition has been the QS stat, where he's had three less overall QS's than his opponent. Arch has an incredible 41-10-3 advantage on the hitting side, which is aided by the fact that his opponents are all performing worse than league average so far, and they're worse by a lot. Arch hasn't lost the stolen base category all year and that's because his opponent has been stealing bases like they're in a slow pitch league. Arch isn't as lucky on the pitching side but he's still not unlucky by any means. Arch has the 2nd best roto team in our league, which means he's earned his spot but he's also had a little bump in overall wins thanks to enjoying some off weeks from his opponents in the batter's box. The team that Arch is barely ahead in our standings is up next. His name is Lance Perez.
OK, now on to Arch, who has our second best roto team and our best head-to-head team so you can guess that it's mostly skill and a little luck as to why he's been so great this year. The only stat that Arch has been worse than his competition has been the QS stat, where he's had three less overall QS's than his opponent. Arch has an incredible 41-10-3 advantage on the hitting side, which is aided by the fact that his opponents are all performing worse than league average so far, and they're worse by a lot. Arch hasn't lost the stolen base category all year and that's because his opponent has been stealing bases like they're in a slow pitch league. Arch isn't as lucky on the pitching side but he's still not unlucky by any means. Arch has the 2nd best roto team in our league, which means he's earned his spot but he's also had a little bump in overall wins thanks to enjoying some off weeks from his opponents in the batter's box. The team that Arch is barely ahead in our standings is up next. His name is Lance Perez.
I've linked Lance's team to the Houston Astros all year and we'll link them again because this team digs the long ball much like the team from Houston. Laser is also like Arch in that he's got a really talented team that's getting a little love from the luck gods so far. Overall, Lance's opponents are performing worse than average in nine out of twelve categories, which is helping. Sure this team is lucky but Lance has built a very balanced team that is above average in pretty much all stategories so while we can try to think good luck is the only reason why Lance and the Astros are kicking our asses , the fact is Lance has been lucky and pretty good, which is why he's been around the top spot all year long.
Arch was thought to be the Roto King but out of nowhere, Jeff Petty has laid claim to that title with a combination of big time power from his batters and an overpowering repertoire from his starting pitchers. As a whole, Jeff Petty has a team that is better than his opponents by a decent margin with the exception of two categories, stolen bases and SVHD. If Jeff wasn't a combined 4-14 in those categories, he'd probably be a few notches up the H2H ladder. J. Petty has been about middle of the pack in terms of his opponent's luck which means if he can diversify his team portfolio to sell some of his power stock to get some stolen base and SVHD help, he might be the best head-to-head team by the end of the year. Jeff could be sending a trade your way for a fast outfielder or an RP mere seconds after reading this or simply bide his time and continue his trek towards the top.
Zach's fantasy team appears to be a little lucky and a little better than the other teams in this league in terms of roster talent. Suer is better than league average for seven out of twelve categories and he can thank a recent stat surge for solidifying his spot in the top half of the roto and H2H standings. Zach has had the 4th easiest schedule in terms of the stats his opponents are throwing up, which is also helping him stack up more wins lately. This team is getting hammered in terms of stolen bases, RBI, and OPS, but otherwise this is a good team that is getting better each week.
Matt is right behind his cousin in the head-to-head standings but his position in our league is much more tenuous than Zach's. Matty has put up numbers that are pretty damn close in all categories except pitching K's and yet he's 14 games above .500 to date. I can't really make sense of how and why Matty is in his spot because he's not overly impressive with his own team and yet isn't getting gifted with a ton of luck, either. He's defying all the roto standing data we can throw at him. It's possible that Matt is winning the very close statistical battles (stattles?) each week, which is inflating his overall winning percentage. This is merely a guess, though and hopefully we'll gather a lot more data as the season progresses to see how and why Matt is hanging in 5th place. Right now Matt is on stage taking us through the pillars for his Suer's Shocker Season Success Seminar and we're calling bullshit after session one and two of his speech.
Downs has a real mixed bag to dig through when trying to figure out what kind of team he has. He's pretty good at hitting homers but somehow is getting clobbered in the RBI stat. He's stealing a ton of bases for an 7-2-0 advantage but somehow these guys aren't coming all the way home because Downs is 1-6-2 in the runs scored category. Tim isn't one to stream pitchers but he might want to consider it being that he's getting absolutely manhandled in the K stat and could improve with his Quality Starts. This team could also use a little shakeup in the bullpen to boost up some SVHD opportunities. As a whole, this team is not all that lucky or unlucky and he's got a team that's really good or really awful at particular skills and all of that's probably why Timmy Downs is right smack in the middle of things.
I don't know what Kevin's opinion of his fantasy team is but if he thinks he should be sitting higher than 7th in our H2H standings, I'm here to erase those thoughts. You might look at the Season Difference row and conclude that Kevin is pretty much better than his opponent but when you look down that the Opponent Average row, you'll learn that Kevin is a pretty lucky Petty. Kevin's opponents have performed worse than league average in 11 out of 12 categories, which is no doubt the reason to why he's not lower in the standings. Add to the fact that this team is performing better than league average in only two of twelve categories, it's safe to say that Petty's shamrock tattoo is doing its job in our league. If you're looking for a team that could be in for trouble, this is the one unless Kevin gets a little more talent or continues to ride this string of opponent's luck. The fact that Kevin is in 7th in our H2H standings with the best luck should scare him but it doesn't mean he won't get better or stay lucky the rest of the way.
Castillo's team is like the final seasons of Entourage and the new movie as we've seen them do pretty much the same shit for awhile and it's boring us to pieces. This franchise is still pining for the good ol' days but these bros should also be a little better than advertised thanks to a small bit of bad luck in our league. In terms of opponent's luck, Castillo is the sixth unluckiest, which isn't a huge leap from where he stands in our H2H standings but being that Yo is 4th in our roto standings and has been better than his opponent in eight of twelve categories, this is a team that should have more wins under their belt. This team should've gotten more wins in the batting K's, QS, and ERA categories based on the bad luck and the lack of speed with the stolen bases and runs scored is helping hold this team back. Overall this team has some bad luck and some obvious holes which means this is a team that should move upwards in our standings but isn't expected to take a huge leap.
I keep waiting for this team to make a move up the standings but the abundance of bad pitching continues to cramp their style. This team really needs to prioritize their Things To Do list by putting "Fix Pitching Staff" at the top. 15-32-7 on the pitching side will bury any postseason hopes these guys have but in their defense, they have been somewhat unlucky when it comes to the opponent's stats in those categories. The hitting is pretty solid on this team but they are below average in homers and K's, which isn't a good combo. So far these guys have been pretty lucky with the bats and pretty unlucky with the arms but they are probably where they should be in the H2H standings. A correction is probably due on both sides which means we could see this team in the same place when we look at the standings in a month or so.
Finally, the numbers that I've been waiting for. I know my team isn't performing up to snuff; particularly in the power departments but holy hell have I been one unlucky bastard so far. I'm the anti-Kevin as my opponent has been above average in every single category so far. I shouldn't complain much because I'm only above average in two hitting categories but I'm also going against a team that put in a batting boost code right before we take the field. My pitching staff has been the best in our league and yet I have an under .500 pitching H2H record so far, which is some jive ass bullshit, man. Seeing these numbers have been therapeutic in the sense that I know my record is worse than it should be but I'm not off the hook at all unless my batters decide to stop being such fucksticks and the bad luck bullies decide to stop picking on me every single week.
Now this is just sad. Jeff has usually enjoyed watching a lot of great hitters every year but it looks like the 2015 batch of batters should be dumped down the drain. Meyer's won 11 total games with the bats and it's a combination of awful hitting and awful luck on his part. He's been out-homered by 39 so far, which is about as awful as his -66 margin for total runs scored. The fact that Meyer only has one win in the Runs, Homers, SB, and OPS categories should tell Meyer it's time to get crazy with his roster and is probably like watching the Phillies lineup try to hit every night. Jeff is better on the pitching side but is also getting screwed over by playing against pitchers than on average have a 2.97 ERA and a 1.13 WHIP, which is the unluckiest in our league. I don't think Meyer would tell you that he's done a good job of building a fantasy roster but he's also suffered from an avalanche of bad luck so far.
Rich and Pep are in the final spot in our standings about as reliably as we could find Norm sitting on his usual stool on Cheers. Much like Meyer's team, this isn't a good one, and much like Meyer's luck, it's also isn't good. I'm surprised this team even has one ERA win on the season based on the average 5.06 ERA and the 1.38 WHIP they have, which would be bad enough to get sent down by the Colorado Rockies. We know this team doesn't pick up a lot of players, which is why they will always lose in the pitching K and QS categories and it's the main reason they are 4-12-2 for those stats regardless of the fact that they've been lucky with their opponents. This team is getting obliterated in the stats and the standings and while this team could use all the luck it could possibly get, instead they are going through a tortuous season of horrible players and horrible luck.
Alright, lets now take a look at the league as a whole so we can see how we match up with each other to see how many marshmallows we get in our bowl of lucky charms. Let's first look at the number of wins each of us have as a team for each statistical category. It's a shit ton of numbers to sift through so I busted out a heat map to help guide you to what is good and what isn't. Red=great, white=average, blue=awful. The total wins on the far right should match the wins you see in our head-to-head standings.
Alright, lets now take a look at the league as a whole so we can see how we match up with each other to see how many marshmallows we get in our bowl of lucky charms. Let's first look at the number of wins each of us have as a team for each statistical category. It's a shit ton of numbers to sift through so I busted out a heat map to help guide you to what is good and what isn't. Red=great, white=average, blue=awful. The total wins on the far right should match the wins you see in our head-to-head standings.
I somewhat broke all of this down for everyone as we went through the individual teams but I'll point out a few highlights here. What a queer team Downs has. Worst in Runs, third worst in RBI's, but best in Home Runs. Must be a lot of solo jacks. Speaking of solo jacks, there's no doubt Meyer, Rich, and Pep are on the internet solely to rub one out and not to tinker with their fantasy roster.
Now lets take a look at the +/- margin for our statistical categories. Remember, positive in the batting K's is good as that number represents the amount of time struck out less than your opponent. These are aggregate numbers added up per week so the +.723 OPS for Arch means that he's beating his opponent by about .100 every week to add up to the total of .723. Same goes for ERA and WHIP.
Now lets take a look at the +/- margin for our statistical categories. Remember, positive in the batting K's is good as that number represents the amount of time struck out less than your opponent. These are aggregate numbers added up per week so the +.723 OPS for Arch means that he's beating his opponent by about .100 every week to add up to the total of .723. Same goes for ERA and WHIP.
Can't get much worse than the margin of runs, homers, and OPS for Meyer. Lots of duck farts from that team that probably needs to shakeup the lineup in a major way. I've already struck out 100 times more than my opponent, which equals the margin of times I struck out at the bar. It amazes me that Rich and Pep could be this bad at ERA and WHIP every season but it really shouldn't at this point. Overall, Arch is burying his opponent most every week while Downs, Rome, Grange, Rich, and Pep are standing around and taking punches like Ali when he was past his prime. Castillo should be better than his record indicates and must be losing some close battles while Matty should probably switch places with Yo in the standings based on their weekly luck.
Let's now go to a table that I think tells a good tale. Lets see how much, on average, we're putting up for each stat. Sure it's nice to know overall numbers but when you can have a weekly target on what to hit for these stats, it's good to keep that in mind when you're checking your boxscore every week, wondering what it will take to defeat your opponent.
Let's now go to a table that I think tells a good tale. Lets see how much, on average, we're putting up for each stat. Sure it's nice to know overall numbers but when you can have a weekly target on what to hit for these stats, it's good to keep that in mind when you're checking your boxscore every week, wondering what it will take to defeat your opponent.
Arch is dominating because he's scoring about 4 more runs and knocking in 5 more batters every week compared to the league average. Jeff Petty is hitting two more homers a week than average and five more a week than Meyer. Jeff Petty is also the biggest fan of our new OPS stat. Bryce Harper, Tex, and Arenado are contributing heavily to that. Downs must have a lot of guys that bat lower in the lineup because they are getting on base decently, stealing bags, but never scoring runs. If you're playing Jerome during the week, don't be afraid to start as many batters as you can, you won't lose the batting K stat no matter what. Are my guys just swatting at bees in the batter's box? Make contact for me one time. Rich and Pep are getting almost 40 K's and 3 quality starts a week, which is about what Scherzer and Chris Archer compile on a weekly basis, combined. The Weekly Deviation number you see on the far right shows how much better or worse you are for all stats when compared to the league average. Castillo should be pissed that he's not better so far but happy that brighter days are soon to come. Same goes for the commish and Meyer if their luck improves. Downs and Kevin better continue to rub the rabbit's foot that's on their keychain in order to stay in their H2H spot in the standings.
Let's now flip the coin to see the average stats that our opponents are throwing up each week.
Let's now flip the coin to see the average stats that our opponents are throwing up each week.
A winning poker player is both very good and a little lucky and that's why Arch has the tallest stack of chips at our table so far. Jeff Petty may not get lucky in all categories like his brother but when he does get lucky, he hits the jackpot. J. Petty's opponents are striking out a ton against him and striking out nobody from the mound. Not only is Jerome getting bent over on each category, he's getting not even getting the common courtesy of a reach around while he takes it in the pooper each week.
I swear we're almost done. This table shows the total stats for each team's opponent for all the categories. Think of this like the Roto Standings for Opponent's Luck.
I swear we're almost done. This table shows the total stats for each team's opponent for all the categories. Think of this like the Roto Standings for Opponent's Luck.
And this one shows the roto points for each stategory.
The pitchers Meyer faces turn into a rotation full of Matt Harvey's while Kevin and Laser face a bunch of Matt Garza's. Not only is Granger not hitting any homers, he's getting the most hit against him. Zach and Runge are avoiding the closers for other teams most nights while also not having to worry about the opponent scoring a whole lot of runs, either. I don't know if J. Petty, Matty, and Yo are playing against a bunch of teams with four RP's going every night but they've been pretty much hopeless in winning those categories every week.
And finally we'll close with some quick and easy standings with the first being the Opponent Roto Standings to see how we stack up in the luck department.
And finally we'll close with some quick and easy standings with the first being the Opponent Roto Standings to see how we stack up in the luck department.
Here's one that shows our Roto Standings, Opponent Roto Standings, and ranks for the Roto and H2H standings.
Here's out current Head-to-Head standings for context.
Below would be a hypothetical scenario if we all played against the league average numbers every week. Again, I have no idea why Matty would be third in the standings much like I have no clue why he's where he's at now or where he's going to be in the future. Maybe it's time to verify my data. Kind of sad that even though Meyer, Rich, and Pep have been really unfortunate this year, they would still be terrible if their luck improved.
And here's the last excel table you have to read. I just wanted to show the difference between our current standings and the hypothetical standings vs. league average. This basically shows who would rise and fall the most if their luck was better or worse. The commish would have 14 more wins on his side if he simply had league average luck while Petty and Lance would have 12 and 10 more losses if the sun didn't shine on them every week.
So what did we learn? Kevin is lucky to be where he's at in the standings. Arch and Lance are both good and lucky so far. Suer and Castillo should trend upwards in June. Jeff Petty and Matt have some funky teams with unpredictable results. Downs is probably right where he should be and has also owns a weird team. Romer is due for a boost in wins. Granger and Rich & Pep have bad teams with bad luck and probably should be throwing Hail Mary's the rest of the way to see if they can finally get the ball to bounce their way. All in all, we're gathering in home room each Monday morning and Arch, Lance, and Jeff Petty are telling us how bitchin' their weekend was while Jerome, Granger, Rich, and Pep are icing their arms from the continual charlie horses they received from the bad luck bully all week.
Baseball's long season helps iron out the good and bad luck over the course of the season, which generally brings everyone closer to the middle while also rewarding the best teams and punishing the worst. Baseball eliminates luck better than every other sport but it doesn't mean that there is an absence of luck involved when we look at our league's standings every week. Whether you think you should be higher in the standings or are merely glad to be where you're at, it's a helpless feeling to know that no matter how well you perform, there's nothing you can do against a hot opponent. We'll see how our league plays out and it's impossible to predict luck in a fantasy league but if there was a betting futures board in Vegas for our league, this post might give you the inside info needed to make a few educated guesses. Not sure if the ArchPep Hotel and Casino has any Shocker League future bets on the board, though. Might as well walk to a CVS to get some Bud Light tall boys while we wait.
Baseball's long season helps iron out the good and bad luck over the course of the season, which generally brings everyone closer to the middle while also rewarding the best teams and punishing the worst. Baseball eliminates luck better than every other sport but it doesn't mean that there is an absence of luck involved when we look at our league's standings every week. Whether you think you should be higher in the standings or are merely glad to be where you're at, it's a helpless feeling to know that no matter how well you perform, there's nothing you can do against a hot opponent. We'll see how our league plays out and it's impossible to predict luck in a fantasy league but if there was a betting futures board in Vegas for our league, this post might give you the inside info needed to make a few educated guesses. Not sure if the ArchPep Hotel and Casino has any Shocker League future bets on the board, though. Might as well walk to a CVS to get some Bud Light tall boys while we wait.
2014 Owner's Luck
Lance Perez has had a rough go of it lately in this league and he mentioned as much when I saw him about a month ago. He realized that his roster isn't loaded by any means but he brought up a point that he always seemed to lose by the smallest of margins or play against a red hot team every week. This conversation was the inspiration for me to see which owners had some fortune or misfortune throughout the year in terms of categorical dominance and luck when it comes to the opponent's performance of the week. Your hands are literally tied no matter who you are playing against any given week as there is no way to play defense against another fantasy opponent so let's see how each owner did throughout the season and if they did benefit or suffer from any sort of luck when it came to their opponent's performance.
I'll try to keep it brief for each owner because I can already sense this could be one long ass blog entry. I'll take each owner and break down their record by category and then see how their weekly performance compared to what the opponent did on average. The Season Difference number you'll see is the overall difference in that particular category for the entire season and then I'll break down how much each owner averaged per week per category and what their opponent averaged per week as well.
I'll try to keep it brief for each owner because I can already sense this could be one long ass blog entry. I'll take each owner and break down their record by category and then see how their weekly performance compared to what the opponent did on average. The Season Difference number you'll see is the overall difference in that particular category for the entire season and then I'll break down how much each owner averaged per week per category and what their opponent averaged per week as well.
Jerome is #1 in the standings and it's because there wasn't really any weaknesses across the board. The commish was outmatched only on the pitching losses and WHIP categories this year but was pretty dominant in the counting stats, specifically runs, pitching K's, and QS's. Somehow Jerome dominated in the ERA category while getting beat in the WHIP stats, which makes me scratch my blading head. Overall, Jerome was somewhat lucky not to play too many juggernauts but he was pretty good at accumulating stats, too.
Matt Suer was equally as dominant as the commish was this year and did so with far stiffer weekly competition. Matt was an easy winner in most categories but did get hammered in the saves category, pretty much because he punted it with about five weeks to go in the season. I was a little surprised to see Matt lose in the batting average category throughout the season but he also went up against a .278 average on the year, the unluckiest of any team.
By now you know that Castillo gets the job done on the mound and hangs in there with the sticks and this is another statistical example of that. Castillo won every single pitching category at season's end and had our best overall pitching record. Castillo was only better on average for three offensive categories and when you look at the opponent's average, Castillo was pretty dang lucky for most of the hitting categories. Elite pitching and decent luck is why Castillo was in the mix for first place this year.
Jeff Meyer again flashed some major pop with the bats and was pretty blah in the pitching stats. Meyer, too was somewhat on the lucky side when you look at this opponent's average numbers on a weekly basis which might be why he rostered guys like Ernesto Frieri, who is fucking awful. Granger had a wide margin of victory in the RBI category but also didn't have much resistance when it came from the opponent and his ability to drive in runs.
The roto standings have always tried to label Petty as a lucky son of a gun and these numbers would support that as well. Petty has some nice and balanced W-L records with the bats and the arms but he certainly got luckier on a weekly basis more so than the rest of us did. Petty did get a little unlucky with the RBI's and dominated his opponent in the stolen bases and saves categories no matter what his opponent did.
Kind of weird to see Zach do pretty well with the RBI's but not so hot with the homers. You can point to the fact that Zach's opponent seemed to have some influence on these numbers, too. Suer did struggle with the bats for long stretches of the season so you might be surprised to see him win so many weeks in the batting average categories but he also went against our smallest opponent's batting average throughout the year. Overall, Zach was lucky in half the categories and pretty unlucky in the others.
Jeff had a lot of easy weeks with the home runs and that's because his team is good at crushing and J. Petty was good at being lucky with that stat, too. Jeff turned out to be a little on the lucky side in general but he earned all of the 11 wins he got from the runs category because his team was pretty good at that, too no matter the competition. Having an opponent's pitchers only lose four games a week doesn't seem like a lot but Jeff did get lucky in that four losses on average was more than anyone else in this league, which might surprise you.
Man, when Arch loses, he loses big. When Arch wins, he also wins big too. It's strange to see Arch struggle to win the ERA and WHIP categories because he's historically been the best at these categories and you know it's an off year when Arch loses overall in the pitching categories. Arch intentionally or not aimed to increase the power on this team and at the very least, they accomplished that as this team usually out slugged his opponent. I really don't know if Arch aimed to change things up this year but no matter what his roster building formula was, the end result wasn't as sharp as we've seen from this team in year's past.
We're going to start seeing a trend here with the bottom teams as they usually have some tough luck when it comes to the weekly matchup. It begins with Downs, who in his defense, had a quality team but suffered from subpar results. Once again Tim didn't have enough hitting to take the next step and once again, he did have the pitchers to at least make each week interesting. I know power numbers are down across MLB but good gravy, is this team horrible at turning their hips and driving the ball. Ultimately, this team needed more power, even if they had the best hitting K difference, but for yet another season Tim will rely on his Detroit Tigers to be the lone source of banner unveiling when the season is over.
Uhhhh……Rich didn't win a single week in the quality start category, which really lets you know how awful he was at forming a rotation and keeping up with his team. 0-18. Christ on a cracker. The funny thing is Rich would have a contender on his hands if this was a batting only league but there is no worse owner in this league, or maybe on this continent, at finding pitching than Richard. He's 40 games under .500 in pitching, it's that bad. We know that Rich is bad at addressing his pitching needs but this is an activity that highlights just how awful it's been on the mound for Mr. Witholder.
I know Matt got a new house and I really hope he's been busy with his wife and kids because this season was downright embarrassing for Maydew in terms of fantasy. Or maybe he's got better things to worry about than a $40 fantasy league? It was all bad for Dew this year and I keep trying to find a silver lining throughout this little stat breakdown but I got nothing. It started bad and ended bad for Dew and hopefully just a simple case of everything going wrong for a dude that knows his baseball and is a former champion.
Lance was the inspiration for this post and I definitely need to tip my Shocker cap to him because he's the unluckiest bro in this league. We all play fantasy baseball and football and know that there are just seasons where everything goes wrong and this is one of those seasons for Laser. Granted, his team wasn't all that good to begin with but Lance got absolutely bent over week after week which probably sent him from a playoff team to an afterthought. It's been an absolute brutal three years for Laser as a baseball fan and he's got to hope that maybe next year he won't be they guy that goes head-to-head with pocket aces every week.
I can break down each team and blah blah blah but this table above shows which owner played against the weakest and strongest competition every week, on average. Take this table as the opposite as the usual roto standings as I took all opponents stats and ranked them for each owner and what they must overcome each week. I hate to call out Kevin with all of these stat findings but the roto standings expose the fact that Kevin has had it easier than anyone else this year and this little opponent's stat thing exposes that as well. These ranks are listed from lucky to unlucky, since I didn't describe that yet. I have to hand it to Matty Suer who not only had a great fantasy team but also went up against serious competition all year long. If you are a stat guy, Matty should be #1 with a bullet right now. Guys like Kevin, Castillo, and Meyer should thank the fantasy gods more then usual while dudes like Tim, Arch, and Lance can make an argument that fantasy sports is much like gambing, in that it's all rigged to drag you down.