Week 17 MLB Power Rankings

Week 17 Power Rankings

      Tier 1
1- Win’s Up Doc (13-3) [-]

       Tier 2
2- Sporty Strauss (10-6) [-]
3- Wait ‘ Til Next Year (10-6) [-]
4- $traight Cash Homie (9-7) [+1]
5- Cooper Troopers (10-6) [+2]
6- Ornery Otters (8-8) [-2]
7- The Pullies (9-7) [-1]

        Tier 3
8- The BamO’s (7-9) [-]
9- Las Cabras (7-9) [-1]
10- Minnesota Moose Knuckles (6-10) [-]
11- DTC Porkchop Express (3-13) [-]
12- Shepherd Goods Choppers (4-12) [-]

(Tier 1) Despite somehow having some trouble with DTC Porkchop Express, there is only one team in Tier 1 – Win’s Up Doc (1). Oat’s team is the strong presumptive favorite to win it all, but he’s not getting the draws that he wanted in the playoffs below him (outlined later). Still, his team was near the tops in the league this week in points, and he’s going to have an excellent chance to win MLB. Now it just depends on what happens with Sporty Strauss.

(Tier 2) Sporty Strauss (2) clinches a playoff berth, but he also gets something even more enticing – a playoff date with the Cooper Troopers, the dream Round 1 opponent. This means that Sporty Strauss will be (heavily) favored to make it to Round 2 where the League of Leagues will be decided. Just by making Round 2, Sporty Strauss forces Win’s Up Doc to win MLB outright if Oat wants to be the League of Leagues champion. And if Sporty Strauss wins in Round 2, he clinches a LEAGUE OF LEAGUES victory!

Sporty Strauss’ ideal Round 2 opponent is Wait ‘Til Next Year (3), who has been somewhat faltering of late. He’s entirely beatable, and Strauss will hope that the 6-seed (likely the Ornery Otters) beats the 3-seed so that Strauss can play Wait ‘Til Next Year to make the championship game. However, if the 3-seed beats the 6-seed, Strauss would head to Win’s Up Doc in a matchup of absolutely epic proportions.

The Cooper Troopers (5) and Wait ‘Til Next Year (2) were mentioned above, and it’s worth acknowledging that the #Fhima’s Division is still up for grabs. But the Cooper Troopers would need to win and Wait ‘Til Next Year would need to lose for this to happen. Then Coop, absurdly, would draw a BYE. In general, by making the playoffs, the Cooper Troopers have practically clinched not getting last place based on the current construct of points, tanking teams and what would need to go wrong in order for it to happen.

The Ornery Otters (6) take on DTC this week in a must-win game, but they will make the playoffs with a win by virtue of having tiebreakers vs all of the other playoff hopefuls. Korey can practically punch his ticket now.

Last in Tier 3 are $traight Cash Homie (4) and The Pullies (7) who play a win-or-go-home matchup this week. Whoever wins takes the division (and the gift card) and whoever loses goes into the Consolation Bracket (unless the Otters somehow lose). It’s a hilarious matchup of hapless teams that is highlighted in detail in the MATCHUP OF THE WEEK.

(Tier 3) The BamO’s (8) are officially out of contention for placing. It’s time for methodical lineup setting to avoid the MN Moose Knuckles (9) from getting higher first round draft picks. The Moose Knuckles themselves are trying to lose, but they’ll likely be stuck playing in the 9th/10th place game against Las Cabras or a Consolation BYE team.

That’s because the SG Choppers (12) are the Moose Knuckles’ likely first-round opponent, and they are a DISASTER! Dye should be the hands-on favorite to lose MLB right now, and it could get him last place in the entire league.

Las Cabras (9) will hopefully be on their game in the playoffs. With Wait ‘Til Next Year floundering, Las Cabras could EASILY get 3rd place if Kyle and Korey lose in the 2nd round (or 1st round). That’s a $1000 payday split between both Jordan and Trev and a welcome reward despite tanking.

Then there is the DTC Porkchop Express (12) who have tried hard to tank, but could end up being in the middle of the LoL Standings. Those two points between last-place and second-to-last could mean everything for Craig.

Current Playoff Seeding

1. Win’s Up Doc (13-3) *BYE

2. Wait ‘Til Next Year (10-6) *BYE

3. The Pullies (9-7)

4. Sporty Strauss (10-6)

5. Cooper Troopers (10-6)

6. $traight Cash Homie (9-7)

Consolation Bracket

1. Ornery Otters (8-8) *BYE

2. The BamO’s (7-9) *BYE

3. Las Cabras (7-9)

4. MN Moose Knuckles (6-10)

5. SG Choppers (4-12)

6. DTC Porkchop Express (3-13)

PROJECTED Playoff Seeding

1. Win’s Up Doc (14-3) *BYE

2. Wait ‘Til Next Year (11-6) *BYE

3. The Pullies (10-7)

4. Cooper Troopers (11-6)

5. Sporty Strauss (10-7)

6. Ornery Otters (9-8)

PROJECTED Consolation Bracket

1. $traight Cash Homie (9-8) *BYE

2. The BamO’s (8-9) *BYE

3. Las Cabras (7-10)

4. MN Moose Knuckles (6-11)

5. SG Choppers (4-13)

6. DTC Porkchop Express (3-14)

Week 16 High Score

• $traight Cash Homie (Jack)

• 750+ points points

Notes: $traight Cash Homie does this annoying thing where he has his best weeks against terrible teams (Choppers) and struggles against good ones. Still, it has to feel good to bend a team over this much. That won’t matter if Jack can’t continue this performance and make the playoffs to try to avoid last place.

Week 16 Low Score

• SG Choppers (Dye)

• 520+ points

Notes: The Choppers are the ones that got bended. This ends up being a 200+ point victory, an absolute pounding. Dye has the worst team in the league, and his team is falling apart at the right time.

Week 16 MVP

• Justin Verlander (Sporty Strauss)

• 69.5 points

Notes: With .5 points over a #nice score, JV comes in clutch for Sporty Struass. In a game he absolutely HAD to win, Strauss comes out on top. If he had lost, he would have had to beat top-seeded Win’s Up Doc just to make the playoffs. Now, he’s in and can start looking ahead to mounting a defense of his top-pointed team in the League of Leagues from Thanos’ fury-filled obsession with infinity points.

Week 16 LVP

• Robbie Ray (Ornery Otters)

• -13 points

Notes: On the flip-side, the Ornery Otters’ loss puts them at jeopardy of missing the playoffs thanks to Robbie Ray’s AWFUL performances. More of these and Korey could drop his game to the DTC Porkchop Express of suckiness. But Korey has openly stated he’s willing to lose to get a better draft pick and make sure he can get a running back in football.

Week 17 Matchups

Nolo’s Division

• Win’s Up Doc (1) vs Sporty Strauss (2)

• Ornery Otters (6) vs DTC Porkchop Express (11)

Fhima’s Division

• Wait ’Til Next Year (3) vs Las Cabras (9)

• Cooper Troopers (5) vs MN Moose Knuckles (10)

Shepherd Goods Division

• $traight Cash Homie (4) vs The Pullies (7)

• The BamO’s (8) vs Shepherd Goods Choppers (12)

Week 17 MATCHUP of the WEEK

• $traight Cash Homie (4) vs The Pullies (7)

Notes: The winner of this game takes the #Shepherd Goods Division. The loser misses the playoffs. These are the highest stakes for two sorry franchises, both of whom are playing to avoid last place.

It’s unlikely, but The Pullies could still procure last place. Though they have a Consolation BYE locked up with a loss and their MLB point minimum is 3, that’d put them at a grand total of 13 points. If Jack inched up to 4th place overall, they could be either sharing last place. Even if The Pullies ended up in 8th place for 15 points total, Jack could still get 2nd overall in MLB and stick The Pullies with the last place penalty (unless Dye lost MLB).

If $traight Cash Homie loses this game, they OFFICIALLY clinch last place, and we can start planning the last place penalty. He’d be on the clock for the Strauss Draft too and can start fielding calls for the #1 overall pick in the League of Leagues.

For the matchup itself, this is another oil-vs-water type of game. $traight Cash Homie has the dynamic hitting lineup with 10 out of 12 of his hitters being better than respective Pullies hitters. But The Pullies have the pitching. In a MASSIVE stroke of luck, The Pullies get to put Corbin Burnes, the 4th-highest scoring player in the entire league, out there TWICE against the Pirates and the Reds – two A++ matchups. Corbin Burnes could be on pace for a 70+ point week, dooming $traight Cash Homie to last place in the League of Leagues unless his hitting is ridiculous.

Jack elected NOT to add another starter at the trade deadline, and it shows here. If Luis Castillo doesn’t get a start for his new team in Seattle, he’ll have to stream. Even if he does, Frankie Montas is likely getting traded mid-week and shouldn’t be counted on for a rotation start. This staff could get MESSY in a hurry.

With the strength of The Pullies’ pitching and the messiness of $traight Cash Homies, expect The Pullies to take this division crown, a $200 Shepherd Goods gift card and a much lower Strauss Pick by beating $traight Cash Homie, who has a superior team. This is a fateful matchup matchup between two teams who have struggled all year long.

LINEUPS:

C - Keibert Ruiz vs Christian Vazquez
1B - Vlad Guerrero Jr. vs Trey Mancini
2B - Gleyber Torres vs Tommy Edman
3B - Austin Riley vs Kris Bryant
SS - Christopher Morel vs Francisco Lindor

CF - Aaron Judge vs Byron Buxton
CO - Yordan Alvarez vs Whit Merrifield
CO - Anthony Santander vs Mitch Haniger
DH - Austin Hays vs Shohei Ohtani

UTIL - Brendan Rodgers vs Patrick Wisdom
UTIL - Andres Gimenez vs Tyler O’Neill
UTIL - Christian Walker vs Jeff McNeil
UTIL - Lourdes Gurrel vs Eugenio Suarez

SP1 - Martin Perez (BAL) vs Corbin Burnes (@PIT)
SP2 - Luis Castillo (LAA??) vs Corbin Burnes (CIN)
SP3 - Sean Manaea (@LAD) vs Alek Manoah (@MIN)
SP4 - Zac Gallen (@CLE) vs Framber Valdez (@CLE)
SP5 - Frankie Montas (@LAA) vs Logan Gilbert (@NYY)
SP6 - Nick Pivetta (@KC) vs Logan Gilbert (LAA)
SP7 - Patrick Sandoval (@SEA) vs Jordan Montgomery (@STL)
SP8 - Andrew Heaney (@SF) vs Brad Keller (@CHW)
SP9 - Andrew Heaney (SD) vs Brad Keller (BOS)
SP10 - Dane Dunning (CHW) vs Jose Suarez (OAK)

$traight Cash Homie: Advantage at 10/20 positions
The Pullies: Advantage at 10/20 positions

Week 16 MLB Power Rankings

Week 16 Power Rankings

      Tier 1
1- Win’s Up Doc (12-3) [-]
2- Wait ‘ Til Next Year (10-5) [-]

       Tier 2
3- Sporty Strauss (9-6) [-]
4- Ornery Otters (8-7) [-]
5- $traight Cash Homie (8-7) [+2]
6- The Pullies (9-6) [-1]
7- Cooper Troopers (9-6) [-1]

        Tier 3
8- The BamO’s (6-9) [-]
9- Minnesota Moose Knuckles (6-9) [-]
10- Las Cabras (6-9) [-1]
11- DTC Porkchop Express (2-13) [+1]
12- Shepherd Goods Choppers (4-11) [-1]

(Tier 1) Win’s Up Doc (1) is in a Tier of his own after clinching the 1-seed last week. He now gets to sit tight for two weeks, hoping that his team doesn’t have any injuries. However, he does have something to play for… he (and the Ornery Otters) can knock Sporty Strauss out of the playoffs with the last two matchups! Right now, Oat is behind Strauss by 4 points. If Sporty Strauss misses the playoffs, he could only score a maximum of 6 points in MLB. Win’s Up Doc would just have to get 3rd to tie Sporty Strauss for the LoL title, and losing any Consolation games would change that equation. 2nd or 1st in MLB would clinch Doc a title.

He’s finally about to pass Wait ‘Til Next Year in points, and all signs point towards a tight finish in the League of Leagues with Win’s Up Doc being the team to beat.

Wait ‘Til Next Year (2) is not the same team he once was, but he’s still a threat. He just got unlucky by playing a divisional foe with a career performance this past week. Oddly enough, Kyle doesn’t even have his division locked up at this point. That could still get cultured by the Cooper Troopers, who are still hanging around. Luckily for Kyle, he’d have to drop a game against Las Cabras in the final week of the season to give up his division (and the BYE), but we’ve seen crazier things happen!

(Tier 2) Sporty Strauss (3) is back in the scary zone. That’s what happens when you drop games to the 12th-ranked team. His past week’s awful performance was likely an aberration, but now he has two straight weeks against top-4 teams (Oat and Korey) remaining and only a 1-game lead over the 7-seed. Strauss could find himself on the outside looking in in no time at all.

The Ornery Otters (4) are in one of the most interesting positions right now. They aren’t guaranteed the playoffs, but they are a serious threat in both MLB and the league as a whole. 3rd Place is very much in play, though he needs to make the playoffs. It doesn’t get any bigger than his matchup this week against Sporty Strauss, and it will be fascinating to see if either team makes a trade to bolster their position.

The Pullies (5) don’t have a hugely important matchup against The BamO’s this week, but the final week could be with the division on the line against $traight Cash Homie (6). Jack plays the Choppers this week. As long as he wins that game, he will be in play for a division title in Week 17, a $200 gift card and the honor of playing the 6-seed. This week, The Pullies will pray for a Choppers win and hope they can sneak out a victory to at least edge out the Cooper Troopers in a potential tie for the 6-seed... but the SG Division is all going to come down to the final week.

And then there’s the old Cooper Troopers (7). An enigmatic team that barely snuck by Las Cabras this past week. Coop is 9th in total points – a stat we seemingly bring up every week – yet he has 9 wins and is potentially one win away from making the playoffs. In the 2-week matchup, he plays Wait ‘Til Next Year with a division title potentially on the line. And in week 17, he plays the MN Moose Knuckles who just traded half their team away because the pitching was too good.

The last place battle between the Cooper Troopers and $traight Cash Homie is brewing into a storm.

(Tier 3) The BamO’s (8) could still win 4th place if the Ornery Otters missed the playoffs. There isn’t NOTHING to play for, but with how bad Sam’s draft pick situation next year is, it’s better for him to start shifting his focus to next year and not grasping at straws for $500. Sam is the latest entrant into extreme selling mode, but it has to be worth it for him to pull the trigger on a deal.

The MN Moose Knuckles (9) were a surprising entrant as the highest scoring team of the week – one of the highest of the year. Hall suddenly realized his team was too good for its own good. He’s completely stuck in no-man’s land points-wise, so he sold off and got a keeper.

Las Cabras (10) finally got penalized for their awful lineup-setting all MLB season. It shouldn’t have been this way either. Las Cabras are more than alive in the 4th place race right now. They shouldn’t have started selling. They should have fought in the Consolation for 4th place, because they are still tied for second in the current league standings.

The SG Choppers (11) are giving DTC Porkchop Express (12) a run for their last-place money right now. Watching these completely gutted teams trying their best to lose in the playoffs is going to be fascinating, but VERY ugly. Tanking shouldn’t be this easy in the League of Leagues, and there is no real penalty for what these squads are doing right now.

Current Playoff Seeding

1. Win’s Up Doc (12-3) *BYE

2. Wait ‘Til Next Year (10-5) *BYE

3. The Pullies (9-6)

4. Sporty Strauss (9-6)

5. Cooper Troopers (9-6)

6. Ornery Otters (8-7)

Consolation Bracket

1. $traight Cash Homie (8-7) *BYE

2. The BamO’s (6-9) *BYE

3. MN Moose Knuckles (6-9)

4. Las Cabras (6-9)

5. SG Choppers (4-11)

6. DTC Porkchop Express (3-12)

PROJECTED Playoff Seeding

1. Win’s Up Doc (14-3) *BYE

2. Wait ‘Til Next Year (12-5) *BYE

3. $traight Cash Homie (10-7)

4. Ornery Otters (10-7)

5. Cooper Troopers (10-7)

6. The Pullies (10-7)

PROJECTED Consolation Bracket

1. Sporty Strauss (9-8) *BYE

2. The BamO’s (7-10) *BYE

3. MN Moose Knuckles (7-10)

4. Las Cabras (6-11)

5. SG Choppers (4-13)

6. DTC Porkchop Express (3-14)

Week 14 High Score

• MN Moose Knuckles (Hall)

• 560 points points

Notes: The Moose Knuckles clobbered the Choppers by over 200 points and, more surprisingly, they edged out the #Fhima’s division leader by over $100. It was a bad week for Hall who would have preferred his team to suck. Even after some trades, we’ll see if it’s still too good to truly vie for last place.

Week 14 Low Score

• SG Choppers (Dye)

• 338 points

Notes: After trying hard early in the season, that effort has gone by the wayside as the Choppers are disastrous every single week at this point. Now, he’s trying hard to lose and land a top pick. With Jack and/or Coop potentially on the verge of making the playoffs, these bad weeks could easily end up with him as the one who has to do the last-place penalty now.

Week 14 MVP

• Aaron Judge ($traight Cash Homies)

• 30 points

Notes: Some of these teams really overthought the snake draft, didn’t they? Despite being one of the top-2 ranked players left in the draft when the snake began, he went 5th and Jack was ecstatic to have him. Jonathan India, Jack Flaherty and Lucas Giolito were all selected ahead of Judge, who has been one of the best players in all of MLB. This week, $traight Cash Homie BARELY edged out two other playoff hopefuls (Cooper Troopers & BamO’s) and probably punched a ticket into the playoffs if all goes well down the stretch. Judge was one of the biggest reasons for his victory.

Week 14 LVP

• Chris Sale (Sporty Strauss)

• -6 points

Notes: As mentioned before, Chris Sale, a 3rd-round pick for presumptive LoL favorite, Sporty Strauss, ended up pitching only .2 innings for his team all season while scoring -6 points and breaking his finger. It’s one of the worst-luck picks in the league, and it just cost Strauss a win. He somehow lost to DTC Porkchop Express by 5 points. If Strauss had simply sat Sale (or hit his relief or hitting plays), he would have beaten him. Instead, that could cost Strauss an LoL title.

Week 16 Matchups

Nolo’s Division

• Win’s Up Doc (1) vs DTC Porkchop Express (11)

• Sporty Strauss (3) vs Ornery Otters (4)

Fhima’s Division

• Wait ’Til Next Year (2) vs Cooper Troopers (7)

• MN Moose Knuckles (9) vs Las Cabras (10)

Shepherd Goods Division

• The Pullies (5) vs The BamO’s (8)

• $traight Cash Homie (6) vs Shepherd Goods Choppers (12)

Week 14 MATCHUP of the WEEK

• Sporty Strauss (3) vs Ornery Otters (4)

Notes: It doesn’t get any bigger than this. The Otters (4) and the Strausses (3) square off in an absolutely massive contest, potentially with a playoff spot on the line. If Sporty Strauss loses this game, he has to play top-ranked Win’s Up Doc in the final week of the season in a win-or-go-home situation.

If the Ornery Otters lose this matchup, they’ll be .500 and will need lots of help to make the playoffs even with a matchup against DTC Porkchop Express in Week 17. The Otters would have tiebreakers over The Pullies and $traight Cash Homie, but NOT over the Cooper Troopers. Korey would need lots of help to make the playoffs with a win.

This is the biggest game of the year for each of these teams by a mile.

Week 14 MLB Power Rankings

Week 14 Power Rankings

      Tier 1
1- Win’s Up Doc (10-3) [-]
2- Wait ‘ Til Next Year (9-4) [-]
3- Sporty Strauss (9-4) [-]
4- Ornery Otters (7-6) [-]

       Tier 2
5- The Pullies (8-5) [+3]
6- Cooper Troopers (8-5) [-]
7- $traight Cash Homie (6-7) [-2]
8- The BamO’s (6-7) [-1]

        Tier 3
9- Las Cabras (5-8) [-]
10- Minnesota Moose Knuckles (4-9) [-]
11- Shepherd Goods Choppers (4-9) [-]
12- DTC Porkchop Express (2-11) [-]

(Tier 1) The stretch run begins. Two matchups this week. Divisional play beginning. Surprisingly, Win’s Up Doc now has a 1.5-game lead over Wait ‘Til Next Year for the 1-seed, but also still has a 1.5-game lead over Sporty Strauss for his division. #Nolo’sDivision has been a gauntlet all season long and, now that divisional play is starting back up again, it’s going to be fascinating to watch how the final 3 or 4 weeks of the season play out.

Win’s Up Doc (1) is the surest bet to win that division, and he starts division play out by squaring off against the team currently #4 in the Power Rankings, the last team in Tier 1 – the Ornery Otters who have crawled over .500 after a slow start to his season. This matchup is huge, and Oat has everything to play for – a BYE, a Divisional Gift card and most of all, improving his odds as a League of Leagues champion. So Doc grabbed a couple of back-end pitchers off of DTC Porkchop Express for next to nothing. The Ornery Otters are just trying to sneak into the playoffs at this point and could have easily made that trade. Now, he faces the wrath of Win’s Up Doc’s lineup. Doc also plays the #5 team on the Power Rankings, The Pullies as well as Sporty Strauss in a couple of weeks, so he’s going to need to be on his game like he was this past week to hold all of these League of Leagues assailants off.

Wait ‘Til Next Year (2) is in a little bit of a slump, but the upcoming schedule is on his side. In a lone tough matchup, he does play Sporty Strauss this week in a pivotal non-divisional game, but his division is the easiest in the League of Leagues. It’s the MN Moose Knuckles this week, the Cooper Troopers next week and Las Cabras in the final week. All should all go down in short order. No matter what, Kyle is looking at either a 12-5 or 13-4 record and will almost certainly win that division and get a BYE.

Sporty Strauss (3) plays DTC Porkchop Express this week for an easy win, but he also plays Wait ‘Til Next Year before two tough matchups against the Ornery Otters and Win’s Up Doc during the last two weeks of the regular season. His past two weeks have made the playoffs look like a near certainty, especially with DTC on the docket, but it’s not over yet.

And the Ornery Otters (4) are just playing some of the most consistent baseball of any League of Leagues teams right now. They’ve jumped up to 3rd in points, but their upcoming schedule is pretty brutal. Korey has a rematch with Sam this week as well as a date with Win’s Up Doc. Then against Sporty Strauss in the long 2-week matchup. Finally is a reprieve with DTC Porkchop Express in the final week. He probably needs to win two more games at minimum to sneak into the playoffs. He does have the Head-to-Head tiebreaker over $traight Cash Homie, but not against The BamO’s unless he wins this week. If he beats Sam, it’s going to be hard for Korey to miss the playoffs. This week is everything for him.

(Tier 2) The Pullies (5) just pulled off one of the most fascinating upsets in League of Leagues history. He knocked off Wait ‘Til Next Year and now has a great chance at winning the #ShepherdGoods division. That’s going to cost them in the Strauss Draft, however, as their picks keep slipping lower and lower. To them, the $200 SG gift card is worth it, and there’s a strong case for that. Besides, with in-his-prime Shohei Ohtani on the squad, who knows how high The Pullies can soar. They could win the whole damn thing. Now it’s time to win the division and hold of Jack and Sam.

The Cooper Troopers (6) just dropped a tough one they could have won if he had enough relievers to beat the Ornery Otters. With that win, the Cooper Troopers would have almost assuredly made the playoffs, but now it’s time to focus. He has games against the other two piss-poor #Fhima’sDivision mates as well as the struggling $traight Cash Homie this week. He could make the playoffs with one more win, but two should be his goal. If it’s one, we’ll see where seeding falls.

$traight Cash Homie (7) does have an easy upcoming schedule – the easiest of any playoff hopefuls. He plays Sam and Cooper this week – both are must-wins. Then he draws the SG Choppers in his long matchup. Jack can’t drop any of those games, and winning all 3 would get him to 9-7 before a Week 17 date with The Pullies that could very well decide whether or not Jack gets last place in the League of Leagues. But right now, he doesn’t look to deserve a playoff spot. He’s down to 6th in points and he isn’t getting enough from some of his top players.

Then there’s The BamO’s (8). The poor BamO’s. Sam is 4th in total points, but probably won’t make the playoffs. The schedule was just too unkind. He draws two playoff hopefuls this week (Korey and Jack) when he really needed a gimme after two straight top-3 opponents. Then it’s Pullies time before a game against Dye in the final week. Sam will likely know depending on what happens this week whether or not he will have a chance to make the playoffs. He needs to put all the stops to win.

(Tier 3) All these teams are toast. Nothing to see here!

Current Playoff Seeding

1. Win’s Up Doc (10-3) *BYE

2. Wait ‘Til Next Year (9-4) *BYE

3. The Pullies (8-5)

4. Sporty Strauss (9-4)

5. Cooper Troopers (8-5)

6. Ornery Otters (7-6)

Consolation Bracket

1. $traight Cash Homie (6-7) *BYE

2. The BamO’s (6-7) *BYE

3. Las Cabras (5-8)

4. MN Moose Knuckles (4-9)

5. SG Choppers (4-9)

6. DTC Porkchop Express (2-11)

PROJECTED Playoff Seeding

1. Win’s Up Doc (13-4) *BYE

2. Wait ‘Til Next Year (13-4) *BYE

3. The BamO’s (9-8)

4. Sporty Strauss (10-7)

5. Ornery Otters (10-7)

6. $traight Cash Homie (9-8)

PROJECTED Consolation Bracket

1. The Pullies (9-8) *BYE

2. Cooper Troopers (9-8) *BYE

3. MN Moose Knuckles (6-11)

4. SG Choppers (5-12)

5. Las Cabras (5-12)

6. DTC Porkchop Express (3-14)

Notes: Tiebreakers are so critical right now. Everyone on the fringe of the playoffs should look at your tiebreakers with other fringes to see if you’re in good position or not. After this week, the Power Rankings will start outlining specific scenarios.

Week 13 High Score

• Win’s Up Doc (Oat)

• 485 points points

Notes: The top-seed is putting up points. Weeks like this should show Oat that he belongs. Now, after a shrewd trade, his squad is even better.

Week 13 Low Score

• $traight Cash Homie (Jack)

• 340 points

Notes: There have been some bad Homies performances down the stretch. As a result, he’s under .500 and might be toast f he can’t turn it around.

Week 13 MVP

• Shohei Ohtani (The Pullies)

• 48 points

Notes: Ohtani’s first submission on this list! The premiere points league MLB player has given The Pullies a much-needed boost.

Week 13 LVP

• Nestor Cortes (Cooper Troopwrs)

• 3 points

Notes: Coop’s drafting of Cortes is the #1 reason for his resurgence in baseball, but he’s too reliant on those picks. A bad week like this sends him down with an L while the Ornery Otters escape with a W.

Week 14 Matchups (Pt. 1)

• Win’s Up Doc (1) vs The Pullies (5)

• Wait ’Til Next Year (2) vs Sporty Strauss (3)

• Ornery Otters (4) vs The BamO’s (8)

• Cooper Troopers (6) vs $traight Cash Homie (7)

• MN Moose Knuckles (9) vs Shepherd Goods Choppers (11)

• Las Cabras (10) vs DTC Porkchop Express (12)

Week 14 Matchups (Divisional)

Nolo’s Division

• Win’s Up Doc (1) vs Ornery Otters (4)

• Sporty Strauss (3) vs DTC Porkchop Express (12)

Fhima’s Division

• Wait ’Til Next Year (2) vs MN Moose Knuckles (9)

• Cooper Troopers (6) vs Las Cabras (10)

Shepherd Goods Division

• The Pullies (5) vs Shepherd Goods Choppers (11)

• $traight Cash Homie (7) vs  The BamO’s (8)

Week 14 MATCHUP of the WEEK

• The BamO’s (8) vs Ornery Otters (4)

Notes: There’s a way to construe this as a battle for 4th place and $500. Both teams currently have the same amount of points, so whoever finishes higher in the playoffs likely gets 4th (or higher). That’s a lot at stake for a non-divisional matchup.

Right now, The BamO’s look like they’ll have a hard time sneaking in without a win here. But with a win, The BamO’s secure the H2H over the Ornery Otters. The Otters on the other hand, put another game of distance between he and Sam for a wild card berth.

The matchup itself is interesting, as always. The biggest concern for the Ornery Otters is that he’s two starts down this week. He’s going to have to find some streamers or make a trade, of which trades should be there. The BamO’s have some injuries and holes in the hitting lineup that are REALLY wearing him down right now. These teams look evenly matched, and it could be a heartbreaking loss for either.

Lineups (80 Hitter plays, 10 SP Plays)

C - Travis d’Arnaud vs Will Smith
1B - Paul Goldschmidt vs Pete Alonso
2B - Brandon Drury vs Eduardo Escobar
3B - Rafael Devers vs Alec Bohm
SS - Trevor Story vs Dansby Swanson

CF - Luis Robert vs Starling Marte
CO - Ronald Acuna Jr. vs Max Kepler
CO - Ian Happ vs Randy Arozarena
DH - Anthony Rizzo vs Rowdy Tellez

UTIL - DJ LeMahieu vs Jonah Heim
UTIL - Ke’Bryan Hayes vs Connor Joe
UTIL - Dylan Carlson vs Andrew Benintendi
UTIL - Jesse Winker vs Cody Bellinger

SP1 - Max Fried (NYM) vs Joe Musgrove (@COL)
SP2 - Max Fried (@WSH) vs Miles Mikolas (PHI)
SP3 - Robbie Ray (@TEX) vs Miles Mikolas (CIN)
SP4 - Triston McKenzie (DET) vs Logan Webb (ARI)
SP5 - Kyle Freeland (SD) vs Logan Webb (MIL)
SP6 - Brady Singer (DET) vs Corey Kluber (BAL)
SP7 - Bo Brieske (@KC) vs Corey Kluber (BOS)
SP8 - Zack Greinke (@TOR) vs Zach Plesac (DET)
SP9 - Marcus Stroman (NYM) vs Charlie Morton (NYM)
SP10 - ??? vs Noah Syndergaard (HOU)

Ornery Otters: Advantage at 9/22 positions
The BamO’s: Advantage at 13/22 positions

Week 13 MLB Power Rankings

Week 13 Power Rankings

      Tier 1
1- Win’s Up Doc (9-3) [+1]
2- Wait ‘ Til Next Year (9-3) [-1]
3- Sporty Strauss (8-4) [+1]
4- Ornery Otters (6-6) [+1]
5- $traight Cash Homie (6-6) [+2]

       Tier 2
6- Cooper Troopers (8-4) [+2]
7- The BamO’s (6-6) [-4]
8- The Pullies (7-5) [-1]

        Tier 3
9- Minnesota Moose Knuckles (3-9) [-]
10- Las Cabras (5-7) [-]
11- Shepherd Goods Choppers (3-9) [-]
12- DTC Porkchop Express (2-10) [-]

(Tier 1) Throughout most of the season, Wait ‘Til Next Year (2) was the strong presumptive favorite, but now, after the Bryce Harper injury, the top of the league is WIDE open. Kyle, himself, is incredibly lucky for the Willson Contreras right now, a hitter who has been better than Anthony Rendon even was this season. Without that deal, Wait ‘Til Next Year could be dropping down to Tier 2. He’s still scoring at a decent clip, but now he’s dropped two games to the new presumptive favorite.

That status belongs to Win’s Up Doc (1), who definitely isn’t significantly better than any other team in the League of Leagues right now either. He’s just beaten Wait ‘Til Next Year twice and has the best record in the league. His schedule down the stretch is rough, and he now needs to feel a little bit more worried about holding Sporty Strauss (3) off for the BYE. He only leads him by a game (and a half with the tiebreaker).

Sporty Strauss secured an absolutely instrumental victory this week against The BamO’s. Now, Strauss has a 2-game lead over the final playoff teams with 5 weeks left. Most importantly, here are the teams that he has a head-to-head tiebreaker over: the Ornery Otters, The Pullies, $traight Cash Homie, the Cooper Troopers and also against The BamO’s as long as he can outscore him the rest of the season for the points tiebreaker. That means that Sporty Strauss currently has tiebreakers over every playoff hopeful team and should make the playoffs even if he just two more wins this season (and he plays the pitiful DTC Porkchop Express one more time). The inevitable win over the hapless, lazy Porkchop Express could be enough to make the playoffs even if he loses every other game. He plays each of the other Tier 1 teams down the stretch, so every week is going to be a dogfight. Again, he’s a game (and a half behind) Win’s Up Doc right now, and Sporty Strauss’ eyes are now shifting from just being a playoff team towards stealing a BYE.

Next, the Ornery Otters (4) are a good team. As is always mentioned, Korey has a poor pitching rotation and a stellar lineup. With Korey it’s just going to be interesting if he tries to go for 3rd place (or 2nd !!) by making a trade towards the trade deadline to try to beat Wait ‘Til Next Year or Win’s Up Doc in the 2nd round of the playoffs after beating his opponent in round 1. The Otters still have an easier schedule, and they should be in the playoffs.

$traight Cash Homie (5) are in the same (love)boat as the Otters – 6-6 while being a good/great team. It’s certainly within a realistic situation that Jack wins MLB and potentially plays himself out of a top-3 Strauss Pick. $traight Cash Homie is 4th in points and keeps climbing. He’s made some shrewd moves, and he has a well-balanced team at this point with some depth. He could use help in the ‘pen, but other than that, there’s no real no-brainer moves he has to make. He could always grab another starter, but he doesn’t have to. This team is good, it just doesn’t have the record to prove it because he’s gotten unlucky.

(Tier 2) The BamO’s (6) are in DEEEEP trouble – like Sam himself when he locks eyes with a pretty girl. He DOESN’T have head-to-heads over the following teams: Cooper Troopers, Sporty Strauss, The Pullies and $traight Cash Homie. These last 5 weeks are more important to The BamO’s than any team besides Sporty Strauss. With a team mortgaged for winning now year, a Miles Bridges situation that puts his next year’s team in jeopardy, and a really difficult schedule… odds are strong that The BamO’s will be on the outside looking in when it comes to playoff time. And if that’s the case, Sam is strongly favored to finish in last place next season and deep into the future. This was his chance, and it’s dwindling.

The Cooper Troopers (5) secured one of their 2 or 3 ‘scheduled’ wins down the stretch. This was the reason Coop could make some of these trades: the schedule is just doing him ALL the favors in the world. He beat the SG Choppers twice in three weeks after helping Dye out with those tanking trades. The schedule certainly tightens up for the next couple weeks, but even one win the rest of the season probably puts him over the top. Then he will get to division play where he will play Las Cabras and the MN Moose Knuckles in weeks 15 and 16. Then all eyes will be on the Cooper Troopers to see if they are good enough to edge out those division squads and sneak into the postseason. The Troopers are so close.

One interesting subplot with the Cooper Troopers is WHO will get to play them if they make the postseason. They’ll be a dream first-round matchup and lots of teams will be trying to play them in Round 1. They’ll likely be a wild-card, so they’ll be the 4, 5 or 6-seed. If they drop down to the 6, which is the most likely, it’ll mean the winner of the #Shepherd Goods Division will play them (Pullies, Homies or BamO’s). If they are the 4 or 5, Sporty Strauss could draw Coop – an easy opponent in Round 1 that could secure secure him a League of League Championship. That’s the current scenario.

Next… despite having a better record than 3 of these higher teams, The Pullies elicit the least amount of faith of any of these playoff hopeful teams. They are too reliant on their top stars, but the top stars are ridiculously good. One injury and they are toast. and now the schedule gets tough after they escaped a threat from the league’s worst team. The Pullies could easily still make the playoffs, even as the 3-seed like they are right now, but do they even want that? If they are the 3-seed and play and beat Coop in Round 1, they just played themselves out of a top Strauss Pick with ZERO shot at placing this season. The Pullies, as always, are in no-man’s land and have shown zero desire to try to improve their long-term status in the League of Leagues, looking like one of the two favorites to undergo the last-place penalty next season.

(Tier 3) The MN Moose Knuckles (9) are the only Tier 3 team with any hope right now, though a loss to the Ornery Otters pretty much puts the nail in the coffin. Still, the MN Moose Knuckles have by far the easiest remaining schedule, and they could win 4 out of 5 to end the year and compete for a Consolation BYE. However, that likely isn’t what Hall wants, and now is probably the time to sell if he really wants a top pick, which he doesn’t seem to care too much about.

Las Cabras (10) put up a solid fight this week against $traight Cash Homie, but are now 5-7 and almost out of hope. It’s definitely time to start thinking about next season, and Las Cabras certainly have more pieces to sell to contending teams. Luis Arraez, Steven Kwan, and Brendan Donovan are hitters that could be moved. Jameson Taillon (NYY), Cristian Javier (HOU), Carlos Carrasco (NYM) and Mike Clevinger (SD) are all pitchers on good teams that contenders could use to bolster the mid to back ends of their playoff rotations. Las Cabras hold no worries of getting last place – it could be a statistical impossibility – so they’ll be more willing to sell than any other team. Please contact them for more information.

The SG Choppers (11) and DTC Porkchop Express (12) don’t really have many more assets to deal and are certainly solidified as the cellar of the League of Leagues. They are just biding their time, hoping to lose big in the Consolation Bracket.

Current Playoff Seeding

1. Win’s Up Doc (9-3) *BYE

2. Wait ‘Til Next Year (9-3) *BYE

3. The Pullies (7-5)

4. Sporty Strauss (8-4)

5. Cooper Troopers (8-4)

6. The BamO’s (6-6)

Consolation Bracket

1. Ornery Otters (6-6) *BYE

2. $traight Cash Homie (6-6) *BYE

3. Las Cabras (5-7)

4. SG Choppers (3-9)

5. MN Moose Knuckles (3-9)

6. DTC Porkchop Express (2-10)

PROJECTED Playoff Seeding

1. Wait ‘Til Next Year (14-3) *BYE

2. Win’s Up Doc (13-4) *BYE

3.  $traight Cash Homie (11-6)

4. Ornery Otters (10-7)

5. Sporty Strauss (10-7)

6. Cooper Troopers (9-8)

PROJECTED Consolation Bracket

1. The BamO’s (9-8) *BYE

2. The Pullies (8-9) *BYE

3. MN Moose Knuckles (7-10)

4. Las Cabras (5-12)

5. SG Choppers (4-13)

6. DTC Porkchop Express (2-15)

Notes: Right now, based on schedules, a 3-team race between the Cooper Troopers, BamO’s and Pullies is shaping up for the final playoff spot. One slip by Strauss, the Otters or $traight Cash Homie puts those teams into the equation as well.

Week 12 High Score

• Win’s Up Doc (Oat)

• 523 points

Notes: He picked a good week to outscore anyone else, edging out Wait ‘Til Next Year to take the 1-seed. He had solid contributions by former Choppers, Tyler Anderson and Paul Blackburn, as well as several other starting pitchers. But he won this game on offensive, scoring about 65 more points than Wait ‘Til Next Year did. Oat relied on the prowess of his stellar first basemen (Abreu, Freeman and Josh Bell), Carlos Correa and Kyle Tucker. And he had the MVP of the week.

Week 12 Low Score

• DTC Porkchop Express (Craig)

• 383.5 points

Notes: Pitiful. Disgusting. Lazy. There aren’t enough words to explain the Express right now. In general, the team is a disaster – having lost 8 straight games. They easily could have won last night if GM Craig McCall had put effort into setting his lineup on Sunday or throughout the week. With 4 remaining hitter plays, they shat the bed and didn’t pick up anybody to start. Even one batter with a couple of points would have won him the week against the second lowest-scoring team. It’s a travesty, and it could easily change the playoff race.

Week 12 MVP

• Nolan Arenado (Win’s Up Doc)

• 43.5 points

Notes: What an excellent draft pick. A 3rd-round pick, he was drafted in the 3rd round by Win’s Up Doc. In return, he’s been the 10th-best hitter throughout this entire season, scoring over 3.5 points per game. Only Anthony Rizzo has returned better value in the draft, but Arenado is a much better keeper. At 31 years old, he’s moved into the top-50 keepers on FanTrax’s rankings, and Oat is elated.

Week 12 LVP

• Michael Lorenzen (Las Cabras)

• -7.5 points

Notes: In a 20-point matchup, a starting pitcher having a -7.5 swings the matchup. Even a decent performance would have given Las Cabras a win and gotten them to .500 against a team they had to beat. Instead, Las Cabras’ season is pretty much over despite an easy schedule. It was a long shot anyways, but now it’s longer than a Cooper’s johnson.

Week 13 Matchups

• Win’s Up Doc (1) vs The BamO’s (7)

• Wait ’Til Next Year (2) vs The Pullies (8)

• Sporty Strauss (3) vs $traight Cash Homie (5)

• Ornery Otters (4) vs Cooper Troopers (6)

• MN Moose Knuckles (9) vs DTC Porkchop Express (12)

• Las Cabras (10) vs Shepherd Goods Choppers (11)

Week 13 MATCHUP of the WEEK

• Sporty Strauss (3) vs $traight Cash Homie (5)

Notes: Another Sporty Strauss matchup of the week. We might finally get Strauss after this, but this week is crucial for both of these teams. For Strauss, he needs to hunt that BYE and unseat Win’s Up Doc. Otherwise, Strauss has to play one more playoff game than Oat and will have to play Kyle or Oat to make the championship game – a tall task.

For $traight Cash Homie, he could win the League of Leagues if he wins his division and draws a weaker 6-seed in the playoffs. He’s only .500 right now, and he needs to win some of these 50/50 games in order to secure a playoff spot and NOT end up in last place.

For the matchup itself, this looks to be as evenly matched as teams could get. Sporty Strauss gets a miracle of having two Verlander starts against two bad offenses. That could be enough to get him the win. But the back end of Jack’s rotation is far better than Strauss’. $traight Cash Homie does have some bad pitching matchups across the board, whereas Sporty Strauss is a bit cleaner, but Jack’s lineup is generally better with Mookie Betts and potentially Ty France on the IL.

Look for a tightly-fought matchup between playoff hopefuls in this week’s Matchup of the Week!

Lineups (80 Hitter plays, 10 SP Plays)

C - Austin Nola vs Keibert Ruiz
1B - Carlos Santana vs Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
2B - Nolan Gorman vs Christopher Morel
3B - Manny Machado vs Austin Riley
SS - Tim Anderson vs O’Neil Cruz

CF - Mike Trout vs Aaron Judge
CO - Taylor Ward vs Yordan Alvarez
CO - Charlie Blackmon vs Austin Hays
DH - Giancarlo Stanton vs Christian Walker

UTIL - Alex Bregman vs Gleyber Torres
UTIL - Riley Green vs Brendan Rodgers
UTIL - JP Crawford vs Anthony Santander
UTIL - Nick Castellanos vs Andres Gimenez

SP1 - Justin Verlander (KC) vs Martin Perez (MIN)
SP2 - Justin Verlander (@OAK) vs Nick Pivetta (TB)
SP3 - Tony Gonsolin (COL) vs Nick Pivetta (NYY)
SP4 - Dylan Cease (DET) vs Sean Manaea (SEA)
SP5 - Brandon Woodruff (PIT) vs Sean Manaea (SF)
SP6 - Adam Wainwright (PHI) vs Frankie Montas (HOU)
SP7 - Kyle Gibson (@STL) vs Zach Gallen (SF)
SP8 - Lance Lynn (MIN) vs Zach Gallen (COL)
SP9 - Josiah Gray (@PHI) vs Patrick Sandoval (@BAL)
SP10 - Jeffrey Springs (@CIN) vs Luis Castillo (PIT)

Sporty Strauss: Advantage at 9/21 positions
$traight Cash Homie: Advantage at 12/21 positions

Week 12 MLB Power Rankings

Week 12 Power Rankings

      Tier 1
1- Wait ‘ Til Next Year (9-2) [-]
2- Win’s Up Doc (8-3) [-]

       Tier 2
3- The BamO’s (6-5) [+3]
4- Sporty Strauss (7-4) [-]
5- Ornery Otters (5-6) [-2]
6- $traight Cash Homie (5-6) [+1]
7- The Pullies (6-5) [+1]
8- Cooper Troopers (7-4) [-3]

        Tier 3
9- Minnesota Moose Knuckles (3-8) [+1]
10- Las Cabras (5-6) [-1]
11- Shepherd Goods Choppers (3-8) [-]
12- DTC Porkchop Express (2-9) [-]

(Tier 1) Now that everyone has played each other, this league – officially in the home stretch – has rounded into form. Finally, after all of this time, there are 6 teams above .500 and 6 teams below. The current top-six teams definitely all hold the highest probabilities of making the playoffs, but it’s still far from a guarantee for anyone past the top-2 with two great teams lurking at 5-6. At the top, Wait ‘Til Next Year (1) has only a week or two before he will clinch, but he’s effectively clinched with a 4-game advantage over the 7-seed with six weeks left. That’s massive given the health of his best hitter this season, Bryce Harper, who just went down with a broken wrist that could shake up the outcome of both this year’s League of Leagues final standings AND next year’s, because wrist injuries for batters aren’t the easiest to recover from.

Win’s Up Doc (2) has a 3-game advantage over teams that are outside looking in with head-to-head victories against both 5-6 teams. With that, he probably only needs one more win to guarantee a ticket to the postseason. Two would certainly get him in, and the schedule from here on out is pretty tough. The BYE is less of a guarantee – both from threats within his division (Struass/Otters) and threats from the Shepherd Goods Division.

(Tier 2) A prime candidate to take the aforementioned SG Division and potentially even a BYE is The BamO’s (3), who are the biggest riser lately. Sam has a squad that is hitting some ridiculous point totals, and he won one of the most important games of the season vs the Ornery Otters (5) in one of the highest-scoring affairs to date – a matchup in which both teams eclipsed 500 points. With another game between The BamO’s and the Ornery Otters, that matchup could decide who makes the playoffs. Their points scored so far this season is super close, and now Sam has a 1.5 game lead over Korey. These are clearly two of the top-5 teams in the League of Leagues, but there’s no guarantee they can both make the playoffs. However, The BamO’s’ remaining schedule is very difficult while the Otters draw the MN Moose Knuckles and the Cooper Troopers the next couple of weeks – two matchups that should put him back above .500 before his rematch with Sam.

This past week, Sporty Strauss (4) finished one of his only two easy games remaining this season (other than a battle with DTC Porkchop Express in the first week of divisional play). The other 5 games are against the literal 5 highest-scoring teams in the League of Leagues, and Sporty Struass only probably needs to win one of these games to make the playoffs. He has a 2-game advantage over the 5-6 teams with head-to-head victories against both, so that’s really a 2.5-game advantage. However, he does play both of these teams. He plays $traight Cash Homie in Week 13 and the Ornery Otters in Week 15. Those could end up being the two most important games in all of the League of Leagues’ inaugural season.

Speaking of $traight Cash Homie (6)… he is the unlucky team so far this season. When his team goes off, like it did this past week, he plays a terrible team who scores the least amount of points in a week. He’s currently out of the playoffs despite being top-4 in scoring – a tough beat for a team that is looking to prevent the last-place penalt. Going forward, the schedule still isn’t bad at all. He draws Las Cabras for the seconds straight week, which should get him above .500. Then he starts looking forward to another matchup with the Cooper Troopers (8), a team he could knock out of the playoffs and increase his best chance of not getting last place. He’s already beaten Coop and has a significant points advantage against him, so knocking the Cooper Toopers down another loss would go a long way towards improving his playoff odds.

Coop, himself, is still in a good spot, but he’s going to need to win some games down the stretch. It starts against the SG Choppers this week, which is a must-win. He’d still have a 2-game advantage with five weeks remaining if he beats the Choppers. Then he has one more game against Las Cabras that should be a win. He needs both of those and MAYBE one more win with how low-scoring his team is to make the playoffs. Right now, 10 looks to be the safe number for Coop while 9 is possible depending on tiebreakers.

Last in Tier 3 are The Pullies (7) who are a good but not great team. Peter and Eric have a great chance at winning the division to get the $200 gift card. Then who knows, perhaps they end up with a BYE. Perhaps they can get 2nd or 3rd in MLB and cash out a bit more. The Pullies really should think about selling and getting a better draft pick, because (right now) it’s looking like they might play themselves out of a dynamic pick.

(Tier 3) Las Cabras (10) drop down into the last Tier with an awful week. Trevor and Jordan are clearly tanking and they to improve their draft pick status. But now, current team is a bit of a disaster. Even though they have 5 wins, they are clearly one of the 3 worst teams in the League of Leagues. They aren’t as bereft as the Choppers or DTC Porkchop Express, but the scoring output still shows them to be worse – especially with a disastrous performance against a team they could have edged out for the playoffs or, at the very least, a consolation BYE. Las Cabras’ fun little run is probably over, and now they shift focus to edging out the MN Moose Knuckles for the opportunity to play DTC Porkchop Express in the first round of the playoffs.

The MN Moose Knuckles (9) aren’t great by any stretch, but if there’s any team that could pull a shocking run this season, it’d be the Knuckles. After this week against the Ornery Otters, he plays the 4 lowest-scoring teams in the League of Leagues down the stretch. Hall should be looking to make some small moves this week to improve his rotation and give himself a chance against the Ornery Otters, a team he would conceivably knock out of the playoffs. Then he’d face his stretch of bad teams with a hopeful record of 8-9 at the end of the season. It’s not likely, but not impossible, he could get to 9-8, though it’s unclear if he wants to. The MN Moose Knuckles have shown no signs of tanking

On the other hand, the SG Choppers (11) and DTC Porkchop Extress (12) are both in full tank mode. One team is always more competitive than the other, and DTC Porkchop Express has a few players that really shouldn’t be rostered – let alone started. But there’s little chance he can win now (until the Consolation Playoffs where he plays bad teams every week),

Remaining Schedules Power Rankings

Note: the total points of the remaining teams is a good marker of strength of schedule, and is added up throughout the rest of the five matchups and is a primary marker for these rankings (calculated Sunday morning)

(1) SG Choppers (11) – 27,840 points by remaining teams

• Cooper Troopers (8) – LOSS [3-9]

• Las Cabras (10) – WIN [4-11]

• MN Moose Knuckles (9) – LOSS [4-10]

• The BamO’s (3) – LOSS [4-11]

• The Pullies (7) – LOSS [4-12]

• $traight Cash Homie (8) – LOSS [4-13]

  • Projected Record: 4-13

(2) Wait ‘Til Next Year (1) – 28,830 points by remaining teams

• Win’s Up Doc (2) – LOSS [9-3]

• Pullies (7) – WIN [10-3]

• Sporty Strauss (4) – WIN [11-3]

• Cooper Troopers (8) – WIN [12-3]

• Las Cabras (9) – WIN [13-3]

• MN Moose Knuckles (10) – WIN [14-3]

  • Projected Record: 14-3

(3) Ornery Otters (5) – 29,000 points by remaining teams

• MN Moose Knuckles (9) – WIN [6-6]

• Cooper Troopers (8) – WIN [7-6]

• The BamO’s (3) – WIN [8-6]

• Win’s Up Doc (2) – LOSS [8-7]

• Sporty Strauss (4) – WIN [9-7]

• DTC Porkchop Express (12) – WIN [10-7]

  • Projected Standings: 10-7

(4) Las Cabras (10) – 29,080 points by remaining teams

• $traight Cash Homie (6) – LOSS [5-7]

• SG Choppers (11) – LOSS [5-8]

• DTC Porkchop Express (12) – LOSS [5-9]

• Wait ‘Til Next Year (1) – LOSS [5-10]

• Cooper Troopers (8) – LOSS [5-11]

• MN Moose Knuckles (9) – LOSS [5-12]

  • Projected Standings: 5-12

(5) MN Moose Knuckles (9) – 29,250 points by remaining teams

• Ornery Otters (5) – LOSS [4-8]

• DTC Porkchop Express (12) – WIN [5-8]

• SG Choppers (11) – WIN [6-8]

• Wait ‘Til Next Year (1) – LOSS [6-9]

• Cooper Troopers (8) – WIN [7-9]

• Las Cabras (10) – WIN [8-9]

  • Projected Standings: 8-9

(6) $traight Cash Homie (6) – 29,340 points by remaining teams

• Las Cabras (10) – WIN [6-6]

• Sporty Strauss (4) – WIN [7-6]

• Cooper Troopers (8) – WIN [8-6]

• The BamO’s (3) – LOSS [8-7]

• The Pullies (7) – WIN [9-7]

• SG Choppers (11) – WIN [10-7]

  • Projected Record: 10-7

(7) Cooper Troopers (8) – 29,490 points by remaining teams

• SG Choppers (11) – WIN [8-4]

• Ornery Otters (5) – LOSS [8-5]

• $traight Cash Homie (6) – LOSS [8-6]

• Wait ‘Til Next Year (1) – LOSS [8-7]

• MN Moose Knuckles (9) – LOSS [9-8]

• Las Cabras (10) – WIN [9-7]

  • Projected Standings: 9-8

(8) The BamO’s (3) – 29,820 points by remaining teams

• Sporty Strauss (4) – WIN [7-5]

• Win’s Up Doc (2) – LOSS [7-6]

• Ornery Otters (5) – LOSS [7-7]

• The Pullies (7) – WIN [8-7]

• $traight Cash Homie (6) – WIN [9-7]

• SG Choppers (11) – WIN [10-7]

  • Projected Standings: 10-7

(9) Win’s Up Doc (2) – 29,790 points by remaining teams

• Wait ‘Til Next Year (1) – WIN [9-4]

• The BamO’s (3) – WIN [10-4]

• The Pullies (7) – WIN [11-4]

• Ornery Otters (5) – WIN [12-4]

• Sporty Strauss (4) – LOSS [12-5]

• DTC Porkchop Express (12) – WIN [13-5]

  • Projected Standings: 13-5

(10) DTC Porkchop Express (12) – 29,930 points by remaining teams

• The Pullies (7) – LOSS [2-10]

• Wait ‘Til Next Year (1) – LOSS [2-11]

• Las Cabras (10) – LOSS [2-12]

• Win’s Up Doc (2) – LOSS [2-13]

• Ornery Otters (3) – LOSS [2-13]

• Sporty Strauss (4) – LOSS [2-14]

  • Projected Standings: 3-14

(11) The Pullies (7) – 29,980 points by remaining teams

• DTC Porkchop Express (12) – WIN [7-5]

• Wait ‘Til Next Year (1) – LOSS [7-6]

• Win’s Up Doc (2) – LOSS [7-7]

• The BamO’s (3) – LOSS [7-8]

• $traight Cash Homie (6) – LOSS [7-9]

• SG Choppers (11) – WIN [8-9]

  • Projected Standings: 8-9

(12) Sporty Strauss (4) – 30,190 points by remaining teams

• The BamO’s (3) – LOSS [7-5]

• $traight Cash Homie (5) – LOSS [7-6]

• Wait ‘Til Next Year (1) – LOSS [7-7]

• Win’s Up Doc (2) – WIN [8-7]

• Ornery Otters (3) – LOSS [8-8]

• DTC Porkchop Express (12) – LOSS [8-9]

  • Projected Standings: 8-9

PROJECTED Playoff Seeding

1. Wait ‘Til Next Year (14-3) *BYE

2. Win’s Up Doc (13-4) *BYE

3.  $traight Cash Homie (10-7)

4. The BamO’s (10-7)

5. Ornery Otters (10-7)

6. Cooper Troopers (9-8)

PROJECTED Bracket

1. Sporty Strauss (8-9) *BYE

2. The Pullies (8-9) *BYE

3. MN Moose Knuckles (8-9)

4. Las Cabras (5-12)

5. SG Choppers (4-13)

6. DTC Porkchop Express (2-15)

Notes: Sporty Strauss still has (by far) the toughest remaining schedule. That isn’t changing anytime soon, and his team is hurt and underperforming. The more you dig into his outlook, the more pessimistic you will become. Luckily, he has beaten both the Cooper Troopers and The Pullies, two other teams currently projected with 9 wins – of which only one of them makes the playoffs under the current projections.

The Pullies’ tough schedule also leads one towards being pessimistic about their playoff odds. Pat and Kyle in a two-week stretch after this week is brutal.

Current Playoff Seeding

1. Wait ‘Til Next Year (9-2) *BYE

2. Win’s Up Doc (8-3) *BYE

3. The Pullies (6-5)

4. Sporty Strauss (7-4)

5. Cooper Troopers (7-4)

6. The BamO’s (6-5)

Consolation Bracket

1. Ornery Otters (5-6) *BYE

2. $traight Cash Homie (5-6) *BYE

3. Las Cabras (5-6)

4. SG Choppers (3-8)

5. MN Moose Knuckles (3-8)

6. DTC Porkchop Express (2-9)

Week 11 High Score

• The BamO’s (Sam)

• 550 points

Notes: The BamO’s take the high score of the week award by beating the team that got it last week and would have gotten it again this week if not for Sam Bam. The BamO’s need more of this coming, however, to make the playoffs. If they keep dominating good teams, the sky is the limit for this roster.

Week 11 Low Score

• Las Cabras (Trevor/Jordan)

• 310 points

Notes: Las Cabras are toast. You can’t score like this an expect to make the playoffs. And they are closer to DTC Porkchop Express’ league-worst scoring than anyone else, being within 50 points of Craig’s awful points total. Expect Las Cabras to not only drop out of the playoff race but to finish 10th or 11th in the standings as well as a 10th or 11th place total finish.

Week 11 MVP

• Logan Webb (The BamO’s)

• 60.5 points

Notes: A 60-point week from a pitcher is always good enough to win MVP if that score is close. The BamO’s rode this SF stud in two starts – one for 29.5 points that wasn’t even a win and another for 31. He allowed only 8 hits in both games. Webb was a great draft pick, and he’s going to be a player The BamO’s can rely upon for years to come.

Week 11 LVP

• Harrison Bader (SG Choppers)

• 2 points

Notes: This is where selling as many players as the Choppers have really hurts. Bader is an okay player who is having a bad year and could have been benched for any number of former Choppers. But these losses are what Dye wants, and Sporty Strauss is happy to oblige.

Week 12 Matchups

• Wait ’Til Next Year (1) vs Win’s Up Doc (2)

• The BamO’s (3) vs Sporty Strauss (4)

• Ornery Otters (5) vs MN Moose Knuckles (9)

• $traight Cash Homie (6) vs Las Cabras (10)

• The Pullies (7) vs DTC Porkchop Express (12)

• Cooper Troopers (8) vs Shepherd Goods Choppers (11)

Week 12 MATCHUP of the WEEK

• Sporty Strauss (4) vs The BamO’s (3)

Notes: Another stellar League of Leagues matchup, but get used to something here… pretty much every Sporty Strauss (4) matchup from here to the end of the season is going to be the MATCHUP OF THE WEEK because of how important Sporty Strauss’ playoff odds are to the League of Leagues.

If Sporty Strauss misses the playoffs, Win’s Up Doc just needs to manage to get 3rd Place at the very least to tie Sporty Strauss for the league victory. And if Win’s Up Doc came in 3rd and Sporty Strauss won the Consolation Bracket, Wait ‘Til Next Year, The BamO’s (3) or the Ornery Otters could force a 3-way tie for first place with an MLB Championship – creating a fascinating tie that would determine a winner (though $$ would be distributed evenly amongst any tied teams.

So yes… this game is important! Both teams need to be setting their lineups rigorously, targeting pitchers with great matchups. With the return of Brandon Woodruff to Sporty Strauss and the return of Joe Musgrove to The BamO’s this week, this matchup looks razor-tight. The BamO’s have a slight edge on two-pitcher weeks with George Kirby drawing the Orioles and the Athletics – both of which are plus matchups. Wainwright gets Miami and Philly, which are also good considering Harper won’t be playing. A lot of what will determine this matchup is the pitching, and any good starts from the bottom of these rotations would be very welcome.

Lineups (80 Hitter plays, 10 SP Plays)

C - Austin Nola vs Will Smith
1B - Carlos Santana vs Pete Alonso
2B - Nolan Gorman vs Jazz Chisholm, Jr.
3B - Manny Machado (???) vs Eduardo Escobar
SS - Tim Anderson vs Dansby Swanson

CF - Mike Trout vs Starling Marte
CO - Taylor Ward vs Max Kepler
CO - Charlie Blackmon vs Randy Arozarena
DH - Giancarlo Stanton vs Luke Voit

UTIL - Alex Bregman vs Jonah Heim
UTIL - Riley Green vs Rowdy Tellez
UTIL - JP Crawford vs Connor Joe
UTIL - Nick Castellanos vs Cody Bellinger

SP1 - Justin Verlander (NYY) vs Joe Musgrove (@LAD)
SP2 - Tony Gonsolin (SD) vs Miles Mikolas (@PHI)
SP3 - Adam Wainwright (MIA) vs Logan Webb (CHW)
SP4 - Adam Wainwright (@PHI) vs George Kirby (BAL)
SP5 - Brandon Woodruff vs George Kirby (OAK)
SP6 - Dylan Cease (@SF) vs Corey Kluber (@TOR)
SP7 - Kyle Gibson (STL) vs Zach Plesac (MIN)
SP8 - Lance Lynn (@SF) vs Noah Syndergaard (@CHW)
SP9 - Roansy Contreras (MIL) vs Noah Syndergaard (@HOU)
SP10 - Jeffrey Springs (@TOR) vs Hunter Greene (@CHC)

Sporty Strauss: Advantage at 9/20 positions
The BamO’s: Advantage at 11/20 positions

Week 11 MLB Power Rankings

Week 11 Power Rankings

      Tier 1
1- Wait ‘ Til Next Year (8-2) [-]
2- Win’s Up Doc (7-3) [-]
3- Ornery Otters (5-5) [+2]

       Tier 2
4- Sporty Strauss (6-4) [-1]
5- Cooper Troopers (7-3) [+2]
6- The BamO’s (5-5) [-2]
7- $traight Cash Homie (4-6) [-1]
8- The Pullies (5-5) [-]
9- Las Cabras (5-5) [-]

        Tier 3
10- Minnesota Moose Knuckles (3-7) [-]
11- Shepherd Goods Choppers (3-7) [-]
12- DTC Porkchop Express (2-8) [-]

(Tier 1) Looking forward, week 11 is the FINAL matchup against teams that haven’t played each other yet. After this week, each League of Leagues team will have squared off and initial tiebreakers will have been determined. With that being said, Wait ‘Til Next Year (1) and Win’s Up Doc (2) are firmly the only Tier 1 teams at this point in the season. Each of them play a Tier 3 team in Week 11 to round out their schedules, so each should have at least 8 wins after this week before an absolutely MASSIVE Week 12 rematch between these squads. These teams should start amassing pitchers, trade targets and anybody with a positive MLB schedule who can help them win and secure the #1 seed, allowing them to play a lower seed in Round 2.

The rest of the teams are a jumbled mess. Any of these next seven (or eight) teams could make the playoffs, and any of them could just as easily miss. The Ornery Otters (3) moved into 3rd in total league scoring after a weekly high score, and Korey has quite an easy extra game schedule with 3 games against teams in the bottom-3 of scoring and the luxury of avoiding Wait ‘Til Next Year. What will largely determine the Ornery Otters’ playoff odds are two games against The BamO’s, this week and in Week 14. Both of those games are monumental.

(Tier 2) Sporty Strauss (4) drops down slightly after another disappointing week, and a dreadful extra game schedule. He plays the top-5 highest-scoring teams in the league in the final 5 weeks – his only reprieves left being Las Cabras this week and the shotshow that currently is the Porkchop Express. Sporty Strauss is not guaranteed a playoff spot. Not in the slightest. If there were any clear teams to pass Sporty Strauss (or the next team on this list), they would. But again… this is a jumbled mess and Sporty Strauss has 6 wins in the bank. Strauss made his first trade of the year last week, but it might be time for more, because things are getting scary.

The Cooper Troopers (5), somehow almost are locked into a playoff spot. It’s not a full guarantee, but 9 or 10 wins is the goal and Coop has 7 in the bank at this point. With one more game against the shell of the SG Choppers, the last assets of which Coop secured in a trade last week, the Cooper Troopers just need to win one game against the The Pullies, Las Cabras or the MN Moose Knuckles to be above .500 on the year and probably make the postseason. If Coop can’t do that, he doesn’t deserve to make the playoffs (and he probably doesn’t anyways). If this were a normal roto Power Ranking, Coop would be firmly Tier 3 right now, but his lucky #7 puts him at 5.

Teams 6-8 are reserved for the Shepherd Goods division. With the aforementioned Cooper Troopers having a significant edge on a playoff spot and the Ornery Otters being 3rd in total points… it looks right now that only one of these teams would make the playoffs unless Sporty Strauss hits a wall. The Pullies (8) have already beaten both The BamO’s (6) and $traight Cash Homie (7), giving them the inside track at winning that division. However, The BamO’s and $traight Cash Homie have scored more points and look like better teams right now. The BamO’s in particular went head-to-head with the top team this week and almost won, scoring an high amount of points for a loss. The BamO’s could easily place in season-long and have plenty to play for and $traight Cash Homie is doing what he can to avoid the last-place penalty. One wonders whether or not The Pullies would consider selling to their rivals – now in no-man’s land with a subpar MLB team and a scary long-term prognosis in NFL.

In a strange schedule quirk, $traight Cash Home draws Las Cabras (9), are just barely clinging on to Tier 2 status, twice in the next two weeks. As the second lowest-scoring team in the league, Las Cabras are a good draw and should be JUST what Jack needs to reclaim his spot as a playoff team. Faltering in these two matchups, however, would prove disastrous for $traight Cash Homie.

For Las Cabras themselves, they also have an easy upcoming schedule. They play 5 matchups againstlowest-ranked teams in LoL standings the rest of the season They also play the Cooper Troopers once more – not a bottom-4 team, but all stats show they are. If Las Cabras could win 4 of those 5 games, there’s a definitive chance they could sneak into the playoffs!

(Tier 3) After this win against Sporty Strauss, watch out for the Minnesota Moose Knuckles (10). If they can somehow just grab ONE win in the next two weeks against two good #Nolo’s foes, the playoffs are potentially within reach. In four of the five final weeks of the season, Hall plays the other four lowest-scoring teams in the League of Leagues. 5 more wins would get him to 8-9 and potentially a shot at the 6-seed, though still unlikely.

This week, the SG Choppers (11) were successful in losing another and, more importantly to Dye, $traight Cash Homie continues to also drop games. Right now, the only way Dye could do the last-place penalty is for the Homies to accrue 9 or more season-long points than the Choppers. With a 4-6 record now, odds of the Homies making a run are diminishing… but it isn’t over yet. The Choppers look like they are in great shape to get a top-3 Strauss Pick and also avoid the last-place penalty: a dream scenario.

DTC Porkchop Express (12) is also making a serious play at a top-3 Strauss Pick. The Cooper Troopers are the team for him to watch now, however, and Coop would need to score 8-or-more points than Craig for Craig to sneak into the top-3. Right now, the Cooper Troopers look like a near-lock for the playoffs based on the schedule, so now it’s a matter if the Cooper Troopers can win ONE playoff game. Even if Coop got 5th place, he could force a tiebreaker with Craig as long as DTC Porkchop Express loses MLB – which looks like a probability right now.

Remaining Schedules Power Rankings

Note: the total points of the remaining teams is a good marker of strength of schedule, and is added up throughout the rest of the six matchups and is a primary marker for these rankings (calculated Saturday morning)

(1) $traight Cash Homie (8) – 30,420 points by remaining teams

• Las Cabras (9)

• Las Cabras (9)

• Sporty Strauss (4)

• Cooper Troopers (5)

• The BamO’s (6)

• The Pullies (7)

• SG Choppers (11)

(2) Wait ‘Til Next Year (1) – 30,430 points by remaining teams

• DTC Porkchop Express (12)

• Win’s Up Doc (2)

• Pullies (7)

• Sporty Strauss (4)

• Cooper Troopers (5)

• Las Cabras (9)

• MN Moose Knuckles (10)

(3) SG Choppers (11) – 30,720 points by remaining teams

• Sporty Strauss (4)

• Cooper Troopers (5)

• Las Cabras (9)

• MN Moose Knuckles (10)

• The BamO’s (6)

• The Pullies (7)

• $traight Cash Homie (8)

(4) Ornery Otters (3) – 30,860 points by remaining teams

• The BamO’s (6)

• MN Moose Knuckles (10)

• Cooper Troopers (5)

• The BamO’s (6)

• Win’s Up Doc (2)

• Sporty Strauss (4)

• DTC Porkchop Express (12)

(5) Las Cabras (9) – 30,890 points by remaining teams

• $traight Cash Homie (8)

• $traight Cash Homie (8)

• SG Choppers (11)

• DTC Porkchop Express (12)

• Wait ‘Til Next Year (1)

• Cooper Troopers (5)

• MN Moose Knuckles (10)

(6) MN Moose Knuckles (10) – 31,100 points by remaining teams

• Win’s Up Doc (2)

• Ornery Otters (3)

• DTC Porkchop Express (12)

• SG Choppers (11)

• Wait ‘Til Next Year (1)

• Cooper Troopers (5)

• Las Cabras (9)

(7) Cooper Troopers (5) – 31,280 points by remaining teams

• The Pullies (7)

• SG Choppers (11)

• Ornery Otters (3)

• $traight Cash Homie (8)

• Wait ‘Til Next Year (1)

• Las Cabras (9)

• MN Moose Knuckles (10)

(8) Win’s Up Doc (2) – 31,290 points by remaining teams

• MN Moose Knuckles (10)

• Wait ‘Til Next Year (1)

• The BamO’s (6)

• The Pullies (7)

• Ornery Otters (3)

• Sporty Strauss (4)

• DTC Porkchop Express (12)

(9) The Pullies (7) – 31,320 points by remaining teams

• Cooper Troopers (5)

• DTC Porkchop Express (12)

• Wait ‘Til Next Year (1)

• Win’s Up Doc (2)

• The BamO’s (6)

• $traight Cash Homie (8)

• SG Choppers (11)

(10) The BamO’s (6) – 31,680 points by remaining teams

• Ornery Otters (3)

• Sporty Strauss (4)

• Win’s Up Doc (2)

• Ornery Otters (4)

• The Pullies (7)

• $traight Cash Homie (8)

• SG Choppers (11)

(11) DTC Porkchop Express (12) – 31,920

• Wait ‘Til Next Year (1)

• The Pullies (7)

• Wait ‘Til Next Year (1)

• Las Cabras (9)

• Win’s Up Doc (2)

• Ornery Otters (3)

• Sporty Strauss (4)

(12) Sporty Strauss (4) – 32,100 points by remaining teams

• SG Choppers (11)

• The BamO’s (6)

• $traight Cash Homie (8)

• Wait ‘Til Next Year (1)

• Win’s Up Doc (2)

• Ornery Otters (3)

• DTC Porkchop Express (12)

Notes: Out of all the playoff hopeful teams, $traight Cash Homie (7) seems to have the easiest schedule remaining, which is why they are ahead of The Pullies (8) on the Power Rankings, who have an average remaining schedule. The Ornery Otters (3) also have a favorable outlook and should pencil themselves in for a playoff spot if they can beat The BamO’s this week.

On the flip side, The BamO’s (6) also have a tough draw the rest of the way. Sam is going to have to stay vigilant with lineups if he wants to compete. Sporty Strauss (4) is also in trouble based on the schedule, particularly after the Choppers this week. Then it’ll be 5 weeks of madness for him. He has the most difficult remaining schedule, which is going to lead to an exciting League of Leagues finish.

Current Playoff Seeding

1. Wait ‘Til Next Year (8-2) *BYE

2. Win’s Up Doc (7-3) *BYE

3. The Pullies (5-5)

4. Cooper Troopers (7-3)

5. Sporty Strauss (6-4)

6. Ornery Otters (5-5)

Consolation Bracket

1. The BamO’s (5-5) *BYE

2. Las Cabras (5-5) *BYE

3. $traight Cash Homie (4-6)

4. SG Choppers (3-7)

5. DTC Porkchop Express (2-7)

6. MN Moose Knuckles (2-7)

Week 10 High Score

• Ornery Otters (Korey)

• 532.5 points

Notes: Las Cabras put up one helluva fight against the Ornery Otters this week, but Korey’s MASSIVE week put that to rest. Paul Goldschmidt scored almost 50 points. Devers and Rizzo had over 30. Korey’s pitching was, for the most part, outstanding, and this team is really rounding into form, jumping up to 3rd in the Power Rankings. At this point, there’s a really chance the Ornery Otters could go on a run and potentially place this season. With a playoff win, the Ornery Otters could very well place 4th and cash out with the potential for more with a deep MLB run.

Week 10 Low Score

• DTC Porkchop Express (Craig)

• 313.5 points

Notes: This is just embarrassing at this point. DTC Porkchop Express is a disaster, and there’s a strong expectation that these will continue. Craig is still hitting his plays, but he’s clearly tanking. The lack of effort should lead towards a successful tanking run where he improves his Strauss Draft picks at the expense of league competition.

Week 10 MVP

• Clay Holmes and Michael King (Cooper Troopers)

• 21 points and 27.5 points (48.5 combined points)

Notes: A trade that has drawn much consternation gave the Cooper Troopers a win. Having poached relievers from Dye, Coop armed his Yankees bullpen against the team that traded them away. Clay Holmes and Michael King have been stellar relievers for the Cooper Troopers – a much needed addition to a team that isn’t doing any work to improve his bullpen outside of trades. Cooper now needs to pick up another reliever or two with some injuries, but Holmes, King and new acquisition Tanner Houck should provide a good enough bullpen. The Cooper Troopers look playoff bound, but they’ll be an easy out in Round 1. They’ll be a dream draw.

Week 10 LVP

• Trevor Rogers ($traight Cash Homie)

• -1.5 points

Notes: Want to know why $traight Cash Homie has a sub-.500 record despite being 4th in the league in scoring: Trevor Rogers is the answer. Like Zion in NBA, Jack also has the biggest bust in the MLB season this year. After finishing at 2nd in NL Rookie of the Year last year with a 2.64 ERA, Trevor Rogers now has a 6.11 ERA before today’s matchup against the Mets, which he will undoubtably get shelled again. His performances have completely crushed $traight Cash Homie time after time this season, only averaging about 8 fantasy points per game. For an SP, that’s disastrous.

Week 11 Matchups

• Wait ’Til Next Year (1) vs DTC Porkchop Express (12)

• Win’s Up Doc (2) vs MN Moose Knuckles (10)

• Ornery Otters (3) vs The BamO’s (6)

• Sporty Strauss (4) vs Shepherd Goods Choppers (11)

• Cooper Troopers (5) vs The Pullies (7)

• $traight Cash Homie (8) vs Las Cabras (9)

Week 11 MATCHUP of the WEEK

• Ornery Otters (3) vs The BamO’s (6)

Notes: Wowsers. This might be the most important matchup to date this season. It’d potentially be the biggest matchup of the year if there wasn’t a rematch in a few weeks. The BamO’s are ranked 5th in MLB points scored and the Ornery Otters are ranked 3rd, but both of these teams are only 5-5. They’ve had bad luck with the schedule, but one of them is about to secure a huge victory that should vault them into playoff contention.

A lot of this matchup depends on the health of The BamO’s. With a couple of pitchers down on the IL, Sam needs the rest of his staff to step up. Luckily, the rest of his staff looks like they have EXCELLENT pitching matchups this week. All 10 of Sam’s probably starters are better than Korey’s as long as Joe Musgrove comes off the COVID list before the weekend. In general, Sam’s starting staff is what’s leading him to a solid year. His lineup is slightly subpar, and he could use some help in that arena in trades, but his pitching is rock solid.

Korey is the opposite. His lineup has carried him down this 5-1 stretch in the middle of the season, and his pitching is trailing behind. This week is going to be a great test. He already traded for one arm, but could certainly use more, especially if he loses to The BamO’s as predicted.

Lineups (80 Hitter plays, 10 SP Plays)

C - Travis d’Arnaud vs Will Smith
1B - Paul Goldschmidt vs Pete Alonso
2B - Brandon Drury vs Jazz Chisholm, Jr.
3B - Rafael Devers vs Eduardo Escobar
SS - Trevor Story vs Dansby Swanson

CF - Luis Robert vs Starling Marte
CO - Ronald Acuna Jr. vs Max Kepler
CO - Ian Happ vs Randy Arozarena
DH - Anthony Rizzo vs Luke Voit

UTIL - DJ LeMahieu vs Jonah Heim
UTIL - Manuel Margot vs Rowdy Tellez
UTIL - Ke’Bryan Hayes vs Connor Joe
UTIL - Josh Donaldson vs Cody Bellinger

SP1 - Max Fried (SF) vs Joe Musgrove ??? (PHI)
SP2 - Max Fried (LAD) vs Miles Mikolas (CHC)
SP3 - Robbie Ray (@OAK) vs Logan Webb (CIN)
SP4 - Triston McKenzie (@MIN) vs Logan Webb (@ATL)
SP5 - Tyler Mahle (@SF) vs George Kirby (@OAK)
SP6 - Tyler Mahle (LAD) vs Corey Kluber (PIT)
SP7 - Brady Singer (OAK) vs Noah Syndergaard (KC)
SP8 - Kyle Freeland (@MIA) vs Noah Syndergaard (SEA)
SP9 - Bo Brieske (@BOS) vs Zach Plesac (@MIN)
SP10 - Chris Archer (COL) vs Hunter Greene (LAD)

Ornery Otters: Advantage at 8/22 positions
The BamO’s: Advantage at 14/22 positions

Week 10 MLB Power Rankings

Week 10 Power Rankings

      Tier 1
1- Wait ‘ Til Next Year (7-2) [-]
2- Win’s Up Doc (6-3) [+5]
3- Sporty Strauss (6-3) [+3]
4- The BamO’s (5-4) [+1]

       Tier 2
5- Ornery Otters (4-5) [+3]
6- $traight Cash Homie (4-5) [-4]
7- Cooper Troopers (6-3) [-2]
8- The Pullies (4-5) [-5]
9- Las Cabras (5-4) [-]

        Tier 3
10- Minnesota Moose Knuckles (2-7) [-]
11- Shepherd Goods Choppers (3-6) [-]
12- DTC Porkchop Express (2-7) [-]

(Tier 1) After a couple weeks of being at the top of the league on his own, Wait ‘Til Next Year (1) took a shocking, last-minute defeat at the hands of Win’s Up Doc (2). With a 135-point final day behind the stellar bats of Jose Altuve, Jeremy Pena and awesome free agent find William Contreras with the addition of STELLAR clutch pitching performances from Carlos Rodon and German Marquez, Win’s Up Doc reclaims his throne as the #2 team in the League of Leagues. We’ll see how long it stays that way, and Oat is still absolutely in need of some reinforcements to the starting staff, but this past week was an immensely a positive sign for a team that had lost 3 straight in a row to far inferior opponents than Wait ‘Til Next Year.

For Wait ‘Til Next Year, this means that his two losses so far this season are against Wait Til ‘Next Year AND Sporty Strauss, two teams that could overtake him for the 1-seed and potentially block him from a BYE if he ever goes on a cold streak. In general, these losses show that he’s not unbeatable by any stretch.

Speaking of Sporty Strauss (3), he’s also back on track this week after the Cabras debacle. He edged out the Cooper Troopers in ANOTHER much-needed victory, and it was a pretty darn close matchup. He would have lost to 7 other teams, so it’s not like Sporty Strauss is a juggernaut right now, but a win is a win for a team that should continue to get healthy as the season progresses. Strauss is beginning to find good starts from pitchers, and he had a massive week from reliever Kenley Jansen, who scored 32.5 points – an absurd total for an RP that swung this matchup (along with another player to be named later).

Onwards, after a 4-game winning streak, The BamO’s (4) are closer to a Tier 1 team than the rest of this lot, being at 5-4 with the inside track at winning the Shepherd Goods Division. But he’s still middle of the pack (6th) in scoring, and he has an unfavorable schedule the rest of the season, starting this week against Wait ‘Til Next Year. This past matchup, he had huge weeks from Eduardo Escobar and Brandon Crawford – both new additions along with Noah Syndergaard, who also performed well. And his usual suspects – Jazz Chisholm, Pete Alonso and Joe Musgrove – were also stellar, giving him the second highest scoring output of the week. Right now, The BamO’s are a little bit in a tier of their own in between Tier 1 and Tier 2, and they can prove their worth by being competitive against Wait ‘Til Next Year this week, win or lose.

(Tier 2) Elsewhere, the Ornery Otters (5) secured an absolutely CRUCIAL victory against $traight Cash Homie (6) in what was one of the most scintillating MLB League of Leagues contests to date. Going into the Sunday Night MLB game (Angels-Mets), Jack had a starting pitcher, Patrick Sandoval, who was absolutely dealing with 8 strikeouts and only one run allowed. Sandoval gave $traight Cash Homie a tie with three innings remaining when he got pulled, and Seth Lugo, a relief pitcher for the Ornery Otters, came in and scored 7 points to give the Ornery Otters a narrow 7-point victory. Now, both teams are have a 4-5 record and could be jockeying with each other for playoff spots.

Right now, there are 5 teams with 5 or 4 wins – a very muddled middle of the league. Another one in that group is The Pullies (7) who had a very poor performance against Las Cabras (9) – a loss that puts their playoff status in SERIOUS jeopardy. There’s a lot of blame to go around on The Pullies roster for the lowest scoring week in the league this week. Their catchers, Melendez and Vazquez, were both terrible with 32 total at bats. Frank Schwindel scored one point in 5 or 6 games. Patrick Wisdom scored 3 points in the same time period, and Eugenio Suarez wasn’t much better. Worst of all, Francisco Lindor scored only 4.5 points on the week, tanking The Pullies chances at winning. There were positive performances this week too (Buxton, Shohei), but almost entirely across the board, this was one of the worst hitting weeks in League of Leagues record. Las Cabras are the literal lowest-scoring team in the entire league, so dropping winnable games like this is a sure way to blow your chances at an MLB title.

Las Cabras themselves somehow enter Tier 2 after a 3-game win streak against playoff hopefuls (Doc, Strauss and Pullies). They are playing spoiler in the biggest way right now, despite making a win-now trade to bolster The BamO’s. Las Cabras have a real chance to sneak into the playoffs or, at the very least, secure that Consolation BYE which might help them get 4th place.

The final team to mention in Tier 2 might be, roster-wise, in the biggest trouble. The Cooper Troopers (7) suffered a devastating injury to Walker Buehler, who could be sidelined until the playoffs or even afterwards. It’s a crushing blow to a team that had gone on a bit of a run due to good pitching, and now Coop is going going to need some help to keep his 6-3 squad afloat. He’s gotten lucky with wins and injuries thus far, and his upcoming schedule is still spectacularly favorable. With 2 games against the SG Choppers’ completely rehabbed tanking roster in the next 3 weeks and a Pullies matchup sandwiched in between them combined with each of another Cabras and Moose Knuckles matchup in late-season divisional play, the Cooper Troopers could get to that coveted 9 or 10-win plateau pretty easily and still make the playoffs. All is not lost for avoiding that last-place penalty unless this team totally tanks down the stretch.

(Tier 3) The Shepherd Goods Choppers (11) are an enigmatic squad. They are 8th in points scored despite trading away most of their contributing players. The roster is relatively bereft, but it’s still winning games… albeit against the struggling MN Moose Knuckles (10). In general, it looks like the Choppers and Moose Knuckles are circling each other for a hugely important ‘tanking’ round 1 of the playoffs. Both teams will be wanting desperately to lose (though Dye would certainly avoid last place with a win).

DTC Porkchop Express are the sewer of the league right now. There isn’t much to say about the most boring roster in the league.

Current Playoff Seeding

1. Wait ‘Til Next Year (7-2) *BYE

2. Win’s Up Doc (6-3) *BYE

3. The BamO’s (5-4)

4. Sporty Strauss (6-3)

5. Cooper Troopers (6-3)

6. Las Cabras (5-4)

Consolation Bracket

1. Ornery Otters (4-5) *BYE

2. The Pullies (4-5) *BYE

3. $traight Cash Homie (4-5)

4. SG Choppers (3-6)

5. DTC Porkchop Express (2-7)

6. MN Moose Knuckles (2-7)

Week 9 High Score

• Win’s Up Doc (Oat)

• 502 points

Notes: A lower-scoring week in general allows Doc to narrowly edge The BamO’s for a high score. It couldn’t have come at a better time too. Unlike teams over the past couple of weeks who have been pounding poor teams, Win’s Up Doc beat the best team in the league with the highest score. It doesn’t get better than that.

Week 9 Low Score

• The Pullies (Eric/Peter)

• 402 points

Notes: On the flip side, The Pullies were the lowest scoring team and they lost to the second lowest scoring team. It doesn’t get worse than that. With just a little bit more production or lineup maneuvering, the Pullies could have won this game easily.

Week 9 MVP

• Justin Verlander (Sporty Strauss)

• 72 points

Notes: Holy smokes. 72 points!? I’m not sure that’s a record, but it has to be up there. In two starts, JV allowed one earned run with 17 strikeouts, without one of those starts, Strauss would have likely lost and been in serious jeopardy. Verlander just saved his season.

Week 8 LVP

• MacKenzie Gore (MN Moose Knuckles)

• -8.5 points

Notes: There was still time for the MN Moose Knuckles to claw their way back into contention, but not after this week. Hall’s season is toast because he just cannot get consistent starting pitching. MacKenzie gore is the latest in a long line of disappointing starts, going 2.1 innings with 6 earned runs. Chris Bassitt also scored in the negatives this week with a couple other starters at 11 points or less. Such a disappointment.

Week 10 Matchups

• Wait ’Til Next Year (1) vs The BamO’s (4)

• Win’s Up Doc (2) vs $traight Cash Homie (6)

• Sporty Strauss (3) vs MN Moose Knuckles (10)

• Ornery Otters (5) vs Las Cabras (9)

• The Pullies (8) vs DTC Porkchop Express (12)

• Cooper Troopers (7) vs Shepherd Goods Choppers (11)

Week 10 MATCHUP of the WEEK

• Win’s Up Doc (2) vs $traight Cash Homie (6)

Notes: What a huge matchup at this point in the season. For $traight Can Homie, there is so much on the line. He can’t afford to keep dropping games in such a tight playoff race, and he has a legitimate shot at a BYE if he can beat Win’s Up Doc. He has vaulted up to 4th in points scored, but the wins just aren’t coming. He’s had some bad luck (after some good luck early this season) and now has to fight for his playoff life.

On the other side, there’s even more at stake for Win’s Up Doc. This is the only matchup this season between these two teams, so if Doc loses, he’s putting himself in jeopardy of a lost H2H tiebreaker. The schedule the rest of the way for Win’s Up Doc is pretty brutal, particularly given the division, and Doc needs all the wins he can muster to keep up with Sporty Strauss who plays a terrible team this week.

In terms of the matchup itself, expect this to be a VERY high scoring affair. Both starting pitching staffs have EXCELLENT matchups this week, playing some of the worst teams in all of baseball. Win’s Up Doc has the edge in terms of pitchers with multiple-start weeks, but not by much. The starting pitching looks to be dead even this week.

Hitting, on the other hand, still goes to Win’s Up Doc, who simply has a deeper team than $traight Cash Homie, though not by a wide margin. Jack still has the best hitter, Aaron Judge, in this matchup.

Either way this one shakes out, the fireworks are going to be flying early this summer!

Lineups (80 Hitter plays, 10 SP Plays)

C - William Contreras vs Keibert Ruiz
1B - Freddie Freeman vs Vladimir Guerrero
2B - Jose Altuve vs Andres Gimenez
3B - Nolan Arenado vs Austin Riley
SS - Xander Bogaerts vs Christopher Morel

CF - Joc Pederson vs Aaron Judge
CO - Kyle Tucker vs Yordan Alvarez
CO - Michael Brantley vs Austin Hays
DH - Josh Bell vs Jorge Soler

UTIL - Carlos Correa vs Christian Walker
UTIL - Jeremy Pena vs Brendan Rodgers
UTIL - Jose Abreu vs Gleyber Torres
UTIL - Wilmer Flores vs Ramon Laureano

SP1 - Kevin Gausman (BAL) vs Sean Manaea (@CHC)
SP2 - Yu Darvish (@CHC) vs Frankie Montas (KC)
SP3 - Yu Darvish (@COL) vs Martin Perez (@DET)
SP4 - Carlos Rodon (@PIT) vs Nick Pivetta (OAK)
SP5 - Tyler Anderson (LAA) vs Zac Gallen (CIN)
SP6 - Michael Wacha (STL) vs Luis Castillo (@ARI)
SP7 - Alex Wood (KC) vs Patrick Sandoval (@SEA)
SP8 - Alex Wood (@PIT) vs Trevor Rogers (@PHI)
SP9 - Paul Blackburn (@BOS) vs Dane Dunning (@DET)
SP10 - German Marquez (SD) vs Jose Urquidy (@TEX)

Win’s Up Doc: Advantage at 13/20 positions
$traight Cash Homie: Advantage at 7/20 positions

Week 9 MLB Power Rankings

Week 9 Power Rankings

      Tier 1
1- Wait ‘ Til Next Year (7-1) [-]

       Tier 2
2- $traight Cash Homie (4-4) [+5]
3- The Pullies (4-4) [+3]
4- Cooper Troopers (6-2) [+1]
5- The BamO’s (4-4) [+2]
6- Sporty Strauss (5-3) [-4]
7- Win’s Up Doc (5-3) [-4]
8- Ornery Otters (3-5) [-4]

          Tier 3
9- Las Cabras (4-4) [-]
10- Minnesota Moose Knuckles (2-6) [-]
11- Shepherd Goods Choppers (2-6) [-]
12- DTC Porkchop Express (2-6) [-]

(Tier 1) Now, even more than ever, Wait ‘Til Next Year (1) is in a league of his own. It’s not that he’s the most dominant team of all time – after all, even the Choppers gave him a run this week – but he now has a 1.5 game lead over any other team in the league, including the upstart Cooper Troopers, against whom he has a head-to-head over.

(Tier 2) After previously being top-3 teams, the big story this week is the continual decline of Sporty Strauss (6) and Win’s Up Doc (7). As the two lowest-scoring teams this week, they don’t deserve wins at all. They are closer to bottom-tier right now than reclaiming their spots in the top-3. Trades from these teams are required to even make the playoffs, which Sporty Strauss has a higher chance of making than Win’s Up Doc based primarily on their schedules over the next couple of weeks.

Sporty Strauss plays the Cooper Troopers, MN Moose Knuckles, and SG Choppers the next three weeks before some more difficult teams down the stretch while Win’s Up Doc only has one game against at bottom-4 team the next 7 weeks. He also draws Wait ‘Til Next Year this week, which should drop him to his 4th straight loss. In general, if Wait ‘Til Next Year can keep pace with Sporty Strauss over the next month, he has a good chance of winning that division.

But don’t forget about the Ornery Otters (8), who pretty much had a schedule loss this week. All of his good pitchers (literally) pitched twice last week, so he was stuck with scraps this week to try to get enough pitching plays. His offense still produced, but it was too little/too late. He’s dropping spots in the Power Rankings, but all of these teams are razor close.

That somehow includes the Cooper Troopers (4) who, absurdly, are 6-2. They are ranked 4th-to-last in points, but are 4 games over .500. It’s discussed every week, but Coop’s ascension has officially become too powerful to turn away from. If 9 wins is the bar to make the playoffs, the Cooper Troopers could go 3-6 the rest of the season and still make the playoffs. His team isn’t as terrible as the 9th-ranked points he’s scored, and it got better last week, and luck is on his side… so who knows what happens. He could even get a BYE if everything breaks right.

This continues to leave $traight Cash Homie (2) as the best candidate for last place in the League of Leagues, despite a good-to-great baseball team. After making the Luis Castillo trade, the Homies look really solid. All it took was the DTC to come to town for Jack to explode. Right now, he’s in a dogfight for #Shepherd Goods Division, and he needs to stay focused to fend off the next couple of teams.

The Pullies (3) beat Win’s Up Doc – a big mid-season matchup. They currently hold the 3-seed, but are tied for a division lead at 4-4 with Jack and Sam. When clicking, The Pullies are quite scary. But they lack depth to withstand bad weeks or injuries. So do the Homies, so any injuries or unfortunate situations could flip this division race in a hurry.

The BamO’s (5) aren’t far behind. They are 3rd in points between those teams, but the team is rounding into form too. The trick with Sam is the schedule. He plays DTC Porkchop Express in a matchup he absolutely needs to win this week, and then he goes on a gauntlet for 7 straight matchups with no Tier 3 teams on the schedule. It’s going to be tough for him, but the apparent weakness of some of these top dogs leaves The BamO’s with a window to pounce.

In general, these 7 teams are all firmly ‘Tier 2'. All have a good chance of making the playoffs, and matchups between any of these 7 will be must-see TV every single matchup. It’s going to be an exciting race for 5 playoff spots.

(Tier 3) Las Cabras (9) are getting gifts from the schedule, including Sporty Strauss’ 370-point week last week. As a result, they are 4-4 with a legitimate chance to sneak into the playoffs or AT LEAST get a consolation BYE, which would be huge. They still have a great chance to place 4th in the league of leagues and take home a bit of the pot. They’d have made money this season with that, getting the 2nd place NFL prize as well as $500 4th-place.

Elsewhere in Tier 3, SG Choppers (10) probably could have found a way to win this week, but it was Kyle, so it was a tall task. He’s still content with a loss, tanking to get a better NBA draft pick while the Cooper Troopers and $traight Cash Homies try to win games. But that could result in last place, and #DyeWatch is on.

The MN Moose Knuckles (11) are the forgotten team – a bad team who still has a lot of talent. It will be curious to see if he starts offloading any to go for broke and try to procure a coveted 3rd or 4th overall Strauss selection. DTC Porkchop Express (12) will be watching that race to the bottom very closely.

Current Playoff Seeding

1. Wait ‘Til Next Year (7-1) *BYE

2. Win’s Up Doc (5-3) *BYE

3. The Pullies (4-4)

4. Cooper Troopers (6-2)

5. Sporty Strauss (5-3)

6. $traight Cash Homie (4-4)

Consolation Bracket

1. The BamO’s (4-4) *BYE

2. Ornery Otters (3-5) *BYE

3. Las Cabras (4-4)

4. SG Choppers (2-6)

5. DTC Porkchop Express (2-6)

6. MN Moose Knuckles (2-6)

Week 8 High Score

• $traight Cash Homie (Jack)

• 602.5 points

Notes: A new league record! $traight Cash Homies just SMACKED the 12th-ranked into team to oblivion in one of the most lopsided contests since Jack was on the other side of blowouts towards the end of NBA. It’s going to be truly fascinating to see how $traight Cash Homies (and the Cooper Troopers) fare down the stretch to avoid last place. This week, Jack was led by absurd weeks by some unlikely sources like Brendan Rodgers, Christopher Morel and Martin Perez as well as the likely sources of Vlad, Austin Riley, Judge and an outsdanding week from Jordan Alvarez, who hit 4 homers. The back-end of his lineup is playing better, and his pitchers have been more than serviceable.

Week 9 Low Score

• Win’s Up Doc (Oat)

• 368 points

Notes: 3 straight weeks. 3 straight disappointments for the previously ranked #1 overall team. Win’s Up Doc wanted to be removed from the #1 spot in these power rankings, but he’s been even worse ever since – an absolute #ShotShow. Now, he draws Win’s Up Doc: a matchup sure to send his middling team down to 5-4 and his 4th consecutive loss.

When will the bleeding end? Why, that’s a good question… his schedule down the stretch is very tough. The only team remaining on his schedule that is in Tier 3 is Las Cabras. Win’s Up Doc, right now is in dire straights, and making the playoffs is far from a guarantee. Oat looks more and more like a 3rd place finish in League of Leagues as a whole unless his team improves in short order. And right now, odds are that he misses the playoffs entirely in MLB.

Week 8 MVP

• Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber (Wait ‘Til Next Year)

• 35 points

Notes: Each player had exactly 35 points this week, so it’s impossible to separate them and award one over the other. This is the backbone of Wait ‘Til Next Year’s team – unbelievable dominant hitters who can get hot at the right times. After Harper, Schwarber and Soto, the rest of his team struggled this week to varying degrees, allowing the SG Choppers to mount a near-upset. But the big guns got it done at the end.

Week 8 LVP

• Ryan Yarbrough (Ornery Otters)

• -13 points

Notes: As mentioned before, the Otters’ pitching situation this week was a DISASTER. He was forced to start guys like Ryan Yarbrough in multiple situations, and he tanked him, pitching 1.2 innings while giving up 6 runs, almost singlehandedly flipping this matchup. It won’t always be this bad for Korey, but this is the flaw with his team – lack of pitching depth. Without an improvement there, the Otters will also be on the outside looking in towards the playoffs.

Week 9 Matchups

• Wait ’Til Next Year (1) vs Win’s Up Doc (7)

• $traight Cash Homie (2) vs Ornery Otters (8)

• The Pullies (3) vs Las Cabras (9)

• Cooper Troopers (4) vs Sporty Strauss (5)

• The BamO’s (5) vs DTC Porkchop Express (12)

• MN Moose Knuckles (10) vs Shepherd Goods Choppers (11)

Week 9 MATCHUP of the WEEK

• Sporty Strauss (5) vs Cooper Troopers (4)

Notes: This matchup shows why Sporty Strauss (5) is currently on the ‘pretenders’ list instead of the contenders. This team has a LOT of holes, shown in depth in the player breakdown. The top of the roster is GREAT – it’s hard to get better than Trout, Betts, Stanton and France and one’s 4 best hitters. Verlander has been outstanding as well.

But things fall apart the further you get away from the top of the lineup. Sporty Strauss has the worst catcher situation in the league so far, though it could turn around. The other last 3 hitters in the lineup are also relatively pitiful. It’s not the strength of the Cooper Troopers’ team either, but Coop has more depth than Strauss does right now.

Injuries are certainly a factor for Sporty Strauss right now as well – particularly in the rotation. And this is where Sporty Strauss is truly awful. His top-two pitchers are great, but it falls apart quickly after Verlander and Cease. It’s a disaster, actually. This has to be the worst rotation in the league right now.

Lineups (80 Hitter plays, 10 SP Plays)

C - Yasmani Grandal vs JT Realmuto
1B - Ty France vs Josh Naylor
2B - Nolan Gorman vs Kolten Wong
3B - Manny Machado vs Jose Ramirez
SS - JP Crawford vs Corey Seager

CF - Mike Trout vs Julio Rodriguez
CO - Mookie Betts vs Adolis Garcia
CO - Giancarlo Stanton vs Josh Rojas
DH - Alex Bregman vs Rhys Hoskins

UTIL - Nick Castellanos vs Randal Grichuk
UTIL - Enrique Hernandez vs Alex Verdugo
UTIL - Adam Frazier vs Bryan Reynolds
UTIL - Joey Votto vs Ryan McMahon

SP1 - Justin Verlander vs Nestor Cortes Jr.
SP2 - Dylan Cease vs Zack Wheeler
SP3 - Edward Cabrera (x1) vs Walker Buehler
SP4 - Edward Cabrera (x2) vs Tarik Skubal
SP5 - Josiah Gray vs Eric Lauer
SP6 - Kyle Gibson vs Cal Quantrill (x1)
SP7 - Jose Quintana (x1) vs Cal Quantrill (x2)
SP8 - Jose Quintana (x2) vs Drew Rasmussen
SP9 - Roansy Contreras vs Keegan Thompson (x1)
SP10 - Jeffrey Springs vs Keegan Thompson (x2)

Sporty Strauss: Advantage at 7/19 positions
Cooper Troopers: Advantage at 12/21 positions

Week 8 MLB Power Rankings

Week 8 Power Rankings

      Tier 1
1- Wait ‘ Til Next Year (6-1) [-]

       Tier 2
2- Sporty Strauss (5-2) [-]
3- Win’s Up Doc (5-2) [-]
4- Ornery Otters (3-4) [+1]
5- Cooper Troopers (5-2) [+1]
6- The Pullies (3-4) [+1]
7- $traight Cash Homie (3-4) [-3]
8- The BamO’s (3-4) [-]

          Tier 3
9- Las Cabras (3-4) [+1]
10- Minnesota Moose Knuckles (2-5) [-1]
11- Shepherd Goods Choppers (2-5) [-]
12- DTC Porkchop Express (2-5) [-]

(Tier 1) Wait ‘Til Next Year has a BYE almost complete locked up. After the hot starts from Sporty Strauss (2) and Win’s Up Doc (3), both teams are in massive slumps leaving Wait ‘Til Next Year as the only truly dominant team left in the league. He’s easily the favorite to win it all right now with Strauss, Doc AND the Ornery Otters duking it out for that 2-seed.

It’s to the point now where Kyle could start selling players if he wanted to. The odds that someone from the SG Division would catch him are pretty slim, and the Cooper Troopers are still a bit of a sheep in wolf’s clothing. Big congrats to Wait ‘Til Next Year on the playoff berth.

(Tier 2) What do you do when Sporty Strauss (2) and Win’s Up Doc (3) are the two lowest-scoring teams of the week? You demote them to Tier 2 of course!! Both teams have built up enough points and cred to stay at 2 and 3 in the rankings, but they aren’t close to Wait ‘Til Next Year right now. The starting rotations are falling apart for both of these squads, and its past time they made some moves to address those weaknesses. Sporty Strauss didn’t get more than 27.5 points from any starters this week and Woodruff got banged up. He needs reinforcements ASAP. Win’s Up Doc was even worse. He had 2 pitchers with decent weeks, and then 7 with awful weeks. The injuries have been piling up for both, but that’s no excuse not to be working the waiver wire for plus matchups or to have the depth to withstand the inevitable injuries.

Both Sporty Strauss and Win’s Up Doc are playing like inexperienced MLB fantasy owners right now, and they aren’t going to have a real chance down the stretch if they don’t stay on their game. MLB is a war of attrition, and hot starts don’t count for squat anymore. These teams are firmly towards the middle of the pack.

The Ornery Otters (4), on the other hand, knew that MLB was a long season. Korey didn’t freak out. He didn’t sell off. He just waited until the matchups came his way, and then he’s won 3 straight. The Choppers put up a hell of a fight too, but the Otters still snuck out a narrow victory, which is massive for the team going forward. It’s unlikely, but the Otters are still in play for the #Nolo’s Division. If Sporty Strauss and Win’s Up Doc continue to struggle – which all signs point to – the Otters could be a force to be reckoned with, taking advantage of the sheer cockiness of the top-2 #Nolo’s teams.

Behind them, somehow the Cooper Troopers (5) keep winning! They don’t belong this high on the rankings, but 5-2 with a juicy opportunity this week (explained later) is hard to ignore. At some point, he’ll start going on a skid, and he could really use some help around the edge of his roster, but the Cooper Troopers are in GREAT shape.

Then things get really messy. The Pullies (6), $traight Cash Homie (7) and The BamO’s (8) are all tied for the lead in the Shepherd Goods Division, and this is going to be one of the most notable races to follow the entire season. All teams are remarkable equal, evidenced by being 5th-7th in season-long scoring so far. The Pullies (6) have the most points and have wins over each of the other two teams tied at 3-4, so they get the nod. $traight Cash Homie (7) has just been mired in battles with tough opponents, and his team is looking much stronger right now. The BamO’s (8) are in the most trouble with a tougher schedule, but they are no slouch. These teams should all be contending for the playoffs.

(Tier 3) Las Cabras (9) pull one of the biggest upsets of the season over Win’s Up Doc. That gets them SOME credit, but not enough to sneak up into Tier 2 yet. But they are 3-4, and they are right in the thick of things. All they need is continued luck to stay in the race and maintain pace with a 6-seed. A playoff berth would be huge for their season-long points and could get them 4th place with the potential for higher if their team gets healthy. It’s still a poorly constructed roster, but Las Cabras will put the effort in to winning games.

Just like the SG Choppers (11) who really shouldn’t be this low except for the fact that they are the only team to sell so far. They’ve been scrappy. They’ve had multiple narrow losses this season. They are no pushover, and Dye should be proud of how his team has played so far.

On th flip side, the MN Moose Knuckles (10) need to finally consider throwing in the towel. Everything has broken poorly for them this season from getting stuck with leftover budget in the auction to poor pitcher performances to reaching for vets that aren’t going to be on this team long term. For a rebuilding team, this team is kind of a disaster. The core of this team: Trae Turner, Semien, Chapman, Muncy, Berrios, and others are all around 30 years old. Then instead of taking young players like the other rebuilding teams, Hall took guys like JD Martinez, Justin Turner and Nelson Cruz. Those veterans need to get moved at some point if he’s going to stay at the bottom of the league, but they won’t fetch much. Other than in NBA, the MN Moose Knuckles had one of the worst first years in the League of Leagues.

DTC Porkchop Express was more feisty than the Moose Knuckles this week, but right now, McCall is the toilet of MLB. And he’s okay with that. He’s just waiting until next season.

Current Playoff Seeding

1. Wait ‘Til Next Year (BYE)

2. Win’s Up Doc (BYE)

3. The Pullies

4. Sporty Strauss

5. Cooper Troopers

6. Ornery Otters

7. $traight Cash Homie (BYE)

8. The BamO’s (BYE)

9. Las Cabras

10. SG Choppers

11. DTC Porkchop Express

12. MN Moose Knuckles

Week 7 High Score

• The Pullies (Peter/Eric)

• 520 points

Notes: The Pullies are back!! After getting off to a hot start, they began resting on their laurels a little bit. They got a bit lazy, but now they are back in the game, much to the chagrin of the MN Moose Knuckles, who have just been getting slapped silly by teams all season long. The Pullies this week were led by strong performances from their Mets, Lindor and Jeff McNeil, their Royals hitters, Merrifield and Dozier, and strong starting performances from Gilbert, Burnes, Manoah, Framer and Jordan Montgomery. The Pullies will look to keep the streak alive against sliding Win’s Up Doc next week.

Week 7 Low Score

• Sporty Strauss (Strauss)

• 383 points

Notes: Strauss hasn’t been near the bottom of the league in points since his late rut in NFL. This is a damning turn of events for a contender, and now he needs to start worrying about losing a head-to-head against a team like The BamO’s. Strauss is not guaranteed a playoff spot right now, especially if performances like this keep happening.

Week 7 MVP

• Paul Goldschmidt (Ornery Otters)

• 38.5 points

Notes: Paul Goldschmidt is one of the biggest steals of the draft. He was left out there until the late 3rd round, and only 3 other hitters have scored more points than he has all season. He’s been the #1 reason for the Ornery Otters turnaround, and he’s a good enough player to keep at this pace. But he’s 34, and the Otters would surely part with him for the right price.

Week 7 LVP

• Anthony Bass ($traight Cash Homie)

• -6.5 points

Notes: Despite making moves (that have paid dividends despite two losses), $traight Cash Homie is still an incomplete team. In fact, there are a litany of players that could have been chosen for this award. Patrick Sandoval blew a nice start on Sunday that could have easily given Jack the win. Camilo Duval and Rowan Wick were two horrible relievers this week. His middle infield options of Andres Gimenez, Michael Chavis and even Brendan Rodgers were awful, blowing big weeks from Gleyber, Christopher Morel, and others. Ramon Laureano hasn’t gotten his bat going, and Spencer Torkelson has been a massive bust so far in a Tigers uniform. Jack has some amazing players, but he has too many bad ones eating up spots in his lineup. He might not need to give up what he traded to Dye or anything close to that, but there are moves this team could make along the edges of his roster, now that his Starting pitching is well in place that could pay dividends. Your weak players hurt you just as much as your stars help.

Week 8 Matchups

• Wait ’Til Next Year (1) vs Shepherd Goods Choppers (11)

• Sporty Strauss (2) vs Las Cabras (9)

• Win’s Up Doc (3) vs The Pullies (6)

• Ornery Otters (4) vs Cooper Troopers (5)

• $traight Cash Homie (7) vs DTC Porkchop Express (12)

• The BamO’s (8) vs MN Moose Knuckles (10)

Week 8 MATCHUP of the WEEK

• Ornery Otters (4) vs Cooper Troopers (5)

Notes: This matchup exposes both teams as pretenders. It’s not that these teams are bad, per say, they are just incomplete. VERY incomplete. As you can see by the breakdown, the Ornery Otters have a near monopoly on hitting strength. They have 13 really solid hitters that have been hot for 3+ straight weeks led by Goldschmidt, Acuna and more. The Ke’Bryan trade landed Korey his last true starter in the lineup, and it’s made the squad look really nice

But the pitching is near-disastrous. The Cooper Troopers probably have one of the 4 worst pitching staffs in the League of Leagues, but this week, they still dominate the Ornery Otters at every turn. Cortes has been a revelation, and then the Cooper Troopers have 3 solid-to-great starter with 2 matchups this week. This allows the Cooper Troopers to maybe play one subpar pitcher the whole week, while the Ornery Otters don’t have a single starter with multiple matchups.

This discrepancy in multiple start weeks for the players skews this matchup HEAVILY in favor of the Cooper Troopers, and it will be an interesting test case for the League of Leagues. Can a team with a hitting-heavy build truly compete in a matchup with a significant disadvantage in Starting Pitching? How valuable are SPs really in the short term? And can a team like the Cooper Troopers with a purely average or below-average lineup count on good pitching matchups to win a week.

It’ll be a fascinating test, and an important one. The Ornery Otters have clawed back into the playoff race, but still have a lot of work to do. And the Cooper Troopers have gotten lucky with the schedule. Despite scoring more in recent weeks, Coop is still near the bottom in points scored. He needs all the wins he can get if he wants to sneak into the playoffs.

Lineups (80 Hitter plays, 10 SP Plays)

C - Travis d’Arnaud vs JT Realmuto
1B - Paul Goldschmidt vs Rhys Hoskins
2B - Brandon Drury vs Kolten Wong
3B - Rafael Devers vs Jose Ramirez
SS - Trevor Story vs Corey Seager

CF - Luis Robert (??) vs Julio Rodriguez
CO - Ronald Acuna Jr. vs Adolis Garcia
CO - Manuel Margot vs Randal Grichuk
DH - Anthony Rizzo vs Gavin Lux

UTIL - Ian Happ vs Alek Thomas
UTIL - DJ LeMahieu vs Ryan McMahon
UTIL - Ke’Bryan Hayes vs Alex Verdugo
UTIL - Gary Sanchez vs Bryan Reynolds

SP1 - Max Fried vs Nestor Cortes Jr.
SP2 - Robbie Ray vs Walker Buehler (#1)
SP3 - Sonny Gray vs Walker Buehler (#2)
SP4 - Brady Singer vs Zack Wheeler
SP5 - Marcus Stroman vs Eric Lauer (#1)
SP6 - Kyle Freeland vs Eric Lauer (#2)
SP7 - Zack Greinke vs Tarik Skubal
SP8 - Tyler Mahle vs Drew Rasmussen (#1)
SP9 - Chris Archer vs Drew Rasmussen (#2)
SP10 - ???? vs Cal Quantrill

Ornery Otters: Advantage at 10/21 positions
Cooper Troopers: Advantage at 11/21 positions

Week 7 MLB Power Rankings

Week 7 Power Rankings

      Tier 1
1- Wait ‘ Til Next Year (5-1) [+2]
2- Sporty Strauss (5-1) [-]
3- Win’s Up Doc (5-1) [-2]

       Tier 2
4- $traight Cash Homie (3-3) [+1]
5- Ornery Otters (2-4) [+1]
6- Cooper Troopers (4-2) [+3]
7- The Pullies (2-4) [-]
8- The BamO’s (2-4) [-]
9- Minnesota Moose Knuckles (2-4) [-5]

          Tier 3
10- Las Cabras (2-4) [-]
11- Shepherd Goods Choppers (2-4) [+1]
12- DTC Porkchop Express (2-4) [-1]

(Tier 1) Despite losing to Sporty Strauss (2) last week, Wait ‘Til Next Year (1) finally takes the top spot mostly due to the fact that Sporty Strauss and Win’s Up Doc (3) will be battling each other all year for a BYE while Wait ‘Til Next Year could have a BYE locked up earlier than McCall’s bedtime. Kyle’s superior knowledge of MLB as a whole gives him an edge over Strauss and Oat. This will always be his sport in LoL to lose.

Doc and Strauss are both getting hammered by pitching injuries and need to make some moves to stay afloat. Oat specifically lost Max Scherzer recently and that was a big reason he lost to the Cooper Troopers this week, a team that is 11th overall in scoring this season. So both Sporty Strauss and Win’s Up Doc look weaker this week than last, even despite Sporty Strauss’ league-leading 5-game win streak.

(Tier 2) Somehow, after 6 weeks of play… a record 7 teams (!!!) have the same record at 2-4. This means that 7 teams are, quite literally, tied for the last playoff spot. And holding the 5-seed right now are the Cooper Troopers (6), who just pulled off a MASSIVE upset over Win’s Up Doc. This is the type of win that could reap huge for Coop down the line, because Doc was smashing all other teams. Coop got bailed out with a weak Doc week, and only plays two members of the #Big3 the entire rest of the season. Still, the Cooper Troopers should not be expected to make the playoffs given their current points output. Moves would be needed to be made to provide a little bit more of a backbone to this team, but there are underperforming players like Javi Baez and JT Realmuto that could step up at some point.

Even though he’s two games behind the Cooper Troopers the Ornery Otters move up to 5th in the Power Rankings after a truly dominant week, despite getting off to a 0-4 start. The schedule is lightening up, and Korey hit the smackdown this week. It will be interesting to see if this meteoric rise over the last two weeks continues, and all signs point to some staying power given that Korey is 4th in the league in points. With Acuna and Story finally getting hot, this is as scary a lineup as there is in the League of Leagues. The pitching could use lots of help though and was the primary reason for that slow start. We’ll see what gives with the Ornery Otters, but they’ve cemented themselves as frisky contenders the last two weeks.

$traight Cash Homie (4) is down at 7th in the league in points – very close to the measly Choppers’ points output and this week was a disappointment. Sporty Strauss was beatable, and Jack still dropped this game. He is barely ahead of the slew of 2-4 teams wrestling for his division and the last two wild card spots

The Pullies (7) and The BamO’s (8) come in next in the rankings precisely because that division is so weak. The BamO’s barely beat Las Cabras and held on at the last second thanks mostly to a nice final night of relief pitching. They withheld a furious Cabras comeback. The Pullies, on the other hand, dropped their 4th straight game. However, the last 3 losses are to teams in the top-5 of the current Power Rankings, so it’s unwise to completely overreact. But even still, unfortunately for The Pullies, the schedule doesn’t really lighten up for a few weeks. At some point, they’re going to have to beat some teams and show some fight if they want to win this division or even just make the playoffs.

The MN Moose Knuckles (9) had a very down week and should now be considered closer to the bottom of the league than a playoff hopeful. Hall is getting some poor performances from starters and relievers alike and the lineup hasn’t been much better. There’s still potential with this team if the rotation can figure itself out, but the MN Moose Knuckles have to be feeling daunted by the prospects of continuing to win games when they’re dropping contests to the likes of the previously 1-4 Ornery Otters like they did this week. There are some truly disappointing losses on this schedule.

(Tier 3) Las Cabras (10) blew their game against The BamO’s by not setting a full lineup. One has to start wondering if they are slyly tanking, only playing 72 players in a completely winnable matchup. One or two more well-timed players would have gotten this win and they’d be sitting at 3-3 with the inside pull for a playoff spot. Instead, they are firmly Tier 3 as the lowest-scoring team in the league.

Their company is DTC Porkchop Express (12) and the SG Choppers (11) who have moved onto next year already, and that’s just fine by them. They have promising long-term players with extra draft capital in the coming League of League season. Both will have long, drawn-out, painful MLB seasons as they circle each other around the drain, but next year should be far better for these squads.

For Dye, beating DTC Porkchop Express just proves to himself that he can do that again in the Consolation Tournament, which would be huge when it comes to season-long scoring and avoiding the last-place penalty. But he still has to feel icky about $traight Cash Homie and the Cooper Troopers occupying the 3rd and 5th seeds in the current playoffs.

Current Playoff Seeding

1. Wait ‘Til Next Year (BYE)

2. Win’s Up Doc (BYE)

3. $traight Cash Homie

4. Sporty Strauss

5. Cooper Troopers

6. Ornery Otters

7. The BamO’s (BYE)

8. SG Choppers (BYE)

9. DTC Porkchop Express

10. Las Cabras

11. The Pullies

12. MN Moose Knuckles

Week 6 High Score

• Ornery Otters (Korey)

• 562 points

Notes: Nobody had topped over 500 points in a regular week, and the Ornery Otters were one of two teams to blow the lid off the previous high scoring weeks. It’s an impressive tour de force by the Otters, who now should be considered firmly in the contender category. They could go off like this on any given week, spanking opponents like… well… we can leave that unsaid.

Week 6 Low Score

• MN Moose Knuckles (Hall)

• 336 points

Notes: The MN Moose Knuckles are a tough team to peg right now. The offense just isn’t good enough most weeks, and his pitching has just been too up and down to truly rely upon. As a result, he’s 2-4 and, if the season ended today, would be the 12-seed. That’s a sad state of affairs for a team that could have competed hard with a good draft for 3rd place. Luckily for Hall, he’s still tied for the last playoff spot. He’s just losing too many games to the likes of Korey, Craig and Cooper.

Week 6 MVP

• Randy Arozarena (The BamO’s)

• 34.5 points

Notes: Randy Arozarena is a nice #HUNK that can provide weeks like this preying on the Tigers and Orioles’ pitching staffs. Without one of his 3 home runs this week, The BamO’s would have lost and been the only team at 1-5. Instead, they are right back in the thick of things.

Week 6 LVP

• Travis Demerritte (Las Cabras)

• -5 points

Notes: Here’s Demerritte’s weekly stat line for Las Cabras: 23 at-bats and 10 strikeouts. Again… red flags should be raised about Las Cabras tanking with someone performing this poorly in their lineup all week. It’s concerning to say the least.

Week 7 Matchups

• Wait ’Til Next Year (1) vs $traight Cash Homie (4)

• Sporty Strauss (2) vs The BamO’s (8)

• Win’s Up Doc (3) vs Las Cabras (10)

• Ornery Otters (5) vs Shepherd Goods Choppers (11)

• Cooper Troopers (6) vs DTC Porkchop Express (12)

• The Pullies (7) vs MN Moose Knuckles (8)

Week 7 MATCHUP of the WEEK

• Wait ’Til Next Year (1) vs $traight Cash Homie (4)

Notes: This is likelier to be a blowout than not, but $traight Cash Homie still needs he can play with the big boys. After making a big trade last week to shore up his pitching staff, $traight Cash Homie still feels on a significant tier below Wait ‘Til Next Year and the other members of the #Big3.

Even just competing against Kyle’s juggernaut offense would be a good sign for $traight Cash Homie. It’ll make him feel better about squaring off with one of them in the second round of the playoffs, but that’s putting the cart before the horse – $traight Cash Homie needs to fend off the other teams in his division.

Within the matchup itself, this comparison shows how truly dominant Wait ‘Til Next Year’s team truly is. He has edges over Jack everywhere besides mid-to-back-end starting pitching where $traight Cash Homie has bolstered recently.

Lineups (80 Hitter plays, 10 SP Plays)

C - Tyler Stephenson vs Keibert Ruiz
1B - CJ Cron vs Vladimir Guerrero
2B - Jean Segura vs Andres Gimenez
3B - Anthony Rendon vs Austin Riley
SS - Wander Franco vs Gleyber Torres

CF - Brandon Nimmo vs Aaron Judge
CO - Bryce Harper vs Yordan Alvarez
CO - Juan Soto vs Anthony Santander
DH - Christian Yelich vs Jorge Soler

UTIL - Kyle Schwarber vs Christian Walker
UTIL - Mike Yastrzemski vs Austin Hays
UTIL - Juan Yepez vs Brendan Rodgers
UTIL - Jake Cronenworth vs Michael Chavis

SP1 - Shane McClanahan (x2) vs Dane Dunning (x2)
SP2 - Gerrit Cole (x2) vs Zac Gallen (x1)
SP3 - Adrian Houser (x2) vs Sean Manaea (x1)
SP4 - Marco Gonzales (x2) vs Frankie Montas (x1)
SP5 - Kyle Wright (x1) vs Martin Perez (x1)
SP6 - Wade Miley (x1) vs Patrick Sandoval (x1)
SP7 - n/a vs Luis Castillo (x1)
SP8 - n/a vs Trevor Rogers (x1)
SP9 - n/a vs Nick Pivetta (x1)

Wait ‘Til Next Year: Advantage at 16/23 positions
$traight Cash Homie: Advantage at 7/19 positions

Week 6 MLB Power Rankings

Week 6 Power Rankings

      Tier 1
1- Win’s Up Doc (5-0) [-]
2- Sporty Strauss (4-1) [+1]
3- Wait ‘ Til Next Year (4-1) [-1]

       Tier 2
4- Minnesota Moose Knuckles (2-3) [+3]
5- $traight Cash Homie (3-2) [-]
6- Ornery Otters (1-4) [+4]
7- The Pullies (2-3) [-2]
8- The BamO’s (1-4) [-1]

          Tier 3
9- Cooper Troopers (3-2) [-]
10- Las Cabras (2-3) [+1]
11- DTC Porkchop Express (2-3) [-5]
12- Shepherd Goods Choppers (1-4) [-]

(Tier 1) Win’s Up Doc (1) is taking advantage of the easy part of his schedule. He smashed the BamO’s last week and the Choppers this past week. Now he draws the lowest scoring team, the Cooper Troopers, this week before two more bottom-half teams, Las Cabras and The Pullies, in subsequent weeks. There’s a great chance Doc gets off to a 7 or 8 game winning streak to start the season, but what else is new? But starting in week 9, the schedule for Win’s Up Doc gets MUCH tougher for the rest of the season, so Strauss still has his opportunity.

Speaking of Sporty Strauss (2), he secured a critical victory against Wait ‘Til Next Year (3), flipping both teams in the Power Rankings. Sporty Strauss is keeping pace with Win’s Up Doc so far this season, and that should be expected to continue against a middle-of-the-pack schedule with Jack and Sam coming to town the next couple of weeks. There’s strong potential for him to drop one of those, but Sporty Strauss is still better than any team in the league not named Win’s Up Doc.

Wait ‘Til Next Year (3) takes his first loss of the season, and it’s no surprise against one of the other two members of the #Big3. There’s no cause for concern. He didn’t have as good of a week as previous weeks, but he still was solid and is 2nd in points on the season.

(Tier 2) The gap between Tier 1 and Tier 2 increases every week, and the MN Moose Knuckles (4) take the top Tier 2 spot de facto by having the 4th-most points scored in the league. Hall’s superior knowledge of MLB and fantasy effort gives him a little bit of an edge over other teams in the same group. He should claw his way back into contention over time. But he’s still dropped games to two of the bottom-three teams in the League of Leagues so far.

The next 4 weeks are winnable, and the MN Moose Knuckles’ saving grace his his EXTRA 3 NON-DIVISIONAL OPPONENTS: DTC Porkchop Express, Ornery Otters, and the SG Choppers. That’s by far the best draw in the league, especially with Las Cabras and the Cooper Troopers in his division. Right now, he plays the 5 worst teams in the league (and Wait ‘Til Next Year) twice this season. Nobody else will be able to boast that, and it will lead the MN Moose Knuckles into a playoff spot.

$traight Cash Homie (5) finally scored like a playoff team this week, but he still lost to Hall. His team rode luck to a 3-game winning streak, but it has stopped now and he’ll have to find other ways to remain competitive. He gets Sporty Strauss and Wait ‘Til Next Year the next two weeks, so odds are high that Jack will be a sub-.500 team in a couple of weeks. We won’t overreact. His EXTRA 3 NON-DIVISIONAL OPPONENTS are Las Cabras, Cooper Troopers and Sporty Strauss – another great draw that should have him favored for a division win or wild card berth.

The BamO’s (8) and The Pullies (7) continue to be the toughest teams to rank in the League of Leagues right now. Two division opponents with equal records and equally bad losing streaks (3 and 4 games !!!). Both have an opportunity to compete – an opportunity that Sam particularly can’t squander with more season-long points than The Pullies. But Sam is getting some of the worst scheduling luck you’ll see. He’s 4th in total points this year, but he’s 1-4. He’s not out of it, but dropping games to the Cooper Troopers is a sure way to end up in the Consolation bracket.

The Pullies season also really seems to be slinking away. They play top-4 teams in the power rankings the next 3 weeks and have slipped all the way down to 8th in points. It’s a sad slide for a promising team that needs to make some changes if they want to make the playoffs. His EXTRA 3 NON-DIVISIONAL OPPONENTS are Wait ‘Til Next Year, Win’s Up Doc and DTC Porkchop Express, an absurdly brutal draw. They are a borderline Tier 3 team right now, and will slide down there next week if they can’t show signs of life against Wait ‘Til Next Year.

The BamO’s, on the other hand, have a little bit of a good draw/bad draw weekly schedule, leaning mostly on the unfavorable side. This week is Las Cabras but that’s followed by Sporty Strauss. He plays DTC a couple weeks after that, but that’s sandwiched between MN Moose Knuckles and Wait ‘Til Next Year. His EXTRA 3 NON-DIVISIONAL OPPONENTS are Sporty Strauss, Win’s Up Doc and Ornery Otters, another awful draw for a playoff hopeful.

But… how are the Ornery Otters ranked 6th Overall on the Power Rankings when they just accumulated their first win, you ask… well, that speaks to how weak the league is right now and the Ornery Otters are top half-ish in the league in points. Plus, their best player, Ronald Acuna, is just getting back to play. His upcoming schedule is also a cakewalk… he doesn’t play another Tier 1 team until divisional play starts again.

Korey’s season is FAR from over right now. He has better odds to make the playoffs than either The BamO’s or The Pullies and his games against Sam in weeks 11 and 14 could decide who makes the playoffs.

(Tier 3) Las Cabras (10) should probably get a little bit more respect than they do, but wins against the Choppers or Porkchop Express don’t mean much these days. If they can beat The BamO’s this week, they’ll earn a bit more respect. Then they’ll draw two Tier 1 teams after that. Luckily, their EXTRA 3 NON-DIVISIONAL OPPONENTS are $traight Cash Homie and the two teams they’ve already beaten so far this season. Plus, Fhima’s Division is relatively weak. Las Cabras aren’t the bottom feeder we thought, but it’s still a long road ahead. Expect them to compete, but ultimately fall short.

DTC Porkchop Express (11) lost to Las Cabras, which absolutely cannot happen if he wanted to compete. He probably doesn’t want to compete, which is why he dropped four spots in the Power Rankings. He just might not suck enough to fall out of contention, especially with how week the last two wild card spots seem to be right now.

The Cooper Troopers (9) got bailed out by a last-second victory. They are still firmly in danger of losing the League of Leagues based on points scored, but there’s some fight to Coop. He seems to have a set of good pitchers every two weeks that carry him to wins.

And then the SG Choppers (12) are firmly the last-place team. The Pullies have to be absolutely kicking themselves for dropping a game to Jord.

Week 5 High Score

• Win’s Up Doc (Oat)

• 460 points

Notes: Believe it or not, this is Oat’s first high score of the season. Despite being the top-ranked team every week of the season and the highest-scoring team the past few weeks, he hasn’t had the crown until now. This cements his status as the clear team to beat.

Week 5 Low Score

• The Pullies (Eric/Peter)

• 343.5 points

Notes: What in the world is going on with The Pullies right now? All preseason statistics showed this team should have been one of the better teams. The first couple weeks proved that. But now, they are getting weekly low scores with pitiful non-Ohtani production out of the lineup and starting staff, of which they haven’t gotten 10 plays out of the past two games. The Pullies need to ‘pull’ themselves together, or a promising season will slip away faster than one’s money at the casino.

Week 5 MVP

• Mike Trout (Sporty Strauss)

• 34 points

Notes: The best player in baseball over the last 5-or-so seasons came up huge for Sporty Strauss this week. 3 home runs. 9 runs scored. 7 RBIs. This win was NARROW, and Strauss only won by 14 points. A normal week from Trout erases that in a heartbeat.

Week 5 LVP

• Tylor Megill (Wait ‘Til Next Year)

• -16 points

Notes: Ouch. This one hurts. An average performance from Megill could have flipped this matchup, but instead, Wait ‘Til Next Year takes his first loss. Megill has still been a great addition for him, but there’s significant worry about his play going forward now. Just sitting Megill in this game would have given Kyle the win.

Week 6 Matchups

• Win’s Up Doc (1) vs Cooper Troopers (9)

• Sporty Strauss (2) vs $traight Cash Homie (5)

• Wait ’Til Next Year (3) vs The Pullies (7)

• MN Moose Knuckles (4) vs Ornery Otters (6)

• The BamO’s (8) vs Las Cabras (10)

• DTC Porkchop Express (11) vs Shepherd Goods Choppers (12)

Week 6 MATCHUP of the WEEK

• MN Moose Knuckles (4) vs Ornery Otters (6)

Notes: This is a legitimately important matchup. A win for the MN Moose Knuckles cements him as a wild card favorite. A win for the Ornery Otters puts him right into the thick of the playoff chase. A loss shouldn’t be considered the end of the world for either team, but it will sting.

The irony is that both of these teams would probably like to sell some pieces. One would wonder if the other team in this matchup could switch into buy mode to try to get this important win and sneak into the playoffs.

Within the matchup itself, MN Moose Knuckles still hold the edge with pitching depth. But luckily for the Ornery Otters, Hall doesn’t have any of his good pitchers going twice this week. But neither does Korey. Expect hot weeks from hitters to decide this matchup.

Lineups (80 Hitter plays, 10 SP Plays)

C - Daulton Varsho vs Travis d’Arnaud
1B - Eric Hosmer vs Anthony Rizzo
2B - Trae Turner vs Brandon Drury
3B - Justin Turner vs Rafael Devers
SS - Willy Adames vs Trevor Story

CF - Tyler Naquin vs Luis Robert
CO - JD Martinez vs Ronald Acuna Jr
CO - Yadiel Hernandez vs Ian Happ
DH - Nelson Cruz vs Paul Goldschmidt

UTIL - Tommy Pham vs DJ LaMahieu
UTIL - Ben Gamel vs Jose Iglesias
UTIL - Max Muncy vs Josh Donaldson
UTIL - Matt Chapman vs Jesse Winker

SP1 - Taijuan Walker (x2) vs Steven Matz (x2)
SP2 - Chris Bassitt (x1) vs Max Fried (x1)
SP3 - Chad Kuhl (x1) vs Robbie Ray (x1)
SP4 - Lucas Giolito ???? (x1) vs Zack Greinke (x1)
SP5 - Luis Garcia (x1) vs Josh Winder (x1)
SP6 - Shane Bieber (x1) vs Kyle Freeland (x1)
SP7 - Ranger Suarez (x1) vs Tyler Mahle (x1)
SP8 - MacKenzie Gore (x1) vs Sonny Gray (x1)
SP9 - Jose Berrios (x1) vs Chris Archer (x1)

MN Moose Knuckles: Advantage at 11/19 positions
Ornery Otters: Advantage at 8/19 positions

Week 5 MLB Power Rankings

Week 5 Power Rankings

      Tier 1
1- Win’s Up Doc (4-0) [-]
2- Wait ‘ Til Next Year (4-0) [-]
3- Sporty Strauss (3-1) [-]

       Tier 2
4- The Pullies (2-2) [-]
5- $traight Cash Homie (3-1) [+1]

          Tier 3
6- DTC Porkchop Express (1-2) [+3]
7- The BamO’s (1-3) [-]
8- Minnesota Moose Knuckles (1-3) [-]
9- Cooper Troopers (2-2) [-4]
10- Ornery Otters (0-4) [+1]
11- Las Cabras (1-3) [+1]
12- Shepherd Goods Choppers (1-3) [-2]

(Tier 1) A messy week is leading to a league shake-up. The only thing we know for certain right now is who the top-3 teams are. The #Big3. Last week, Win’s Up Doc (1) took the lead in points for. He’s supported by a pretty insane top-4 pitching staff – Gausman, Scherzer, Rodon and Darvish – each of whom average over 20 fantasy points per game. The relief staff is rock solid, and the hitting lineup is deep with some surprise contributors in the middle of the infield. But there’s still room for improvement on this roster, and Oat will be aggressive in pursuing leads.

Sporty Strauss (3) is coming on strong lately and has to have Doc a little bit worried. Strauss’ calling card is the depth of the offensive lineup. He’s rarely ever playing a weak player out there, and his best 4 hitters – Machado, Betts, Trout and Bregman, have all performed as advertised so far this season.

Wait ‘Til Next Year (2), however, has the best lineup of them all. He’s also getting terrific production from not one but two (!!!) free agent pitchers, Kyle Wright and Taylor Megill, available to anybody before the season started. Without those players, Wait ‘Til Next Year would have maybe slipped down into Tier 2 until he gets some excellent arms back from the IL.

(Tier 2) Speaking of that Tier, only two teams belong in Tier 2 – The Pullies (4) and $traight Cash Homie (5). And they should both feel comfortable in their playoff chances right now. However, there is a CLEAR difference between the #Big3 and these two mid squads. The fun part about this race is that these teams will be circling each other for a division win throughout the season, and winning Fhima’s Division means that they will avoid playing Sporty Strauss or Win’s Up Doc (whoever doesn’t win Nolo’s Division) in the first round of the playoffs. Instead, they’d draw what, right now, looks like an absolutely PITIFUL 6-seed and would be favored in that matchup.

Both The Pullies and $traight Cash Homie should be looking to make some moves if they want to truly contend for this division.

(Tier 3) There are now SEVEN teams in Tier 3, and each has a different reason for being here. Unfortunately, one of them has to make the playoffs. DTC Porkchop Express (6) is (somehow) 2-2, but doesn’t look particularly impressive. He has a few good starters, but don’t expect him to keep this up, though he could still slide into that weak 6-seed.

The BamO’s (7) are a better team, but anytime someone goes on a 3-game losing streak they shouldn’t be feeling great about their odds. Luckily for him, rookie George Kirby had a great first outing and should get removed from his minor leagues ASAP to give him a boost the next 5 weeks as Sam’s schedule softens.

The MN Moose Knuckles (8) are top-6 in points, but simply cannot string together any wins, even against other mid-tier teams. But some of this is due to unsustainable poor performances from good players, and the Knuckles should improve over time. Right now, they should feel lucky that nobody is running away with the 5 and 6 seeds right now. They are very much still in contention.

The Cooper Troopers (9) are the most inconsistent team in the league, and he’s having far too many off weeks to be taken seriously. The Ornery Otters (10) are the only remaining winless team, but aren’t even in the bottom-4 teams for points right now. They’ll sneak out some of these lucky wins that teams like Las Cabras (11) and the SG Choppers (12) have managed to at some point this season.

But for now, there are only 3 teams who have a chance of winning League of Leagues baseball.

Week 4 High Score

• Sporty Strauss (Strauss)

• 491.5 points

Notes: Here he comes. Here comes Sporty Strauss. Fresh off a real-life engagement, he engaged The Pullies in a bitter duel, coming out on top. Sporty Strauss is easily one of the 3 best teams in the League of Leagues – the #Big3 – and he will be searching for any opportunity to take advantage of an Oatslip all season long. This team is good.

Week 4 Low Score

• Cooper Troopers (Coop)

• 305.5 points

Notes: The Cooper Troopers are a streaky team. One week they look hot, the next they are a travesty. This week was the latter, and the Cooper Troopers are now in SERIOUS danger of being the last-place team. Coop is just outside the playoffs as of now, but weeks like this and being the LITERAL lowest-scoring team in the League of Leagues doesn’t bode well for his chances.

Week 4 MVP

• Pablo Lopez (DTC Porkchop Express)

• 43.5 points

Notes: DTC Porkchop Express is getting excellent production out of his starting rotation right now. The lineup is leaving a little bit to be desired, but he was low on plays last week. Pablo Lopez made up for that. 43.5 points in two starts is excellent, and DTC Porkchop Express is suddenly the favorite for the 6-seed in MLB, which would probably net him 3rd or 4th place in the League of Leagues depending on playoff finish.

Week 4 LVP

• Shane Bieber (MN Moose Knuckles)

• -10.5 points

Notes: A game this bad from someone so highly drafted is brutal. The MN Moose Knuckles’ calling card was supposed to be a dominant rotation, but Shane Bieber killed him this week. A murder of potentially season-ending proportions. DTC Porkchop Express, Hall’s opponent, isn’t a disaster of a team or anything, but it’s a team that bubble playoff teams need to beat every time. Now, the MN Moose Knuckles are staring down the barrel of a 1-3 start and have all but ceded that division to Wait ‘Til Next Year.

Week 5 Matchups

• Win’s Up Doc (1) vs Shepherd Goods Choppers (12)

• Wait ’Til Next Year (2) vs Sporty Strauss (3)

• The Pullies (4) vs Ornery Otters (10)

• $traight Cash Homie (5) vs MN Moose Knuckles (8)

• DTC Porkchop Express (6) vs Las Cabras (11)

• The BamO’s (7) vs Cooper Troopers (9)

Week 5 MATCHUP of the WEEK

• MN Moose Knuckles (8) vs $traight Cash Homie (5)

Notes: A critical matchup for the MN Moose Knuckles. He can’t lose 3 straight. This is a matchup he needs to have, but it’s also a critical game for $traight Cash Homie, who could secure an important H2H victory over a playoff contender.

Based on starting rotation strength, this matchup should be easily won by the MN Moose Knuckles. Jack doesn’t have a 10th starter on the roster right now, and only Montas is pitching twice.

Lineups (80 Hitter plays, 10 SP Plays)

C - Daulton Varsho vs Keibert Ruiz
1B - Eric Hosmer vs Vladimir Guerrero
2B - Trae Turner vs Tony Kemp
3B - Max Muncy vs Austin Riley
SS - Willy Adames vs Andres Gimenez

CF - Ben Gamel vs Aaron Judge
CO - JD Martinez vs Yordan Alvarez
CO - Yadiel Hernandez vs Lourdes Gurriel Jr.
DH - Nelson Cruz vs Anthony Santander

UTIL - Tommy Pham vs Jorge Soler
UTIL - Matt Chapman vs Ahmed Rosario
UTIL - Marcus Semien vs Gleyber Torres
UTIL - Robbie Grossman vs Adam Duvall

SP1 - Lucas Giolito (x2) vs Frankie Montas (x2)
SP2 - MacKenzie Gore (x2) vs Zac Gallen (x1)
SP3 - Ranger Suarez (x1) vs Sean Manaea (x1)
SP4 - Chris Bassitt (x1) vs Trevor Rogers (x1)
SP5 - Chad Kuhl (x1) vs Dane Dunning (x1)
SP6 - Luis Garcia (x1) vs Jose Urquidy (x1)
SP7 - Shane Bieber (x1) vs Martin Perez (x1)
SP8 - Jose Berrios (x1) vs Nick Pivetta (x1)
SP9 - n/a vs ???

MN Moose Knuckles: Advantage at 16/23 positions
$traight Cash Homie: Advantage at 7/23 positions

Week 4 MLB Power Rankings

Week 4 Power Rankings

      Tier 1
1- Win’s Up Doc (3-0) [-]
2- Wait ‘ Til Next Year (3-0) [+1]
3- Sporty Strauss (2-1) [+1]
4- The Pullies (2-1) [-2]

       Tier 2
5- Cooper Troopers (2-1) [+1]
6- $traight Cash Homie (2-1) [+2]
7- The BamO’s (1-2) [-2]
8- Minnesota Moose Knuckles (1-2) [-1]

          Tier 3
9- DTC Porkchop Express (1-2) [-]
10- Shepherd Goods Choppers (1-2) [+2]
11- Ornery Otters (0-3) [-1]
12- Las Cabras (0-3) [-1]

(Tier 1) “Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.” - Thanos/Oatrick.

Four teams in Tier 1. Four teams in Tier 2. Four teams in Tier 3. Perfect symmetry in the League of Leagues right now. Two 3-0 teams. Four 2-1 teams. Four 1-2 teams. Two 0-3 teams.

In Tier 1, Win’s Up Doc (1) continues to rake. A 3-0 start in the division is exactly what he needed to threaten Sporty Strauss (3) for the LoL title. Strauss and Oat are looking at each other’s box scores just as much as they are looking at their own. It’s going to be an excellent race between these two juggernauts.

The 3-0 start of Wait ‘Til Next Year (3) shouldn’t be a huge surprise, but he’s certainly had plenty to overcome so far this season. Injuries. A Bauer Outage. But his division is trash, and his awesome hitting lineup is going to carry him through intra-divisional play. Next on deck is the 0-3 Otters.

Barely hanging on to a Tier 1 spot is The Pullies (4) who somehow lost to the SG Choppers this week. We all know how ashamed The Pullies feel this week, and they probably need a big hug of comfort (which nobody in LoL will give to them). Previously, the Choppers were the 12th ranked team, and a loss there is unacceptable. The Pullies still have a great chance to win the Division, but they are a full step behind the BYE right now.

(Tier 2) Who even knows how to rank these teams? All of them are a huge mystery, and they’ll each be duking it out to make the playoffs. The Cooper Troopers (5) look NICE right now – lineup and starting pitching. There’s a huge tier break between The Pullies and the Cooper Troopers, but Coop should still be slightly favored over the rest of the field for a playoff spot.

$traight Cash Homie (6) is nipping at his heels after a nice 2-game win streak, but his week 1 low-scoring output still shows inconsistency and signs of concern. He hasn’t beaten the best of competition, and he should have lost to the Choppers, though the Pullies win this week puts him firmly in contention. In fact, he’s on top of that division right now!

The BamO’s (7) are in a major slide. It’s been the opposite of $traight Cash Homie. He got off to a white-hot start before sucking in major ways for two straight weeks. And now, unfortunately, he draws top-ranked Win’s Up Doc. The BamO’s season is slipping away in a hurry. His only saving grace is the relative mystery and weakness of the 5th and 6th place teams right now.

Last in Tier 2 are the MN Moose Knuckles (8) who put up a valiant effort against top-seeded Wait ‘Til Next Year. But it’s going to be hard for him to claw his way back, especially within the division. Matchup-wise, the MN Moose Knuckles had every advantage they could have asked for against Kyle last week, and he couldn’t pull it off. So the MN Moose Knuckles are firmly in a bridge between Tier 2 and Tier 3. The season isn’t over, but it’s going to be a slog of matchup-setting and working hard for Chris to stay afloat.

(Tier 3) DTC Porkchop Express (9) and the Shepherd Goods Choppers (10) are in similar boats – teams that were projected to be awful, but have been more competitive than expected. Neither should expect to truly contend, but its respectable to see them get divisional wins, something that the Ornery Otters (11) and Las Cabras (12) haven’t been able to do yet.

The Otters aren’t horrible, so Las Cabras are the clear toilet of the league. It’s been rougher than a night at DTC for Trevor and Jordan so far.

Week 3 High Score

• Wait ‘Til Next Year (Kyle)

• 528 points

Notes: Two straight top-scoring weeks and Wait ‘Til Next Year really should be considered the top team in the league right now. He didn’t even have a great assembly of pitchers last week and didn’t hit his RP max. Wait’ Til Next Year is the dominant team in LoL, but we’ve still got awhile before a matchup with Win’s Up Doc.

Week 3 Low Score

• Las Cabras (Jordan and Trevor)

• 358.5 points

Notes: Las Cabras couldn’t even get to 80 hitting plays this week, and they are by far the worst team in League of Leagues MLB so far. The injuries have crushed them, and they might be toast already. Las Cabras had an excellent chance to place, but those odds are slipping away.

Week 3 MVP

• Joe Ryan (SG Choppers)

• 39.5 points

Notes: I don’t remember the last time the Choppers had a weekly high score or a player in the positive side of these rankings. It might be his first ever in League of Leagues history! And it couldn’t have been from a better player for Dye. Joe Ryan was an absolute STEAL in the prospect draft.

Week 3 LVP

• Frank Schwindel (The Pullies)

• -1.5 points

Notes: The Pullies, as mentioned before, botched a game against the SG Choppers. Frank Schwindel’s awful week is the biggest culprit for the poor performance. The Pullies need to find a few more hitters if they want to push for a BYE, and the trade block should be active for them.

Week 4 Matchups

• Win’s Up Doc (1) vs The BamO’s (7)

• Wait ’Til Next Year (2) vs Ornery Otters (10)

• Sporty Strauss (3) vs The Pullies (4)

• Cooper Troopers (5) vs $traight Cash Homie (6)

• MN Moose Knuckles (8) vs DTC Porkchop Express (9)

• Shepherd Goods Choppers (10) vs Las Cabras (12)

Week 4 MATCHUP of the WEEK

• Cooper Troopers (5) vs $traight Cash Homie (6)

Notes: What a fun matchup for the first week outside of divisional play! Not only is this a matchup between two 2-1 teams ranked 5th and 6th in the Power Rankings, but this is a CRUCIAL game for determining who gets the last-place penalty.

And these teams, unlike their NBA and NFL counterparts, aren’t bad!! There are great players on both sides of this matchup, and both teams are relatively healthy. Whoever wins this matchup is a playoff FAVORITE. They have an excellent chance to sneak into the ‘offs where anything can happen.

But most importantly, making the playoffs gives each squad a good chance to not get the last-place penalty, especially if Coop scoops it. There’s a lot at stake, and both the Cooper Troopers and $traight Cash Homies should be looking to make a short-term move or two to boost the rotation if possible.

Lineups (80 Hitter plays, 10 SP Plays)

C - JT Realmuto vs Keibert Ruiz
1B - Rhys Hoskins vs Vladimir Guerrero
2B - Javier Baez vs Tony Kemp
3B - Jose Ramirez vs Austin Riley
SS - Corey Seager vs Andres Gimenez

CF - Julio Rodriguez vs Aaron Judge
CO - Randal Grichuk vs Yordan Alvarez
CO - Adolis Garcia vs Lourdes Gurriel Jr.
DH - Alex Verdugo vs Anthony Santander

UTIL - Ryan McMahon vs Jorge Soler
UTIL - Gavin Lux vs Ahmed Rosario (INJ??)
UTIL - Brandon Lowe vs Gleyber Torres
UTIL - Bryan Reynolds vs Adam Duvall

SP1 - Drew Rasmussen (x2) vs Zac Gallen (x2)
SP2 - Walker Buehler (x1) vs Trevor Rogers (x2)
SP3 - Zack Wheeler (x1 vs Sean Manaea (x1)
SP4 - Jesus Luzardo (x1) vs Frankie Montas (x1)
SP5 - Eric Lauer (x1) vs Dane Dunning (x1)
SP6 - Nestor Cortes Jr. (x1) vs Jose Urquidy (x1)
SP7 - Dylan Bundy (x1) vs Martin Perez (x1)
SP8 - Tarik Skubal (x1) vs Nick Pivetta (x1)
SP9 - Elieser Hernandez (x1) vs n/a

Cooper Troopers: Advantage at 15/23 positions
$traight Cash Homie: Advantage at 8/23 positions

Week 3 MLB Power Rankings

Week 3 Power Rankings

      Tier 1
1- Win’s Up Doc (2-0) [-]
2- The Pullies (2-0) [-]
3- Wait ‘ Til Next Year (2-0) [+1]
4- Sporty Strauss (1-1) [+1]

       Tier 2
5- The BamO’s (1-1) [-2]
6- Cooper Troopers (1-1) [-]
7- Minnesota Moose Knuckles (1-1) [-]

          Tier 3
8- $traight Cash Homie (1-1) [+1]
9- DTC Porkchop Express (1-0) [-1]
10- Ornery Otters (0-2) [-1]
11- Las Cabras (0-2) [-]
12- Shepherd Goods Choppers (0-2) [-]

(Tier 1) A big 3 is forming in League of Leagues MLB, and all look like studs so far. Win’s Up Doc (1) gets the nod at the 1-spot, because he’s faced one of the toughest two-week schedules so far and has a victory over a Tier 1 team, but there isn’t a ton that separates him from the rest yet. Wait ‘Til Next Year (3) actually has the most points scored through two weeks, but he’s lower due to a bad matchup this week. If he goes 3-0 in his pitiful division, however, he could likely be going head-to-head with Doc for that 1-seed all year.

The Pullies (2) are also undefeated and have beaten the 5-seeded BamO’s, who was week 1’s highest scoring team. The Pullies are off to a very strong start within that division, and these top-3 teams could be in for an absolute dogfight for the BYEs throughout the entire year. Any time these teams play each other is must-see viewing.

Sporty Strauss (4) rounds out Tier 1, his team has scored the same amount as The Pullies, but has the 2nd-most points scored against him. He’s still 1-1, and better days are ahead of Strauss for sure.

(Tier 2) The aforementioned BamO’s had a rocky week 2. They were blown out of the water early, and still lost despite The Pullies playing only 8 starting pitchers. They had the 2nd-lowest score, and look like a middling roster now.

The Cooper Troopers (6) had the lowest scoring week on record. However, he picked a good week to do it squaring off against the highest-scoring team. All of a sudden, the middle of this league looks softer than milk, and teams that want to capitalize on two playoff spots that should be easier to get than not should start planning accordingly now.

The MN Moose Knuckles (7) are one of those teams. After a rough week 1, he played SLIGHTLY better in Week 2, but he’s still a team more towards the bottom than the top. But he has a great matchup against Wait ‘Til Next Year this week, in a matchup that could flip the script that we’re seeing so far in MLB League of Leagues.

(Tier 3) The last Tier doesn’t even seem so bad anymore. The SG Choppers (12) and Las Cabras (11) both put up fights against the teams they played, and the Ornery Otters (10) were a top-5 scoring team on the week. They are all showing signs of life, and none look to be as bad as the worst teams in NBA.

DTC Porkchop Express (9) played well enough to beat most teams for a second week and $traight Cash Homie (8) (barely) picked up his first win this season. In fact, $traight Cash Homie had a 1-point victory over the SG Choppers in a game in which the Choppers left one hitter on the bench. All the SG Choppers would have had to do was put Yandy Diaz or Jesus Aguilar into the lineup yesterday and he’d be 1-1, but that’s what happens when you aren’t trying to set your lineup maximally.

Week 2 High Score

• Wait ‘Til Next Year (Kyle)

• 488.5 points

Notes: A 150-point shellacking in Week 2 has to feel good, but this was a case of Kyle’s best pitchers playing multiple times in week 2 and then having lighter schedules in week 3. One of the most unfair things in fantasy baseball Head-to-Head is that all it takes is for a team to have their best pitchers playing twice to dominate a matchup.

Week 2 Low Score

• Cooper Troopers (Cooper)

• 332 points

Notes: The Cooper Troopers find a familiar home – the bottom of the weekly scoring table. There are signs of life for Coop who only got one game out of Walker Buehler and Zack Wheeler Combined and have Julio Rodriguez finally showing life, but the Cooper Troopers clearly need more ammo right now.

Week 2 MVP

• Frankie Montas (Jack)

• 56 points

Notes: 2 quality starts. 2 great pitching outings. This is a matchup that could have gone the other way if quality starts weren’t boosted, but $traight Cash Homie will take this win all the way home to the bank. Now, he has a slight chance of passing Dye on his way to trying to avoid the last place penalty. It’s mostly thanks to Frankie Montas. Bennett would have lost had he had two fewer outs or two fewer strikeouts.

Week 2 LVP

• Spencer Strider (Las Cabras)

• -13 points

Notes: Las Cabras’ bullpen is in rough shape. They had to throw Spencer Strider in for a game, and he crushed them. Michael Lorenzen also killed them with a negative week, and the top reliever drafted, Clase, also had a killer blown save. This loss by Las Cabras can be placed firmly on their bullpen.

Week 2 Matchups

Nolo’s Division

• Win’s Up Doc (1) vs Ornery Otters (10)

• Sporty Strauss (4) vs DTC Porkchop Express (9)

Fhima’s Division

• Wait ’Til Next Year (3) vs MN Moose Knuckles (7)

• Cooper Troopers (6) vs Las Cabras (11)

Shepherd Goods Division

• The Pullies (2) vs Shepherd Goods Choppers (12)

• The BamO’s (5) vs $traight Cash Homie (8)

Week 2 MATCHUP of the WEEK

• Wait ’Til Next Year (3) vs MN Moose Knuckles (7)

Notes: This game is crucial for the MN Moose Knuckles. If they can’t draw even with Wait ‘Til Next Year at the top of that division, the MN Moose Knuckles are likely a team destined for next year. For Kyle, however, doing well in MLB is necessary for him to sneak in at 3rd or 4th place this season with the potential to dominate the league next year.

Lineups (80 Hitter plays, 10 SP Plays)

C -Max Stassi vs Daulton Varsho
1B - CJ Cron vs Max Muncy
2B - Jake Cronenworth vs Trae Turner
3B - Anthony Rendon vs Matt Chapman
SS - Wander Franco vs Marcus Semien

CF - Brandon Nimmo vs Tyler Naquin
CO - Juan Soto vs JD Martinez (INJ?)
CO - Bryce Harper vs Robbie Grossman
DH - Christian Yelich vs Nelson Cruz

CO - Marcell Ozuna vs Justin Turner
UTIL - Kyle Schwarber vs Ji-Man Choi
UTIL - Yuli Gurriel vs Eric Hosmer
UTIL - Jared Walsh vs Willy Adames

SP1 - Chris Paddack (x2) vs Shane Bieber (x2)
SP2 - Gerrit Cole (x1) vs Jose Berrios (x2)
SP3 - Clayton Kershaw (x1) vs Chris Bassitt (x2)
SP4 - Shane McClanahan (x1) vs Lucas Giolito (x1)
SP5 - Tylor Megill (x1) vs Luis Garcia (x1)
SP6 - Kyle Wright (x1) vs Chad Kuhl (x1)
SP7 - Dakota Hudson (x1) vs MacKenzie Gore/Ranger Suarez (x1)
SP8 - Adrian Houser ??? (x1) vs n/a
SP9 - ??? vs n/a

Wait ‘Til Next Year: Advantage at 9/19 positions
Win’s Up Doc: Advantage at 10/19 positions

Week 2 MLB Power Rankings

Week 2 Power Rankings

      Tier 1
1- Win’s Up Doc (1-0) [-]
2- The Pullies (1-0) [+3]
3- The BamO’s (1-0) [+3]
4- Wait ‘ Til Next Year (1-0) [-2]
5- Sporty Strauss (0-1) [-2]

       Tier 2
6- Cooper Troopers (1-0) [+3]

          Tier 3
7- Minnesota Moose Knuckles (0-1) [-3]
8- DTC Porkchop Express (1-0) [+4]
9- Ornery Otters (0-1) [-1]
10- $traight Cash Homie (0-1) [-3]
11- Las Cabras (0-1) [-1]
12- Shepherd Goods Choppers (0-1) [-1]

(Tier 1) It’s hard to tell what separates the teams from the top from one another, and the default would be the preseason projections. Win’s Up Doc (1) was projected to be the best team in MLB League of Leagues before the season started. Despite scoring less points than some other teams at the top of these rankings, they beat probably the best team that took a los this week. And Oat put himself on top of the Nolo’s Division.

The Pullies (2) are going to be a tough out all season long. They have an awesome rotation that has the depth to withstand injuries that other teams may not. And while the lineup might not be as dynamic as some teams, Ohtani, Lindor, Buxton (inj.), O’Neill and Bryant are one helluva top of the order. If they get contributions from other players like they got this week from Myles Straw, this team could cruise to another BYE.

The BamO’s (3), however, are the talk of the town. They scored the most points this week, and look to be a really well-put-together roster going forward. It’s just unfortunate they burned their super scoring week against the 12th-ranked Choppers.

Next up is Wait ‘Til Next Year (4) who won despite an absolute epidemic of pitcher injures. The lineup is just unreale, and he had very little (if any) poor production from hitters this week. Now he just needs to continue piecing together this pitching staff until people start getting healthier.

The Sporty Strauss (5) put up a good fight despite some really tough pitcher injuries early in the matchup. Strauss is obviously in win-now mode, so it’s VITAL for him to compete against the two poorer #Nolo’s teams. Everyone is still watching Strauss as the champ, however.

(Tier 2) The Cooper Troopers (6) are off to a very nice start (as long he’s setting his lineup). Jose Ramirez is off to an amazing start, and he has other hitters with 25pt+ weeks. His starting rotation isn’t great, but it likely isn’t going to kill him. Cooper looks like he’s playing himself out of last place in LoL early this MLB season

(Tier 3) There is lots going on in Tier 3. The MN Moose Knuckles (7) are off to an awful start, but that’s partly due to a poor, injured rotation. If he gets some arms back, he should be the best of this bad bunch while making an effort to compete.

Right now, DTC Porkchop Express (8) somehow isn’t in the bottom-4. His team didn’t look great, but he drew a nice matchup in week 1 with Ornery Otters (9). These teams are going to be a swimming in mediocrity, especially after likely going a combined 0-4 against the rest of #Nolo’s Division.]

$traight Cash Homie (10) is down this low after having the lowest-scoring week. His team isn’t nearly this bad, but the rotation needs to improve if he doesn’t want to come in last place.

Las Cabras (11) are lucky not to be in last place. The only reason they aren’t is because this is the most injury-riddled squad in LoL since Oat’s midseason COVID attack. Things could get better for Las Cabras, but it might continue to get worse. The next two weeks in #Fhima’s awful division.

And last but not least are the SG Choppers (12). The keepers on this team aren’t awful, but the depth is. As worst teams in the league go, he isn’t that bad. After starting two less pitchers than other teams, he would have beaten 6 other squads. So tough draw for Dye in week 1. He’s going to get lucky to get wins going forward.

Week 1 High Score

• The BamO’s (Sam)

• 716.5 points

Notes: We told you to focus on depth over star power in the draft, and The BamO’s did. What an amazing start. Lineup. Rotation. Pen. Everything is humming for Sam after 1 week in MLB.

Week 1 Low Score

• $traight Cash Homie (Jack)

• 489 points

Notes: After 6 straight weeks at the end of the NBA season, $traight Cash Homie makes it 7 after the first week of MLB. But this team shouldn’t be this bad going forward. Jack is just going to have to focus hard on improving the rotation.

Week 1 MVP

• Nolan Arenado (Oat)

• 54 points

Notes: Nolan Arenado was a forgotten name in the MLB draft. A former MVP finalist, Arenado is an aging superstar that went crazy this week. He was the 2nd highest scoring hitter, but he contributed greatly to Win’s Up Doc’s ever-so-important victory over OAt.

Week 1 LVP

• Alex Kirilloff (Las Cabras)

• -1.5 points

Notes: Usually, giving an injured player an LVP is low hanging fruit, but Kiriloff was struggling so bad even before getting hurt. He was an auction player too, and Las Cabras need more from him throughout the season. It just hurts to lose as many bodies as they have early in the season.

Week 2 Matchups

Nolo’s Division

• Win’s Up Doc (1) vs DTC Porkchop Express (8)

• Sporty Strauss (6) vs Ornery Otters (9)

Fhima’s Division

• MN Moose Knuckles (7) vs Las Cabras (11)

• Wait ’Til Next Year (4) vs Cooper Troopers (6)

Shepherd Goods Division

• The Pullies (2) vs The BamO’s (3)

• $traight Cash Homie (8) vs Shepherd Goods Choppers (12)

Week 2 MATCHUP of the WEEK

• The Pullies (2) vs The BamO’s (3)

Notes: A 2 vs 3 divisional matchup out the gate. The top-2 scoring teams so far in MLB? How exciting is this!? The BamO’s have an opportunity here while Buxton is hobbled to catch The Pullies on a little bit of an off week. Both of these teams are expected to compete for playoff spots, but this will determine the division favorite for the rest of the season.

Lineups (80 Hitter plays, 10 SP Plays)

C -Christian Vazquez vs Will Smith
1B - Frank Schwindel vs Pete Alonso
2B - Tommy Edman vs Jazz Chisholm Jr.
3B - Kris Bryant vs Alec Bohm
SS - Francisco Lindor vs Dansby Swanson

CF - Myles Straw - Starling Marte
OF - Byron Buxton (??) vs Cody Bellinger
CO - Tyler O’Neill vs Connor Joe
CO - Mitch Haniger vs Andrew Benintendi
DH - Shohei Ohtani vs Nathaniel Lowe

UTIL - Jeff McNeil vs Randy Arozarena
UTIL - Hunter Dozier vs Rowdy Tellez
UTIL - Eugenio Suarez vs Max Kepler

SP1 - Corbin Burnes (x1) vs Logan Webb (x2)
SP2 - Alek Manoah (x1) vs Nathan Eovaldi (x2)
SP3 - Logan Gilbert (x1) vs Joe Musgrove (x1)
SP4 - Framber Valdez (x1) vs Hunter Greene (x1)
SP5 - Shohei Ohtani (x1) vs Zach Plesac (x1)
SP6 - Ian Anderson (x1) vs Corey Kluber (x1)
SP7 - Jordan Montgomery (x1) vs Justin Steele (x2)
SP8 - Jose Suarez (x1) vs n/a
SP9 - ??? vs n/a
SP10 - ??? vs n/a

Win’s Up Doc: Advantage at 10/21 positions
Sporty Strauss: Advantage at 11/21 positions

Week 1 MLB Power Rankings

Week 1 Power Rankings

Note: ‘Projected Points’ are based on FanTrax player projections this season. ‘Positional points’ are scored 1-12 where you finish at each position. Corner Outfield, UTILITY/DH, Aces, and Starting Pitchers are all ranked double ‘points.’

      Tier 1
1- Win’s Up Doc (12300 proj. points; 134 positional points)
2- Wait ‘ Til Next Year (12200 proj. points; 121 positional points)
3- Sporty Strauss (12200 proj. points points; 119 positional points)
4- Minnesota Moose Knuckles (12200 proj. points; 117 positional points)
5- The Pullies (11550 proj. points; 117 positional points)

       Tier 2
6- The BamO’s (11850 proj. points; 99 positional points)
7- $traight Cash Homie (11750 proj. points; 91 positional points)
8- Ornery Otters (11850 proj. points; 87 positional points)
9- Cooper Troopers (11250 proj. points; 82 positional points)

          Tier 3
10- Las Cabras (10850 proj. points; 82 positional points)
11- Shepherd Goods Choppers (10950 points; 56 positional points)
12- DTC Porkchop Express (10700 points; 50 positional points)

(Tier 1) There are five clear teams at the top of MLB League of Leagues, and right now, not much separates them. Win’s Up Doc (1) had the most impressive draft on paper, but how much is that worth when the laces start flying. Position-by-position, Oat doesn’t have a position lower than 9th, and he has 7 position groups graded in the top-3. It’s a balanced team that went for big bats and excellent aging starting pitching instead of pure dynasty value. His first basemen (Freeman, Abreu, Bell) might be the single best position group in all the league of leagues.

Wait ‘Til Next Year (2) comes in second. When healthy, Cole/DeGrom is an almost unbeatable 1-2 punch at starting pitcher. And this is (by far) the best corner outfield group in the league (Soto, Harper, Yelich, Schwarber). Kyle and Oat come in first or second on the Power Rankings without caring about positional value in the draft. They just took the best bat on the board on any given round, and now have powerful lineups that will carry their teams.

Sporty Strauss (3) is third because he’s suffered some minor injuries and imperfect draft decisions, though it looks like Strauss is going to be very competitive. The bonus picks from $traight Cash Homie and Shepherd Goods Choppers definitely have helped bolster a team that could be more in the middle without Dylan Cease or Austin Meadows. The outfield and 3rd Base for Sporty Strauss are his two dominant positions. Trout, Mookie, Castellanos, Austin Meadows, Manny Machado and Alex Bregman. That’ a lot of right-handed bats for a team that can win it all.

The MN Moose Knuckles (4) sneak in at fourth. After a shaky start to the draft, the MN Moose Knuckles have redeemed themselves. Hall focused on a starter-heavy build. Bieber, Giolito and Berrios is the league’s best top-3 SPs. After he locked in some starting pitching, that’s when he focused on drafting big bats. Every other team started focusing on pitching, and the Moose Knuckles zagged, finding some great value in the mid-rounds of the draft.

Last in Tier 1 is The Pullies (5), who had a strong start to the draft, but then everyone else caught up. That’s the trick of going heavy into depth starting pitcher early in the draft. After Corbin Burnes, there’s really not a huge difference between their 2nd best SP and their 8th. That should give them a higher floor every week, but I’m not sure the ceiling is there for The Pullies unless Shohei Ohtani goes crazy again or they get superstar performances from boom-or-bust players like Byron Buxton or Kris Bryant.

(Tier 2) The BamO’s (6) are going to be fascinating to watch. Sam declined to draft any stars, and he build a very well-rounded team infused with both age and some youth. The BamO’s also focused on the bullpen more than any other team in the league, and we will see if that pays off. Sam should feel very happy with his draft, but the lack of superstar talent prevents him from being a Tier 1 team.

$traight Cash Homie (7) are another solid, fringe playoff team, but there’s more upside to this team than the next two teams. Getting two day-1 starters in the Prospect Draft (Keibert Ruiz and Oneil Cruz) could be huge, just giving him some bodies at important positions. The lineup is filled with as many power bats as any other team in the League of Leagues. $traight Cash Homies has some big bats. As a result, Jack might be an inconsistent team. When Vlad Guerrero, Aaron Judge, Austin Riley, Yordan Alvarez, and/or Franmil Reyes get hot for a week+, he could boat race some top teams. When they start striking out all the time, he could be left holding a big, fat ‘L’ against teams he wasn’t supposed to lose to. Either way, this team will be fun to watch and pay attention to.

The Ornery Otters (8) are another team that looks like is in firm competition for the last playoff spot. In the dreaded Fhima’s Division, he’s a distant 3rd behind Sporty Strauss and Win’s Up Doc’s arms race. He’s going to have a hard time keeping up without any real positions of strength – particularly with Acuna out for a month. Until he comes back, it’s hard to point out what the Ornery Otters’ calling card is, and this looks like another classic Korey team that finishes 5th through 8th. Never too high. Never too low.

Last in Tier 2 is the Cooper Troopers (9) who are a little bit interesting, but are a little bit built more for the future. There’s a few bad draft picks sprinkled into a draft in which Coop never really reached for anyone. He just took the top guy on the board, and it could serve him well. The biggest problem is that there’s a huge difference between his excellent top-2 starting pitchers (Buehler and Wheeler) and the 3rd through 8th pitchers. The Cooper Troopers lineup is going to have to make up for being one of the worst starting rotations beyond the top, and there’s no guarantee the firepower is there.

(Tier 3) Las Cabras (10) aren’t this low if Tatis was healthy, but this team is clearly one of the three worst teams in the league without him. It’s not just his absence, it’s the build of the team. Las Cabras, more than any other team, focused on multipositionality. While it was important to draft one or two players who can bounce around the diamond, players with that positional advantage are graded higher solely because of the ability to play multiple positions. So the more you take, the less value each of them have. Also, this team made a bold move by drafting Seiya Suzuki higher than he should have gone, a prime candidate to start the league cold without seeing MLB pitching much before. They also took a top second catcher, reducing the value of both catchers that they selected. This draft was a bit of a mess looking back, and the icing on the cake is the injury to Jack Flaherty, who they took 2nd overall in the snake.

The Shepherd Goods Choppers (11) slide in at 11th, but this shouldn’t be a team without hope. Dye’s draft strategy focused on drafting upside arms, and if he can hit big on a starting pitcher or two, he could climb the standings quickly. He focused way too much on young players, and this team is far likelier to be terrible than good, but there’s some players to be excited about.

Last is DTC Porkchop Express (12) who drafted as many tanking players as they could. Adell. Glasnow. Dustin May. Even Luis Severino. Those are outstanding keepers if things break right, and DTC Porkchop Express is simply trying to find as much value for next year’s team as possible. It’s the first draft that is intentionally designed to tank, and the 2023 results will tell us whether or not DTC Porkchop Express made the right call when he was very much competitive in this year’s standings.

Positional Power Rankings

C

1- Las Cabras – Salvador Perez, Willson Contreras
2- The BamO’s – Will Smith, Joey Bart
3- Cooper Troopers – JT Realmuto, Omar Narvez
4- MN Moose Knuckles – Daulton Varsho
5- Sporty Strauss – Yasmani Grandal
6- Wait ‘Til Next Year – Tyler Stephenson
7- Ornery Otters – Gary Sanchez, Travis D’Arnaud
8- Win’s Up Doc – Mitch Garver
9- The Pullies – Christian Vazquez, Jacob Stallings
10- Shepherd Goods Choppers – Sean Murphy
11- $traight Cash Homie – Keibert Ruiz
12- DTC Porkchop Express – ??

1B

1- Win’s Up Doc – Freddie Freeman, Jose Abreu, Josh Bell
2- The BamO’s – Pete Alonso, Nathanael Lowe, Luke Voit
3- $traight Cash Homie – Vlad Guerrero Jr, Spencer Torkelson (MiLB)
4- Wait ‘Til Next Year – Jared Walsh, CJ Cron
5- Ornery Otters – Paul Goldschmidt, Anthony Rizzo
6- DTC Porkchop Express – Matt Olson, Brandon Belt
7- Cooper Troopers – Rhys Hoskins, Bobby Dalbec
8- MN Moose Knuckles – Max Muncy, Yuli Gurriel
9- Las Cabras – Ryan Mountcastle
10- Sporty Strauss – Joey Votto
11- The Pullies – Trey Mancini, Frank Schwindel
12- Shepherd Goods Choppers – Jesus Aguilar

2B

1- DTC Porkchop Express – Ozzie Albies, Jonathan India
2- MN Moose Knuckles – Trae Turner
3- Cooper Troopers – Brandon Lowe, Ryan McMahon, Kolten Wong
4- The Pullies – Whit Merrifield, Chris Taylor
5- Win’s Up Doc – Jose Altuve
6- Las Cabras – Ketel Marte, Luis Arraez
7- Wait ‘Til Next Year – Jake Cronenworth, Jean Segura
8- The BamO’s – Jazz Chisholm, Jonathan Schoop
9- Sporty Strauss – Ty France, Kike Hernandez
10- Ornery Otters – DJ LaMahieu, Cesar Hernandez
11- $traight Cash Homie – Brendan Rodgers
12- Shepherd Goods Choppers – Nick Madrigal, Josh Rojas

3B

1- Sporty Strauss – Manny Machado, Alex Bregman
2- Ornery Otters – Rafael Devers, Josh Donaldson
3- Cooper Troopers – Jose Ramirez
4- $traight Cash Homie – Austin Riley
5- Win’s Up Doc – Nolan Arenado
6- MN Moose Knuckles – Matt Chapman, Justin Turner
7- The Pullies – Kris Bryant
8- Wait ‘Til Next Year – Anthony Rendon
9- Las Cabras – Adalberto Mondesi, Eduardo Escobar
10- The BamO’s – Yoan Moncada
11- Shepherd Goods Choppers – Ke’Bryan Hayes
12- DTC Porkchop Express – Mike Moustakas

SS

1- Win’s Up Doc – Xander Bogaerts, Carlos Correa, Jeremy Pena
2- Shepherd Goods Choppers – Bo Bichette
3- Cooper Troopers – Corey Seager, Javy Baez
4- The Pullies – Francisco Lindor, Eugenio Suarez
5- MN Moose Knuckles – Marcus Semien, Willy Adames
6- Sporty Strauss – Tim Anderson, JP Crawford
7- Ornery Otters – Trevor Story
8- Wait ‘Til Next Year – Wander Franco
9- Las Cabras – Luis Urias, Brandon Crawford, Fernando Tatis (INJ)
10- DTC Porkchop Express – Jorge Polanco, Bobby Witt (MiLB)
11- The BamO’s – Dansby Swanson
12- $traight Cash Homie – Gleyber Torres, Ahmed Rosario, Neil Cruz

CO

1- Wait ‘Til Next Year – Juan Soto, Bryce Harper, Christian Yelich, Kyle Schwarber, Marcell Ozuna
2- Sporty Strauss – Mookie Betts, Nick Castellanos, Austin Meadows, Andrew McCutcheon
3- Ornery Otters – Ronald Acuna, Jesse Winker, Dylan Carlson
4- Shepherd Goods Choppers – Eloy Jimenez, Teoscar Hernandez, Jesus Sanchez, Austin Hayes, Andrew Vaughn
5- $traight Cash Homie – Yordan Alvarez, Lourdes Gurriel, Jorge Soler, Adam Duvall
6- The Pullies – Tyler O’Neill, Mitch Haniger, Tommy Edman
7- Win’s Up Doc – Kyle Tucker, Hunter Renfroe, Avisail Garcia, Michael Brantley
8- The BamO’s – Randy Arozarena, Andrew Benintendi, Max Kepler
9- Las Cabras – Alex Kiriloff, Seiya Suzuki, Harrison Bader
10- DTC Porkchop Express – Joey Gallo, Jo Adell, Michael Conforto, Charlie Blackmon
11- MN Moose Knuckles – JD Martinez, Eddie Rosario, Robbie Grossman
12- Cooper Troopers – Alex Verdugo, Adolis Garcia, Julio Rodriguez

CF

1- Sporty Strauss – Mike Trout
2- The BamO’s – Starling Marte, Cody Bellinger
3- $traight Cash Homie – Aaron Judge, Ramon Laureano
4- Ornery Otters – Lois Robert
5- The Pullies – Byron Buxton, Myles Straw
6- Las Cabras – Cedric Mullins
7- DTC Porkchop Express – George Springer
8- Cooper Troopers – Bryan Reynolds
9- Win’s Up Doc – Jarred Kelenic
10- Shepherd Goods Choppers – Trent Grisham, Akil Baddoo
11- Wait ‘Til Next Year – Mark Canha
12- MN Moose Knuckles – Mike Yastzemski

UTIL / DH / Top of Bench

1- The Pullies – Shohei Ohtani (DH), Myles Straw (CF), Jeff McNeil (??)
2- Win’s Up Doc – Josh Bell (1B), Michael Brantley, (CO), Jeramy Pina (SS)
3- MN Moose Knuckles – Nelson Cruz (DH), Yuli Gurriel (1B)
4- $traight Cash Homie – Franmil Reyes (DH), Adam Duvall (CO), Amed Rosario (SS)
5- Wait ‘Til Next Year – Kyle Schwarber (CO), Marcell Ozuna (CO)
6- Sporty Strauss – Giancarlo Stanton (DH), JP Crawford (SS), Andrew McCutcheon (CO)
7- The BamO’s – Luke Voit (1B), Jonathan School (2B/1B)
8- Las Cabras – Willson Contreras (C), Luis Arraez (2B/3B/CO), Harrison Bader (CF/CO)
9- Cooper Troopers – Kolten Wong (2B), Bobby Dalbec (1B)
10- Ornery Otters – Ian Happ (CF/CO), Cesar Hernandez (2B)
11- Shepherd Goods Choppers – Jesus Sanchez (CO), Andrew Vaughn (CO)
12- DTC Porkchop Express – ???

Aces (Top-3 Starting Pitchers)

1- MN Moose Knuckles – Shane Bieber, Lucas Giolito, Jose Berrios
2- Wait ‘Til Next Year – Gerrit Cole, Jacob DeGrom, Shane McClanahan
3- Win’s Up Doc – Max Scherzer, Kevin Gausman, Carlos Rodon
4- The Pullies – Shohei Ohtani, Corbin Burnes, Alek Manoah
5- Cooper Troopers – Walker Buehler, Zack Wheeler, Tarik Skubal
6- Las Cabras – Aaron Nola, Freddy Peralta, Jack Flaherty
7- Sporty Strauss – Brandon Woodruff, Dylan Cease, Lance Lynn
8- Ornery Otters – Robbie Ray, Max Fried, Tyler Mahle
9- The BamO’s – Logan Webb, Joe Musgrove, Charlie Morton
10- $traight Cash Homie – Frankie Montas, Zach Gallen, Sean Manaea
11- Shepherd Goods Choppers – Luis Castillo, Sandy Alcantara, Joe Ryan
12- DTC Porkchop Express – Julio Urias, Pablo Lopez, Anthony DeSclafani

Starting Pitchers (Pitchers 4-8)

1- The Pullies – Logan Gilbert, Ian Anderson, Framber Valdez, Casey Mize, Jordan Montgomery
2- Wait ‘Til Next Year – Shane Baz, Clayton Kershaw, Trevor Bauer, Hyun Jin Ryu, Jon Gray
3- Win’s Up Doc – Yu Darvish, German Marquez, Kyle Hendricks, Alex Wood, Yusei Kikuchi
4- MN Moose Knuckles – Luis Garcia, Chris Bassitt, Ranger Suarez, Bailey Ober, Taijuan Walker
5- Sporty Strauss – Chris Sale, Eduardo Rodriguez, Justin Verlander, Kyle Gibson, Patrick Corbin
6- The BamO’s – Nathan Eovaldi, Blake Snell, John Means, Zach Plesac, ??
7- Ornery Otters – Sonny Gray, Marcus Stroman, Zack Greinke, Steven Matz, Brady Singer
8- $traight Cash Homie – Trevor Rodgers, Jose Urquidy, Aaron Civil, Huascar Ynoa, Andrew Heaney
9- DTC Porkchop Express – Adam Wainwright, Luis Severino, Marco Gonzales, Tony Gonsolin, Cole Irvin
10- Shepherd Goods Choppers – Michael Kopech, Triston McKenzie, Tanner Houck, Chris Flexen, Patrick Sandoval
11- Las Cabras – Mike Clevinger, Noah Syndergaard, Madison Bumgarner, Jameson Taillon, ??
12- Cooper Troopers – Jesus Luzardo, Stephen Strasburg, Cal Quanrill, Elieser Hernandez, Drew Rasmussen

Relief Pitchers

1- The BamO’s – Josh Hader, Ryan Pressly, Blake Treinen, Gregory Soto, David Bednar, Lou Trivino
2- Win’s Up Doc – Raisel Iglesias, Edwin Diaz, Paul Sewald, Aaron Ashby
3- MN Moose Knuckles – Liam Hendriks, Craig Kimbrell, Matt Barnes
4- Sporty Strauss – Will Smith, Kenley Jansen, Chad Green, Andrew Kitteredge
5- Las Cabras – Emmanuel Clase, Nate Pearson, Scott Barlow
6- $traight Cash Homie – Aroldis Chapman, Camilo Doval, Joe Barlow
7- Ornery Otters – Gio Gallegos, Taylor Rogers, Corey Knebel
8- Wait ‘Til Next Year – Devin Williams, Tyler Rodgers
9- The Pullies – Jordan Romero, Aaron Loup
10- Shepherd Goods Choppers – Tyler Matzek, Garret Whitlock
11- DTC Porkchop Express – Michael Fulmer
12- Cooper Troopers – ??

Week 1 Matchups

Nolo’s Division

• Win’s Up Doc (1) vs Sporty Strauss (3)

• Ornery Otters (8) vs DTC Porkchop Express (12)

Fhima’s Division

• MN Moose Knuckles (3) vs Cooper Troopers (9)

• Wait ’Til Next Year (4) vs Las Cabras (10)

Shepherd Goods Division

• The Pullies (5) vs $traight Cash Homie (7)

• The BamO’s (6) vs Shepherd Goods Choppers (11)

Week 1 MATCHUP of the WEEK

• Win’s Up Doc (1) vs Sporty Strauss (3)

Notes: Who else could it be? This matchup is massive for Week 1 when these two top-3 teams won’t play again until the final week of the season. This matchup has come to define the season so far. Strauss barely beat Win’s Up Doc in week 14 of the NFL season to make the playoffs and go on his run to win that sport. Then Strauss beat Win’s Up Doc in the final week of the NBA season to force an infamous matchup in Round 1 of the playoffs, which Strauss lost and only got 7 points in NBA.

Now, these two teams circle each other as two of the biggest threats to win MLB, both from the same division. Only one can win the division. Only one could get a BYE. And this is a crucial key to securing a Head-to-Head victory.

In the game itself, both of these lineups are relatively equal. Win’s Up Doc has a better infield. Sporty Strauss has a better outfield. But Sporty Strauss has much better pitching matchups, despite Chris Sale’s injury. Win’s Up Doc generally has better pitchers, but he might run into some bad luck this week and a half.

Here’s hoping for a close week 1 MATCHUP OF THE WEEK.

Lineups (114 Hitter plays, 14 SP Plays)

C - Mitch Garver vs Yasmani Grandal
1B - Freddie Freeman vs Joey Votto
2B - Jose Altuve vs Ty France
3B - Nolan Arenado vs Manny Machado
SS - Xander Bogaerts vs Tim Anderson

CF - Jarred Kelenic vs Mike Trout
CO - Kyle Tucker vs Mookie Betts
CO - Hunter Renfroe vs Nick Castellanos
CO - Avisail Garcia vs Austin Meadows
DH - Josh Bell vs Giancarlo Stanton

UTIL - Jose Abreu vs Alex Bregman
UTIL - Carlos Correa vs Kiki Hernandez
UTIL - Michael Brantley vs JP Crawford

SP1 - Max Scherzer (@WAS, @PHI) vs Brandon Woodruff (@CHC, @ BAL)
SP2 - Kevin Gausman (TEX, @NYY) vs Lance Lynn (@DET, SEA)
SP3 - Carlos Rodon (MIA, SD) vs Dylan Cease (@DET, TB)
SP4 - Yu Darvish (@ARI, @SF) vs Eduardo Rodriguez (CHW, BOS)
SP5 - German Marquez (LAD, CHC) vs Justin Verlander (@LAA, @ARI)
SP6 - Kyle Hendricks (MIL, @COL) vs Patrick Corbin (NYM, @ATL)
SP7 - Alex Wood (SD, @ CLE) vs Kyle Gibson (A’s, @MIA)

Win’s Up Doc: Advantage at 7/20 positions
Sporty Strauss: Advantage at 11/20 positions