Pitcher List Staff League Review: Week 21

Welcome, folks, to the Pitcher List staff leagues. This year, Pitcher List added a huge amount of new staff members which allowed us to expand from three to a whopping six leagues! As a reminder, these leagues are standard 5×5 and are set up relegation style, which means if you finish in the top three, you move up; if you finish bottom three, you move down.

Legacy League

Quarterfinal 2: No. 3 Super Rosario Bro. (Jonathan Metzelaar) vs. No. 6 Ian’s Pornogriffey (Ian Post)

In Jonathan Metzelaar, we have a third former Prodigy League member in the 2020 Legacy League playoffs. He’ll face off against one of the OG PL members in Ian Post. But enough about the past. What Jon brings to the table is an elite two-start man in Noah Syndergaard vs. Ian’s two starts from Mike Foltynewicz, Vince Velasquez, and Mike Fiers. Ian has staked himself to an advantage in the closer department, notching two saves on Monday that he hopes will help him secure a date with Kyle Bishop in the semifinals.

— Dave Cherman

Prodigy League

The playoffs in the Prodigy League are officially set. Boydz-in-the-Hood took first place, with the Statcast Darlings narrowly edging Hurling Archer to earn second place and that sweet sweet first-round bye. Here’s some more info on last week’s performances:

Best Performance: Hurling Archer vs. Troy Klauder: 8-0 Steve’s squad needed to have a huge week to earn third place and overtake Troy’s squad, but he managed to do so with an emphatic victory. Steve’s team was led by Freddie Freeman, Xander Bogaerts and a great week from Yadier Molina, with Josh Hader and Stephen Strasburg doing great work on the bump as well.

Closest Matchup: Jeff’s Majestic Team vs. Acuna Moncada: 5-4 This matchup between the eighth and ninth-ranked teams was the only close contest of the week. It was definitely a tight one, though, with both sides tying in runs (33) and WHIP (1.40), although Jeff’s team technically won the category, and the week, by less than one-hundredth of a percent. Wow. He can thank Aaron Nola and Ross Stripling for that.

Best Waiver Wire Add: Anthony DeSclafani (Astudillo Ghibli) Ben’s squad won fairly handily last week, 7-3, but Tony Disco’s excellent outing definitely helped. DeSclafani had eight strikeouts in seven scoreless innings, earning a win and posting a 0.43 WHIP. That helped Ben earn nearly a clean sweep in the pitching categories.

– Andy Patton

Futures League

We entered Week 21 with five teams vying for three spots and the week ended with the postseason Futures League slate turning out exactly how it should. Every team above .500 made the playoffs and every team below .500 ended up in the consolation bracket. Teams earning a bye in the first round are Dave Fisher’s squad (Not Dan) with a 125-66-19 record and Paul Ghiglieri’s team (Paul’s Busty Posers), who was just 4.5 games out of the top spot. Fisher deserved the top seed as he sat atop the standings for most of the season.

Best Performance: Rob Z (Inglorious Baezterd) def. Dan (Yu Can’t Judge), 6-4

Rob got maybe the best all-around performance from his team this season when he needed it the most. The Baezterds would have likely won at least four offensive categories against anyone this week, hitting .339 with 17 dingers, 46 RBI and 40 runs, fueled mostly by Xander Bogaerts (4 HR, 7 RBI), Anthony Rendon (3 HR, 7 RBI), and Ronny Rodriguez (3 HR, 8 RBI). Rob also took ERA (2.44) and WHIP (1.14) behind performances by Mike Clevenger (0.00 ERA, 10 Ks) and Sonny Grey (1.42 ERA, 10 K). Rob’s 6-4 win earned him the fifth spot in the playoff bracket.

Closest Matchup: Dan (Juanderkinds) def. Colin (Knuckle Curve), 7-3

In a week where there were very few close matchups, this one was the closest. Juanderkinds sealed the fourth spot in the playoffs by edging out RBI 30-28 and Wins 5-4. Most of the other categories were decided before the final day of the week.

– Travis Sherer

PL-League-1

– Ryan Fickes

PL-League-2

Best performance: In a last-second grasp to get out of the cellar, Madison’s Wild Ride (Jamie Sayer) posted a very strong 9-1 victory over The Luzardo King (Kevin Dalby). The bad news for Sayer is that it didn’t ultimately matter as he still finished the season in 11th place and is in danger of relegation. Hey, at least you closed out the regular season hot, Jamie!

Closest matchup: This was one of those rare weeks where the closest matchup was one where the final score and the categories within were both pretty dang close. Holland Otts (Clay Cotton) pulled out a 5-4-1 win over xwOBAchette (Jordan Larimore), but the matchup could easily have gone another way. I won R 37-36 and SB 4-3, while Clay and I tied HRs at 11-11. Meanwhile, Clay took RBI 35-33. A little more production on either side in the right places and this matchup could’ve been a blowout.

Playoff position: Austin’s Team (Austin Gretencord) rallied in the final couple of weeks and held onto his No. 1 seed in the playoffs, though Otto von Bettsmarck (Rob D) finished right on his heels just 1 game back. Yu Snell My Bum (John Hale), Rhys Lightning (John Wallace), Holland Otts and MonStarz (Kyle Monson) round out the playoff field from seeds three through six.

– Jordan Larimore

The Bottom of the Barrel

Best Performance: North Correa (Kyle Frank), 98 Roto Points Aaron Judge and Freddie Freeman provided the fireworks, putting up 3 HR a piece to allow Kyle to score nearly 100 roto points out of 120 (effectively third-place in every category). Some of Kyle’s relievers struggled (Alex Colome and Liam Hendricks), but Stephen Strasburg had their back with a masterful 14 K / 0.25 WHIP performance.

Closest Matchup: Jim’s Team (Jim Chatterton) vs. Ewing Oil (Matt McLaughlin), 5-4 Jim, 54 Roto Points vs 55 Roto Points Jim won the matchup, but lost the Roto points war (a new occurrence since I’ve been tracking this). Aside from a tie at 2 SB a piece, Jim won all of the pitching categories while Matt won all of the other batting categories. Archie Bradley, Mychal Givens, Sergio Romo, and Ken Giles all put in solid weeks to help Jim beat Matt on the rubber, while Josh Bell, Xander Bogaerts, and Eloy Jimenez all put up huge weeks for Matt.

– David Fenko

(Graphic by Nathan Mills/ @NathanMillsPL)