Pitcher List Staff League Review: Week 8

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; bottom three, you move down.

Legacy League

Best Performance: Chapman & The Hosk (Myles Nelson)

I wanted to lead with Max Posner’s Team, who launched 23 homers this past week, but his pitching dropped the ball hard, so I was forced to make like Ross and pivot. Myles’ team had an awesome week, posting a whopping .329 average with 15 HRs, 50 RBI, and 6 SBs to go along with a strong 3.53 ERA and a sub 1 WHIP. This performance was fueled by strong performances by Anthony Rizzo (.500 AVG, 3 HRs, 10 RBI) and Rafael Devers (.481, 4 HRs, 8 RBI, 2 SBs) as well as the elite arm of Justin Verlander (1 win, 18 Ks, 2.40 ERA, 0.53 WHIP). What’s particularly crazy about this matchup is Myles almost didn’t beat Rick Graham. Myles edged Rick out by 1 HR, .006 in AVG, 2 Ks, and .05 WHIP. Absolutely nuts. Hats off to both of them. In Week 9, Myles (3-4-1) will take on second place Ben Palmer (5-2-1)

Closest Matchup: Gallo’s Cole (Kyle Bishop) vs. Wig Wam Pham (Ben Palmer)

Tight matchups like this one are everything that is great about categories scoring. Kyle takes runs by 2, Ben takes RBI by 1, Kyle takes AVG by .004, they tie in BOTH HRs and SBs, and Ben takes Wins by 1. It all shakes out to a 4-4 tie that’s gotta be frustrating for both. One more HR this way or one more base hit that way, that’s all it would’ve taken for this to be a different game. But alas, it was not and Kyle’s tumble continues down from 5-0 to 5-2-1; at least he avoided another loss though.

The tie actually creates a four-way tie in first place in the Legacy League standings, as you can see below, between Kyle, Ben, Ian Post, and Jay Dunbar. In Week 9, Ben takes on Myles, as mentioned above, and Kyle takes on Jay. As an honorable mention in this category, I’ve got to highlight my matchup with OTB co-host Jonathan Metzelaar. I held the lead 6-4 going into the final game on Sunday night with large leads in every category except ERA and WHIP, which were very slight leads. I watched in horror as Jordan Hicks imploded, handing Jon both ERA, WHIP, and the victory.

-Dave Cherman

Prodigy League

Best performance: Nate vs. Adam (7-2-1)

Nate pushed his way into fifth place with a big 7-2-1 victory over Adam’s team, who now sits in last place. Monstrous weeks from Gleyber Torres (five home runs) and Rafael Devers (four home runs) along with great pitching performances from Miles Mikolas and Brandon Woodruff helped earn the victory.

Closest Matchup: Statcast Darlings (Michael Haas) vs. Astudillo Ghibli (Ben Pernick) 5-5.

There were two ties during Week 8, but Michael and Ben’s matchup was airtight. Not only did they finish dead even at five wins a piece, but the battles for saves (4-3) stolen bases (5-3) RBI (40-38) HR (16-13) and WHIP (1.26 – 1.22) were all wicked close. Strong pitching from Jacob deGrom and Jack Flaherty helped Michael win the ERA category, while two steals from J.T. Realmuto was a big difference-maker for Ben’s squad.

Biggest Waiver Wire Addition: C.J. Cron, Boydz-In-The-Hood

Cron was added on May 20 for Brandon’s team, and he proceeded to hit .412 with five runs, a home run and five RBI last week, helping him win three hitting categories en route to a 5-5 tie, which helped keep him in third place.

– Andy Patton

Futures League

Best Performance: Knuckle Curve (Colin Charles) vs. Bomb Voyage (Alex Drennan), 7-2

Three teams had cases for the best performance in Week 8, but the team with the most well-rounded score is Colin, who with the help of Anthony Rizzo and Ketel Marte swept the hitting categories, hitting .291 with 13 bombs, 42 runs, 41 RBI and 4 SBs. Colin’s pitchers were equally as impressive with a 2.62 ERA and 0.83 WHIP thanks to Brandon Woodruff and Zack Wheeler.

– Travis Sherer

PL-League-1

Water is wet. Grass is green. Led Z.Eflin (Max Freeze) continues to dominate. When a team is showing winning percentages well over .800 across the board this late in the season, it’s safe to say that their strategy has gone according to plan. Led Z.Eflin has a .877 xW%, a .836 zW%, and an .850 pW%. All of these are well ahead of the second-place team in each category, which happens to be Hedenson’s Team (Hunter Denson), who boasts reasonably good rates at .614 xW%, .633 zW%, and .679 pW%. Exceeding .800 is one thing in a keeper league where teams may experience ebb and flow over the years, but in a standard 12-team redraft league, it’s impressive. The top five teams in the league are also starting to pull away from the pack a bit, leaving a flock of five teams to fight it out for the last wild card slot. Unfortunately, things have not gone well for Nicholas’s Team (Nick Gerli) and Mikey’s Team (Michael Ajeto), who are now 10.5 and 17.0 games back of wild card positions and in serious danger of relegation if things don’t turn around.

Best Performance: Led Z.Eflin (Max Freeze)

Led Z.Eflin smoked Prognosis Negative (Ryan Amore) by a score of 9-1, which did not help Ryan’s efforts to remain near the top of the board, as they lost 2.5 games compared to Mostly Nats (Charlie Wright) and dropped into a tie for the last playoff position with the Beliebers (Ben Hizer) who took care of business against the Maryland Wolfdogs (Ryan Fickes). Back to Z.Eflin, in a week where offense was up across the board, the classic rock fan finished second in R (44 to 45), first in RBI (46), second in HR (16 to 18) and fourth in AVG (.298 to .327) while pairing that with the best pitching performance of the week, leading the way with 6 W and finishing second in K (76 to 93), ERA (2.52 to 2.22), and WHIP (0.97 to 0.85). That’s a good week.

We’ll also give a head nod to Hedenson’s Team for finishing with a 6.48 zTotal in terms of Team | Year (that is, comparing his Week 8 performance to his average weekly performance over the course of the year). In other words, Z.Eflin had a great week, but his team is good and should have great weeks. Hedenson put together a much stronger week compared to what we would expect to see from them.

Strongest Category: Mostly Nats with a 2.21 zK from 93 K.

Closest and Best Matchups

The best matchup was by far the tilt between Led Z.Eflin and Prognosis Negative, as their .709 average zW% far outpaced any other matchup and was one of just two to have a better than .500 average zW% for the week. It was a pretty tough break for Prognosis Negative to post a .622 zW% and come out 1-9. That’s good for a -5.2 zLuck, the worst for the season of any team.

– Ryan Fickes

PL-League-2

Best performance: Otto Von Bettsmarck (Rob D.)

Rob posted a very strong week all around, taking a 7-2-1 win over Madison’s Wild Ride (Jamie Sayer). His hitters put up gaudy numbers, posting 79 R/RBI, swatting 13 home runs and batting .331. Sayer won only stolen bases among offensive categories. Pitching was also strong for Rob this week, though Jamie stole ERA with a sparkling 2.89 mark. Otto now sits in third place behind Austin’s Team (Austin Gretencord) and DeJong and DeRestless (Nathan Mills).

– Jordan Larimore

The Bottom of the Barrel

Best Performance: Eric Schaff

Aside from one little tie, Eric put up a 9-0 for the week – which was backed up by the rotisserie standings for the week as well. Any week where your team puts up a .311 AVG, 1.04 WHIP, 83 K, and 14 HR, you’re likely going to finish well in the standings. For what seems like the first time all season, Paul Goldschmidt put the Cardinals on his back and produced enough to warrant having been a first-round pick in the past. On the rubber, Blake Snell and Pitcher List’s golden child Matt Boyd put up solid efforts.

– David Fenko