Previewing the Pitcher List Wacky Leagues

It’s not all just fun and games over here at Pitcherlist, sometimes we all like to really hunker down and focus on only the most serious tests of fantasy skill. Hence, the Wacky Leagues. These leagues are made up of a mix of PL staffers and PL+ members, so if you haevn’t already, head on over to the PL+ sign up page and get on the Discord so you can start prepping for the 2021 Wacky Season.

Asher will be bringing you all of the recaps for the Guillotine Leagues and WorstBall Categories, while Myles keeps us all up to date on WorstBall Points and the GTA leagues.

 

The Guillotine Leagues

There are two Guillotine Leagues, both 14-team points leagues using the following scoring:

Rosters are 23 players total: 10 batters and 9 pitchers, with three bench spots.

Each team starts with $1000 in FAAB money, which is where the fun comes in.

Every week, the lowest-scoring team(s) in the league gets the chop, and all of their players go onto the waiver wire. The schedule works out as follows:

I would be doing my Guillotine 2 leaguemates a disservice if I didn’t mention that it was one of the most cutthroat drafting experiences I’ve ever had, and we also switched to announcing our picks via GIFs about halfway through which I highly recommend to everybody. It’s pretty much

…except, you know, we had a great time.

Look forward to ridiculous FAAB shenanigans and big swings. Those trying to avoid the blade and live to fight another week are:

PL Staffers Daniel Port, Austin Bristow II, Ben Brown, Mary Ankenbruck, Alex Drennen, Hunter Denson, Myles Nelson, Michael Ajeto, Darrin Ambrose, Justin Paradis, Asher Dratel, Nathan Hursh, Rich Holman, Benjamin Haller, Donny Moskovits, Matt Cava, and Noah Scott.

PL+ Members Big Red, KingHippo, Kyle Seiler, mthurlow, BoldDevil, Chris Nichols, Christopher Reeves, Corey W, DocBrown, Gary Tater, Jake Matier, and Tina Yu.

 

WorstBall

WorstBall leagues are where all the fun you didn’t know you could have while playing fantasy baseball exists. Don’t sit there and get mad at your TV when your star hitter strikes out, or when your ace pitcher gives up a home run. Celebrate here with us in a WorstBall league instead! We have two WorstBall leagues this year, one of which is a H2H points league like we ran last year, with the points rewarding all the negative things a player can do. Hitters striking out or grounding into a double play? Great! Your pitcher beans a batter and then gives up a home run? That’s 15 points! We’re also running a WorstBall H2H categories league, where the hitters compete to be the worst in strikeouts, errors, GIDPs, OBP and SLG, and the pitchers try to accrue the most walks, losses, blown saves, and the highest ERA and WHIP. We’re out here looking for the best of the worst, the cream of the crap, you get the picture.

 

WorstBall Points

 

This is the same format as we ran last year, with hitters earning points for things like striking out, committing errors, and getting caught stealing, and losing points for things like getting hits, driving in runs, or stealing bases. Pitchers mainly derive their value from giving up runs, walking batters, and just generally getting chased out of games. But pitchers can cost you points if they go deep into games, strike out batters, and don’t give up runs. The hardest part of putting together a WorstBall team is finding the players who will suck, but that will also continue to get consistent playing time even if they do. At the top of the draft, you tend to see a lot of highly paid veterans whose teams have no other choice but to play them, promising youngsters who have no competition for the role, and defensive specialists who aren’t in the lineup because of their bat. While I have already lost my ace for the season in Jordan Zimmermann due to injury, I feel pretty confident that the rest of my pitching staff (Mike Fiers, Johnny Cueto, Gio Gonzalez) can pick up the slack. Here’s the draft board which contains the first twelve rounds of our draft (we have 16-man rosters, 6 hitters, 6 pitchers, and 4 bench slots, but this was all that I could fit in my screenshot).

The people participating in this league include PL Staffers Mike Bourg, David Fenko, Alex Isherwood, Trevor Hooth, Adam Howe, Erik van Rheenen, Collin Carlone, Liam Casey, and Justin Paradis, as well as PL+ members Chris Nichols, and reigning champ Joshua Botelho.

 

WorstBall Categories

It’s not just the WorstBall Points draft board that is a sight to behold, we held our own over in the categories draft, too:

The rules are generally the same as the WorstBall Points league, just with raw H2H categories rather than points, with weekly roster locks. Was Adalberto Mondesi in the 3rd a challenge pick? You bet your butt it was! Is Adam Lawler furious at me for taking Tom Murphy in the 2nd round? Absolutely! Did I forget to set my roster in time for Opening Day? Well, let’s just say in this case it’s more like WorstManager!

The ten teams in the WorstBall Categories league are helmed by PL Staffers Myles Nelson, Asher Dratel, Mary Ankenbruck, Scott Chu, Alexander Chase, and Ryan Amore, plus PL+ members Kyle Seiler, Victor, DocBrown, and Corey W.

 

Grand Theft Baseball

Grand Theft Baseball is the simplest of these leagues at first glance, but don’t let that fool you. Sure, it’s just a H2H league with no eliminations, no weird scoring categories, just regular old fantasy baseball by the looks of it. But when Sunday rolls around, and the winner is determined, that’s when this game becomes cutthroat and savage. You see, the winner of each week’s matchup gets to steal one player from the team they just beat, giving teams every incentive to not lose each week. As we start out, teams will be able to protect most of their players, but that protection will get thinner and thinner throughout the season until there will be no protection whatsoever by the end of the season. You do not want to lose, as this league has a snowball effect like no other, as Dave Cherman was able to ride a five-game winning streak into the playoffs and take the crown despite entering as the 5-seed.

After last year’s Grand Theft league proved to be an intensely enjoyable league, we decided to step it up a notch this year and make the protection lists even shorter than they were last year. And we have not just one league this year, but three. I want to give a shout out to the wonderful people who have decided to join this league, so without further ado here are all the lovely people who will be stealing players from each other week after week.

PL Staffers: Benjamin Haller, Dave Cherman, Hunter Denson, James Peterson, Ryan Amore, Alex Drennan, Donny Moskovits, Josh Sperry, Liam Casey, Mary Ankenbruck, Nathan Hursh, Mike Bourg, Ben Brown, Collin Carlone, Daniel Port, Darrin Ambrose, David Fenko, Erik van Rheenen, Justin Paradis, Trevor Hooth.

PL+ Members: cwatson, docbrown, bateserade, Christopher Reeves, Tina Yu, Chris Nichols, CyrusD, Dalton, David Spatt, KingHippo, burial, Kyle Seiler, Kevin Fitzpatrick.

Featured image by Justin Paradis (@freshmeatcomm on Twitter)