Wacky Leagues Week 4: That Winning Feeling

This week I got to chat with the Guillotine Highlander himself, Mike Perugini, who is taking in the whole Wacky Lyfe this year for the first time.

 

Asher Dratel: So first off, how many leagues are you in this year, wacky or not?

Mike Perugini: I’m in 5, 3 wacky, one regular, and one dynasty.

What are the formats of the non-wacky leagues?

The regular is a 16 team 6×6 roto league, and the dynasty is a 16 team 8×8 weekly categories league.

Oh wow, 16-teamers are no joke. I can see why you’d want some wacky leagues to balance that out.

Honestly, my whole life I only ever played in 10/12 teamers and [16-teams] is so much more enjoyable.

My home league is a 12-teamer with deeper benches and I feel like it plays way deeper than a usual 12er, just the thought of 16 teams gives me the heebie jeebies.

That’s fair, I just like it because it gives guys like Maikel Franco and Jonathan Loaisiga a good reason to be on a roster.

Is this your first year doing the wacky leagues?

Yes, this is also my first year on PL+.

I was going to follow up with that. How long have you been reading PL? Did you know about the Wacky Leagues prior to jumping into the Discord?

I’ve been reading Pitcher List since like mid-2017, I remember it was my freshman year in college and my friend just told me about it and I was hooked on SP Roundups. I did know about the wacky leagues before I joined the discord, they were one of the things that got me to finally give in to it honestly!

YES! That’s rad!

I was listening to the On The List pod with Austin Bristow and Myles came on and he was talking about it and I was hooked.

I kind of feel like I build up this mental wall between the “serious” PL stuff and the WLB side and I always wonder how many other people there are who have a foot in both camps.

Oh I’m all in on everything, you can catch me in all the channels all the time.

So as a first-timer how’s it all been so far in the leagues?

It has been really cool… the people I usually play with never have as much strategy, they just play to play but I’m always the one with the strategy and always winning because of it…. this is the first time really ever that I have competition and the wacky leagues make it fun because never would a guy like Max Scherzer be available in the 4th week but in Guillotine he is.

Having something like an auction draft every week is definitely a trip. Speaking of Guillotine, you are the first living manager this season in League 1 to run down to $0 in FAAB money, did you think you’d be through the budget that quickly or did you win some bids you weren’t necessarily expecting?

Umm, it was a little of both. I put in $400 on Xander and $475 on Scherzer and when I put the 475 on Scherzer I kind of said to myself “someone is going to outbid me, but just in case I’m going all in” so really I spent a bunch of my FAAB on 2 guys but at the same time I think it was worth it.

I’d say it was better than when Ajeto/Bristow II spent $950 in week 1 on a pair of shortstops last year. How concerned are you about not being able to make any big pickups in the coming weeks?

Ummm I’m regretting it a little, I came into the season with nobody to play 2B. So I immediately went and picked up Jazz Chisholm and Jonathan India as a quick bailout. Last week they both went down with injuries and I felt screwed. It’s going to be challenging but I feel I’m up for it

Honestly, I think it would be rad if the last 2-3 weeks were $0 managers, just jockeying for waiver position.

That would be hilarious. I also should congratulate you on your new high water mark. Maybe if you spend the rest of your money we’ll make it to the end.

Thank you, I’m very proud of it and will definitely keep letting everybody know this is the best I’ve ever done in this format.

I’m having a lot more success in guillotine than in Grand Theft

Yeah, how are you finding the Grand Theft experience overall?

I like it, not as much as Guillotine though, first I overlooked Paul Goldschmidt, and now I keep getting pitchers stolen from me.

The Goldy theft moment was kind of hilarious to watch as an observer, I have to say. 

I went through my lineup, picked my players, and the next day I realized that I hadn’t put Goldschmidt in there and I was praying he’d get passed up…

You were also involved in a trade in your league, right?

Yes I was…. and I’m probably paying for it now. It was Kershaw for Hiura (now optioned) and Ian Anderson who’s been on and off.

Yeah, buying low on Hiura right before he goes to 0 is cold comfort. I think it’s the first trade I’ve seen in a wacky league, did you have any thoughts about trying to work the trade market in Grand Theft when you came into it?

Yeah definitely, I think trading is the second best thing to do in fantasy behind drafting, and the Guillotine League doesn’t do trades really because they can just pick up the filler once a league member gets cut, so it was definitely a thing I looked into. Although I may look into trading now that my FAAB is 0…

If you can work a trade in Guillotine I think that should be worth bonus points, honestly.

I wish I could trade for some FAAB. Is that allowed?

I don’t think so? I dunno if it’s ever been asked before…You’re gonna turn these leagues up to 11 if we implement that…

Haha, I came up with a question the other day in the league too, “what would happen in the event of a tie”

Asking the tough questions.

Myles is going to have to get me the tough answers too.

He’s just going to make you co-commish and defer all questions to your desk.

I’m down for that

So as somebody who joined PL+ knowing he wanted to get into this madness, you’re really an ideal candidate to ask the standard closer: What would you say to somebody who reads these recaps and thinks it sounds like a good time?

I’d say try it out. Join a wacky league or 2 for a season and I can almost guarantee if you like fantasy sports you’d like the wacky leagues because of how much excitement they bring week to week. I also want to say to you specifically that I heard you on a podcast recently explain the CORRECT way to say BaBIP and I can never read it in my head the other way.

YES! THIS IS THE BEST INTERVIEW EVER I’M SHUTTING DOWN THE WHOLE RECAP CONCEPT AFTER THIS WEEK.

 

Huge thanks to Mike for the time and also saying such nice things about me, may he continue to win all fantasy duels unless we do end up in the Guillotine finals against each other in which case I will have to selfishly revert to rooting for myself.

Meanwhile, you heard the man! If you haven’t already, head on over to the PL+ sign-up page and get on the Discord so you can start prepping for the 2022 Wacky Season.

 

The Guillotine Leagues

 

 

There were no photo finishes in Guillotine this week. In League 1, Scott Sieber was down by 40 points on Sunday, which is a very tough row to hoe. League 1 also continued this season’s trend of big spending on big names, with Gerrit Cole going to Collin Carlone for $451, his first FAAB win since spending $3 on Domingo Germán. If you’re gonna break the bank, Cole is definitely a good guy to pick. Hunter Denson filled out most of the other notable spending this week, grabbing Bo Bichette for $337 and Yordan Alvarez for $191. Kyle Seiler spent $55 on Germán Márquez just in time for him to put up -18.50 points on Tuesday, which is less than ideal.
League 2 bid a fond farewell to the GIF Master himself, Ben Brown. He was down by 16.50 points on Sunday, which isn’t quite as dire as Scott’s situation, but without some timely ace appearances, it’s still tough to surmount. The bidding for Ben’s players was a bit more subdued and spread around in League 2, although the highest price was the $326 that Alex Tran spent on Christian Yelich…just in time to see him go back on the IL with a mystery back issue. Alex still has $417 left in his FAAB budget though, so hopefully, he can recover. On the flip side, Nicole Cahill got Cody Bellinger for a mere $7, which almost makes you think this was a Grand Theft League given that Belli looks to be on the road back to playing time sooner rather than later.

Who will live to fight another week?! Stay tuned to find out…

 

Grand Theft Baseball

 

 

WorstBall

 

Categories: Nicole Cahill has remained the manager of a team that is actually doing well, which in this format is less than ideal. Her rotation has been mediocre enough, but her offense has been anchored by C.J. Cron, Jed Lowrie, and Nick Madrigal, all of whom are rocking OBPs above .350 and SLGs over .400, which is not what you want to see around these parts. Hopefully, she managed to grab some shares of that trio in her non-Wacky leagues too!

Points: Ben Brown might have lost out in Guillotine, but he shot up to first place in WorstBall Points with a huge 370.50 point week. Utterly dominant performances from James McCann (40.50 points), Jeimer Candelario (45), and Jordan Lyles (80!) will do that for you. His opponent, BigRedRocket was also buoyed by some terrifically terrible pitching performances, with Trevor Williams and Bruce Zimmermann combining for almost 110 points. But it was Ben’s offense that put him over the top.

 

SP Only

 

The biggest story for the SP Only league last week for me was that nobody has Huascar Ynoa rostered, which makes sense given it is a BestBall format, but it means somebody is missing out on some gorgeous pitching lines to go with a pair of dingers, one of which was a grand slam on Tuesday night. Shohei who?

Meanwhile, Justin is waiting with bated breath for the news from Jacob deGrom’s MRI as he tries to protect his #1 spot.

 

 

Featured image by Justin Paradis (@freshmeatcomm on Twitter)