It’s not all just fun and games over here at Pitcher List, 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 haven’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 Dratel will be bringing you all of the recaps for the Guillotine Leagues and WorstBall Categories, while Myles Nelson keeps us all up to date on WorstBall Points and the Grand Theft leagues.
The Guillotine Leagues
Can you feel the excitement, folks? By this time next week we’ll have the winners in all of our leagues, we’ll finally know who is the best. Or luckiest? I guess it depends on who wins and then who you ask.
It continues to be a Tale Of Two Leagues here in Guillotineland. In League 1 by the time Friday afternoon rolled around, there was a 130 point gap between 2nd place Rich Holman and 3rd place Jake Matier. Although he staged a miracle comeback in Week 6, and we saw teams put up 140+ points in a single day in Week 7, Jake wasn’t so lucky this time around. He did put up a valiant weekend and ended up only 56 points behind Rich by the time the dust settled. But behind he was, and that means we gotta give him the chop.
With Jake’s exit, the FAAB results were pretty predictable given that he was one of the two remaining $0 managers. Alex Drennan got what I can only assume is all of his wishlist, picking up Kenta Maeda, Zack Greinke, Kyle Hendricks, Griffin Canning, Dustin May, Kyle Freeland, and Aaron Nola for (you guessed it) $1 each. Rich Holman isn’t going into the finals without any of his dudes though, as he grabbed local favorite Zac Gallen and Alec Mills. On the position player side, in a move that may be a preview of the real-world NL MVP race, Rich dropped Fernando Tatis Jr. to make room for Manny Machado.
Alex is going to end up finishing the season with $325 in his virtual pocket, which means…nothing. When it comes to fake dollars in virtual baseball, you can’t take it with you.
League 2 was a much tighter spread this week, with Friday afternoon seeing 1st place Donny Moskovits only 33 points up on 3rd place KingHippo. By Saturday afternoon that spread was down to 20.5 points, and 2nd place Darrin Ambrose was only 2 points up on KingHippo. It wasn’t meant to be, however, as Hippo’s team faded to a 3rd place finish 56 points away from safety. Donny ended up with the 1st place finish, although with only 90.5 points separating him from Hippo come Monday.
Hippo’s exit only saw a tiny bit of FAAB fighting between Darrin and Donny, as Donny’s $1 bids beat out Darrin for Aaron Nola, Zach Davies, and Luke Voit. There was a flurry of uncontested movement though, as Donny picked up Max Fried, Kenta Maeda, Zack Greinke, and Tyler Glasnow for his finals push as if his rotation wasn’t formidable enough. Darrin wasn’t idle, though, as he snapped up Bryce Harper, Kyle Freeland, Brady Singer, Fernando Tatis Jr., and Dustin May to bolster his roster in this last week.
Donny was much more profligate with his FAAB advantage and will only carry $68 with him into the offseason. But just like Alex’s war chest it means nothing at this point.
Whose staff can carry them through to the big finish?! There’s only one way to find out…by reading this very column next week!
WorstBall Categories
Meanwhile, we’re still trying to demonstrate our prowess for badness down here in The World Of WorstBall. In the semi-finals, Myles’ team put up a fight, winning strikeouts, OBP, and losses, but his rotation did not step down, putting up a 2.30 ERA and 0.96 WHIP, allowing Victor to sneak by with a 4-3 win. Meanwhile, my island of misfit toys took the week 6-3, losing on ERA, errors, and pitcher losses.
Hitter Of The Week: Miguel Sanó. Miguel’s high-strikeout ways finally caught up with him this week, and although Myles did not advance, Sanó’s line of 13 Ks to go with a .087 OBP and .348 SLG wasn’t to blame.
Pitcher Of The Week: Shun Yamaguchi. It’s Victor’s staff “ace” this week who wins the award, with 7 BBs, a 27.00 ERA, and 3.86 WHIP over 3.2 IP helping propel his team into the finals.
There’s no need for a fancy table this time around, as it’s Asher Dratel vs Victor in the Finals Of Failure, as we try to strikeout when we’re not grounding into double plays or committing errors, while our rotations miss the zone as much as possible.
-Asher Dratel
WorstBall Points
It’s not easy to take out the champ, which is what I was tasked with doing this week as I faced reigning champion Joshua Botelho. His run in the playoffs last year was incredible, and I had no intention of letting him do the same. Lucky for me, I didn’t need much help. Botelho’s squad decided they didn’t want to come to play this week, and only scored 76 points, the lowest total of the week. His pitching in particular let him down, led by Kyle Gibson, who pitched a complete game shutout with 9 strikeouts. I, on the other hand, got great performances from Logan Webb, Casey Mize, and Jordan Zimmermann, who combined to put up a 14.53 ERA across 8.2 innings pitched. Not even a mid-week injury from Austin Meadows could slow me down.
On the other side of the bracket, Alex Isherwood went right back to his winning ways, looking to bounce back after I stopped his undefeated season. He was certainly hoping to make it to the championship so as to have the chance to exact his revenge on me. As Sunday began, he held a 68 point lead over Collin Carlone, surely a lead he could keep on the final day. But Carlone wasn’t going down without a fight. He got great pitching performances from Julio Teheran and Jose Urquidy, and his hitters pitched in for an additional 21 points. Michael Chavis also did his best to bring down Isherwood from the inside, going 2/4 with 2 home runs, 5 RBIs, and 3 runs scored to put up a devastating -19 points. In the end, Isherwood barely managed to hang on, defeating Carlone by a score of 145 to 141.
Hitter of the Week: Eduardo Escobar. Man, going 1/20 wasn’t bad enough, he had to throw in 2 errors, 6 strikeouts, and 1 GIDP.
Pitcher of the Week: Julio Teheran tried to singlehandedly carry Carlone into the final. His two-start week totaled just 3 IP, 5 home runs, and a 21.00 ERA.
Grand Theft Baseball
We’ve got three championship rounds going on, and six teams vying for the titles. Just to give you all an idea of what being in this league is like, here are the players that each of the six championship contenders have stolen this season.
Benjamin Haller: Ronald Acuna, Sonny Gray, Tim Anderson, Elieser Hernandez, Matt Chapman, and Zack Wheeler.
James Peterson: Manny Machado, Juan Soto, Max Scherzer, Lucas Giolito, Raisel Iglesias, and Yuli Gurriel.
Donny Moskovits: Shane Bieber, Jacob deGrom, Luke Voit, German Marquez, Max Kepler, Robbie Ray, and Madison Bumgarner.
KingHippo: Luis Castillo, Dinelson Lamet, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Mike Clevinger, Rich Hill, and Joe Musgrove.
Darrin Ambrose: Jacob deGrom, Ronald Acuna, Frankie Montas, Marcus Semien, Adalberto Mondesi, and Corey Seager.
Collin Carlone: Gerrit Cole, Lucas Giolito, Marcell Ozuna, Austin Nola, Aaron Judge, Dylan Cease, Eugenio Suarez, and John Means.
Good luck to everyone playing for their championship this week!
-Myles Nelson
Featured image by Justin Paradis (@freshmeatcomm on Twitter)