We’ve Reached the Semi-Finals: The PL Wacky Leagues Week 7 Recap

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

One great thing about the Guillotine Leagues is no standings, so no playoffs to worry about. If you’re in it, you’re in it, period. After this week we’re down to a mere three teams in each league, but there’s no #1 seed, no byes, no time to take your foot off the pedal or relax for even a second. Somebody is going to check the final score on Sunday in two weeks, throw their hands up in the air and realize every single hair on their head has turned gray.

We saw some epic one-day scores posted this week, in League 1 Alex Drennan saw over a quarter of his total for the week scored on Tuesday, where his team put up 129 points, with 92.50 coming from his pitching thanks to 7 starts lining up that day. Rich Holman had himself a Friday, putting up 142 points and helping his team finish a solid 84.5 points up from elimination in 3rd place. The majority of his points also came from pitching, with Gerrit Cole, Brandon Woodruff, and Luis Castillo all scoring more than 30 points, plus an extra 11.50 from Lucas Giolito to put his hurlers over the century mark for the day.

With Rich’s 3rd place finish, we must bid adieu to Bris-jet-o(w), which I guess technically means we’re in another double elimination week since the team was co-managed by PL’s very own Austin Bristow II and Michael Ajeto. The Dynamic Duo accidentally spent 95% of their FAAB budget in week 1 on a pair of shortstops, and then to use Austin’s own words, they “penny and dimed our way to the final four” which is no easy feat. When it came to making hay from Bris-jet-o(w)’s misfortune, Alex once again showed off his status as “Only person with any FAAB left” by picking up Charlie Blackmon, Jose Urquidy, Matt Olson, Jacob deGrom, and Carlos Carrasco for $1 each. He was beaten to one of Bris-jet-o(w)’s week 1 SS purchases as Trea Turner went to Jake Matier for $0. Rich also got in a freebie bid, snagging Dylan Bundy for free this week. Bench slots are being used almost exclusively in League 1 for pitching stashes, which helps explain how Francisco Lindor went un-claimed in the Monday night window, although I still can’t really believe it.

Alex Drennan retains $344 in FAAB money, but really he realistically only needs about $20 given that neither Rich Holman nor Jake Matier have anything left in the coffers.

League 2’s week started out looking pretty bleak for one of our managers:

Going into Friday night, Hippo had fallen into the last place spot behind Myles Nelson by 63 points, which is usually a death sentence for sure. But the King wasn’t going to give up so easily! Not content to let League 1 take all of the scoring glory, KingHippo’s Guilloteam put up a 142 point night of their own, helped along by a 20-point doubleheader day from Luke Voit and masterful starting pitching from Luis Castillo and Jacob deGrom. The absolute explosion leapfrogged KingHippo into 3rd place and a 100-point Sunday saw him finish 116 points up on Myles, and surviving for another week.

Myles’ exit is Donny Moskovits’ opportunity, as he also got to flex his FAAB muscle alone in League 2, picking up Kenta Maeda, Deivi García, Yu Darvish, Mookie Betts, Gerrit Cole, and Carlos Carrasco for $1 each. So remember his rotation from the other week? Well, it’s even better now. KingHippo managed to pick up Zack Greinke and Sandy Alcantara for free, beating out Darrin Ambrose in waiver order. However, in order to flip the waiver order like that, Darrin was able to snag Liam Hendriks, Dakota Hudson, and Manny Machado.

Donny remains the sole FAAB-haver with $78 remaining to KingHippo and Darrin Ambrose’s $0.

Who will live to see another week?! Will there be any FAAB money left to spend come next week’s recap?! ONLY TIME WILL TELL!

 

WorstBall

WorstBall Categories

This week it was me, Asher, who gets the catbird seat as the worst of the worst, with a 8-1 finish over Kyle Seiler’s team. My offense managed to nearly triple Kyle’s strikeout total, with perennial Hitter Of The Week contender Adalberto Mondesi contributing 13 by himself. A pair of GIDPs and quartet of errors helped my offensive sweep, and despite somehow combining for 0 losses last week, by pitching staff threw a healthy 13 walks to go with a 7.15 ERA and 1.72 WHIP. Not bad, fellas. Well, actually quite bad but you know what I mean.

Hitter Of The Week: Ryan McMahon. McMahon gets the unenviable title of Five Category Contributor this week. Playing in all but one game this week, he put up 10Ks, 1 GIDP, 1 E, and a .222 OBP and .389 SLG. Those ratios aren’t as bad as some other everyday players in this league, but they’re certainly not good and it’s very hard for a guy to hit on every cat like that.

Pitcher Of The Week: Kolby Allard. While Jordan Yamamoto had a nightmare outing to forget, he only finished the week with 0.2 IP, while Allard saw two starts, throwing up 2 Ls and 6 BBs to go with his 27.00 ERA and 3.43 WHIP over 4.2 IP.

We’re now into the Championship Brackets for WorstBall Categories, with the semifinals taking place this week:

-Asher Dratel

WorstBall Points

Remember how I said Alex Isherwood has been running this league, is undefeated, and outscoring the league at a ridiculous pace? Well not anymore! I managed to luck my way into a win against him, as I didn’t score very many points (only 106.5, 7th highest score of the week), but I got lucky as Alex scored one of the lowest point totals not just of the week, but of his entire season. Up to this point he’s averaged over 200 points per week, and this week he only scored 94. But a win is a win is a win, and I will take it. Isherwood and I end up tied for first, with him winning the tiebreaker with more total points, and also joining us in the playoffs are reigning champion Joshua Botelho and Collin Carlone.

Hitter of the Week: Not everyday you see someone like Christian Yelich on this list, but he was the worst hitter last week, managing to go a mere 4/25, with 13 strikeouts, and getting caught stealing once. Hopefully better days are ahead for Yelich.

Pitcher of the Week: Jordan Yamamoto may have not gotten the nod in our categories format, but he put in work in points, as his poor outing led to 68 points. 12 earned runs, 4 home runs, and a 4.88 WHIP across 2.2 IP will do that for you.

 

Grand Theft Baseball

As we head into the playoffs for Grand Theft, every team had the opportunity to bolster their playoff chances with a win, and a subsequent theft. And this week was more important than ever, as there was no protection lists whatsoever. You win, you get your opponent’s best player. You lose, and you lose your best chance at making it through the playoffs. It’s not completely hopeless, as last year’s champion Dave Cherman lost in his final regular season matchup and was forced to lose Cody Bellinger, but still managed to win the title. Here’s how the playoff teams fared in our three leagues.