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This past week in fantasyland was as perfect a reminder as any that the 2018 season is still so incredibly young. There simply hasn’t been enough time for anybody to pull away with a meaningful lead in the standings, as evidenced by last week’s top two teams being supplanted by numbers 7 and 10 to lead the pack.
Bustacard: Da Bustas
cards web: Wacha This Way
cullerz29: Abominable Bowman
ebo: ebo
G.M. Bowles: Howl’s Owls
John J. Fleming: The Nye Mets
Josey Curtis: Josey’s Team
jpb3215: Hakuna Moncada
lil_scooter93: the lil scooters
Salti Cracker: Rolen Dirty
stlcardsfan4: Bob LOB Law
Tyler Kinzy: Big City Bat Flips
VEB Fantasy League Standings Update
| Rank | Team Name | Total Points | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG | W | SV | K | ERA | WHIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Team Name | Total Points | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG | W | SV | K | ERA | WHIP |
| 1 | Da Bustas | 75 | 9.5 | 12 | 11 | 3 | 2 | 12 | 7.5 | 12 | 3 | 3 |
| 1 | ebo | 75 | 11 | 5 | 7 | 9.5 | 9 | 5 | 3.5 | 4 | 10 | 11 |
| 3 | Big City Bat Flips | 72 | 7 | 2.5 | 9 | 4.5 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 4 | 2 |
| 4 | Bob LOB Law | 69.5 | 3 | 8 | 5 | 9.5 | 4 | 9.5 | 5.5 | 9 | 9 | 7 |
| 5 | Hakuna Moncada | 68.5 | 9.5 | 6 | 4 | 11 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 8 | 7 | 9 |
| 6 | Wacha This Way | 67.5 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 8 | 9.5 | 11 | 12 | 12 |
| 7 | Howl's Owls | 66.5 | 5 | 9 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 9.5 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 10 |
| 8 | Josey's Team | 65 | 4 | 2.5 | 2 | 12 | 10 | 5 | 3.5 | 7 | 11 | 8 |
| 9 | Abominable Bowman | 63.5 | 12 | 11 | 12 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 9.5 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| 10 | Rolen Dirty | 59 | 1 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 1 | 5 | 12 | 5 | 8 | 6 |
| 11 | the lil scooters | 50.5 | 2 | 10 | 10 | 1 | 12 | 1 | 7.5 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| 12 | The Nye Mets | 48 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 4.5 | 8 | 5 | 5.5 | 2 | 5 | 5 |
Anchored offensively by strong weeks from Mike Trout, Gary Sánchez, and Kyle Seager, VEB user Bustacard pulled into a tie for first place with ebo. While the latter’s sluggers are extracting double digits fantasy points in the home run and RBI categories, ebo is sacrificing power in lieu of a higher batting average with more steals and runs scored. On the pitching side, Bustacard has the advantage in raw counting stats as ebo dominates the rate states (i.e. ERA and WHIP). This discrepancy is to be expecting considering that Bustacard has already logged 90 more innings pitched than ebo.
Here are last week’s standings compared to the updated rankings as of this writing.
VEB Fantasy League Standings Trends
| Team Name | Current Rank | Previous Rank | Change in Rank | Change in Fantasy Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team Name | Current Rank | Previous Rank | Change in Rank | Change in Fantasy Points |
| Da Bustas | 1 | 10 | 9 | 15 |
| ebo | 1 | 7 | 6 | 8.5 |
| Howl's Owls | 7 | 9 | 2 | 6 |
| the lil scooters | 11 | 12 | 1 | 16 |
| Hakuna Moncada | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| Wacha This Way | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| The Nye Mets | 12 | 11 | -1 | -8 |
| Rolen Dirty | 10 | 8 | -2 | -4 |
| Big City Bat Flips | 3 | 1 | -2 | -7.5 |
| Bob LOB Law | 4 | 2 | -2 | -9 |
| Josey's Team | 8 | 4 | -4 | -7 |
| Abominable Bowman | 9 | 3 | -6 | -10 |
This was a week that the previous top four would prefer to forget. stlcardsfan4, Josey Curtis, cullerz29, and I all dropped multiple spots in the standings for a variety of reasons. Adding, well, injury to injury for me personally was a rough week health-wise. With Drew Pomeranz and Delino DeShields currently sidelined, I had no available DL slots when Jonathan Schoop and Elvis Andrus went down, eating into my already very thin middle infield depth. This also means that I have been playing with just one backup position player, which has been especially problematic with all of the postponed games as of late. The injury bug has also nipped at stlcardsfan4, who has only received a combined 15 games of proudction between Wil Myers and Josh Donaldson thus far.
I would be remiss not to mention this week’s biggest winner in terms of fantasy points gained: the lil scooters themselves. Spearheading the charge for Heather were Paul Goldschmidt, Charlie Blackmon, and Khris Davis to rank her third place in home runs and RBI while also leading the league in batting average. Unfortunately, though, her pitching staffs consists of the following and only the following individuals:
- Cole Hamels, who according to FanGraphs has been a sub-replacement level pitcher in 2018
- Corey Knebel, who sustained a hamstring injury on April 5th and is not expected to return until mid-late May at the earliest. He posted a 10.13 ERA prior to landing on the disabled list.
- Wade Davis, who Yahoo says has been the fourth highest-scoring reliever in baseball thanks in large part to an MLB-best 8 saves on the season.
Still, Heather’s batting prowess was enough for her to jump John Fleming in the standings. Mr. Fleming told me this last week prior to slipping into the deepest chasms of the VEB fantasy league cellar:
It’s fine. Everything is fine. This season is going fine. I’m not mad about how the season is going. I’m laughing, actually. I find it humorous that I’m in 11th.
Since John’s team is basically the entire Cubs roster, I find it appropriate to leave you all with this image.
— Double Birds (@2xBirds) October 11, 2016
Have a great Friday, everybody.