A look back at the preseason power rankings

Well, we are midway through the MLB season and it’s been another great first half for the DD. With headline news happening week after week in our league, many storylines have taken center stage.

Some that come to mind are:

The renting deal between Alex and Kurt, the benching of pitching staffs midway through the week, Drew winning his first week of the season last week, Richie and Alex’s epic trade, Drew and Ben having the same team name for way too long, Kurt’s and my respective 10 and 8-week unbeaten streaks, Richie getting closer and closer to owing me and Kurt $20 for finishing with a worse regular-season record following a drunken draft-night wager, Drew forgetting to start Verlander for multiple weeks, our one meeting, Richie’s hundreds of attempts to have a second meeting, Ben’s continued shit luck against Longoria, Kurt renaming the league after Nolan Reimond and Jermaine Dye in consecutive days, Richie’s sweet weekly matchups, and lastly, TJ being just a half game out of first place despite Richie and Kurt picking him to finish 9^th in their preseason power rankings.

This leads me to my next point, which has to do with said power rankings. Let’s look back at how each team has faired thus far and how their current position compares to the preseason power rankings. As of now, zero teams are where they were projected to finish, but there is still plenty of time to turn that around, or for TJ to fall down to 9^th.

Colin: Preseason 1, Current 6

Colin had high expectations coming into this season, as he owned the top two hitters in all of baseball. With the additions of Ryu, Darvish and Segura this year, Colin got off to a hot start as expected, however took a midseason dive thanks to a 7-23 record from weeks 7-9. Just when things were looking up for Colin, beating Jarrett 8-2, an embarrassing loss to Drew has dropped him to within just one game of last pace (not including the developmental teams of Richie and Drew). Colin needs to bank on Wil Myers paying off in the second half after paying the hefty price of CJ Wilson for him, and hope that Medlen does not get bumped to the bullpen as expected when Beachy gets back from the DL.

Kurt: Preseason 2, Current 5

As we all know, mostly from Kurt informing us week after week, he has a good team and his place in the standings does not reflect the quality of his team. First place in cumulative homers, runs, average and wins and yet he finds himself 5^th in the standings. What’s the issue? Well, it’s partially bad luck, partially having four solid, healthy starters all year (Lynn, Zimmerman, Samardazija and Corbin) and having to rotate the rest in and out, having streaky hitters (mostly good streaky though), having a DL-riddled team, and some might say having no closers. Kurt is currently the toughest manager in the league to defeat, as he’s gone 10 straight weeks unbeaten, but he is the least dominant winning team, not taking more than six categories in a single week all season. It will be interesting to see when Kurt gets into the playoffs whether he can scratch out another (what seems to be an easy) 6-4 win or if he’ll have to rely on his regular-season standing to determine his fate following a playoff tie.

Alex: Preseason 3, Current 4

Not bad Richie and Kurt, Alex is just three games off of where you predicted him to finish. Alex has had a pretty dominant year, but has been hurt by Stanton’s injury and Rizzo sucking after a hot start. Puig and Franklin have really helped solidify him as a top dog, losing only to Ben, TJ and Kurt so far. Alex might have the most well balanced offense right now, owning a winning record in every hitting category this year. Alex, out of any team, is actually the one I’m most nervous to face, and I happen to be facing him this week.

Jarrett: Preseason 4, Current 7

Jarrett’s outfield was projected as one of the best coming into the year, but the lack of production from that position is one reason he currently sits in 7^th place. Hamilton- Sucks, Cespedes- .226, Braun- Injured since June 9, now that’s just shit luck. Thankfully, Goldschmidt, Carpenter and Machado are all beasiting right now, and are part of the best corner infield in the league (Jarrett, please switch Carpenter with Rendon so this statement can be true). Jarrett’s pitching staff is scary, unfortunately he’s been edged out in some close matchups the past few weeks. When all his pitchers are on their game, led by Kershaw, the best pitcher in baseball (in my opinion), Jarrett should win 4-1 every week in pitching, he just needs a little more help on the offensive. Four straight losses from weeks 10-13 has bumped Jarrett down to 7^th place, but if Braun comes back soon and if Hamilton starts hitting like he does in the late innings against the Sox against every team, Jarrett could find himself in the top tier of the league pretty soon.

Ben: Preseason 5, Current 1

Ben has five losses to his record so far, but still finds himself in 1^st place thanks to two shutouts and multiple wins in dominant fashion. He was 21-5-4 in his last three weeks prior to losing to Adrian this past week, which propelled him right through Clay’s butt hole and into first place. Led by potential All-Star Game starters Scherzer and Wainwright, Ben has a winning record in every pitching category this year, and is second overall in cumulative WHIP. Ellsbury is leading his team on the base paths, helping him play to a 12-1-1 record in steals and a winning record in each hitting category but RBI. Ben certainly has the bats as well, with Chris Davis, Cano, Encarnacion, the recent pickup of Rauuuuul, and hopefully Dexter Fowler coming back soon. Ben’s cumulative team stats haven’t been the greatest, but he’s well balanced enough and has played the right competition at the right time to find himself atop the leaderboard.

Richie: Preseason 6, Current 9

Well, who could see this one coming? Me obviously, hence me betting 20 doll hairs I would finish with a better regular season record than Rich. As you can tell, I love gloating when I’m ahead, which doesn’t happen often so I take advantage of it when I can. Like for instance when the Mariners are in first place every year at 1-0 and then suck every game after that. Anyway, Richie currently has two healthy starters (Strasburg and Fister) that he actually drafted, which means he had to settle for mediocrity in free agency throughout the season after everyone else nabbed all the good pitchers. The pitching is downright atrocious. His hitting is coming along finally though with Hanley back and better than ever, Wright being only slightly overrated, as he’s starting to somewhat prove me wrong, Gomez still tearing and Craig staying consistent. Richie has just one win all season and is on a four-week losing streak, establishing himself as one of the two worst teams in the league by far. I do feel however if his pitching can string together a couple good weeks, the bats will be good enough to carry him to a few ties or Kurt wins, not completely ruling out the possibility of an August/September playoff push.

Drew: Preseason 7, Current 10

Seriously guys, Drew ahead of me, TJ and Adrian? I hope y’all learned your lesson and despite how future drafts go, will never predict Drew to finish above 10^th ever again. Drew finally picked up his first win of the season last week and it only came 14 weeks young. His suckiness is due to five things: 1. Shitty hitting 2. Shitty pitching 3. Shitty drafting 4. Shitty managing 5. Shitty managing. I hope I relayed the message. He either realized he had a piss poor team early on and decided to do nothing about it or he thought he had a team that could contend, which was obviously horrible judgment. Either way, his lack of attention paid to the league has resulted in a league-low nine moves and 43 wins. Molina has really only been the one consistent spot on offense, but if Hosmer, Werth and Gordon can continue to stay hot, Drew might be able to eek out a couple hitting categories a week, okay, maybe one. Drew hasn’t had one dominant pitcher this season, except maybe AJ Burnett, who just got activated off the DL, Drew’s DL that is. Verlander has been pretty good but Drew missed some of his best starts due to laziness. It’s a long road ahead for Drew, who better bank on trading pieces for draft picks for next season.

James: Preseason 8, Current 3

I honestly wasn’t sure how my season was going to go once I started 13-17. Obviously after the draft I was confident I had the best team, but then as everyone had warned me, Weaver and Dickey were going to have their issues, prompting me to rethink my strategy. Luckily I strung together some nice pickups of Teheran and Fernandez and now that Gio and Weaver are pitching well and Dickey has had a couple good starts, I think my rotation is starting to find its identity. The hitting was never the issue, except for having all my big bats on the DL at some point. Currently, I have eight hitters in the top 77 and that’s helped me to a .500 record or better in every hitting category this year. And my totals aren’t that bad either, as I’m first in RBI, tied for second in homers, third in runs and third in SB (p.s. I’m still not a fan of the category rewards at the end of the season). 

The combination of solid hitting and timely and strategic pitching has helped me on an eight-week unbeaten streak and 24 games over the .500 mark (my highest total in a long time). The next two weeks against Alex and Ben will be tough but then the road the rest of the way is relatively easy (minus week 19 against Kurt). I should stay in the top 3 solely based on lack of competition but losses this week and next to Ben could prove vital, but on the other hand, wins against top teams will go a long way.

TJ- Preseason 9, Current 2

TJ has beaten everybody in the league except me and Colin (playing for second time this week) and started his season with a 9-1-2 weekly record. His success has greatly been due to a whole bunch of surprises, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Frankly, I had no idea Matt Harvey, Josh Donaldson, Mike Minor, Ervin Santana and Jeff Locke would all have the All-Star worthy years they are having, but seriously, who did? Props TJ on those sweet pickups. TJ has lost his last two weeks, but it’s nothing to worry about, as he’s dropped close contests to the two hottest teams in the DD. TJ has a relatively painless schedule the rest of the way so there is less than a minute chance he’ll slip down do his preseason projection of 9^th.

Adrian- Preseason 10, Current 8

Adrian has beaten everyone he’s supposed to and lost to everyone he’s supposed to putting him in 8^th place and just a game out of the playoffs. He’s averaging 6.8^th place per hitting category, and yet he’s only below .500 for the year in home runs. It’s not all his fault however, as Matt Kemp has missed a chunk of the season, Headly has sucked balls, and Wandy and Cueto have really been sidelined due to injury. It honestly didn’t look like Adrian had a 10^th place team before the season started, but with all his injuries and poor free agent replacements, it’s starting to look more and more like it. He’s extremely lucky there’s Richie and Drew to beat up on 2/9^ths of the weeks and to keep him out of the bottom dwellers.