EHCC 2017 Performance ⅓

There's an old saying in baseball that it takes a third of season to figure out you really have, a third of a season to fix it and a third of a season to see what happens. We're a third of the way through the 2017 fantasy baseball season. What do you really have?

The leader in top weekly score so far is Weymouth with 97 points in week 3. The leader? for worst weekly score so far is San Fernando Valley with 33.5 points in week 5.

Humble Brag

Is it really an achievement to have your drops taking in the 1st round of the madraft? Sure it could mean that your team was so stacked that you had to cut good players. OR it could mean that you didn’t do a good job making your cuts. OR that you mismanaged your roster by acquiring keeper quality players that you couldn’t fit on your 21-man roster (letting value evaporate). OR that you missed out on trading these player prior to the draft. Since when is not having good players anymore something to gloat about? Just throwing it out there…

Blow Fo Sho?

SI.com's Jon Wertheim writes that Nippon Ham Fighters executives "admit that this will likely be (Shohei Otani's) final season in Japan." And, “Otani told CBS' 60 Minutes he will sign with a major-league team after this season, Bob Nightengale of USA TODAY reports.”

If you’re not familiar with Shohei Otani, he’s basically the Japanese Babe Ruth. With a ceiling of a #1 starter with 30+ power. Yes, pitcher and hitter. Did I mention that he’s still only 22 years old? Is there a team in the EHCC that wouldn’t want this guy?

All signs point to Otani playing in the MLB next season. The only complication is the contract. If Otani jumps to the MLB next year than he would be subject to the international bonus pool and once signed would start on a rookie deal (arbitration and such). If he waits until 2019 than he’s just a free agent, and can sign whatever contract a team is willing to offer him. You’d have to imagine that some team out there would offer him a $200+ million dollar deal if this was the case. So financially, you’d say that it would be insane for Otani leave $200+ million on the table just so he could come to the MLB a year sooner. Yet all signs point to him doing so.

As far as the EHCC is concerned, the race for last place this year is going to be ugly. Am I right SFV?

Suck for Otani?
Lousy for Otani?
Blow fo Sho?
Yes, that’s the one! #blowfosho

10-Day DL

When the MLB announced that they were changing their 15-day DL to a 10-day DL, I didn’t think too much about it. After 7 weeks of living in a 10-day DL world it’s apparent that there is a functional change on how MLB teams are using the DL. Teams are now more likely to DL players with minor injuries with less consequence. Especially in regards to starting pitchers. 10 days off is just a skipped start. Have an extra day off in the schedule and want to skip someone anyways? Throw him on the DL and get an extra RP for the next 10 days. A young guy gaining too quickly on his inning limit? Skip a start, throw him on the DL and get an extra RP for the next 10 days.

What this really means for the EHCC is that an adjustment is probably in order. Since the threshold for MLB teams to place a player on the DL is lower, more players are being placed on the DL. Which means that we should consider adding at least 1 more DL slot.

Currently 10 out of 12 teams are carrying at least 3 DL’d players. 9 of those teams are burning at least 1 roster spot by carrying more than 3 DL’d players. There are currently 53 rostered DL’d players across the 12 teams; 4.4 per roster. 

Santo Disappointment

Over the past 3 seasons Santo Domingo has been steadily working their way up towards being a title contender. After missing the playoffs in 2014 and 2015, last year saw SD make a strong late season push to make the playoffs. Looking to build on that momentum, GM Manny Ramirez thought that another year would make his young squad even more formidable in 2017. Ramirez thought wrong.

SD has been mediocre at best so far in 2017. Winning just 2 out of 7 matchups while acquiring a 30-35-5 record, finding themselves in last place in the west. Manny isn’t even sure why. Sure, there’s been a couple injuries. Nothing more than anyone else. A little bit of bad luck. Under performance by established veterans. Too many RP’s. Manny is baffled why his team has played so poorly through a third of the season.

Ramirez once thought that he might leverage some of his mi assets in 2017 to be a buyer at the deadline. So far in 2017 it’s apparent that the ASF are more than a player or two away from making the playoffs. This has Manny considering an opposite strategy at this year’s deadline. That 2013 championship gets further away every day…

Line Drives

What is the appropriate amount of time to wait to give the paid web master shit for neglecting the website? Don’t want to be a hard ass but the website hasn’t been updated since August. Making it absolutely useless. I’d like to come to the site as the source for trade/draft/mi ownership info. It’s not.

Judge is a great name for a gigantic 6’7” power hitter. Imagine if he was on Weymouth’s roster?

Not really sure what LV is doing. Simultaneously making buy and sell moves. With 3 trades already this season, new manager Hank (don't call me Max Powers) Scorpio is certainly making his mark. What’s the over/under on LV trades this season? 9.5? Something tells me that if Scorpio had his way it would be well into the double digits by the time the dust settles…

The best line from the champions draft party. “Who the fuck is Tom Murphy?” Followed by, “I’m glad you said it, I was wondering if I missed something.” See the gold you’re missing by staying home.

Is it just me or is the 2016 midraft class looking exceptionally strong right now. Already some bigs hits in Benintendi and Bregman. Some later guys like Garrett, Torres, Brinson and Bellinger who’ve seen their value sky rocket since the draft. Other big names still in the minors holding strong like Moncada and Rodgers.

Just a quick moment of silence for RIO’s entire roster. You’d have to think that the training staff is to blame for such a situation. Is this a case of Alex Guerrero’s shady supplements, nutrition plans and training regiments finally coming to roost? Tom Brady better take a hard look into that crap. All I know is that if this was my team someone’s ass would be getting fired.

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before. Rakeville is considering a firesale. Maybe Jack Reed can find the time in his busy schedule this year to actually return calls/texts. Sadly the return on players like King Felix, Trumbo and Miggy would’ve been much greater last season.

#freestory    Yea, I said it. But yea, Dublin is probably feeling pretty good about not having him on his roster at the moment.

Feeling Unlucky?
Below is a summary of the PF and PA for the 2017 1/3 regular season. The PF shows how well you’ve performed on average on the 10-120 scale. As in my previous posts, the delta(∆) column is your PA minus 65 (65 being the average). This number gives you an idea of how “lucky” you’ve been in regards to performance against you. You’ll see that the most “lucky” teams so far in 2017 are Weymouth, Quebec City and Dublin. While the most “unlucky” teams have been Rakeville, Santo Domingo and Tijuana.

That’s right, not only has Weymouth been the best team so far this year, they’ve also played the easiest schedule. Which is how you skyrocket to a 9 game lead in just 7 weeks. WEY is well positioned for a first round bye and is the odds on favorite for the 2017 EHCC championship.

RIO is an outlier here. We all know that RIO has been bitten hard by the injury bug (9 players on the DL). Yet they’re still holding their own as the #4 seed. The PF says that RIO has been the 10th best team thus far. The PA is 2.3 points below average (in RIO’s favor). Combining these two fields (effective column), brings RIO up to being the 8th best team. Yet RIO currently ranks 4th in Yahoo. Luck? F if I know…