EHCC 2017 Performance Final

 








The winner for top weekly score in 2017 was Bridgewater with 108.5 points in week 11. The loser for worst weekly score in 2017 was San Fernando Valley with 21 points in week 15.

Playoff Time!
Weymouth has to be considered the favorite to take home the 2017 EHCC title. Their offense is as good, or better than anyone’s. And their pitching has been surprisingly effective (surprising because they lost their best pitcher to faulty navigation). Tijuana’s fate may be wrapped up in Paul Goldschmidt’s MRI. Any missed time would be devastating for TIJ.

LV spent day one of the playoffs over-managing their roster by inexplicably starting Mark Leiter Jr. Yea that Mark Leiter Jr, who gave up 8 earned runs over 3.1 innings. Luckily for LV, SD returned in kind with awful starts from Jose Berrios and Dylan Bundy, and a blow up from temporary closer Brandon Maurer. Someone is going to win ERA this week with a number north of 5.

JD Martinez’s 4 homerun start to the playoffs has SJ feeling like they’ve got a chance. After all their win-now moves, could QC be one and done?
 

Alternate Pitching Strategies

2017 has seen a disruption in the force. Two teams, QC and LV have taken a shot of upsetting the traditionally pitching strategy. That strategy being to roster 2-4 RP’s and 8-10 SP’s. Generally this strategy allowed for a staff to be competitive in all 5 pitching categories. For arguments sake, we’ll presume that RP’s (the type worth rostering) put up better ERA and WHIP than SP’s.

QC has employed a zero-RP pitching strategy for most of the season. Seeing that they were having a hard time competing with the RP hoarding teams, QC sold what RP’s they had and invested heavily in SP. QC has employed around 14 SP’s for most of the season. Why? QC is throttling W’s and K’s on a weekly basis. Nobody in the EHCC can keep up with the sheer volume of innings pitched to compete in those categories. But no RP’s also means that they’re losing saves every single week. ERA and WHIP is another discussion. Rostering that many SP’s and no RP’s has inflated QC’s ERA and WHIP. Sure QC had acquired all the best SP’s available in the league, but in actuality they’ve amassed a 19-23 (0.452) record in these categories. Essentially this zero-RP strategy guarantees W’s and K’s, punts SV’s and does below average in ERA and WHIP.
 

On an interesting note, QC has deviated from this strategy slightly by trading for a couple RP’s late in the season, “just to keep people honest”. This was done in response to their week 17 matchup. SD caught QC with their pants down. After a couple good starts and a save, SD sat their entire pitching staff for 5 days and won the pitching categories 3-2. Think of this as QC’s Hardhome.
 

LV is employing the polar opposite strategy to QC. A zero-SP pitching strategy. LV has traded away all of their starting pitchers this season in favor of as many top end RP’s as they can play on a day-to-day basis. The zero-SP strategy theoretically gives you SV’s, ERA and WHIP every week while punting W’s and K’s (but virtue of not putting up enough innings pitched to compete with a traditionally built pitching staff). So best case scenario is placing 3-2 in pitching categories. Worst case is a closer or two blowing up in a given week and losing your ERA and WHIP advantage. Essentially this strategy gives you a good chance at winning pitching 3-2 on a weekly basis but limits the upside of the pitching scoring.
 

Also consider the volatility at the closer position. Almost all of a RP’s value is wrapped up in opportunity. Without being the “closer” these RP’s are mostly useless in fantasy baseball. While the zero-SP is currently working out pretty well for LV, there is some question about the long term viability of it. Look back just a few seasons and see how much turnover there’s been. As LV’s current closers lose their jobs, they’re going to have to replace the saves by acquiring more closers. Since one team is holding some many closers, it’s creating a scarcity that didn’t exist before. In theory this would drive the value of closers up and make them more expensive. Also, other teams might see LV’s successes and want to give it a try. Driving the value of closers even higher. Dizzy yet? What a mess.
 

Will either of these alternative pitching strategies be successful? Or is punting categories in the playoffs foolish? We’ll see…
 

Line Drives

Bench dongs are the hardest dongs to stomach…

Aviator McShadeless hit on 5 of 6 playoff teams in his winter magazine prognostications. The miss? Tijuana. If you saw that coming you should be doing something better with your time than fantasy baseball.

2016 was the midraft of SD (7 midp’s), 2017 was the midraft of SVF (6 midp’s). 2018 will be the midraft of RIO who is currently in possession of 7 midp’s, including 3 first rounders.

LV is subpar in the midraft (scoreboard) and trades away all of their madp's. Yet they have the highest winning percentage in league history, make the playoffs almost every year and have a bunch of championships. How? Their whole scheme is based on beating people in trades. Kind of makes you wonder, why trade with LV? Yet y’all keep doing it. Why?...
 

Insert scathing comment about SJ’s Devers trade. This trade is the EHCC equivalent to the C’s/Nets trade. It didn’t look good at the time and is only going to look worse and worse as time goes on. Devers AND multiple first round midp’s? Sign me up!
 

What the F happened to Dublin?
 

Little Finger didn’t make it out of season 7 alive. What does this mean for LV? Discuss…
 

Feeling Unlucky?

The most “lucky” teams for the 2017 regular season were Quebec City and Weymouth. While the most “unlucky” teams were Las Vegas and Tokyo.

It’s nice to see the top 6 scoring (PF) teams make the playoffs. There’s nothing worth than deserving a playoff spot and not getting in.