State Of The State

Things went about as badly as possible for my teams over the season’s first month and a half. They were all either in last place, second to last or third to last. As of a week ago, no team was in single digits in the standings, and keep in mind three of the four leagues are 12-teamers, i.e., single digits is an awfully modest ambition.

Since then, things are looking up slightly. Here are the current standings:

One thing you don’t see in the overall standings is the destroyed ERA and WHIP of a couple teams recovering to catch the pack. It hasn’t yielded big standings gains yet, but Lance Lynn and Chris Bassitt pitching much better has made it possible for a bigger move in the coming weeks.

The one team really struggling is the first one (11th out 12), and I can’t entirely understand why.

Here are the first 12 picks:

Maybe the lag of getting Tatis and Verlander active are still holding us back (Tatis I knew would be delayed, Verlander was a surprise.) Varsho and Kirk were bad picks, Lynn’s overall ERA is still terrible, and Walker was sent down. Maybe that’s enough to explain it. That and bad later round picks except for A.J. Minter and Josh Jung.

Let’s take a look in another month when Tatis’ and Verlander’s contributions start to add up.

. . .

My NFBKC Postseason team is probably drawing dead now. Oddly, taking low-owned Bam Adebayo over Jimmy Butler was our biggest mistake, but offers the only path to cashing if Butler missed time in the finals and Adebayo went off. Even so, 117 out of 250 isn’t bad, considering I hadn’t watched an NBA game in five years, and Sasha made half the picks. We were up to 62 at one point last week, too.

We needed the Sixers to go farther with our four-percent owned James Harden, but that team had no heart. I haven’t watched the Heat-Celtics series, but am amazed the Heat are up 3-0. If the Heat win the championship as an eight seed, they’ll have had to beat both No. 1 seeds. That might not happen for another 100 years.

I find it hilarious that the NBA, potentially salivating over an old school Celtics-Lakers bi-coastal finals will almost certainly have to settle for Heat-Nuggets, two smaller brands without the history.

In any event, the postseason contest was well worth it for us. It got Sasha the bug, got me back into the NBA and was important practice for when we run a full-season team next fall.