It’s hard to believe there’s only one week to go in the Razzball Commenter Leagues. This marathon of a season has seen us torture ourselves for 26 long weeks, agonizing over batty calls, dipping into the streamers with mixed results, cursing players, and praising others. We’ve ignored our families, our jobs, and our hygiene and now it all comes down to the final week, or, whoever has Shohei Ohtani. My goodness, that man is in an entirely different stratosphere. Imagine thinking you didn’t want your UTIL spot “clogged” on draft day. The man is going league-winner beast mode in the final weeks of the season and can clog my…um, well, never mind. Speaking of winning leagues, you may smell like stale Cheetos, but dadgummit, that virtual fantasy trophy is about to be yours! Well, maybe not yours, but definitely that guy’s. Son is doing his best to fend off Grey and has done so for another week. Can Grey pull off the comeback? It should be a fun finish! Cubbiehead is looking for an overall championship and hopes to fend off a horde of teams wrapping up their 1400+ IP. It’s going to be close! There will be one final RCL Update next week, probably Wednesday since the final one of the year is a doozie of stats, so stay tuned for that. As for this week, we’ll go over some great weeks, check in on the ‘Perts League finish, and more in the week that was week 25:
Each week we’ll peek in at our resident ‘perts to see who is laying claim to best “expert” RCLer in the land. We’ll take notes, check the standings and generally stalk them. The heading is also hyperlink, so feel free to follow along as we go.
Absolutely zero changes in the ‘Perts standings heading into the final week. However, I did manage to tack on a league-best six points this week. I’m still seven points behind Grey, so, too little too late from my squad, but it’s nice to finish respectably. Going the other way this week was Coolwhip, who lost 4.5 points. This is a two man race though and could end up a photo finish.
WEEKLY LEADERS
The best of the best from the week that was.
R – 64 – La Crescenta Retrievers (RCL 23)
HR –27 – La Crescenta Retrievers (RCL 23)
RBIs – 70 – La Crescenta Retrievers (RCL 23)
SB – 22 – Vin X (RCL 10)
AVG – .347 – Cargonauts (RCL 1)
K – 132 – Vin Joins (RCL 2)
W – 10 – Gunk Squad (The Laura Holt Challenge), Organic Pringles (FCL), & Blue Squadron 1 (RCL 1)
SV – 10 – Whack Daniels (RCL 1) & Clyde (RCL 30)
ERA (Min. 40 IP) – 0.99 – JoseArcadioBuendia (RCL 18) (in 45.2 IP)
WHIP (Min. 40 IP) – 0.681 – Driftees (RCL 15) (in 54.1 IP)
There were no weekly records set this week but La Crescenta Retrievers had themselves a week! Wanna place bets if they roster Shohei? (They do, Casas too!) Vin popped two teams on the leaderboard as he stole and streamed his way to SB and strikeout leader. RCL 1 is also well represented this week with three different teams making the leaderboard. Nice work!
Some more weekly stats from VinWins:
37 teams had an ERA under 2. (Last Week there were 31)
16 teams had an ERA over 6. (Last Week there were 35)
10 teams hit under .200 (Last Week there were 6)
24 teams hit over .300. (Last Week there were 21)
As for the season stats:
96.3% of the schedule has been completed. 963 IP would be on pace for the 1000 IP minimum. 1349 IP is on pace for the maximum 1400 IP.
There are now 72 teams that have reached 1400 IP. The average is 1265 IP.
39 teams have not yet reached 1000 IP.
MOVES:
The average # of moves is 125.
The most active team:
496 moves: Scoboticus (RCL 2)
Other than steals, no season-long records will be broken this year. PlatanoPowers is already 15 SBs over the record set last year, which in turn broke the previous record by 33 steals. To say the new rules have increased stolen bases would be an understatement of all understatements. In two years we’ll have increased the season record by 60 steals or so. Four other categories have a better mark than 2023: Wins, Saves, ERA, WHIP. oldrock (RCL 29) needs five home runs to better last year’s total of 381.
HOME RUNS – 377 oldrock (RCL 29)
STOLEN BASES – 318 PlatanoPowers (RCL 12)
WINS – 115 Todd, the Future Dance (COUGS R US)
SAVES – 187 TRUSS (Writer’s League)
ERA (960 IP Min) – 2.96 Ding Dong Johnsons (RCL 8) 1268.33 IP
WHIP (960 IP Min) – 1.040 Lipmanpike (RCL 28) 1238.67 IP
TEAM OF THE WEEK
Our weekly shout out to the team that killed it the previous week.
Team: Royce and Shine
League: RCL 26
Stats: AVG: .281, R: 54, HR: 18, RBI: 55, SB: 17
IP: 62.2, ERA: 1.15, WHIP: 0.718, K: 79, W: 6, SV: 6
Summary: Holy smokes, what a week! A near slam and legs with 18 homers, haha! Sub 1 WHIP, huge K/9, and a nice round 6/6 wins/saves, my goodness! Royce and Shine added 7.5 points and pulled to within five of first place in RCL 26. Shohei Ohtani carried the offense (shockingly!), hitting .500 with 11 runs, six home runs, 17 RBI, and seven steals. Amazing. Michael Harris II chipped in four homers and seven RBI while hitting .455. Blake Snell paced the pitching staff, recording two wins and striking out 21 while allowing 0 runs. Gerrit Cole went 9 innings for a win and Cody Bradford threw 7 shutout innings for another win. Aroldis Chapman and Luke Weaver each recorded 2 saves. Weaver also picked up a win. R&S could be peaking perfectly to steal the RCL 26 title. Best of luck!
Want to be my internet pal? That’s kinda creepy, but you can follow me here: @MattTruss or here: @matttruss.bsky.social
