Start the drum roll! Twenty-seven weeks down and now we have twenty-five more until the start of next year’s fantasy baseball season. It’s (almost) perfect symmetry because fantasy baseball is the perfect fantasy sport. But, before we turn our eyes to next season we first have to recap this past season, and with that, our overall Razzball Commenter Leagues Champion…Gunk Squad! Gunk Squad took RCL 13 (AKA: The Beat Laura Holt Challenge) with an amazing 116 points. The above average LCI (103) helped make sure all those points counted. Gunk Squad had the most league points of anyone in the RCLs. Cubbiehead finished third overall and had 115 league points for second most. No other team had over 110. Gunk did all this in a league with a $100 buy-in and a handful of the best RCL managers around. No one was just giving up in this league. Gunk Squad was a contender from the jump. Our first update saw them debut at 12th overall and they would never fall below fifth overall again, usually in the top three. When the season stopped though, it was Gunk Squad at the top. The RCLs remain one of the best competitions in the fantasy baseball land, and winning this is harder than just about any industry league and probably harder than anything but an NFBC Main Event. A HUGE congrats to Gunk Squad on the accomplishment. Gunk Squad really rakes it in, winning themselves a $250 Best Buy gift card! More importantly, though, they get a Razzball T-Shirt and RCL glory. Who can put a price on that? Oh, it’s $25, well then, moving on. If you catch Gunk popping into this post, be sure to heap on the praise and congratulations. They fended off some very tough competitors to claim the RCL crown. This is Gunk’s moment though, so hopefully they pop in, take a bow and soak it up, they earned it.
Here’s what else happened this year and this final week of the RCLs:
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.
Son held off the Grey end of season push and captured Perts League glory. Son will officially change his handle to “Dad” for next fantasy baseball season. Son really is a master of this format, maximizing his moves, games played, and racking up counting stats to bury the competition. It doesn’t work every year, but when it hits, this is the result. I always enjoy competing with Son, because game recognize game. Son eliminated any doubt by gaining four points this final week, on the back of outstanding pitching, co-leading the league in wins (6), and leading in ERA, and WHIP. Grey lost a half point to maintain a second place finish. I gained 2.5 points and maybe if the season lasted another month my team could make a push, but it was too little too late for my team to finally start clicking. I’ll take a third place finish to these guys though. Nice work to our top three!
TOP 20
For those too lazy to check the MASTER STANDINGS, I present to you, the final top 20
Stand up and give a hearty pat on the rear end to your end-of-season top 20. Most of these teams made an appearance in the top 10 at some point this year and it takes some serious effort to make the top 20 at the season’s end. The end-of-season IP penalties shook up the LCIs quite a bit, causing a stir, so be sure to check out where everyone finished:
| RK | TEAM | LEAGUE | RCL PTS | LG PTS | LG INDEX | MASTER PTS | MOVEMENT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gunk Squad | RCL 13 | 115.2 | 116 | 103 | 110 | Up from 3 |
| 2 | Afternoon Delights | RCL 34 | 113 | 108 | 107 | 105.8 | |
| 3 | cubbiehead | RCL 31 | 112.9 | 115 | 101 | 108.4 | Down from 1 |
| 4 | Man or Stroman? | Original Recipe | 109.3 | 109 | 102 | 106.4 | Up from 5 |
| 5 | rloyod | RCL 24 | 108.4 | 102.5 | 105 | 106.1 | Down from 4 |
| 6 | Stop looking at me Kwan! | RCL 20 | 103.4 | 101 | 103 | 101 | Up from 11 |
| 7 | Son | Perts League | 102.4 | 100 | 104 | 99.1 | Up from 18 |
| 8 | dwightford | RCL 13 | 101.5 | 106 | 98 | 100.6 | Down from 6 |
| 9 | Big Daddy Truss | Crab Army | 101.4 | 101 | 101 | 99.7 | Up from 26 |
| 10 | Dunphy`s Joint Venture | RCL 24 | 101.4 | 95 | 105 | 100.2 | Down from 8 |
| 11 | Not Enough | RCL 25 | 100.9 | 104 | 100 | 97.3 | Up from 36 |
| 12 | password is taco | RCL 2 | 100.7 | 101 | 99 | 101.4 | Down from 7 |
| 13 | FANTASY ICON | DFSers Anonymous | 100.5 | 96.5 | 104 | 98.4 | Up from 16 |
| 14 | gilsonschmilsson10 | RCL 10 | 100.5 | 105 | 97 | 101.1 | Up from 22 |
| 15 | password is taco | RCL 5 | 100.4 | 104.5 | 96 | 102 | Down from 9 |
| 16 | Sea Pilots | Crab Army | 99.8 | 101 | 101 | 96.6 | Up from 33 |
| 17 | Bluefield Baby Birds | RCL 13 | 99.8 | 97 | 103 | 98.9 | Down from 12 |
| 18 | Wheel of Nonsense | RCL 27 | 99.4 | 103 | 96 | 102.4 | Up from 39 |
| 19 | WM&D | RCL 21 | 98.9 | 95.5 | 103 | 97.9 | Up from 37 |
| 20 | password is taco | RCL 17 | 98.9 | 98 | 102 | 97 | Down from 10 |
Again, Gunk Squad claimed the top spot, let’s take a quick peek at their team here, shall we? Here’s how Gunk started their draft this year:
Doesn’t exactly look like a team you’d expect to win it all, does it? Bobby Witt and Shohei Ohtani were definitely the two first round picks that could erase a lot of draft errors and Bobby Witt did some serious work for Gunk Squad. Lindor ended up being a great value as well and securing that ace in the first three rounds, no problems here that I can see. It’s interesting that the next two picks are two more pitchers, Glasnow and then Gausman who was pretty mid. Gunk made up for that by nabbing Sale at a huge value. Honestly, it looks like a pretty standard team, which means Gunk Squad must have been hitting the waiver wire hard, and indeed they did. Gunk used about 300 moves this season and Vin went through and grabbed the numbers for every player with more than about 30 ABs, HERE. There we see some league winning pick-ups, Brenton Doyle, Kirby Yates, and Tanner Houck. Otherwise, the major stats are mostly from those drafted players. A nice combination of draft and timely pickups gets it done for Gunk Squad.
Afternoon Delights also nabbed Lindor in round two and benefitted from a surprisingly high LCI (107) in little ol’ RCL 34. AD killed it and just squeaked ahead of cubbiehead. Cubbiehead had the second most league points but got dinged by a 101 LCI.
Man or Stroman? had a wonderful season and jumped up the standings thanks to Shohei going one man wrecking crew in the final month.
Rloyod finishes top five, a little dip from fourth last update and Stop looking at me Kwan! Shot up to finish in sixth.
Son scores a top ten finish with his excellent Perts League season, congrats Dad!
Dwightford was fighting to keep that top ten spot with all those final innings and he held onto eighth place.
After a season where I felt like I couldn’t get any traction, I had a couple strong finishes and am very chuffed to land a top ten team. Looking forward to being back in COUGS next season! This is a fine time to mention that all top twelve teams make it to our Champion’s League and we’ll keep working down the list until we fill COUGS R US, which you can see, is a VERY competitive league.
Dunphy`s Joint Venture rounds out our top ten and is our second team from RCL 24 in the top ten.
The remainder of the top twenty includes some familiar names from previous updates including FANTASY ICON, Bluefield Baby Birds, and three more teams from Dwight Ford, my guy…five teams (Stop Looking at me Kwan, dwightford, and password is taco x3) in the top 20 is ridiculously impressive.
WEEKLY LEADERS
The best of the best from the week that was.
R – 57 – Vin Hemingway (Writers League)
HR –19 – Vin Hemingway (Writers League)
RBIs – 62 – Vin OneFive (RCL 15)
SB – 16 – gilsonschmilsson10 (RCL 10)
AVG – .335 – Sumfears (RCL 28)
K – 160 – DFresh (RCL 1)
W – 10 – DFresh (RCL 1) & SHOhei Money (RCL 25)
SV – 9 – She’s KEELIN me, Smalls! (RCL 15), 9 Clyde (RCL 30), & Norm_Cash (RCL 33)
ERA (Min. 40 IP) – 1.12 – Chef Wes (RCL 12) (in 40.1 IP)
WHIP (Min. 40 IP) – 0.653 – Homefree Bogaerts (RCL 4) (in 49 IP)
Vin really didn’t want to lose his Writer’s League crown and had some massive offensive numbers to ensure he did not.
DFresh went out swinging in RCL 1, racking up all the IP, strikeouts, and wins they could muster trying to earn every extra point they could for the overall standings. RCL 1 was well locked up, this was just for glory, setting the weekly high mark in strikeouts in the process.
Impressive stuff! DFresh and SHOhei Money each came within one win of tying the high weekly mark for the season.
WEEKLY RECORDS
The best of the best from the weeks that were.
R – 77 – Moodlight Graham (RCL 12)
HR –30 – oldrock (RCL 32)
RBIs – 76 – Finkelstein Ballers (RCL 7) & Risk It for the Biscuit (RCL 11)
SB – 25 – PlatanoPowers (RCL 12)
AVG – .366 – ejendres (RCL 19)
K – 160 – DFresh (RCL 1)
W – 11 – password is taco (RCL 5) & Dunphy’s Joint Venture (RCL 24)
SV – 13 – Stretch Run Punchouts (RCL 10)
ERA (Min. 40 IP) – 0.44 – smehlis (RCL 17) (in 41.1 IP)
WHIP (Min. 40 IP) – 0.572 – FANTASY ICON (DFSers Anonymous) (in 57.2 IP)
These are the best weekly outputs in each category from the year that was. If you would all stand up to receive a round of applause, that would be lovely.
Along with setting a new yearly record (more on that later) we set a new weekly mark for steals with 25! ALL THE STEALS!
TEAM OF THE WEEK
Our weekly shout out to the team that killed it the previous week.
Team: Vin X
League: RCL 10
Stats: AVG: .318, R: 56, HR: 12, RBI: 57, SB: 9
IP: 116.1, ERA: 3.17, WHIP: 1.169, K: 85, W: 7, SV: 0
Summary: It might look like Vin just threw all the innings to land here, but the offense was really great too! Vin had a great final week all over the RCLs. Vin added four points but could only stay in 2nd place in RCL 10. Shohei Ohtani once again is the major reason a team wins TOW, hitting .520 with a Home Run, seven RBI, and four Steals. Jonah Bride (.400/2 HR/7 RBI) and Teoscar Hernandez (.375/2 HR/6 RBI/1 SB) were key as well. A big streaming week as 21 pitchers made starts for Vin. Sean Burke, Bowden Francis, Kyle Hendricks, Jack Kochanowicz, Rhett Lowder, Bryce Miller, Cade Povich, Trevor Williams, Nick Martinez, Spencer Schwellenbach, and Xzavion Curry combined for 6 wins with an ERA of 0.40 in 67 IP. The K/9 wasn’t huge and the lack of saves stinks, but Vin was clearly going all out with innings and did it in style. Nice work, Vin!
YEARLY LEADERS
The best of the best from the year that was.
R – 1210 – Vin X (RCL 10)
HR –389 – oldrock (RCL 29)
RBIs – 1179 – Vin OneFive (RCL 15)
SB – 328 – PlatanoPowers (RCL 12)
AVG – .278 – JKJ (RCL 14)
K – 1635 – Todd, the Future Dance (COUGS R US)
W – 118 – cubbiehead (RCL 31)
SV – 193 – TRUSS (Writer’s League)
ERA (Min. 1040 IP) – 2.95 – Ding Dong Johnsons (RCL 8) (in 1275.2 IP)
WHIP (Min. 1040 IP) – 1.039 – Lipmanpike (RCL 28) (in 1402.1 IP)
IP – Vin O (Original Recipe) – 1449 IP (average IP: 1303)
32 teams failed to reach the 1000 IP minimum
ABs – 8644 – Touch ‘em all Joe (RCL 33) (average: 7226)
K/9 (Min. 1000 IP) – 10.9 – rloyod (RCL 24) in 1300 IP
MOVES – 500 – Afternoon Delights (RCL 34), Scoboticus (RCL 2), Royce and Shine (RCL 26), Veganville Tofu Munchers (FCL), SquatCobblersGrey (RCL 34), STL Squat Cobblers (ECFBL), Vottoerotic Asphyxiation (RCL 34), and HoosierBoss (RCL 22)
Worst Place – Some Letters (RCL 8) – 16.6 RCL Points, 21.0 League Points with a League Index of 90. Our worst league got off to a bad start with a vetoed trade, a hissy fit, and a rage quit.
We set a new steals record for the second year in a row. These new rules sure are making it easy to swipe bags.
Cubbiehead came within four wins of the record, a record I wasn’t sure we’d ever be able to touch. Very nicely done.
Vin placed two teams on the 2024 leaderboard, impressive stuff.
Vin broke down the moves made into percentages for you, along with how many titles each range brought. Thanks, Vin!
MOVES (Avg League Pts)
500: 8 teams (84) – 1 title
400 – 499: 31 teams (82) 10 titles
300 – 399: 33 teams (80) 9 titles
200 – 299: 63 teams (80) 14 titles
100 – 199: 93 teams (71.5) 11 titles
51 – 99: 107 teams (67) 2 titles
1 – 50: 176 teams (51) 0 titles
0: 17 teams (37) 0 titles
Vin also provided some interesting notes on some league winners.
47 first place finishers (3 ties) just like last year.
Position at the ALL STAR BREAK:
1st: 24
2nd: 7
3rd: 8
4th: 1
5th: 2
6th: 2
7th: 2
10th: 1
Last year no team lower than 6th at the break came back to win a league. FANTASY ICON 5.0 (COUGS R US) was the very impressive team this year, coming back from tenth 51 points at the break. What a turnaround!
And some data on draft slot:
1st-place finishers by draft slot:
1: 2
2: 0
3: 4
4: 5
5: 1
6: 2
7: 4
8: 7
9: 2
10: 4
11: 6
12:10
Tatis and Ohtani were each selected in round 1 by 7 champions. I’m surprised Bobby Witt didn’t make this list. Also, a very bad year to draft #2 overall, ouch.
Just some fun data you can do with what you like. I always think this stuff is fun to peruse.
TOP LEAGUES
I’ve mentioned in the past that I have a bias for high LCI Leagues. I’ve played in several and commish one of the best, so naturally, I want to give them their due. Here are the top 10 leagues in order of LCI:
Cougs R Us – 108
Night of the Living Zombinos – 107
RCL 34 – 107
ECFBL – 106
RCL 24 – 105
Perts League – 104
DFSers Anonymous – 104
FCL – 104
RCL 13 (AKA: Beat Laura Holt Challenge) – 103
RCL 20 – 103
RCL 21 – 103
RCL 26 – 103
RCL 33 – 103
There you have it, the top ten (plus ties) most competitive leagues. Well done leagues! I’m not very surprised that the Champions League was the most competitive (or NOTLZ for that matter). It was second most last year and I’m willing to bet it will be at the top next year too. What is surprising is these $20 and $10 buy-in leagues that are right there with the best of the best legacy leagues. If you want a competitive RCL next year, look at these buy-in leagues. It’s the usual suspects otherwise. ECFBL, and DFSers are perennial top LCI leagues and this year is no different. Nice to see the Perts League near the top for the second year in a row.
COUGS was definitely the most dominant league this year, they led in Runs, HRs, RBIs, Stolen bases, Wins, Saves, Strikeouts, and made the most moves of any league.
RCL 34 led in batting average…about the only thing COUGS didn’t lead the way in.
The winners of all these leagues deserve major kudos. It’s not easy winning an RCL and certainly not one with an LCI north of 104. Take note of the league names and maybe reach out next year when the time comes if you want to play in one of the top leagues. I’m almost always looking to fill a few spots in these leagues each year. You have no one to blame but yourself for not being in a competitive league. I played in six of the top ten leagues listed above and each one was a total blast.
It has been an absolute pleasure to bring you these updates every week. Thanks to everyone who read, lurked, commented, and/or gave a kind word. A million thanks to Vin for collecting data and stats for the Master Standings and my weekly updates. A big thanks to Rudy for running those standings. I love these crazy, time-consuming leagues, I love the daily moves and the competition it creates and I hope that was evident in my weekly reports. Is it perfect? Nah, but darn it, it’s fun as hell. I also love the community it brings together, pitting commenter against commenter, ‘Pert against random lurker. Is there another place on the interweb where you can play against 500+ other people all with weekly Master Standings updated as well as a weekly report on the goings ons? I think not. Thank you to Grey and Rudy for creating this beautiful monster known as the RCLs. Let’s enjoy our winter of hibernation and I’ll see all you crazies next year, much love.
PSYCH! One last quick note, FanTrax wants to make ULTRA sure there are no stat corrections and locks all our money leagues until October 7th. I will try to process payouts the first day I can and the money should be in your FanTrax account shortly thereafter. If you don’t have it by Wednesday, let me know in the comments.
Want to be my internet pal? That’s kinda creepy, but you can follow me here: @MattTruss or here: @matttruss.bsky.social
