If I Were to Do Power Rankings for Week 11…

Jun 19

“A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue."

-Francisco D'Anconia, Atlas Shrugged

This week saw some of the least amount of movement so far this season. We had three pairs of teams flip with each other. But no +2/-2 or +3 movements in the rankings. I think this is because we’re at the part of the year where the teams trying to make a push into the top 4 have to now chew through the wide gap that was formed earlier in the season. It’s not going to be exciting until that gap shrinks more. Which hopefully it does shrink more.

This week also ended on a weird note: Rafael Devers, the star, franchise player, and last gasp of the 2018 Red Sox World Series team was traded to the San Francisco Giants for Jordan Hicks, Kyle Harrison, the Giants’ #1 pick from the 2024 draft James Tibbs III, and rookie pitcher Jose Bello. It was a weird trade that kind of undersold Devers but really reminded everyone of how stupid the Mookie Betts trade was. People have talked enough about this trade, so I’ll leave it like that, but it has certainly colored a lot of last week as a result of this bombshell.

But, with all that in mind, let’s see how week 11 went for everyone and where we all stack up:

Current Standings

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Mike
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Dan (+1)
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James (-1)
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Mark
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Vinson 
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Andrew
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Richard
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Jon (+1)
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Joey (-1)
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Patrick
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Brooke (+1)
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Ian (-1)
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Week 10 Standings

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Mike
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James
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Dan
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Mark
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Vinson
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Andrew
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Richard
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Joey
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Jon
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Patrick
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Ian
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Brooke
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For your viewing pleasure, week 11’s roto standings.

Week 11 Power Rankings

1. Mike

It annoys me a little bit that Brandon Lowe is still being productive on this team. Why couldn’t he have done this on my team? Stupid Brandon Lowe. Stupid sexy, perfect cream and sugar skin Brandon Lowe. Anyway, Mike’s team is still great. It’s amazing that after losing Burnes, he still stomps Brooke’s pitching even when she had a good week. And that’s because Hunter Brown and Tarik Skubal are amazing and maybe Andrew Abbott is real. Mike’s pitching is his real strength, but his hitting didn’t slouch either even if it had a bit of a down week (well down for Mike’s standards). Matching this team is going to take a lot of luck and skill. Mostly luck.

2. James

Dan won the roto points for the week, but James took on the tougher opponent and lived to tell the tale. That earns him the higher ranking again. Don’t look now though, but Soto seems to finally be back on his top gear. Which is good timing considering who James’s opponent was this week. This was an incredibly close match up that could have gone either way. I can only imagine the anxiety at the final hour. So what is there to nitpick here? How can James overcome a team like Mike’s? Well he has some dope prospects in Misiorowski and Caglianone that either need to pan out soon or be packaged for another dope bat. Owning Caglianone and Misiorowski is dope. Winning every week against tough teams is doper. More dope? Whatever, it would just be super good.

3. Dan

I don’t want to take anything away from Dan here just because I had James ranked above him. Dan finished top in roto points for the week and deserves all the accolades that come with that. Dan's offense was excellent this week, but I want to highlight his pitching because he kind of pulled a rabbit out of his hat. Multiple bad starts by his supposed studs Ober, Gallen, and Bassitt should have left him in a bind. But thanks to Trevor Williams and Clayton Kershaw somehow throwing gems, Dan managed to capture all the pitching stats save for solds. And that was spring a week where Ian's pitching was finally hitting its stride(r). So well done Dan, we'll be sure to follow your career with great interest.

4. Mark

A tough loss to James shouldn't detract from the gains Mark’s team made. It looked to be in free fall for a few weeks there, but now this looks more like what we're used to seeing. I still think a lot of this was from players that will probably be dropped in a week or two, but since some of Mark's regulars didn't perform up to their usual standards, we'll call this a wash. Consider my eyebrow officially raised at Freddie Freeman now. He hasn't had a home run in a month and he's been batting .188 and a very disappointing .549 OPS over the last two weeks. Did Ian curse him when he left his team? On the pitching side, Liberatore has been real rough the last two weeks and his fastball dropped to like 89 in one of the outings. Definitely something to be concerned about considering this is his first year putting everything together. Is he tired or was everything a mirage? Thankfully Priester, Holmes, and Sale were there to bail Mark out. It's hard to point at one stat Mark is in danger of when the scores are all split like this. I guess just keep it up?

5. Richard

The resurgence continues! But if I'm honest, this week probably shouldn't have gone as well as it did. If Joey had adjusted his team just once this week, I probably lose AVG, OPS, Ks, and IP. Instead I coasted into a decisive victory on the back of Elly and Suarez. My pitching completely let me down this week. I don't consider Jack Flaherty an ace, but I also don't expect him to ever have too bad of any outing. Saturday was rough though. And then followed up with that Roupp disaster? My ratios pulverized. I'll take this win gladly, but it makes me nervous of what's next with my pitching the way it is.

6. Vinson

This was just the week where Vinson’s pitching decided to implode. Were it not for Randy Rodriguez, Chris Paddock, and favorite Vinson streamer, Ben Brown, then maybe his stats wouldn’t have looked so rough. The bigger tragedy was that Vinson just couldn’t shake off Jon, ending the matchup in a 6-6 tie. That’s surprising considering how bad Jon’s team has been this season, but it was mostly the pitching stats that did him in. Although now that I’m looking at all his last week; since week 7, Vinson’s pitching has only had one other week that was decent for his ratios (week 9). The rest have been 4+ ERA and a wobbly WHIP. I’m not quite sure what Vinson’s pitching strategy is right now and obviously King being injured still doesn’t help. But that’s probably the area that needs the most attention right now and I don’t think Ben Brown is going to fix that, no matter how many times he’s dropped and picked up again.

7. Andrew

Whew. This had to be a relief for Heller. After several weeks of a down offense, it finally did something. It still wasn’t enough to shake off Pat completely, but you’ll take what you can get. Abrams and Tatis batting .400 and James Wood being Mr. Nats Superstar did a lot of the heavy lifting here. But what shored up Andrew’s victory was his pitching which almost made a clean sweep of Pat. Peralta, Peterson, and deGrom anchored him for sure, but a lot of other pieces of starts helped too: Littlell’s 6.06 K/BB and Pivetta’s 1.182 WHIP and 12Ks. Heller’s team is going to be interesting to watch to see if it can fulfill my prediction of landing in the top 4 by the end of the year. I still think it’s possible, but this is becoming too inconsistent of an offense for me to be able to confidently say it can take on Mike, James, and Dan’s teams.

8. Jon

Ok, ok. Not bad at all. You took on the champ and brought him to a tie. That’s actually commendable considering what your team has been through. It’s also noticeable that your hitting is starting to come back online. While not enough to beat Vinson, the fact that a lot of your stats were within reach was impressive. 4 RBI, 1 HR, 2 SB, and .026 OPS were the difference in your closest stats. I said it last week that I wasn’t sure if your team could do a late season push. I’m still not sure. But you’ve got some movement and a pulse with some of these guys and if they happen to all come out swinging at once, it’ll be tough to beat. The problem is just like I said about Heller: this team is too inconsistent to count on. A lot of these guys are prone to cold streaks and so getting them to line up at the same time is tricky. But them being healthy at least makes it exciting to follow.

9. Joey

You can’t ignore your team for an entire week, lose almost 9-3, and expect to stay at the same rank. Joey’s team is falling apart due to negligence. All week Matt Chapman was rostered despite the Giants putting him on the IL at the start. If Joey had seen and just swapped Spencer Steer in, he’d have probably taken AVG and OPS from me. Instead the team coasted into a stall and got utterly smashed. Joey’s pitching had a rare bad week which if Joey was paying attention, he’d have dropped the gratuitous amounts of mediocre IL players he’s holding on to and possibly could have plugged up his pitching. Certainly to prevent me from having an easy time grabbing IPs and Ks. The positives is that this team is still the same team that can occasionally punch above its weight class, provided that its owner doesn’t neglect it for too long at a time. Also was anyone aware that Joey leads the league in pitching categories via roto points? I know I just praised Mike and James’s staffs, but maybe Joey should have that honor based on the results so far.

10. Brooke

Welcome to rank 11, Brooke. Unfortunately it’s not really because of how you did this week but more of how badly Ian did. But a step up is a step up. This week saw Brooke’s power finally dry up though, as Pena, Rengifo, Friedl, and Ohtani were the only real productive hitters despite Brooke having a decent AVG and OPS. Where Brooke really fell short was in pitching which was a particular tragedy considering she actually had a good week. But she was going against Mike who has the best pitching in the league. If Brooke had streamed a bit, she might have taken IPs and Ks with an outside shot at possibly getting K/BB. That would have made this close or possibly a tie. Which against the current best team in the league would be nothing to sniff at.

11. Pat

Alright. We don’t have anything to say about Pat’s team this week. He’s had a rough week. When your team trades your supposed franchise player for a less than exciting package, you’re given a pass for the week. I don’t make the rules. (although on the positive side, I do want to point out Pat was second this week in homers. There’s still something here in this team even if it’s not showing all of it just yet…).

12. Ian

I will say that I’m glad Ian isn’t going down without a fight. Yes, he inflicted this carnage on himself, but he also didn’t have to pick up Christian Walker and Willy Adames. They won’t help him win per se, but they should be better than they currently are and will at least make matches against Ian more challenging than before. Unfortunately, with the exception of JRod, this week was a bit of a letdown for Ian’s team. It also was during a time when Ian was prepping for his wedding so I think we can give him a pass for any mistakes that might have been made. On the plus side, it’s nice to see some life from Barger who is the current fad sleeper for industry analysts right now. Mick Abel also looks cherry which should be making Ian feel pretty good that he at least has a productive Philly on his ailing team.

Performances of the week:

Hitter:

Elly De La Cruz: 12/26, 8 Runs, 4 HR, 7 RBI, 1 SB, .462 AVG, 1.500 OPS

Pitcher:

Zack Wheeler: 12 IP, 16 Ks, 1.50 ERA, 0.667 WHIP, 16.00 K/BBB

Clutch performances of the Week: