If I Were to Do Power Rankings for Week 6…

May 14

“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.”

-Winston Churchill

First, I just want to complain about Fantrax for a minute. Its layout is stupid. I’m sitting here trying to get a nice overview of week 6’s matchups and it’s really silly that I have to click through each matchup just to get the stats. Which means none of them get to be viewed next to each other unless I go to standings and then it’s just this checkered mess. ESPN, for all its faults, had a masterful layout for their site that was both simple and clean while still being informative. Fantrax makes everything harder. And what is with it putting Runs in-between AB and Hits on the player cards? Blegh.

Rant over, these power rankings will obviously differ from anything Dan put out because he has his opinions and I have mine. So without further ado, let’s dive in.

Week 6 Standings

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James
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Mark
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Dan (+1)
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Mike (+1)
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Vinson (-2)
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Jon
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Andrew
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Ian (+1)
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Richard (-1)
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Patrick 
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Joey
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Brooke
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Week 5 Standings

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James
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Mark
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Vinson
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Dan
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Mike
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Jon
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Andrew
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Richard
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Ian
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Patrick
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Joey
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Brooke  
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Week 6 Power Rankings

1. Mike

Mike’s team is still chugging along. During a week that saw a lot of teams’ hitting feel neutered, Mike’s still performed nicely. With Devers in particular being a main contributor. There is some concern when guys like Marcell Ozuna and Riley Greene going ice cold, but that’s kind of who these players are. One week they’re hot, the next they’re MIA. Oneil Cruz’s back injury is one to monitor as he was contributing in all categories except average. Pitching wise, Mike might need to think about what to do with Rasmussen as this is now his 4th bad start in a row. Fortunately, with Burnes, Brown, and Skubal anchoring his staff, Mike can afford to wait if he wants.

2. James

I sort of want to say that James is 1b to Mike’s 1a. His team has it all in terms of hitting and pitching. Jacob Wilson continues to push his average higher, Soto and Bohm are coming out of their funks, and Xavier Edwards is trying his hardest to prove me wrong. James’s pitching had only a few blemishes this week between Horton, Nola, and Iglesias taking dumps on his bed. But like Mike, James has the luxury of absorbing such outings with strong showings from Bradley, Skenes, Wheeler, and Hoglund.

3. Mark

Wilyer Abreu and Kyle Schwarber headlined the week for Mark with their 3 home run weeks. Schwarber even stole 2 bases! I still don’t like Mark’s infield as it still looks like a bunch of holes plugged up with tablecloths, but he’s getting the job done for now. His pitching infuriates me for all the best reasons because I wanted Shane Smith before the season began and I was a year early on Liberatore last year. Both have been great even if Smith hasn’t been allowed to go deep into games. Unfortunately you snooze, ya lose in fantasy baseball and I’m sure holding onto Kikuchi for a month did just as good of a job for me…

4. Dan

You don’t beat someone 11-1 and not make it up into the top 4. Similar to James and Mike, I want to make Dan 2b to Mark’s 2a. They’re real close in terms of team comps and also like each other, are showing some flaws that they are covering and hoping no one notices. Perdomo’s breakout is fueling a lot of Dan’s success, but it’s uncertain how legit this is (I think mostly legit). Getting Merrill back was huge for Dan and it showed against his matchup. The same can’t be said for his pitching which after being handed an easy ratio win, somehow managed to give ERA back. I think this is where Dan will need to do the most work as Zac Gallen, Bailey Ober, and Tanner Bibee do not give the most confidence as the top of a staff.

5. Vinson

Taking a loss from Heller during a week when Dan and Mark obliterated their opponents and James continued to grind was bad timing. A lot of this can be attributed to his bats going cold suddenly: no home runs from Vlad Jr, Polanco finally cooled off, Albies is barely hitting his dog’s weight, Noelvi Marte got hurt, and Seiya Suzuki continues to flounder. Fortunately, Vientos finally showed life and easily led his team’s offense this week along with Buxton who finally looks healthy (for now). Pitching was much more productive despite Jackson Jobe’s efforts to kill you. Hunter Dobbins’s performance on your team is the envy of the league because we all wish we had devil magic to get pitching performances like that. King, Sanchez, and Ryan continue to be aces and there’s not much more to say there.

6. Andrew

I think his hitting is underrated. Or maybe I myself just didn’t notice it doing its thing. Regardless, the pieces are clicking. In particular, Trea Turner not being a dud anymore but now a proper dude. I still want to believe in Jung, as I’ve owned him before and I know how streaky he can be that this week is probably one of his cold spells. Bryan Reynolds really let himself down this week as a 2 for 24 helps no one. On the pitching side, losing Peralta’s start hurt and probably would have won Andrew the rest of the pitching categories, but the others in his staff, headlined by deGrom and Cease, showed itself well enough to keep going. I can’t say the same about his relief pitchers who look like they’re having a real challenging time to get the SOLDS he need. Fortunately for Heller, Vinson’s were less implemented this week.

7. Patrick

We’ve reached the point of the rankings where the flaws are no longer able to be fixed with super super glue. Pat’s team has a lot of problems that keep rearing their ugly heads in matchups. First on the list is his pitching which seems made up of streamers at the moment and some hopefuls that haven’t hustled nearly enough to get the ratios you’d want. The next is Pat’s bats seem to be inconsistent other than Aaron Judge, Alex Bregman, and Corbin Carroll. The good news is that Gunnar Henderson seems to be waking up and Pat’s ability to dump hitters the moment their usefulness has ended will serve him well as he slowly pieces this team back together. For now though, it’s ugly to watch the process. If he hangs in there though, this team has a real chance to punch upward quickly.

8. Richard

So many holes, where do I begin? I think Santander’s lack of power is the most pressing issue right now. His ISO is down by like 40 points, his BABIP isn’t far off from his AVG meaning he hasn’t been unlucky, his launch angle is down, and his barrel rate is more than half what it was last year. Still, not much to do but wait. His wOBA remains consistent with his other years so I’m sort of stuck right now. Lee and Soderstrom cooling off has been ill timed with Trout’s injury. Shining stars so far have been Hunter Goodman, Bo Bichette, and Ryan O’Hearn as they patch up my team as best as they can. Pitching is easily the worst it’s ever been for me. Pepiot finally stopped giving up HRs only to also stop striking people out. Jack Flaherty turned into a pumpkin this month and gave up a bunch of home runs to the Rangers’ anemic offense. Add in Gore and Olson having badly timed rough outings and it’s no wonder how Dan buried me this week.

9. Jon

Jon’s team is proving my preseason right in the dumbest way possible: by not playing. Because they’re all injured. How am I supposed to be proven right with this? Blegh. This sucks. He’s doing his best to keep this team afloat, but I’m afraid water has come over the bulkheads into the 5th chamber and no team was made to handle that much. IF, and that’s an all caps if, he pulls it together, it’ll be because Luis Robert and Kyle Manzardo wake up at the plate. Obviously the four hitters need to come back too, but that’s the awful waiting game. Josh Lowe might be back soon so there’s that. On this pitching side, Baz has just completely imploded lately and there’s just not a big true ace on this staff to really anchor him week to week. Megill and Pivetta look to be the best he’s got, with Eflin mercifully coming back from the IL. There’s a lot of things this team needs to fix itself, but the majority of it is just getting healthy. If Jon can somehow keep this team within the middle of the pack, he could have a summer push when he gets his players back.

10. Ian

Losing a week is never fun. Losing against the sinking Titanic of John’s team makes that hurt even worse. And to be fair, this wasn’t that far away. If a few flyballs turned into homers, Ian would have flipped it. But unfortunately Ian’s team has a lot of problems. Aging hitters like Semien and Olson are destroying his average without providing any counting stats. His trade to get rid of Semien for literally anything (it was Dansby Swanson) should be heralded as a triumph. If only he could do the same with Olson. Austin Riley, Heliot Ramos, Kyle Tucker, and surprisingly Brice Turang are doing their darndest to keep this team afloat, but there’s just too many holes. Pitching wise, Jesus Luzardo, Cole Ragans, and Chris Sale are excellent and Ian is fortunate that Hunter Greene’s injury isn’t an arm injury. But Sandy was a mistake brought on by Spring Training hype (although his Stuff+ numbers still say there’s a good pitcher in there somewhere). Ian’s team needs a lot: consistent hitting for both average and power and relief pitchers that don’t blow up at the slightest gust of wind. But by far what Ian needs is time. Time for his players to wake up and shake off this rust they keep playing. Unfortunately for him, time is running out and it’s hard to figure out what, if anything, he can do to help this team compete.

11. Joey

This team should be number 5. Joey’s been a thorn in the side of teams every week, but because he has a very casual approach to his team, he lets it make mistakes that a more heavy hand never would. Mostly streaming pitchers as he was just so very close to taking IP and Ks from Mike. Yoshinobu Yamamoto has been fantastic this year, but ran into problems this week against the Diamondbacks. Jordan Hicks probably could be safely dropped by this point, even if he gives hope of a no walk outing against the Twins, it’s just not worth waiting. But Joey’s offense is where the real thorn lies. PCA has been all the rage this year but this week he finally slowed down hitting only .211 for AVG while still managing to contribute some counting categories. Chapman, India, Goldschmidt, and Witt were the main contributors to Joey’s offense and if he could just make some tweaks around the edges, he’d be able to really make a monster out of this.

12. Brooke

Every week it’s the same. Her team hasn’t been shown love for about as long as Elon Musk’s children. Casas is out for the year and needs to be dropped. Lane Thomas, George Kirby, and maybe even Andres Gimenez could both go into the IR spots. And Josh Hader is still riding the bench. No relief pitcher should ride the bench like this. What’s crazy is how good Brooke’s team can be. When you see her week against James, it’s really scary considering how handicapped it is that she won almost all the hitting categories and K/BB. If she had checked her team there’s a real good chance she’d have won IP, K, and maybe even SOLDS if she started Hader and added another RP. This is a team that can luck into some wins because Pablo Lopez and Garrett Crochet are having some crazy years and the offense players who are still here are all beasts at the moment: Ohtani and surprisingly Donovan, Stott, Springer, and Pena. At week 6 can Brooke still have a chance to make it to the playoffs? Well, never say never, but there’s a lot that needs to go wrong for other teams and there’s a lot that Brooke will need to do every week to capitalize on that.

Performances of the week:

Hitter:

Shohei Ohtani: 11/30, 9 Runs, 4 HR, 10 RBI, .367 AVG, 1.390 OPS

Pitcher:

Zack Wheeler: 14 IP, 17Ks, 1.29 ERA, 0.643 WHIP, 8.50 K/BB

Clutch performances of the Week: