Welcome to The Curse 2024

Welcome to the 21st season of The Curse! The league has a long, storied history with intense rivalries and unbelievable drama over the years. This will be the sixth season of Rotisserie (changed in 2019) after 15 seasons of Head-to-Head.

MONEY: Reinstated in 2020 (first time since 2007). We increased from $15 to $20 in 2022 ($180 pot to $240). See the welcome email for payment options.
2023 PAYOUTS:
1st: $125
2nd: $75
3rd: $40

KEEPERS: Rules are attached to the welcome email, it's 3 hitters, 3 pitchers, 2 "prospects" (entering second or third season based on minimum games/IP as defined in rules doc). You own the rights of players dropped that weren't active on another team. As always, ask any questions (happy to send suggestions) and let me know if you don't have two eligible prospects.

PRE-DRAFT RANKINGS: As I say every year, you should always rank players in case you miss any of the draft. Go to "Pre-Draft Rankings" under the Draft tab along the top of the page.

The draft is currently set for Sunday, March 17 at 10:30 am but as always we can change it if there are issues. I realize it’s St. Patrick's Day but it would allow us to count the early two-game Dodgers/Padres series in South Korea on March 20 & 21. Real Opening Day is March 28.

New Yorkers took control of 1st place late and didn’t look back for an unprecedented fourth straight Gold after sitting in 2nd & 3rd place most of the season. They finished with 96 pts, a comfortable seven ahead of #2 My Balls Ichiro (89) after we saw the closest finish in the Roto era in 2022 at just a point. The previous two champs finished with 93 after the first two Roto champs topped 100. New Yorkers peaked at 98 pts on September 22 after a sudden surge in late August, sitting in the mid-to-high 80s (under 90) every day from June 10 to August 28 when they hit 90 and slowly climbed from there. Like the previous two seasons (and unlike the first two seasons of Roto), it was a hard-fought battle for the top spot for most of the season, with a handful of teams holding 1st place and no team cracking 100 pts after April. New Yorkers had to work extremely hard again to win with a league-leading 83 moves (86 in 2022). After losing ace keepers deGrom & Buehler in 2022, their pitching was ravaged once again, losing ace keepers deGrom & Bieber in the first half with another keeper Manoah melting down (6.36 ERA/1.90 WHIP when he was dropped on June 6), sitting last in WHIP for much of the season. But they patched together a new staff and eventually got to a third-best 3.80 ERA and a middle-of-the-pack 1.23 WHIP while easily taking W by 12 with 106 and characteristically dominating K with 1,676, 209 more than the next team. Uncharacteristically, their offense carried them as they led R (874), HR (281, third most through 2006) & RBI (848) while finishing third in SB (155), led by a prolific campaign from #1 pick M. Olson (127 R, 54 HR, 139 RBI), 47 HR from K. Schwarber (claimed off waivers in May from My Balls, 33 HR for them) and 47 SB from C. Abrams (30 for them). They won their seventh title (18th medal) after finally securing their first Gold since 2008 in 2020 (four Silvers in the previous five years). My Balls have medaled in three of the last four seasons, back on the podium after just missing it with a 4th-place finish in 2022 following a Bronze in 2021 and a Silver in 2020. McNamee’s Heroes collected their second straight Bronze in an exciting finish to a tight and crowded battle after El Niño started the week in 3rd place and 3.5 pts ahead of them. El Niño had a final-week collapse as they led them by at least two pts until the final day (4.5 going into Thursday). McNamee’s took it from them on the final day with 78 as El Niño (75) suddenly fell to 5th behind 2Shadez, who trailed them 78-75 in 5th place on Saturday morning.

There was only a slight batting average improvement from the shift being gone with a league average of .248, not much higher than 2022’s .243 mark which was the lowest in over 50 years (.237 in 1968). The pitch clock had a major impact though as the average nine-inning game time fell to 2:39, the shortest since 1985 (2:39) after it was 3:03 in 2022. Bigger bases led to a big increase in SB with 3,503, the most since 3,585 in 1987 and 1,017 more than 2022 (2,486). The 80.2% success rate was the highest in MLB history. Six players had over 40 SB compared to just one in 2022 and three had over 50 led by 73 from R. Acuña. El Niño owned the other two as E. Ruiz (67) & C. Carroll (54) helped them set a new official league SB record with a whopping 206, obliterating the previous record of 181 by 2011 Jersey. 2022’s leader had just 125. There were 5,868 HR, 653 more than 2022 and fourth most all-time behind 2021, 2017 & 2019. ERA & WHIP spiked drastically as My Balls led ERA at 3.74 compared to 3.11 in 2022 while Jersey led WHIP at 1.18 compared to 1.08 in 2022.

I look forward to another season with you all!

Mike
The Commish