12 days left. It looks like the 'Tweekers' may capture the title after the fantasy Rangers collapsed just as bad as the real Rangers. It is still a close battle for 3rd and maybe 2nd with the Rangers have been playing. Please remember that you can keep up to 6 players next year.

Remember trading deadline is on 8/18. You can trade a top 6 pick next year. If you trade a pick in first 6 rounds, then you can only keep 5 players.

It has been a month since my last update. As most of you know I had to take a little break to get married. My team has not suffered too much, since You Votto Know is still in second. Texas Leaguers are still in first. Honey Nut has leaped over Bill chill and Davidians since the last update. Cubs have climbed up 3 spots.

Texas Leaguers are proving that you can win the league with just hitting. They are in first when it comes to hitting (1824) and last when you count pts per inning. They have 3 of the top 6 hitters who have all scored over 400 points this year. Honey Nut is second in hitting with 1624 pts. They are doing it with a more balanced attack. Chris Davis is 2nd in the league with 445 points (Why did Rangers let him go?). They also have 12-14 hitters (335 pts). It then bunches up for the next 3 teams: Votto 1504, Tweakers 1494, Herders 1491. Redbirds are not far behind at 1455. You then have Big Chill 1382, Deez 1349, Davidian 1311, and Cubs 1259.

Pitching points per inning pretty much follows the same pattern. Big Chill is way out front with 3.27, followed by Votto Know at 2.98. The Cubs are third with 2.73. You then have a pack of teams with .1 points (Honey Nut 2.59, Tweakers, 2.56, Herders 2.54, Davidians 2.53, Deez 2.51). The Redbirds have 2.32 and Leaguers at 2.21.

We are still not at the half way point. Please continue to monitor your teams. It has been a close season so far.

League rankings have changed several times this year. The Texas Leaguers have jumped to first with You Votto Know in second with Big Chill not far behind. The next 6 teams are separated by less than 200 points. Mr Deez is little further behind, but he has the most innings left to use.

The reason Texas Leaguers are in first is because they have 3 (Cabrera, Gonzalez, and Goldschmidt) of the top 5 hitters in the league. They have scored 1,824 points in hitting. Honey Nut has the 2nd most hitting points at 1,624 with 2 of the top 10 hitters in Chris Davis and Evan Longoria. As you can see Texas has a 200 point hitting edge on the next closest team. you Votto Know has the 3rd highest total at 1,504 points which is over 100 behind Honey Nut. They have 2 of the top 11 with Votto and McCutchen. The next 6 teams are with 200 points of Votto: Tweakers 1494, Nerf Herders 1491, Redbirds 1455, big chill 1382, Deez 1349, Davidians 1311, and Cubs 1259.
The pitching totals per inning have went down with the last update. My assumption is that teams have been experiencing losses from their top starters. The only team that is now averaging more than 3 points per inning is Big Chill at 3.27. The reason for this high total is that they have 14 more wins than losses. You Votto Know is in 2nd with 2.98 points per inning. He has only 1 more win than losses, but is save total is making up for it. He is counting on some of his star starters turning their season around. Hamels, Verlander, and Medlen are having terrible years so far. The Cubs are a little farther behind at 2.73. He is second in saves and he has 6 more wins than losses. The next 5 teams have very little separation: Honey Nut 2.59, Tweakers at 2.56, Nerf Herders 2.54, Davidians 2.53, Deez 2.51. Redbirds and Leguers are currently bringing up the rear at 2.32 and 2.21

We are still early in the season. Things will change.

Trading next year picks: Just a reminder that you can trade next year's picks. If you do trade a pick in the top 6, then you can only keep up to 5 players. I will slot your keepers from 1 to 6 and give the pick to the other team. Example: You trade a 3rd round pick for someone else's keeper type player. You then keep 4 players next year. The first 2 rounds would be your keepers. The 3rd round would go for the trade. Round 4 and 5 would be your remaining keepers. You would then pick in round 6. Remember you can keep up to 6 players if you do not trade a pick in the top 6.

One risk with trading for next year is if the team leaves the league and we cannot find a replacement, then you will lose the pick. I could see if we could reverse the trade at that point.

We now have played 23 games. At this point in time I wanted to post the hitting and pitching breakdown of each team, so teams can see if they are strong in hitting or pitching, which may lead to new pickups or trades.

The ranking by hitting point totals is as follows: Texas Leaguers 811, Honey Nut 793, Scruffy 694, You Votto Know 670, Redbirds 667, Deez 645, Crystal Meth Tweakers 629, Chill 620, Cubs 618, Davidians 586. As you can see Leaguers and Honey Nut have a little bit of hitting point lead at the moment. The rest of the teams are within 106 points. Hitting has a little more value in this league, so in order to win you definitely need to be towards the top.

I broke pitching ranking down by points per inning even though this year with the increase of 100 extra innings pitched it may be a little more difficult for everyone to hit the max. The top pitching team (by pts per inning) has scored 666 points, which would put them in the middle of hitting point totals. Here is the breakdown:
Chill 666 pts at 3.36 per inning, Deez 524 at 3.33, Votto 737 at 3.17, CrystalMeth 571 at 2.97, Redbirds 662 at 2.79, Cubs 610 at 2.78, HoneyNut 454 at 2.71, Scruffy 501 at 2.63, Davidians 597 at 2.33, and Leaguers 398 at 1.9

Hopefully teams can use this information to make adjustments to their teams.

We have played about 12 games and the season is still young. Several superstars have not warmed up and played to their past numbers, so the standings are bound to change.

At this point You Votto Know is in first with 720 points. A new team, Davidians, is in second. This is amazing with 4 people on the DL. They will need to move these people off the active roster and on to the DL in the near future. These 2 teams have also used the most innings, so they may not be in first and second once other teams use their innings.

Another new team, the Redbirds, is in third with 620 points. There is less than 50 points separating 3rd from 9th. Mr Deez has started off slow, but if past years are an indicator, they will be there at the end of the season.

It is looking like another tight season. Check your lineups and have fun!

A reminder that there are 3 DL positions available. If you switch to classic, you can move someone to the DL and then pick up another player.

Everyone, the final team has joined and we are back to 10 team league. Since the Redbirds joined late, I had already dropped the 10th team, so I could not assign them the old team. They still get all picks in round 1-6, so they should be fine.

Again, the draft order was set by the finish last year with the last place team picking first in odd rounds and last in even rounds. The 2 last place team managers left, and the redbirds and Davidians have taken their place.

The order of the draft is Davidians, redbirds, Ichiros, Big Chill, Scruffy, Cubs, Deez, Leaguers, Votto, and Crystal.

Everyone kept 6 players except for the following teams: Redbirds 0, Cubs kept 4, Votto 5, and Davidians 5. I have also processed the trade of Pedroia last year for a swap of 7th round for last round between Scruffy and Votto.

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This means the first 20 picks would be in the following order: Redbirds (1-5), Cubs, Votto 7, Cubs, Redbirds, 10 Davidians, Davidians, Redbirds, Ichiros, Chill, 15 Votto, Cubs, Deez, Leaguers, Votto, 20 Tweakers.

Deadline for keepers is 3/5. I will probably lock teams down next weekend, so we may just play with 9. If anyone knows anyone else who would like to play, let me know.

Everyone, if no one objects I would like to change keeper rules to allow teams to keep 0-6 players. If you keep 1 player, you lose first round pick. If you keep 2 players, you lose 1st and 2nd pick.....6 players, lose rounds 1-6.

We are using a snake draft where last place team picks first in odd rounds and last in even rounds. The first place team will pick first in even rounds and last in odd rounds.

Draft order: Davidians (took over last place team), GeauxTigers (not coming back), Astros, Big Chill, Scruffy (may not come back), Cubs, Deez, Leaguer, Rangers, and Crystal Meth.

Welcome back everyone. I hope everyone renews. This year we are keeping 6 players from the previous year. If someone has not selected 6 keepers before the deadline, I will just keep the tope 6 players by Yahoo. The only change I made from last year was to increase the pitcher inning count by 100.

Some people wanted to play head to head, which is also a fun way to play. Please join the league Gary created. It was fun to play that format too. If you did not receive an invite, let Gary or I know.