Fantasy Baseball Crackerjacks Final Standings and Recap

Today is a sad day. The fantasy baseball season is over. It was a grueling six months of triumph, heartbreak and everything in between. Whether you lost a head-to-head matchup by 0.01 ERA or someone robbed a much-needed home run, fantasy baseball is always exciting. With that being said, here is the recap for the Fantasy Baseball Crackerjacks league.

If you missed it, here is the draft recap. I had pick 11 in the 12-man league. The stats were R, HR, RBI, SB and OPS for hitters and QS, SV, ERA, WHIP and K/9 for the pitchers. Quality starts is a better gauge of an effective pitcher compared to wins. OPS was an interesting choice instead of average. This stat more favors the power hitters, but batters that hit for average are still valuable.

Because of the change to OPS, I targeted power hitters early. My first two picks were Jose Bautista and Anthony Rizzo. With 71 home runs and 1.812 OPS combined, I think I made two great picks.

The regular season standings were:

Melissas and Greever received first-round byes with the next four teams playing in the first round. I had the fourth seed locked up, but I tried my best to move upto the third seed.

In the first round, colleague Brad Kelly defeated me 7-2-1. The only two categories I won were saves, 5-2, and K/9, 9.679 to 8.027. We tied home runs, 12 each. After finishing fourth in home runs and third in RBI, my batters did not show up for this matchup.

In the consolation ladder, I faced former writer Billy Moy in weeks two and three. I defeated him in both matchups, 6-4 and 6-3-1. I can’t speak for Moy, but it looks like he stopped paying attention, because he had some injured players in his starting lineup.

Moving on to the more important matchup, the No. 1 and 2 seeds met in the championship game. In a surprising result, Melissas and Greever tied 5-5. Craig won HR, RBI, OPS (see how they correlate?), SV and WHIP while Greever won the other five.

Melissas was awarded the championship through the tiebreaker. It makes sense because he finished first in three of the five hitting stats and top-five in three of the five pitching stats. Melissas relied heavily on the bats of Paul Goldschmidt, Nolan Arenado, Bryce Harper and Nelson Cruz. He also had four top closers which helped saves, obviously, and the ratio stats.

Looking back, some of the moves I made were hit or miss. Melissas made the sixth-most moves, yet still won the championship. More went into his draft strategy instead of focusing on the waiver wire.

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Early in the season, I traded Craig Kimbrel for A.J. Ramos and Cody Allen. I added two more solid closers in place of a top-five guy. Kimbrel finished with 39 while Ramos and Allen had 32 and 34, respectively. Luckily, I was able to trade for Mark Melancon, who led the league with 51 saves, by giving up Prince Fielder.

Throughout the season, I was playing the streaming game with starting pitchers. I think it helped with some pitchers, but overall hurt my chances in winning the ratio stats. I finished 10th, 11th and nine in ERA, WHIP and K/9 at the end of the regular season.

I was able to capitalize on injuries by picking up the backups right away. I added Eugenio Suarez and Jung Ho Kang when they became the starters. I also added some hot batters off the waiver wire as well.

Overall, it was a great season and congratulations to Craig Melissas on winning the Fantasy Baseball Crackerjacks league championship. With enough interest, I hope we can do it again next season.

Next: Shelby Miller: Time to Abolish the Wins Category?