DRaysBay Fantasy Baseball Association Season Wraupup

Hello all, and welcome to the belated roundup of our first season of of DRaysBay fantasy football.

I had an awesome time in Bowling Green (without meth -- there are other things to do in BG), despite the fact that I got my rear handed to me, finishing nearly two thousand points below the leader. I give a little bit of the details of why that happened below, but I'd love to hear why each winner won their league for the higher leagues, so go ahead and relate those stories in the comments.

As is to be expected, especially in the first year, there were a number of teams whose owners abandoned them at various states in the season. Those teams are being relegated all the way to the bottom, causing a large number of promotions. We'll be sure to get all of these done before the allocation period ends.

In the tables below, I have not included any of the abandons, so every score posted here is from someone who gave the league a decent try.

In addition to the tables below, here's a leaderboard that combines all of the leagues. Because each league had a different number of people actively playing, there were different numbers of points available, and I don't think raw score is a fair comparison. In that table, I've sorted by each owners score relative to the average score of a participating team in his league. It's not a perfect measure, but I think it gives some idea of how an owner performed.

The Majors -- one abandon, 16274 average

Team	Player	Points
MakeitRayn	MakeitRayn	17924.5
We're Only in it for the Money	gjsor	17626.8
Sandals's Man Hole Scandals	essenpee	17378.2
Montréal Rays	Brian Andersbot	17252.8
$tu's Bottom Line	Mattc286	16413.8
When'sTheRe-Draft??	JWF	16167.5
Arnold T. Pants, Esq.	AndrewTorrez	16116
Papal Boner	nomo.red.evil	15618.8
TTBNL	ramedy	15072.5
Jepsen's Malört	ChiBurbRaysFan	14953.7
Ghost of Al Davis hijacked my draft	falcao9	14490.9

This league seems to have gone exactly how I hoped it would. Of the twelve most-involved community members to sign up for the league, eleven of them played out the season for real, and it was a tight, competitive league. The top four finishers were all within a few hundred points of each other, and even beyond that, there were no extreme dropoffs.

Because one player did quit on his team, no one else needed to worry about relegation, and I wonder if anyone was able to avail themselves of that freedom to sell at the trade deadline. Do any of you bottom-of-the-table guys feel like you set up well for next year?

As for MakeitRayne, congrats. You're the king, and per the constitution, you can request other community members to buy you drinks whenever you meat them in real life. Also, your super snazzy bowtie goes in the mail tomorrow.

Triple-A Durham -- three abandons, 16217 average

Team	Player	Points
Pitching to the Score	win-cicum	19015.3
The Freshest Men on Earth	Sambo10861	18383.7
YanGomes Unchained	pudieron	17714.5
Average Joe's	Estivage	16849.3
Forms of Virtue	kfharlock	16438.6
Dr. Strangeglove	Brett Phillips	15957.4
Ruff Ryders	zwendkos	14631.2
The Split-Squad All-Stars	Bradley Dubya	13849.8
The 'Lil Sebastians	onetonnebaby	13120.5

So this was a really interesting league. We're marking it as three abandons, but everyone actually made the draft, and the owners who abandoned did so during the season. So it's not like there were a ton of extra points available out there, and I think that's reflected in the fact that Triple-A actually had a lower average score than did Double-A.

But while the average score was just below that of the top league, Triple-A actually had two players who outscored every other team in the entire association. The score posted by the Freshest Men on Earth would have won every single other league, but instead it's simply a second place finish in Durham with no promotion.

Win-cicum takes the award for most dominant player in the association, beating his leagues average by more than any other team beat his or her league average.

Double-A Montgomery --  one abandon, 16277 average

Team	Player	Points
Dream On	Kthomas9	17404.6
Prospect Manipulator	dylanccrain	17337.3
One God Damn Hit?	HeavyDRay	17199.2
OsKiermaier BaLoney	????	17114.1
The Buttheads	????	16973.7
#friedmansfailures	Jrjs	16756.1
Free Agent Fodder	????	16395.2
West Coast Road Trip	????	16395.2
Sanford's Generic Team Name	Adam Sanford	15116.5
Just A Bit Outside	tfelsmaier	14824.6
Hill Valley Time Travelers	Jaredsward	13533.9

This league, like the top one, had only one true abandoned team. I'm having trouble putting a league DRaysBay user names to team names and FanGraphs user names, so pardon the question marks. Can you step forward and identify yourself, DRaysBay community members?

Anyway, there was a close race for the top, so congratulations to "Dream On," but some of the sting is taken out of that by the fact that the top four have earned promotion, based on the abandoned teams above them.

Advanced-A Charlotte -- four abandons, 15199 average

Team	Player	Points
Boomsticks	????	18104.2
soupK1TCHEN	????	17461.3
Raise Up!	????	16983.8
Rocket Launchers	????	16378.2
Yak Shot	????	15755.7
Ryan Brett's Beard	????	15179.1
Yeezy Heaters	????	15137.1
Miami Beaches	????	12296.2

I'm not going to lie, High-A Charlotte was not an impressive fantasy football league. First off, four players did not make the draft. That meant that there were a ton of baseball players available, and the scores should have been high from the teams that did participate. But they weren't. The average of non-abandoned teams in Charlotte was the lowest of any league in the association (If we call "Miami Beaches" abandoned, that would go up a bit, but I'm not planning on doing that, I think?).

But Boomsticks was paying attention, and grabbing up the talent. If we're comparing players across leagues by the amount they exceeded their league avearge, Boomsticks comes in second, sandwhiched between the two Triple-A aces.

Single-A Bowling Green -- three abandons, 16419 average

Team	Player	Points
Maxxx Rowengardener	powersjeremy13	18317.8
MidgetKillers	theaccountiuse	17748.7
Cup Check	Brian S	17736.2
Head Hunters	kuyakarlito	17174.4
Corn on the Bobb	tonyfusco5	16251.5
There d'Arnaud Dollars Left	Ian Malinowski	16224.6
Cash Money	the dobber	15752.9
The Defectors	inmychucks	14750.2
Smoking Green Hot Roids	magicrays	13816.9

And this was my league, way at the bottom. But we did a pretty decent job, with the highest score from non-abandoned teams in the entire association.

Congrats to powersjeremy13 on the win, which was actually one of the more dominating wins in the association. Despite the high league average score, he beat that average by the fourth most of any player.

As this was my league, I do know what happened. We had an odd draft for a couple reasons. One owner bought many of the best players at above market value quickly, and then abandoned her team. Another ower skipped the draft entirely. Meanwhile, most other owners spent conservatively and wisely in the draft. It got late, so we ended before we had filled out our 40-man rosters, and moved to the blind auctions.

This was the point at which I, and a few other owners, messed up. I calculated what I thought was market rate (including the owners who never did show up in the calculation), and assigned bids on everyone up for auction, not thinking I would win them all, but that I'd ensure fair prices. I, along with some other owners (the dobber, for one), did this poorly, and won far too many players. We had to cut players and allow them to be picked up at half price by the teams that had bid correctly (lower). The results? Miguel Cabrera at $29. Adrian Gonzalez at $11. Things like that.

Meanwhile, while playing the market correctly, powersjeremy hit big time with his choice of pitchers with Max Scherzer at $39, Johnny Cueto at $32, and most valuable of all, Dallas Keuchel at $11.

He jumped out to an early league on the strength of his pitching, but he was accumulating innings way too fast. So late in the year he traded those aces (to me, who had bad pitching and not enough of it) for high-quality hitting, and that was enough to hold off the challengers as he hit his innings limit on the pitching side.

The Plan From Here

So there's a system outlined in the constitution by which we decide who get's which teams in promotion and relegation, but the fact that every league included abandoned teams basically blows that up. No one who gave it a real shot is being relegated to the league directly below them. Rather, the only relegations are sending slots all the way to the bottom, and that creates a cascade of promotions.

But there's still a way to decide who gets which teams that's consistent and determined (except for when owners skipped the draft). Owners from one league will move up and stay in the same order they finished as they take over teams.

Owners who abandoned their teams can reenter the league but will need to do it at the bottom level.

Here are the changes of which owner will take over which abandoned team.

(There's a nonzero chance that I've messed something up in the promotion mapping. We'll fix it, just shout.)

Tampa Bay

Adam Laroche's Second Half --> win-cicum

Durham

Pitching to the score --> kthomas9

Cash Money Millionares --> dylanccrain

Cuban Cigars --> HeavyDRay

#FRIEDMANSFAILURES --> "former owner of OsKiermaier BaLoney"

Montgomery

Dream On --> "former owner of Boomsticks"

Prospect Manipulator --> "former owner of soupK1TCHEN"

One God Damn Hit? --> "former owner of Raise Up!"

OsKiermaier BaLoney --> "former owner of Rocket Launchers"

rayscf13 --> "former owner of Yak Shot"

Charlotte

Boomsticks --> powersjeremy13

soupKITCHEN --> theaccountiuse

Raise Up! --> Brian S

Rocket Launchers --> kuyakarlito

Yak Shot --> tonyfusco5

Kershawshank Redemption --> Ian Malinowski

phil321 --> the dobber

mmf07c -- inmychucks

Benefits with Friends -- magicrays

Bowling Green

Totally rebuilt from the ground up.

Be on the lookout in the next couple days for emails from your league commish. And if you abandoned a team, but want back in, say so in the comments. Also, if you did not play last season but want in for next season, say so as well.