By now, you’re probably aware that this year’s fantasy league ended a month early on 31 August due to technical problems (full details here), meaning this is the end-of-season wrap-up for the 2019 Fantasy Baseball UK season. Scroll down for winners, August Manager of the Month and the FBUK All-Star Team of the Season.
The positive news regarding the technical issues is that the FBUK brain trust has a plan of action this off-season for some ‘under the hood’ upgrades that we hope will stabilise the game and enable it to return in stronger condition in 2020, which would see it entering a third decade since its launch in the noughties.
It hinges on us integrating a more reliable daily MLB stats feed. We’ve known for a long time that the current CBS feed has its ups and downs, but this year was particularly bad in terms of it not consistently updating daily stats/points, player position eligibility and pitchers’ last start dates. A dodgy update may have been the catalyst for the calamitous reset of player salary values that ultimately called time on this season.
Stay tuned to the mailing list, social media channels and website forum for updates.
Champions
After rising to first place in the Main Game in late July/August on the back of his second Manager of the Month performance of 2019, Ludo Basse‘s Brinsonia proved unstoppable, gradually stretching out the lead over Brent Bentley‘s Carry On My Heyward Son. Congratulations to Ludo, who reclaimed the championship he won back-to-back in 2015-16. Well played, too, the runner-up, Brent, who was the pace setter in the first half of the season.
There was a similar duel in the $5m Game where Brian Matthews‘ Scioscialessly Unhappy took the lead heading into August and held on to win the title over the first half leader, Kev Mesher‘s The Brad Penny Pinchers.
Things were closest in the Limited Trade Game. In July, James Davis‘ Bluemooners Too and Tim Found‘s Blackheath Spaniels ascended into the top ten to displace the early leading teams at the top of the standings. In mid-August, Bluemooners Too had opened up a 150+ points gap in first place but a few days before the end of the month, both teams were tied in first place. David Crabtree‘s Chicago Acid (who had been around the top five all season) also turned up the heat in the final couple of weeks to the level that when the season ended prematurely on 31 August, Bluemooners Too had the lead by just three points over Chicago Acid. Well done to Limited Trade Champion James Davis for a very strong second half – it would have been riveting to see how that contest played out in September.
Division winners
Here’s the winners of each of the divisions, their points tallies and (in red) the gap between them and the second-placed fantasy team in their division:
Angels: The Spirit of #26 (Keith Jeffery) – 12642 (+260)
Astros: Moonshot Astros (Mark Lovell) – 12527 (+86)
Athletics: Hampshire Hogs (Darren Hunt) – 12540 (+203)
Blue Jays: Urban Jays (Kevan White) – 12847 (+186)
Braves: Royston Cubsox (Janet Mitchell) – 12188 (+22)
Brewers: Caught Stealing (Michael Hatch) – 11709 (+800)
Cardinals: Flux Capacitors (Stuart Burnett) – 12764 (+533)
Cubs: Go Grace (Steve White) – 12794 (+157)
Diamondbacks: Red Rocks in Sedona (Keith Jeffery) – 12498 (+19)
Dodgers: Blue Through And Through (Rupert Russell) – 12817 (+21)
Giants: The Umpire Strikes Out (Dave Perrin) – 13009 (+155)
Indians: Average Joes (George Anderson) – 12904 (+1373)
Mariners: Gordon’s Djinn (Donnie Annan) -12561 (+910)
Marlins: Brinsonia (Ludo Basse) – 13496 (+1135)
Mets: Homerun Homer! (Richard Cornelius) – 12185 (+223)
Nationals: The National Wash (Donald Wallace) – 12559 (+580)
Orioles: Torquay O’s (James Baillie) – 12476 (+417)
Padres: Fyggyn’s Failures (Chris Stobart) – 13019 (+1013)
Phillies: The Rescue Party (Gareth Jones) – 12776 (+576)
Pirates: Money For Nutting (Ben Holbrook) – 11987 (+82)
Rangers: Have-A-Go Heroes (Mark Lovell) -12255 (+734)
Rays: Whowhatwhere (Kev Mesher) – 12747 (+237)
Red Sox: Carry On My Heyward Son (Brent Bentley) – 13103 (+235)
Reds: Redlegs (David Butcher) – 12293 (+1324)
Rockies: Blackmon’s Beardy Wonders (Garry Dawson) – 12365 (+118)
Royals: Jake and Halfpint Rock (Keith Jeffery) – 12613 (+115)
Tigers: Detroit Technos (David Crabtree) – 12328 (+764)
Twins: Wotaboutawaterbottleweeble (Jonathan Tugwood) – 12812 (+375)
White Sox: Secret Agents (Rene Becker) – 12762 (+1495)
Yankees: BILKO (Paul Butcher) – 12589 (+211)
Prizes
Well done if you are one of this year’s game champions, division winners or Managers of the Month – please claim your prize and provide your details so that we can send it to you, using the online form. Thank you to BaseballSoftballUK for providing the prizes again this year.
Fantasy Baseball UK User Survey
Thanks to everyone who took the time to complete the FBUK User Survey, which closed at the end of August. Kevin Johnson‘s name was randomly drawn in the accompanying prize draw to win various MLB goodies including an official London Series 2019 baseball. We’ve started looking through the survey results and aim to publish a summary during the off-season.
FBUK All-Star Team of the Season: 2019
Based on fantasy points accumulated from 28 March up to the fantasy league’s end on 31 August, here’s the season’s top performers at each position:
Fantasy Manager of the Month: August
James Baillie was the August Manager of the Month as his fantasy team Torquay O’s scored the most points between 1-31 August. In doing so, James also secured the Orioles division title, and will receive an Oyo MLB minifigure. Among the other top performers in August, Steve White‘s strong month saw his team Go Grace rise to finish the season just outside the top ten in the Main Game standings. Thanks to BaseballSoftballUK for supporting our prizes.
This season’s previous Managers of the Month were: Rupert Russell (April), Ludo Basse (May, July), Gareth Jones (June).
Fantasy League Standings (top): Final (31 August)
Finally…
Don’t forget you can follow FBUK @FBUKgame on Twitter and @fantasybaseballuk on Facebook and our newly-launched Instagram (apparently it’s where the cool kids reside).
If you enjoy what we do and feel like making a donation to help support the running of our independent fantasy league, you can use the green link below!
Thanks for playing this season!
The FBUK team
