With three weeks to go, we are in the home stretch of the fantasy baseball season. When the Major League Baseball regular season ends on 5 October, champions will be decided in the three Fantasy Baseball UK leagues: FBUK League, the standard game; FBUK LTD, the limited trade game; FBUK Classic, the salary gap game. Besides the overall championships, there are 14 regional division competitions in play across the different formats.
All the divisional and overall standings from the various leagues can be viewed in the Standings section of the website. This now includes the newest league, FBUK Classic (the salary cap game run through Fantrax). Also, the Standings pages have been updated last month with a column showing the number of innings pitched (IP) used by each team, which is useful context with the 1400 IP limit in mind alongside the points tally.
Scroll down for a full round-up.
FBUK All-Star Team of the Month: August
Based on fantasy points accumulated between 1-31 August, here are the top performers at each position during the month:
| Ps. | Player | Team | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|
| C | JT Realmuto | PHI | 151 |
| 1B | Paul Goldschmidt | STL | 203 |
| 2B | Marcus Semien | TEX | 137 |
| 3B | Nolan Arenado | STL | 210 |
| SS | Francisco Lindor | NYM | 147 |
| OF | Mookie Betts | LAD | 207 |
| OF | Aaron Judge | NYY | 183 |
| OF | Randy Arozarena | TB | 182 |
| UT | Alex Bregman | HOU | 202 |
| SP | Zac Gallen | ARI | 158 |
| RP | Felix Bautista | BAL | 95 |
Paul Goldschmidt of the St Louis Cardinals makes his third appearance of 2022. Besides being in this month’s All-Star Team, he qualified in May and in the All-Star Team of the First Half put together in July. The veteran first baseman put up a .343 batting average in August with 9 home runs and 27 RBI and an impressive OPS (On-base plus slugging) of 1.004.
In the outfield, New York Yankees’ slugger Aaron Judge also qualified for the FBUK All-Star Team on three occasions this season – in May, July and August. At the time of writing, Judge has launched 55 home runs – that’s 19 more than the next highest in the homer rankings. Judge is closing in on the American League single-season record of 61 home runs set in 1961 by a previous Yankees player, Roger Maris. Besides slugging, Judge has a .301 batting average, .407 on-base percentage, 118 RBI and a career-high 16 stolen bases.
Zac Gallen (Arizona Diamondbacks) ended August with a run of five consecutive games without giving up an earned run. Over six games during the month, Gallen had a 5-0 record and 44 strikeouts.
In the closer spot, the Baltimore Orioles’ Felix Bautista recorded 7 saves in 13 appearances, a 1.23 ERA and 20 strikeouts.
Notes: Monthly points and position eligibility is based on Fantrax, where the salary cap league is run. Although the Fantrax and Yahoo leagues use the same scoring system, position eligibility might vary slightly for some MLB players. The Utility spot is the highest-scoring hitter who didn’t top a position category. Here, the Relief Pitcher spot is reserved for true relievers/closers rather than starting pitchers who happen to also be eligible at the RP spot.
Manager of the Month: August
Brian Matthews is Manager of the Month for the second time in 2022, which is also his third appearance of the season among the top five managers for a month. Brian’s team hedley verityesque scored over 350 points more than the next highest scoring team in August in the FBUK League as he gradually extended his lead at the top of the overall standings. Here is a bit of trivia: That is the fourth highest monthly points tally since the points scoring system was updated at the start of the 2021 season.
An honourable mention to Paul Dearnley whose team Suited Aces is some way off the top 10 in the FBUK League standings but was the second highest scoring team in August and recorded the largest increase in points as a percentage of totals at the end of the previous month. Suited Aces’ points total at the end of August (8690) was a 35% increase on its total at the end of July (6439).
| Ps. | Team | Pts |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | hedley verityesque (Brian Matthews) | 2616 |
| 2 | Suited Aces (Paul Dearnley) | 2251 |
| 3 | The Rescue Party (Gareth Jones) | 2240 |
| 4 | Pain in Yoenis (Daniel Perrin) | 2187 |
| 5 | Flux Capacitors (Stuart Burnett) | 2183 |
Also, belated recognition to John Steele who was July Manager of the Month although there wasn’t a July round-up newsletter noting this.
Fantasy Manager of the Month: July
beat gould&lengl – John Steele – 2334
Flux Capacitors – Stuart Burnett – 2079
Clash City Royals – Mark Ormrod – 2059
Pumpsie Green – David Polgreen – 2056
Airdrie Pinstripes – Steven Dunne – 2048
Fantasy League Standings (top): 12 September
In all three formats, fantasy teams are grouped into roughly regional divisions but they are also combined to give overall standings. Here is a snapshot of the overall Top 10 in each league at the time of writing.
FBUK League
| Ps. | Team | Pts |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | hedley verityesque | 10978 |
| 2 | Pain in Yoenis | 10717 |
| 3 | beat gould&lengl | 10512 |
| 4 | Flux Capacitors | 10413 |
| 5 | The Rescue Party | 10354 |
| 6 | Airdrie Pinstripes | 10350 |
| 7 | Wake Field Padres | 10290 |
| 8 | Clash City Royals | 10189 |
| 9 | It’s Shohei Time | 10085 |
| 10 | AZ Doublebacks | 10010 |
Since the All-Star Break, Brian Matthews’ hedley verityesque has steadily opened up a decent lead in the standard game, the FBUK League. This is the time of the season when we pay attention to teams’ remaining innings until the 1400 IP limit (this is noted on the Standings page). The top three teams are each now within their last 100 available innings.
Flux Capacitors and The Rescue Party – in fourth and fifth, respectively – have at least an additional 100 innings to play with but it remains to be seen whether that makes a difference in making up the current gap of around 600 points behind the leader. They are locked in close competition for the West division title, though.
The next closest division race is in the North East where Disposable Heroes and Davy Dodgers are separated by 88 points and fewer than 200 points separates the top four teams.
FBUK LTD
| Ps. | Team | Pts |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | YabbaDabBaddoo | 8472 |
| 2 | Candles Bat Breakers | 8453 |
| 3 | No Trade Clause | 8102 |
| 4 | Atlantic Crossing | 7995 |
| 5 | Gallo’s Humour | 7973 |
| 6 | Jose Abreu’s Bombers | 7948 |
| 7 | Masters of Merriment | 7911 |
| 8 | Hits and Giggles | 7854 |
| 9 | John’s Jokers | 7842 |
| 10 | Welly BJ’s | 7827 |
As has been the case most of the season, Dan Perrin’s YabbaDabBaddoo and Richie Hayward’s Candles Bat Breakers continue to hold the top pair of positions in FBUK LTD, the limited trade game. Currently less than 20 points separates them so this tussle looks like it will go down to the wire. They are competing for both the FBUK LTD South division title and the overall championship. Meanwhile, John Borthwick’s No Trade Clause – back-to-back champion in 2016-17 – continues to lead the North division and sits third overall.
FBUK Classic
| Ps. | Team | Pts |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Secret Agents | 10528 |
| 2 | Beat Gould and Lengl | 10518 |
| 3 | RBI or Rump? | 10403 |
| 4 | Schmuccos | 10258 |
| 5 | MK Bombs | 10203 |
| 6 | Bleacher Creatures | 10135 |
| 7 | Dunedin Dingers | 10066 |
| 8 | Year of the Cub | 10004 |
| 9 | Highway 191 | 9944 |
| 10 | Boys of Summer | 9703 |
In FBUK Classic, the salary cap game, the situation has been changing quite often. By the All-Star Break, the early leader, Wayne Mason’s Bleacher Creatures, had been hunted down by Neil Harrison’s Schmuccos and René Becker’s Secret Agents. However, Schmuccos and RBI or Rump? have now hit the IP limit so one would expect other teams to move past them between now and the end of the season. John Steele’s Beat Gould and Lengl are firmly in the FBUK Classic championship race (and also third in the standard game) while MK Bombs and Bleacher Creatures are still lurking and have the most pitching innings left to play with over the final three weeks.
Two of the FBUK Classic divisional title races (Channel and Metro conferences) involve the teams battling in the top ten of the overall championship and the outcome of that will affect those division titles. However, in the Mountain Conference, Keith Jeffery’s Highway 191 has dominated for the majority of the season and with a lead of over 400 points, Highway 191 is probably too far in the distance for others in the division to catch, although the runner-up spot is still in contention.
Touch base with FBUK
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Thanks for playing, and good luck for the remainder of the season!
Fantasy Baseball UK