League Champions Celebrate Here!

The 2022 regular season has concluded, which means it’s time to celebrate if you earned a sweet championship crown! Did you win your league? Did you finish in a prize spot thanks to the research, analysis, and advice from the RotoGraphs crew or a FanGraphs author? Perhaps FanGraphs data assisted on your path to a Yoo-hoo shower. Whatever bucket applies to you, share your winning story, boast, and celebrate your win or prize money finish in the comments!

The 2022 season was…unexpected. Going all the way back to 2000, the league posted the lowest (or second lowest, either just below or above the 2014 season) wOBA, driven by its lowest BABIP since 1992. HR/FB rate also fell to its lowest since 2015. So a combination of fewer balls in play falling for hits and a lower rate of fly balls flying over the fence really reduced offense. Essentially, draft Aaron Judge and hope for the best was the correct strategy.

So how’d I do? Well, I’m typing this late afternoon, at which point the majority of games have just started. So I’ll provide a quick rundown on my teams at this very moment and will update this, if necessary, when the standings become final.

AL-Only Tout Wars – 2nd place with no chance at 1st, as Doug Dennis executed the LIMA plan to absolute perfection, winning every single category, except for WHIP (he finished second), wins and strikeouts, the latter two of which he finished last in, as expected.

Mixed LABR – 3rd place, and yet still 28 1/2 points out of 1st! Though it’s no win, and I could easily fall a couple of spots during this last day, this was still quite the accomplishment given my apparently shocking draft.

Local 12-team Mixed – 4th place and no shot of reaching 3rd, the final prize spot. I’m amazed I finished that strongly given the rash of injuries I had to deal with and number of offensive disappointments (which seem to hit me every. single. year., no matter how much I spend on offense).

AL-Only Keeper – 1st! I have a 5 point lead as I type this and that lead should be enough to lock up my first championship five years after several prize finishes, but never on top.