Finally, Opening Day is upon us.
It didn't seem like it would happen about a month ago.
And even just two or three weeks ago, it seemed like there was a chance that the pandemic would keep this from happening.
But alas, teams are traveling to play exhibition games and it really looks like nothing can stop this train from starting on Thursday.
You know what also isn't hard? Asking for preseason rankings from everyone, but I decided I didn't want to. They always come back with weird responses and make the poll silly to share.
So, why not bring back the Slammer 'S' Scale? I had planned to do it in March — I even had some of the spreadsheets filled out — but the pandemic ruined that.
Out of pure dedication to this league, I sat down, reworked the spreadsheets and here we go.
National League
1. Lebowski: 70.0/35.0/105.0
2. Cheese: 54.5/40.0/94.5
3. Quad Eh: 58.0/33.0/91.0
4. Slammers: 43.5/23.0/66.5
5. Steroid: 24.5/32.0/56.5
6. Monkey: 22.5/25.0/47.5
American League
1. Choo: 57.0/42.0/99.0
2. Breakfast: 66.0/29.0/95.0
3. Crox: 51.5/33.5/85.0
4. Gamblers: 45.0/27.5/72.5
5. Topton: 31.0/34.5/65.6
6. Panthers: 22.5/22.5/45.0
(So how does the Slammer 'S' Scale work? Yes, some of you are too young in the JLB to even know what the 'S' stands for. Well, kids, gather 'round. The 'S' Scale is a system that takes into account your starting lineup, plus 2 bats, and adds the projections together to make a single stat line. Same accumulation is done on the pitching side, and your stat lines are matched up with every team in your division. If you are No. 1 in hits, 6 points, No. 2, 5 points, and so on. Do that for every projection stat and you get your batting number/pitching number/total number.)
Now here's where I admit, this is a waste of time.
With the projections so low across the board and with there being so many unknowns, the above standings are likely to be 90 percent wrong.
But, at the same time, if I were to ask all of us to vote, those standings would be even worse, because the real problem here is how the hell do we evaluate teams when a 12 homer, 35 RBI campaign is the equivalent of a 30 homer, 90 RBI season? It just doesn't look right.
So, with that in mind, I did the 'S' Scale.
It’s worth noting that the No. 1- and 2-ranked teams in each League are clearly — on paper — ahead of everyone else and they do have the advantage to make the playoffs, but at the same time, they each have their problems with injuries, opt-outs and other unknowns with this wild 2020 season to come.
After I did it, I found more flaws. David Price's projections, and other Covid opt-out projections on roster got factored in. I didn't notice it and I'm not redoing the equations. Hell no.
The other reason the scale is all thrown off is because there are some players with no projections, despite the fact that they are clearly playing. I personally own two of them.
That is why there really is no reason to say that anyone is a sure-fire non-playoff team. It’s easy to see that in this short sprint, teams three through six in the standings in both Leagues all have a chance.
There it was. Did you drink? I wrote “sprint.” Getting tired of that yet?
Well, get used to it. Between that and the "new normal," we're going to hear a lot of it in baseball over the next 2 months.
So you may be wondering, "If all of this is likely wrong, why the hell did I just waste 4 minutes reading the text above?"
Well, I had to have some sort of intro, and what better intro than some fake standings to get the chatter going in the League?
Over the next 3 days, you're going to read a lot of this stuff from me, and you're going to feel more satisfied after reading them.
Without further delay, let's get this season rolling with the 2020 JLB team previews!
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