The 2022 JLB Draft is in the books! It took just four days, 6 hours and 50 minutes to complete, which is a JLB record for sure.
I don't keep track of these things, but I know we never finished a slow draft in four days.
Hell, I’m pretty sure Monkey alone was on the clock for four days, 6 hours and 50 minutes just a year ago.
Times have changed and the Kohler Brothers are here to stay, and after some offseason moves and a decent draft, they are in position to compete in 2022, or at least, that's what the Slammer S-Scale reads.
That's right! Everyone's favorite system is back. The Kohler brothers said we should have a fun way to analyze the teams after the draft, and begrudgingly, Parker and Choo made them aware of the S-Scale.
So just for them, it's back!
As a refresher and perhaps an intro to the S-Scale, the system takes the projected stats from your best starting lineup, plus one bat, and all of your pitchers to come up with totals in each category for the season. Each total is matched up with the totals of others in your division, and you are assigned a number—6 if you are the best, 5 for second best, and so on. Your numbers are added up to project where you will finish.
Obviously, the more sixes, the better. (Or is it? We'll come back to that.)
This system is admittedly flawed at times because where as someone getting a 3 for being far behind in homers is certainly different than someone getting a 3 for being just a few behind. So you may actually be competitive in a category but your score did not truly reflect that you're going to win that category more times than not in 2022.
But alas, it's the system and here are the results:
| National League | TOTAL | BATS | ARMS |
| 1. Cheese Steaks | 93.5 | 41 | 52.5 |
| 2. Lebowski | 90.5 | 46 | 44.5 |
| 3. Slammers | 75 | 39 | 36 |
| 4. Stantonians | 74 | 39 | 35 |
| 5. Quad Eh | 64.5 | 35.5 | 29 |
| 6. Nutz | 62.5 | 28.5 | 34 |
| American League | TOTAL | BATS | ARMS |
| 1. Breakfast | 94.75 | 44.5 | 50.25 |
| 2. Choo | 93.75 | 48 | 45.75 |
| 3. Crox | 89.25 | 50 | 3925 |
| 4. Topton | 79.5 | 43.5 | 36 |
| 5. Gamblers | 60.25 | 23 | 37.25 |
| 6. Sex Panthers | 50.5 | 23 | 27.5 |
No surprise to see last year's World Series competitors at No. 1 in each division, but they have close company right behind them from the same teams that gave them a run for their money in 2021.
In the National League, the No. 3 spot and final playoff berth looks to be up for grabs once again. Even though Nutz is there in sixth, it was all pretty close, so whereas I personally like the S-Scale prediction of me finishing third, there's plenty that could change that for sure.
The American League appears to be the same three teams that battled in the playoffs last year, but Topton surely has plenty of talent to flip the script. The pair of rebuilding teams will obviously have to well out-perform their projections—or have the rest of the pack fall back to them—in order to have a shot in 2022.
In the National League, the Steaks had six 6s, but he wasn't alone. Quad Eh also had six, which is crazy considering how far down he was in the poll. The reason? He had no 5s and only one 4 and one 1. JV complemented his six 6s with six 5s.
Breakfast had seven 6s, and Choo had five.
So is this how it's all going to end? We'll see.
If it is, when you match the top two teams in a hypothetical World Series, you get JV winning 11-10-1 (IRS and SACs are not projected) over Breakfast.
But that's why we play the game. Anything can happen and hopefully this does not. It's time for a fresh champion! You know, maybe one we haven't seen hoist the trophy in ... oh, let's say 10 years.
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