The early returns on my new strategy and formula are looking promising. It’s only one week, but it’s given me more confidence in my offense and the changes I’ve made have been working. Compared to the rest of the season, my offense produced in a way that it has not all year. For example, my team hit 12 home runs for the week, which is the most my offense has hit all season. This season has forced me to look at what’s been wrong with my offense and to look at the whole picture to see what all I can take away from it. When I went through and compared this week for my offense and looked at all the rest of them, it showed that my team had clearly been struggling in the power department. Home runs in a points league aren’t a requirement in the same way they would be in a categories league, but they are clearly important and valuable in a points league. It obviously is a huge boost of help in this department that I acquired Aaron Judge before this week, but my offense also produced in other areas where it really hasn’t all season. 

For example, I finally pulled the plug on Ozzie Albies instead of riding this out all season in favor of Gleyber Torres, and that change paid off in a big way. Torres hit a couple home runs and scored 25 for the week, immediately scoring more points in a week in my lineup than Albies had all year.I also got 23.3 from Michael Busch out of the utility spot, and he hit two home runs on the week as well. I think it’s important to make calculated changes and not be reckless, and I did take a chance by making a lot of changes, but I was confident that my new metric I came up with was going to work. If you compare the offense I fielded to the one in the week prior, I started 6 new hitters out of 9 total. I know the trade has a lot to do with that as well, but it was a clear overhaul and pivot that was necessary. I have learned a lot through this process, and know I will be even better for it going into next season. In the trade I switched out Mookie Betts and Fernando Tatis Jr. for Judge and Freddie Freeman, so that accounted for two of the changes. The others were Torres and Busch, and the other two were Drake Baldwin and Tommy Edman. I think Baldwin is clearly legit and will be an elite catcher when he gets the majority of the playing time, but that’s not what is happening. It had looked like it was happening, which is why I picked up and started Baldwin, but then he only started 3 of their 7 games they had last week. So now I’ve gone back to Agustin Ramirez, who has been hot at the plate in the last week and plays every day, since he is the DH on days where he’s not playing catcher. I also made a change again with Tommy Edman, since it’s the only spot in my lineup that has a hole left. I dropped him in favor of Wenceel Perez, a player who will be the focus of my next paragraph below. All of these moves are a product of my new metric I’ve created and am using, and my confidence in it is only continuing to grow.

I wanted to talk about Wenceel Perez more in-depth as a player I’m really excited about and one who has real breakout potential. He’s been successful so far this season in a small sample size, but there is a thought out there that a new batting stance change has really unlocked Perez. So far this season the stats speak for themselves, as he has a 0.604 slugging percentage with 6 home runs in 99 plate appearances. This is backed up by a 0.319 ISO, and as a switch hitter he’s made a dramatic improvement batting right-handed. He’s currently hitting 0.400 from the right side with an absurd 1.367 OPS, where he only hit 0.209 with a 0.594 OPS last season in 96 plate appearances. He’s only had 27 plate appearances from the right side, so he overall has a smaller sample size than I’d like, but I’d rather be early on him than wait to make sure he’s legit only to miss out on him. I’m confident enough in Perez that I’m starting him this week, even at only 23% rostered on CBS. You’ll have to check back to see how it pays off, but I’m confident this is going to work as long as he continues to get every day at bats. With production like this, I don’t see why that would happen either. What I’m most impressed by and like the most is his consistency, since in the last 4 weeks he’s scored 16 or more every week and is averaging 19.5 per week. His lowest week at 16 points was this past week, and his last at bat on Saturday came within a few inches of hitting a grand slam. As a potential difference maker coming from seemingly nowhere as a switch hitter, it’s really making me think of Jose Ramirez. He was not a well-known or highly touted player when he debuted, and was being viewed as undersized as well. Now he’s put together a hall of fame career, so you never know where it could come from.