2021 Championship Series Top Scorers
The World Series starts today! The 2021 version of the Fall Classic features the cheatin’ Houston Astros against the culturally insensitive Atlanta Braves! To be fair, I’m an equal opportunity disparager: had it gone the other way, I would have called the Red Sox out for also cheating, and the Dodgers for willingly employing a repeat sexual abuser and cyber bully. That just goes to show, every team is deeply flawed, and I’m not bitter about this matchup at all!
Before Game 1 gets underway tonight, I’d like to share the results of my updated database tracking fantasy points throughout the playoffs. As you can imagine, the new leaderboard almost exclusively includes players from Championship Series teams, since those four got to basically double their sample size. Only four of the top 50 scoring players didn’t appear in the CS: Giants starter Logan Webb, injured Astros ace Lance McCullers Jr., and Rays rookies Wander Franco and Randy Arozarena.
The new top overall fantasy point scorer for the 2021 postseason through the Championship Series round is Braves closer Will (M.) Smith. I know that fantasy scoring overvalues wins and saves, an achievement recorded by Smith in six of his seven 2021 playoff appearances, but seven scoreless extremely high leverage playoff innings is pretty impressive. Smith is joined in the top 10 by fellow Cancer Crab Yordan Alvarez, fresh off his ALCS MVP trophy.
After Smith in the leaderboard, we get two Virgo utility players from eliminated teams. I think it’s safe to say that had the Red Sox and the Dodgers advanced to the next round, Kiké Hernandez and Chris Taylor would have taken home their respective CS MVP awards, almost regardless of what might have happened in subsequent “if necessary” games. In fourth place overall, we have the top-scoring Houston Astro, Capricorn Kyle Tucker – he is also the last player to outscore Logan Webb, the top holdover from non-Champion Series teams.
As it happened, Libra outfielder Eddie Rosario took home the NLCS MVP after several key momentum-shifting hits and a game where he nearly hit for the cycle. He is joined by bullpen sign-mates Kenley Jansen and Tyler Matzek, the latter of whose point total is all the more impressive considering he didn’t have Jansen’s save opportunities. Boston/Scorpio third baseman and Dodgers/Leo co-ace Max Scherzer are the only other players to surpass 200 points in the postseason so far.
As far as the updated tally of points per sign, Libra remains at the top with a whopping 1,312 points. What’s more, their 16 total players remained unchanged from the Division Series round, which launches their points-per-player average to 82 even, more than 27 points above the next sign. That’s even counting the negative-12 points on the ledger of Zack Greinke, Houston’s lone active Libra – unless McCullers Jr. ends up returning in the World Series… if he’s even eligible to return, I’m not exactly sure how that works.
Three signs leap-frogged over Leo to claim the 2, 3, and 4 spots on the updated per-sign tally, and all three were Negative Polarity signs. Each World Series team has a key offensive contributor from second place Virgo – Freddie Freeman for the Braves, Carlos Correa for the Astros – but Atlanta has a lot more Virgo depth: outfielder Adam Duvall, and relievers A.J. Minter and Luke Jackson. We’ve already talked about Will (M.) Smith and Yordan Alvarez for Cancer. And the Tauruses are pretty evenly split between the contenders: Houston has Jose Altuve, Michael Brantley, and Jose Urquidy, while the Braves sport Ian Anderson and Joc(tober) Pederson.
While we wait to see if these sign-related predictions have an impact on the early games of the series, next time I’ll be recapping the award winners in the 2021 Fantasy Astrology Baseball Season. Until then, enjoy the World Series!