2022 Head-to-Head Playoffs
This week marked the beginning of the 2022 Astrology Fantasy Baseball League playoffs! To avoid confusion, this is the weekly matchup league I run on the ESPN fantasy baseball client, NOT the hypothetical postseason affair, where participants are decided by calculating total fantasy points over the course of the season. And trust me, there is a difference: if we were going by cumulative fantasy points, rather than head-to-head record, the playoff field likely would be about 50% different!
As it stands, the four signs going to the semi-finals are all bunched up consecutively on the karmic wheel. Virgo (whose season it is now, from August to September), Libra (ending in mid-October), Scorpio (into November), and Sagittarius (December) all will vie for the top spot. The first two of those signs, if you’ll recall from my Leo Season Recap, were also deemed the most likely to win their divisions. In fact the Scales, led by Mookie Betts (1,979 / 18.0 as of Sept 1), already had a 100% playoff chance.
Even though the Aries Rams have the (tentative) lead in overall points as of this juncture, bu Sagittarius is still a solid entrant for the Fire Division. Home Run Derby expert Pete Alonso (1,838 / 14.1) leads the offensive attack, although an injury to Ronald Acuna Jr. (1,189 / 12.9) occurred with terrible timing. The dual closer attack of Taylor Rogers (1,320 / 24.9) and Scott Barlow (1,306 / 22.9) can eat up more high-leverage innings than the league’s top reliever (and Aries) Edwin Diaz (1,715 / 33.0).
Meanwhile, I’m upset that the head-to-head matchup didn’t mirror the cumulative points total in the Water Division, because my home-sign team, the Cancer Crabs would have won! But to get to that outcome, I would have had to meticulously swap Shohei Ohtani from batter (1,808 / 14.2) to pitcher (1,598 / 72.6) with each start, breaking my weekly lineup changes rule. Scorpio had their own ace in Houston’s Framber Valdez (1,880 / 75.2) and the offensive trio of Juan Soto (1,660 points), Rafael Devers (1,578), and a resurgent Francisco Lindor (1,742) would give even Ohtani a run on the mound.