Riff Raff fans, some things you should know right now about your favorite Commissioner… first, I’ve got time on my hands. Second, I’m a fan of history. Third, I'm obsessed with all things GMRRFFA.
So, the Sausage King may be the champ today, but I thoroughly enjoy looking over the entire trajectory of teams’ successes in GMRRFFA in its first three seasons. Considering we've successfully gained commitments from all 14 owners that they'd be back in 2019 for a shot at championship redemption, I happily share overall, regular season, and playoff records with our fans to accurately assess how good owners are before they hype themselves up with bloated draft budgets, but also to highlight how mediocre most of us are at fantasy football. This was also a real fun moment to point out Fredo Maisel has yet to make the postseason (rumor has it that Mrs. Maisel will take over if Fredo is unsuccessful in 2019 with that fat budget of his).
Here’s a look at the overall record totals for the 14 GMRRFFA owners:
My favorite item here is that Stabs has the same number of wins as Fredo in 14 fewer games, and Mr. Maisel hasn’t had more than five wins ever in a season… meanwhile, let’s look at the regular season and postseason records of individual owners:
Some interesting observations for sure, right?
Only one team is actually consistently successful in the regular season (Mark Hutchinson, whose worst regular season was 7-7 back in 2016), and its worth noting GMRRFFA has only had one ten-win team in history, Toby Kobach also in 2016 when we stupidly played 14 regular season match-ups (we've had five different owners secure 9 wins over the last three seasons as well). Nonetheless, we are the absolute epitome of average…
And what do playoff records tell us? First, Fredo never made them, which given his personnel decisions should surprise absolutely no one. Second, only six teams have multiple victories and there are only two – Mark Hutchinson and yours truly – who have made the playoffs in all three seasons. To their credit, Mr. Hutchinson, CPA, the Purveyor of Death, and the Sausage King have multiple playoff victories in more than one season.
Key Takeaways
In any case, as a crackpot deducer of statistical analytics, I'm coming back with some legit hot takes, and definitely skewed the data to ensure I was included in the good group, so that's exciting. But here's what I've deduced:
4 of the 5 best overall records all made the playoffs in 2018 (minus the Unicorn), and combined own 15 playoff wins (or 63% of all post-season wins combined in league history) while making 12 playoff appearances combined.
In total, teams finished above .500 only 18 times over the last three seasons, or just 43% of teams each season. To no one’s surprise, the Mark Hutchinson/Unicorn/Sauasage King/FIL/Commish combination accounts for 9 of those instances.
On the flip side, the bottom five teams in overall records (Makese/Smeet/Carlos/Coop/Fredo) have a surprising five, though both Fredo and Coop have yet to enjoy a season above the Mendoza line.
Six teams remain without a playoff win – and their overall records combined are a dismal 101-128-1. Compared that to the top 6 teams, who are a combined 152-119 (including playoffs).
Next season really is a make or break year for some owners who have historically struggled… Fredo (13-27) is obviously the one we all look at with $498 draft dollars, but don’t sleep on some others, like Smeet (18-21-1) with $421 draft dollars. Some other owners with zero wins in the post season are in tougher spots. Coop (17-24) is at the bare minimum with $225 draft dollars, as is Makese (a more respectable 20-22). Finally, don’t sleep on a feisty Toby Kobach, who has suffered two straight losing seasons en route to a 20-21 record but has a solid $325 draft budget plus Juju.
Its pretty obvious that while it appears to be a clear delineation between the top and bottom, there’s still a clear amount of parity among owners in GMRRFFA – removing the best and worst overall records (Mark Hutchinson with 29 wins and Fredo with a laughable 13 plus Stabs who only has two seasons), the remaining 11 teams are separated by just eight games overall.
Finally, all of this data literally ignores two of our very best owners - Tito Galen and Garcia - who both had one 9-loss season apiece. Subtract those seasons, these two have a combined 37-26 overall record (including playoffs), boasting an impressive .587 win percentage. The stats obviously don't lie, but anecdotally both are fierce and have potentially loaded-rosters next season and the Sausage King will literally debate for months which he'd rather avoid in his division, so take all the data with a grain of salt.
As Tito Galen’s 2018 season offered, its pretty stark that no matter how solid a team’s roster is, they are susceptible to a string of tough losses keeping them close to the pack in overall record, and I’m fairly confident that a 10-win team will actually be really rare in the league. Even Garcia’s 2018 postseason run was stunted by five-game losing streak mid-season, which seems ludicrous in hindsight, cutting into his overall record.
This was a fun look at the best and worst but 2019 will be much more telling from a historical perspective, especially with the League owners playing with much different bank accounts and new keeper rules. If anything, many of the teams that have struggled historically should be more successful next season, but there are a ton of instances where money didn’t necessarily solve the problem.
Good luck and stay tuned for more from GMRRFFA in the coming weeks.