Hello Managers,
Dad here, back with another quick update to the
Crappy
Tire Power Rankings.
We’ve still got lots of time before the start of the
next World Cup (starts on January 24), so I’ve got some time to space out a few
articles between now and then. Maybe Stepdad will even bless us with an article
before World Cup 3. But don’t count on it—I think he might be on suicide watch
based on how bad his team is doing. And, spoiler, these updated rankings won’t make
him feel any better.
Crappy Tire Power Rankings
Two World Cups is a rather small sample size compared
to the bigger picture of a full season. With each World Cup worth 1 World Cup Equivalent,
the World Cup classification worth 2 WCEs, and World Champs worth a bit over 4
WCEs, the season has clearly barely even started.
That being said, some skaters have been significantly
quicker than expected, while others have had such disappointing starts to the
season it is hard to imagine them turning things around sharp enough to become
relevant. Because of this, the pre-season rankings have essentially been put
through a shredder and completely re-done. And no, before you get it in your
silly little head that Dad has no idea what he’s writing about half the time, just
stop that thought right there. After the rankings, I’ll break down a few reasons
why this season (more so than most seasons) has been such a nightmare for
predicting fantasy speed skating results.
The silver lining to all this? If you’re bad at
fantasy speed skating (ahem, that’s most of you, fyi), it turns out you might
have a chance to actually win some money during such a chaotic season!
1 Cytomegalolobrigidavirus
2 12.26,30
3 Jim
Park Fanclub
4 Water(b)oo
5 Elisa
Doula's Birthing Centre for New and Expecting Moms
6 Recreating
Stolz in the Aggregate
7 Dwightswinningteam
8 The
French Connection
9 Fat,
Vegan, and on my Third Marriage
10 The
Simpsons: Bart vs. the world
11 Only
Blonde Asians
12 Citizenship
Shopping
13 Team
Angelfishies
14 That's
So Raven's Cravings III: Is that Chelsea Daniels or An-Nils-e van der Po(e)l?
15 I
Ghiotto go straight to last place
16 Howe to
Lose a Draft in 10 Days
17 Hannah
Fontana: The Best of Both Worlds
18 Kim
Possible's Posse: Two too Many Kims
19 Jutta:
Folie à Deux
20 The
Reeceroos
21 Even
Stevens' Semen Eating Emins III: Choking on LaBeouf
22 Jailin'
this manager for not showing up on Draft Day
23 Battle
of the Matts: Matt L Sucks
24 These
boots were made for skating
25 Shinhammer-time
26 Who do
I have to marry to rig this draft?
27 Golden
SK8
28 Joep
can do it!
29 Rank 1
Team
30 De Jong
picks
31 Nono
mure losing
32 Bieberlicious
33 Lizzie
McGuire's Quagmire: Divorcing the Jet's backup goalie's half-brother
34 Jordan's
Dirty Naruto Fetish: "Wait, this isn't hentai?"
35 Wrecking
Crew
36 G-unit
37 Kok
Swings In’t Goetz Ruining Dijs Nuts
38 Chung
me up nonos coming in fast
39 Min Sun
Came
40 Graemer
Fishsticks VII: Rage Against the Machine Learning (Powered by AI)
Why is this season so wild?
So, what’s with the crazy season so far? How are a
pair of teams from the bottom half of the pre-season power rankings already up
to the top two spots after just a pair of World Cups? And how are so many teams
that Dad thought were promising (“this is gonna be your year!” he loudly promised
half the league) doing so poorly right off the hop?
This is no ordinary season, and I think we should stop
and take a quick look at some of the variables that are making it as weird as
it is. One peek at Dad's Lads or the Leftovers and you realize pretty quickly that this is no ordinary season and literally none of us figured that out early enough.
Shortened Fall World Cup Season
The Fall World Cup season is usually four very
important and tightly grouped World Cups that largely decide how many spots
each country gets at Worlds. They’re then followed by 1-2 somewhat less meaningful
World Cups before we get back to the big boy races again at Worlds (except for
Olympic years, when the World Cups that come after the first four take on a
whole new level of meaninglessness and are literally not even considered for
Olympic qualification).
This season, the ISU somehow came up with the bright
idea of having a shortened two-weekend fall circuit and then backload the
season with four Winter World Cups and Champs all back to back to back.
The result? Almost nothing has been decided this far
into the season. The teams know it, the athletes know it, and now the fantasy
speed skating managers know it too. Most World Champs time spots will likely be
earned at World Cup 3 in Calgary, so plenty of time to prepare for that after
the fall circuit. The vast majority of points will also be earned in the latter
part of the season, so no need to lock in an A Group spot just yet. Wildcard
spots, as well as the new Gold Card, give top skaters added flexibility to
start the season late. How much more training can you get in during a season in
which your first meaningful race is as late as January 26
th
?
Would Roest have rushed back to the World Cup circuit
if the Fall World Cups were the important ones? How about Kok? Maybe Dombek or
Czyszczon would have had to enter races earlier? Or maybe Dubreuil and Llop
would have had to handle nagging injuries differently? Is Bosa truly a shitter
now? Or is he just playing the long game on a long, back-loaded season? How
about Dijs? Sato? Rio Yamada? Herzog?
This isn’t all to say that moving two World Cups a few
months back has caused all this chaos. But, I think it would be silly to ignore
how different things might have to look if the Fall World Cups were their usual
self.
Pre-Olympic Year
I have absolutely zero data to back this one up, which
usually means I’m right. But it just feels like the give-a-fuck factor is just
not there for a lot of skaters right now. Maybe this is just a continuation of
the shortened Fall World Cup season, but there just seems to be a complete lack
of urgency for a lot of the circuit at this point in the season. I hope (like,
really really really hope) that this turns around during the much busier second
half of the season, but part of my thinks that a ton of skaters have their eyes
set on the big prize 13 months from now and aren’t too worried about what
happens in the near-term.
Wait, You’re Not A First Round Pick…. Are You?
We lost some big hitters going into this year’s draft.
Stolz and Schouten are the obvious two, but we can’t forget about the
uncertainty around Roest and Kok this fall. If they were all skating and all
draft eligible, the first three would have continued to be first-round picks and,
realistically, probably all four of them. That’s half the first round!
So, who ended up taking their place? Mei Han, Zhongyan
Ning, Davide Ghiotto, Chris Huizinga, Sander Eitrem, Joy Beune, Min-Sun Kim,
Ragne Wiklund, Kimi Goetz, and Jutta Leerdam all earned first-round status this
year, joining the likes of Miho Takagi and Marijke Groenewoud (who, based on
recent results, were all but guaranteed to get picked in the first round again
this season).
“But Dad, that’s more than 8 skaters. How
can they all be first rounders??”
Ah, yes, my dear reader. Sometimes you are smarter
than you look! With fewer consensus first-rounders, this is what happens. Without
the easy early picks of Stolz or Schouten, managers flail helplessly as they
try to rub their only two brain cells together and somehow end up settling on
Chris Huizinga as a worthy replacement for a skater who could not only threaten
but is arguably likely to claim a trio of gold medals at World Championships.
Huizinga may be the low hanging fruit here, but even
comparing a team with a first rounder of Ning or Ghiotto compared to Stolz or
Schouten has traditionally been pretty easy. There were always a few great
first rounders, a handful of passable first rounders, and then there were those
first rounders that might look good on Greg Bieber’s team but would look out of
place on a competitive roster. That first category has been slightly gutted,
and so now we’re stuck with a growing number of skaters in that third category.
To be entirely honest, this is great for fantasy speed
skating. Consensus picks are boring and leave too much in the hands of the
draft gods who determine our draft order (not to be mistaken with the singular
God who gifted Anders Johnson his incredible 34.32 500m time this past weekend—that
God is clearly a less chaotic God).
The less obvious it is to guess who will skate fast or
collect the most points, the more fun this game is. So I can’t be angry about
this one. I just wanted to mention that it’s super fucking hard picking between
a bunch of teams with first round picks of Han, Ning, Leerdam, Eitrem, Min-Sun,
and Wiklund. Do all those skaters crack 200 points? 300 points? How many hit
400 points? How many points will separate the best from the worst at the end of
the season? Even Dad, a generational fantasy speed skating talent and world class
analyst, can’t figure this one out.
That’s it for today. I’ll be back with another post
soon(ish) with an update to the free agent and injury tracker. Trials will be
important for that first one, so I’ll post that once all trials except for Dutch
Trials are complete (Dutch trials is the weekend before WC3, so a bit late). European
Championships is this weekend, so we finally get some watchable speed skating
content to salivate over. Euros kicks off what will be a very busy winter circuit,
so you can expect some more signs of life here on the column during that stretch.
Sorry about the slow start to the season—we’ve been some busy Dads!
Cheers,
Dad