2024 Week #25 Year End Update
The season has come to an and, and the official league title has returned to the Armadillos! Larry’s squad clinched three weeks ago, leaving the end of the year with little drama at the top. The only question left to answer is where the team stands in the league’s pantheon of legendary teams. More on this in a moment!
Although the Armadillos were dominant to end the season, there were still other battles to fight. Incredibly, only two other teams had winning records – the Kraken and Possums. These two teams battled it out for second place over the final few weeks. The Kraken pulled away and finished the season with a strong 15 win total and 0.667 winning percentage. In the latter half of the season the Kraken were the only team with a chance to keep pace with the leaders. They did an admirable job and finished just 2 wins behind the Armadillos. Their silver medal finish was well-deserved.
The Possums started the year slow, but rallied and improved in the second half. They emerged as the clear third-best team and in the league and took the bronze medal with an impressive 14 wins.
The two-time defending champions finished in 4th place after enduring a horde of injuries. This marks the end of their question to equal the Lannisters’ incredible three-peat from 2015-2017. However, they remain only the second team to every win two consecutive championships. In any dynasty league, it’s hard to stay on top forever, and the Wolf Spiders will look to rebuild going into next season.
The battle for 5th place was close, with the Goofballs, Hares, and PhoeGnomes all in the mix. Kevin ended up taking the highest place in the second division after an up-and-down year. The Goofballs managed to tie every team save the PhoeGnomes. This gave them a high finish, despite having the second-fewest wins in the league.
The Hares snuck by the PhoeGnomes to finish the year in 6th place and a higher slot in the draft lottery. Jeff’s team was bedeviled by injuries but did manage to find a few critical pieces. The team continues to summon pitching talent seemingly on demand, and will remain focused on finding star offensive players. A first or second draft slot would go a long way to achieving this end.
The PhoeGnomes ended the year in 7th place, but actually had the 5th most wins in the league. Heather’s squad was also inconsistent this year, but did manage to clutch out a few wins against good opponents. The team will need to rely on the pitchers acquired from the Kraken to make moves next year.
Finally, the Skyline Sluggers ended the season in 8th place. This comes as some of a surprise since Charlie’s team started the year on a hot streak. However, once things cooled down, the team struggled to find consistent offensive and pitching performance on the same week. However, the team did show solid improvement and pushed even the better teams to the brink on multiple occasions. Shohei Ohtani’s unprecedented 50/50 year was an all-time standout showing from a player.
Thank you to everyone who helped make this an incredible season. Although the outcome was never in doubt for seemingly the who last half of the year, everyone fought to the end and worked on improving their clubs. Next season promises even more drama, shocking trades, and incredible performances.
Where do the Armadillos Rank?
After dominating for nearly the entire season, the only question left is this – where do the 2024 Armadillos (17-4-3, 0.771) rank in the pantheon of great champions? Just how good were the Armadillos?
The best way to answer this question is to look at how the team fared across all categories for the season.
To be in the conversation, a team needs to have won at least 17 or 18 games in their season as champion. Anything less, while impressive, isn’t quite dominant enough to make the cut. In addition, I’m limiting the pool to the 8-team era. Therefore the 2013 Lannisters, who had 18 wins, will not count.
2023 Wolf Spiders (18-5-1, 0.771)
The first contender is last season’s champion, the Wolf Spiders! Kyle’s team has a share of the all-time wins record with 18. They also equaled the Armadillos’ winning percentage of 0.771. In addition, they defeated the Armadillos themselves who had a whopping 17 wins. This year’s Armadillos had one fewer loss than Kyle.
If these two teams played head-to-head, it would be an interesting battle. The Wolf Spiders won all five pitching categories last year cross the league, but this year’s Armadillos had the better offense. Both teams had incredible hot streaks, and Kyle had an immortal run to win the title last year. I would rank these two teams as equals. Kyle relied on an historic season from Ronald Acuna Jr., and the Armadillos found diamonds in the rough. Both methods led to stellar results.
2021 Capital City Goofballs (17-8, 0.680)
The 2021 Goofballs were a solid squad who ended every week with either a win or loss. The squad faced hellacious competition from the Possums, Armadillos, and the Lannisters. The Goofballs were able to fight off these challenges and win on the last week of the season. The depth of competition was impressive, but the Lannisters actually had superior pitching on the season compared to the Goofballs. Kevin had a slight edge on offense. While this squad was certainly good, they aren’t quite up to the level of the 2024 Armadillos.
2018 Armadillos (18-6-1, 0.740)
Much like the 2021 Goofballs, the 2018 Armadillos were built on a sound offense. They were at the top of the league in most categories. However, the Possums and Lannisters won most pitching categories and also led the league in OBP and SLG> The Possums were fierce competitors as well, with excellent pitching. While the 18 wins were impressive, the season totals show that this team might have gotten a bit fortunate to build up such an impressive win total. There’s no doubt they earned the title, but the win total might have been more realistic at around 16. For this reason, the squad does not compare to this season’s Armadillos.
2015 Lannisters (17-7-1, 0.700)
The second title for the Lannisters came on the back of strong performances across the board. Like other teams above, the Lannisters led every offensive category on the season save RBI. However, the team’s pitching was more middle-of-the-road. As with the other teams, this one wouldn’t quite build the resume that the Armadillos achieved.
This concludes the list! Other legendary teams have won the title, but none did so with the singular dominance of the 2024 Armadillos and 2023 Wolf Spiders. On a pure statistical level, the Wolf Spiders have the edge due to their unorthodox strategy of dominating pitching. However, they also were second overall across the board on offense. This year’s Armadillos don’t have that level of statistical dominance; their showing is more of a strategic success.
The Armadillos didn’t have the star performances that Kyle did, but undoubtedly did more with less week to week than any other team in history. Their 309 moves were more than double the second-highest total from the Wolf Spiders (140 moves). No name players contributed meaningful numbers without over-tinkering.
So which team is the greatest of all time? This is difficult to say. The 2023 Wolf Spiders had the better players. However, one could argue that the great Lannister teams probably had the most talented rosters ever assembled. But this raises another important point – Kyle faced the pressure week-after-week of being the defending champ and having every team take their best shot at beating them. This was a demonstrable phenomenon for the Lannisters, and the Wolf Spiders faced it as well. Having said that, the Armadillos dealt with this to some extent due to their early lead this year.
I will phrase my opinion this way – the 2023 Wolf Spiders and late-2010’s Lannisters are the best teams to ever compete. However, the 2024 Armadillos is by far the best managerial performance of all time. The team, almost by sheer force of will, avenged their heartbreaking loss from last season and claimed another title. Now they will face the inevitable challenge of trying to defend the title from a series of challengers in the 2025 season.
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