the stats count "against" your players' point total because it's part of the regular season. it does not count as part of your matchup because the matchup spanned from date A to date B and the one game playoff game fell after date B. pretty sure i'm not going through and taking 1.75 points or whatever off the totals of every guy that played in that game.
nothing gives a minor league writer a boner quite like a FULL REBUILD. let's get all excited about the historically pathetic astros and all their draft picks.
who will concede first? who will concede most often? will hunter pence have the first 200 point week in league history? will the rest of league die of suspense as tim updates us on his keepers for next year? will league mvp norichika aoki lead tim to a championship? all questions that will be answered!
gonna guess the 1b that the front office has traded for multiple times and has signed to a long-term deal is much more of "lock" to be around in 3 years than the guy that hasn't played above high A.
it wasn't organization crippling by any means. pretty much every WS champ of the last 10 years had at least one or two or more terrible contracts. the contracts of zambrano and soriano were not why the cubs have sucked recently.