2018 SEASON

A small but meaningful housekeeping change this year: keeper decisions now had to be submitted a week before the draft instead of at the draft itself. No more last-minute scrambles, no more conveniently forgetting to declare until someone asked. Declare your keepers or lose them. Paul Loveland declared his keepers, managed his roster, and won the championship. Correlation, causation, who knows.

Paul Loveland. Champion. Let that sink in. This is a man who has finished last, posted the season's worst scores, and generally served as the league's emotional punching bag for the better part of a decade. He went 7-6 as the 6-seed, beat Derek Burns 161.52-142.86 in the title game, and walked out with a trophy and $275. The arc of this league is long, and apparently it bends toward Paul Loveland.

Derek Burns, runner-up for the second consecutive year, has now lost back-to-back championships. He finished last in 2012 and has spent every season since climbing back to respectability, only to come up one win short in the biggest game two years in a row. At some point the universe owes Derek Burns a trophy. It has not paid up yet.

Derek Hilmer went 10-3, led the league in scoring with 1,710 points, won the regular season title, and finished 5th. This is the third time in four years Derek has been the best team in the regular season and had nothing to show for it in January. The regular season championship trophy should just have his name on it permanently at this point.

Jeft Cavey, the defending champion, went 5-8 and finished 10th. Defending a title in this league is apparently harder than winning one.

And at the bottom, Jarod Hilmer went 2-11, the worst record in the league, and claimed last place with the conviction of someone who has made peace with their decisions. Bernard Lynn at 3-10 finished 11th and tried his best to look away.