8 teams are starting this season with the highest T7 their team has had in the past 5 seasons the stat geeks at BUM Central have been tracking this stat.

Leading the pack is Spokane, where Jason's team is a whopping 4 points higher than they started last season!  That's a crazy good jump!

Following in second is Amy at Tucson, who is 1.5 pts better.  C-Ball at T-Town (Boooo!!!) is 1.2 better and trending in a bad direction for the SEC.

The other five teams were all better by less than a full point, yet still better than the other 24 of us who didn't increase from prior seasons' max!  Among those includes Pekin, where Roger starts this season at 0.1 T7 better than last season, when they were already dominant.  Even a little better means the Pod People are back and better than ever!

Rounding out our top 8 are (in no particilar order): Burlington, Portland, Schenectady and St. Charles.  Wait, the defending champs are better this year than last year too? And the multi-everything Scarecrows are back on the rise?  We count it as a small blessing that both Columbia and Quincy are 0.1 less than last season, so there remains a remote chance that anyone outside the Big 8 will win anything this season.  If you're not from the backwoods of eastern Washington, and may or may not have ever been to a barber or hair stylist, you're an underdog this season against the Big 8's top 4 yet again.  Let the rebellion begin and rise up against our quasi-benevolent overlords!  Best of luck to all the rebuilding teams (of which, *sigh*, the stats officially say that Al and Steve are part of).

...on Player of the Year for Season 16!