Not sure what all this M business is about? Catch up here:

This week is going to be devoted to something fun: fantasy league drama. But first, the Mancies performance last week:

My offense is a steaming shitbucket right now. Mark Trumbo and Mitch Haniger both hit the DL (sorry about your face, Mitchy), and the rest of the team is putting up 0-fers almost every night. We've had some bad luck. We're right at .500, two games back from a playoff spot.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way: on to the drama! It all started two months ago, when this trade popped up in our league:

At the time, Blackmon was the #1 ranked player in our league's stats (he's now #4). And deGrom was God-awful. In our league, trades can be vetoed if a majority of the owners think they're fishy. A discussion post was made, and owner illmatic23 wasn't able to defend his reasoning for the trade, so a majority of owners vetoed it. Normally, I'm not one to over-analyze trades or veto them. Unbalanced trades can be totally justified if a team has a big enough need, and if someone wants to weaken their team in one area to strengthen them in another, then that's their business. But illmatic23 graciously said he understood the league's reason for the veto.

Fast forward to yesterday, when the following trade pops up again between those two owners:

Another owner immediately created a message board post calling them out for this. illmatic23 defended it by saying (paraphrased), "I'm desperate for a closer. Greg Holland is a beast, and I don't really need Blackmon." The accusation that the two owners know each other was made, which illmatic23 denied.

Putting aside how pants-on-head crazy lopsided this trade is, his "I'm desperate for a closer," rationalization makes no sense. His team has Wade Davis, Cody Allen, and Fernando Rodney, which have accumulated a total of 78 saves for him, the 2nd most in our league.

At this point, a lot of owners' jimmies are rustled in the discussion thread. The trade is quickly vetoed. A few minutes later another trade pops up:

This one is a lot more "reasonable." Normally I would never look twice at this trade.

But here's the thing. Owner "Finding Trevor Story" is someone I've tried to acquire Max Scherzer from half a dozen times. He's always ignored my messages and trade requests. He doesn't even respond, never posts on the message board, has never made any trades with anyone else in the league. Yet he's constantly attempting lopsided trades with illmatic23, who claims to not know him. And then, after being called out on such a lopsided trade, they almost instantaneously come up with a new one, like they're trying to banish suspicions.

So I peeked at their Yahoo fantasy account histories.

GET YOUR PITCHFORKS OUT, BOYS!

Both accounts became active in 2005. Both accounts join the same fantasy leagues every year, in football and basketball and baseball. Hell, back in 2005 they had almost identical team names: Virginia Wolfpack, Virginia Lancers, Virginia Gangstas. illmatic23 has tried to cover it up by marking many of his teams as "hidden" (including the league we're in this year) but he didn't do it for every one.

So they're in all the same leagues, they claim to not know each other, and they're pushing the most lopsided trades I've ever seen in my 10+ years playing fantasy baseball without any believable explanation. It's clear what's going on: this is one person with two separate accounts, team-stacking his rosters depending on need.

Obviously there's not much we can do about it this late in the season. The two owners are ranked #1 and #4, so they're not just going to "fade away" at the bottom of the standings. But at the very least I can publicly shame them, and hopefully alert everyone else in the league. This morning I created a new message board post calling the two owners out on it, citing the above proof.

Now it's time to kick their asses, either in the regular season or the playoffs. The Mancies have got themselves some villains, you guys!