DTBL News

Years from now after his career is over, we will have to give serious consideration to renaming the award for the league’s best player to the Albert Pujols Award.  Every single year, he puts up the kind of numbers you would expect for the recipient of such an award.  Never once has he had a bad season.  And now, for the fourth time in his career, Jackalope first baseman Albert Pujols has won the DTBL Most Valuable Player award.

Has there ever been a more predictable player in terms of fantasy production?  Every season is the same for Pujols.  His numbers this year (.312 average, 42 home runs, 118 RBIs, 115 runs, 14 stolen bases) are basically identical to every other season of his career.  Shockingly, that batting average was a career worst.  Not too many guys win the MVP in their worst season in terms of batting average.  Basically, all of his numbers were right in line with his career averages.  Nothing spectacular, but only by his standards.  Pujols led the DTBL in home runs and runs.  He came in third in RBIs and tenth in batting average.  Even the stolen base numbers were pretty respectable.

This is Pujols’ fourth MVP award.  It is the second time he has won the award in consecutive seasons.  He did so in 2003 and 2004 and now again in 2009 and 2010.  There were some pretty darn good seasons in between as well.  Pujols has essentially carried the Jackalope offense ever since they made him their first round pick back in 2002.  He is the franchise career leader in home runs (369), RBIs (1095) and runs (1069).  He broke the 1,000 milestone in RBIs and runs this season and will reach 400 DTBL home runs sometime next season.  It won’t be long before we see him near the top of the all-time league leaders.  He already ranks second in career batting average (.331).

Pujols did not win this award easily.  In fact, I was a little surprised he won it at all.  Four other players had similarly fantastic seasons and this award could have gone to any of them.  Those players are Kings outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, Cougars outfielder Josh Hamilton and Naturals first basemen Miguel Cabrera and Joey Votto.  Cabrera and Votto may have hurt each others chances of winning this award, although Cabrera had a slight edge on Votto in every category except stolen bases.

Pujols won the award with just three of the ten first place votes.  He placed second on four ballots and third on the other three for a total of 73 points.  This bested Gonzalez by just six points.  Gonzalez, the league’s Rookie of the Year, also garnered three first place votes.  Cabrera finished third with a pair of first place votes and 47 points.  He led the league in RBIs and also had a higher average than Pujols.  Somehow, he did not make the top five on one ballot.  Next came the guy who will probably beat out Pujols for the NL MVP, Joey Votto.  The MLB team success will be the primary factor in the NL MVP vote, which doesn’t apply here, although Votto did play for the co-champion Naturals.  He received one first place vote and 40 total points.  Finally, Josh Hamilton finished fifth, but even he received a first place vote.  His chances of winning this award were derailed by missing most of the final month with a rib injury though.  These five guys had tremendous seasons in a year otherwise dominated by pitching.  With the exception of Hamilton, the rest of them kept their DTBL teams in championship contention right until the last week of the season.

So the Jackalope claimed two of the three post-season awards with the other going to the Kings.  Neither of the co-champions had an award winner, but I’m sure the Naturals and Darkhorses prefer the championship plaque anyway.

Click here to view the full MVP voting results.

That’s all for now, but a lot more is coming soon.  Next up, the roster cut deadline is quickly approaching.  Each team will need to cut down to 16 players by the end of November.  More to come on that soon.

2010 was the best season for pitchers in DTBL history.  The countless number of dominating pitching performances was unprecedented.  A man responsible for two of the season’s best moments easily won the 2010 DTBL Cy Young Award.  That pitcher is Jackalope right-hander Roy Halladay.

Halladay got his first Phillies and National League season off to a bang with a bunch of impressive starts in the first two months, capped off by throwing the 20th perfect game in MLB history in late May.  He wasn’t done with historic outings though.  In October, he threw just the second no-hitter in post-season history against Cincinnati Reds in the NLDS.  Of course, that performance did not count towards his DTBL accomplishments, but was a nice footnote to an incredible season.

The Jackalope had the best pitching staff in the league and arguably one of the top starting rotations in DTBL history.  However, there was no question who the ace of the staff was.  Halladay tied for the league lead in wins with 21.  His 2.44 ERA and 1.041 WHIP were both the third lowest among qualified pitchers.  He finished fifth in strike outs with 219.  The win and strike out totals were career bests.

Halladay has had a remarkably consistent career with the Jackalope.  This was the third time he reached the 20 win plateau and he is almost always near the top of the league in ERA and WHIP as well.  The Jackalope stole him in the fourth round of the 2002 draft and have reaped the rewards ever since.  Halladay has 146 wins for the Jackalope with a career ERA barely over 3.00.  Only one pitcher on a DTBL roster this season has more DTBL career wins (Andy Pettitte).  He ranks in the league’s all-time top 10 in wins, ERA and WHIP.  Although he has been a dominating force in the league for nearly a decade, this is his first DTBL Cy Young Award.  He finished third in the voting in both 2003 and 2008.

As stated up front, this was a truly remarkable year for pitchers.  Although Halladay ran away with the award, the rest of the voting showed just how many deserving candidates there were for the award.  Halladay received nine of the ten first place votes for a total of 97 points.  12 other pitchers received top five votes.  Usually disbursement like that is saved for the other two awards more so than Cy Young.  Cougars pitcher Adam Wainwright finished second, receiving the other first place vote and five seconds for 54 points.  Wainwright also won 20 games, and even had a slightly lower ERA than Halladay.  Felix Hernandez was a test case in how people value wins.  Arguably, he had the most impressive stats of any pitcher if you ignore that he only had 13 wins.  He led the league in ERA and finished second in strike outs.  His 30 points ranked him third in the award voting, but four people didn’t put him on their ballot.  Next came Gators lefty C.C. Sabathia with 23 points.  Sabathia tied Halladay for the league lead with 21 wins.  Coming in fifth with 20 points was another Gators pitcher, Ubaldo Jimenez.  Early in the season, it appeared he would run away with this award.  He cooled off in the second half, but still finished with what would be Cy Young worthy numbers most years.  Even outside of the top five were a couple of pitchers who could have won in other years, like David Price and strike out champion Jered Weaver.  Not to mention a bunch of closers who received some token votes.

Click here to view the full voting results.

So far, Carlos Gonzalez and Roy Halladay have cruised to victories in the first two awards that have been named.  I can assure you though that the voting for Most Valuable Player was much, much closer.  Stay tuned for that tomorrow evening.