Archive for October, 2013

Best of the Rest

Wednesday, October 16th, 2013

Choppers relief pitcher Craig Kimbrel

Through most of the 2013 DTBL season, there was a fairly obvious line of demarcation between the contenders and the also-rans.  Four teams had legitimate title aspirations most of the season, while the other six were left to build for the future.  The Mavericks, Choppers and Naturals were not able to win the league, but to varying degrees, 2013 was a good season for them.

For the second consecutive year, the Mavericks missed winning the league championship by a single point.  And the similarities between 2012 and 2013 don’t end there for the Mavericks.  Just like 2012, they were the best team in the league in the second half of the season and possibly would have won both years if the season was a week longer.  They erased the Kings double digit lead and briefly took over first place at the end of August.  But injuries to key players down the stretch eventually did them in.  A couple of those injuries could have a lingering effect on their 2014 campaign as well.  They had to finish the season without the services of three of their best players:  Matt Harvey, Manny Machado and Edwin Encarnacion.  Since the season ended, the news hasn’t gotten any better regarding Harvey and Machado.  Harvey eventually succumbed to Tommy John surgery and probably will not pitch next year.  Machado underwent knee surgery that may not have him back in time for Opening Day.  Encarnacion’s injury was less serious, but couldn’t have come at a worse time.  He led the Mavericks in home runs and, at the time of the injury, was also the club leader in RBI.

Although they didn’t win the title, the 2013 Mavericks can lay claim to a couple impressive distinctions, arguably including the greatest pitching staff in league history.  They broke the league record for lowest team ERA and WHIP.  Their 2.63 club ERA smashed the record previously held by the 2011 Jackalope (2.83).  In WHIP, they also bested the ’11 Jackalope mark 1.05 to 1.12.  They were well on their way to breaking the strikeout record as well before the Harvey injury, but wound up falling nine strikeouts short of the total by the 2007 Mavericks.  It is hard to imagine another team besting those team ERA and WHIP totals anytime soon.  Harvey, Clayton Kershaw and Stephen Strasburg helped make up one of the most dominating rotations ever assembled.  Kershaw and Harvey finished 1-2 in both ERA and WHIP.  The offense wound up being a bit of a disappointment though, and ultimately was the reason they didn’t win the league.  They will look to improve that group next year, particularly since it seems unlikely they will be able to duplicate this pitching performance.

Besides the Kings, the Choppers were probably the team most pleased with their 2013 season.  They finished the season in third place, a height in which they had not reached since 2001.  In fact, this is the first time they have finished in the top half of the standings since 2006.  This was no fluke.  They made significant improvements to their offense, and especially their pitching, to finish just nine points out of first place.

The Choppers led the league in home runs, RBI and saves.  The saves title was extremely interesting since they spent a good portion of the year with a starting pitcher occupying one of their bullpen slots (Alexi Ogando).  But Craig Kimbrel and Mariano Rivera more than made up for that.  Their rotation was sneaky good as well.  None of these guys got serious Cy Young hype, but Chris Sale, C.J. Wilson, Clay Buchholz, Jon Lester and Jarrod Parker all had outstanding seasons.  The staff accumulated 37 pitching points, only exceeded by the record breaking Mavericks.  The Choppers offense wasn’t too shabby either.  Finishing on top of the league in HR and RBI was a true team effort.  Seven different Choppers hit at least 20 home runs while eight guys had 70+ RBI.  Pedro Alvarez led the team in both categories (36, 100), and he was nearly matched by Mark Trumbo (34, 100).  Also, Jayson Werth was one of the best hitters in the league in the second half of the season.  This was a huge stepping stone season for the Choppers.  They should enter 2014 as one of the top title contenders.

It is almost always a disappointment for a defending champion when they are unable to successfully defend that title.  So the Naturals probably won’t remember this season fondly.  However, this year’s squad really wasn’t that much worse than the team that won it all in dramatic fashion a year ago.  In 2012, the Naturals won the league with 70.5 points.  This year, they only dropped a handful of points down to 66, but that put them in a distant fourth place.  Their offense actually earned them more points than a year ago.  But because of the emergence of a few other teams’ pitching staffs, the Naturals took a bit of a dive.

Just like last year, the Naturals offense was carried by strong MVP candidate Miguel Cabrera.  Cabrera led the league in batting average and finished second behind Chris Davis in both home runs and runs batted in.  Interestingly enough, it was batting average that kept him from winning the DTBL triple crown a year ago, a feat he did accomplish in the American League in ’12.  Andrew McCutchen further entrenched himself as one of the game’s best hitters this year too.  But besides those two players, the Naturals lacked that third dominating player they needed to make a serious title run.  As mentioned, the pitching staff took a hit this year.  Matt Cain was the biggest disappointment.  Mid-season injuries to Zack Greinke and David Price proved costly as well.  The Naturals most consistent pitcher from start to finish this year was the under-appreciated Jordan Zimmermann who finished second in the league with 19 wins.  The Naturals don’t need to do much to return to the top next year.  Perhaps they will focus on building depth in case they face another injury plagued season in 2014.

The final part of my 2013 season review will examine the six teams who were not serious title contenders this year.  Look for that sometime late next week.  I hope you have been enjoying these baseball playoffs.  It has been one of the most exciting Octobers I can recall, with nearly every game coming down to the final pitches.  Let’s hope for more of the same the next couple weeks!

Posted in Choppers, Mavericks, Naturals | No Comments »

Kings Take the Fifth

Tuesday, October 1st, 2013

Kings third baseman Ryan Zimmerman and shortstop Ian Desmond

For the third time in four years, the league championship was determined by one point or fewer.  Despite a second half fade which saw a double digit lead evaporate, the Kings held on for dear life and edged out the Mavericks by a single point.  Kevin’s Kings are the 2013 Dream Team Baseball League champions.

With their fifth championship, the Kings can now claim more titles than any other franchise.  But this one was a long time coming.  After winning four straight titles from 2000 through 2003, the Kings have been on a bit of a roller coaster ride, bottoming out in last place in 2009.  But in the years since then, they have built a solid foundation which eventually led to this title.  A year ago, they came up just short, missing the title by the same one point margin that they won by this year.  But in the year of the tenth anniversary of their last title, the Kings are champions once again.

For a good portion of the season, it appeared the Kings might win the league running away.  They held a double digit point lead for a good portion of the summer.  Their starting pitching was awesome in the first half, and the offense was even better.  The Kings had a league high eight players on the All-Star team (two more than any other team).  But their fortunes changed significantly in late July, and especially August.  Part of this was due to the finger injury suffered by their best all around player, Carlos Gonzalez.  Gonzalez suffered the injury in early July and wound up missing a majority of the second half of the season.  The Kings actually coughed up their lead to the Mavericks for a couple days in the last week of August.  But fortunately for them, they caught a hot streak in early September to regain positive momentum.  However, in the final week or so, they started coughing up points with their struggling pitching staff and had to hold on for the one point victory.  Had the season been another week longer, this might be a completely different article.

The Kings offense was the primary reason why they won the league.  They led the way with 43.5 batting points, which was 9.5 more than any other team earned.  They were a well rounded offensive squad, finishing in the top three in the league in all five categories.  In addition to Gonzalez’s first half contributions, the other top offensive performers were all Kings veterans:  Robinson Cano, Jay Bruce, Carlos Beltran, Ian Desmond and Ryan Zimmerman.  Zimmerman’s contributions were especially important because his September surge carried an otherwise lackluster offense.  But the other mentioned players were solid all year.  The Kings also had a very impressive catching duo of Wilin Rosario and Jonathan LuCroy, giving them an edge on pretty much every other team at that position.  It was truly a team effort because not one Kings player came near the league lead in any offensive category.  Bruce (109 RBI) was the only player to finish in the top five of a category.

Even though the offense was better than the pitching, the improvement of the Kings pitching staff was a major reason why they won the league.  Their offense was nearly identical to 2012, but the pitchers improved by nine points, finishing third in the league with 34.5 points.  The rotation was led by the Tigers trio of Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and Anibal Sanchez.  Verlander has been the Kings ace for several years, but this year he was a distant third behind his two Tigers teammates.  Scherzer is their top Cy Young candidate, leading the league with 21 wins, third in WHIP (0.97) and second in strike outs (240).  He was probably the best non-Mavericks pitcher in the league.  But Sanchez actually led the staff in ERA (2.59).  To complement those three, the Kings made a key mid-season signing with Ricky Nolasco just before he was traded to the Dodgers.  Nolasco chipped in seven key wins as the rest of the staff was struggling.  Jake Peavy was his usual solid self in the rotation too.  The bullpen turned into a bit of a disaster, finishing ninth in saves due to injuries to former closer J.J. Putz and mid-season saves leader Jason Grilli.  Fortunately for them, the leaky pen didn’t come back to haunt them.

It is interesting to examine how this team was built.  Usually, championship squads are able to win largely because of some great draft picks they made prior to the season.  But that simply wasn’t the case for this Kings team.  In fact, they had a rather poor draft in March.  They made a historically bad trade in dealing their first round pick to the Mavericks for Ike Davis, who was a horrific bust.  The Mavericks used that pick to select Manny Machado.  If the Mavericks had won the league over the Kings, that trade would have gone down in infamy for the Kings.  Although they did acquire some nice role players in the draft, almost all of their key contributors were the 16 players who they retained from a year ago.  This speaks to the depth the team has built in recent years.  In fact, they used two of their draft picks to reacquire players who didn’t quite make that 16 player cut in the winter (Jonathan LuCroy and Michael Morse).  The solid core of players the Kings have assembled finally paid off with a title.

In the upcoming weeks, I’ll review the 2013 season for the other nine teams.  If this government shutdown lasts a while, I may finish them all this week!  I’m looking forward to the MLB playoffs, featuring a whole bunch of small-market, low payroll teams.  It should be fun to watch.  Thanks to everyone for another very fun year.  21 seasons in the book!

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