Archive for November, 2014

Trout Finally Gets MVP Nod

Monday, November 17th, 2014


2014 was probably the worst year of Mike Trout’s three year DTBL career. His batting average dipped below .300 for the first time and he stole fewer than half as many bases as he had in each of his first two seasons. That’s not to suggest this wasn’t a great season for the Mavericks’ young phenom. He was still an elite player in every sense of the word. But I think I can safely say he is the first player to ever win his first MVP award in the worst season of his career to date (not counting rookies). It definitely hasn’t happened in this league. Mike Trout is the 2014 DTBL Most Valuable Player.

Trout remains baseball’s best total package. His combination of hitting for average and power, base running, speed and fielding ability is unmatched. But prior to this year, he had been unable to grab the MVP award in the DTBL or the American League, mostly because of a guy named Miguel Cabrera. Cabrera understandably won the MVP award in this league the previous two years because Trout’s main prowess over him, his defensive ability, plays no role in fantasy baseball. But Cabrera didn’t have quite the same success at the plate this year, leaving the door open for Trout and others.

Trout led the DTBL in batting PAR (7.91) and runs scored (115). His 36 home runs and 111 RBI were career highs and ranked third and second respectively in the league this year. It was batting average (.287) and stolen bases (16) where he took a bit of a step backwards from previous seasons, but even those numbers are well above league average. He was easily the Mavericks best offensive player again this year, leading them in AVG, HR, RBI and R. He was largely responsible for keeping the Mavericks offense among the best in the league on their way to a slightly disappointing third place finish. Yet the Mavericks can now claim the league’s best hitter and pitcher for 2014 with Trout joining Clayton Kershaw as award winners.

Ever since the Mavericks selected Trout with their second round pick in 2012, he has proven to be one of the biggest steals in DTBL Draft history. In his brief career, he has put up gaudy numbers: .313 with 93 home runs, 97 stolen bases, 291 runs batted in and 352 runs scored in just three seasons. He has now finished in the top four of the MVP vote in each of his seasons. And this is the second award he has won, along with the unanimous selection as Rookie of the Year in 2012. He is also only 23 years old, so it would be very surprising if he wasn’t in the running for this award many, many times down the road. He and Kershaw figure to keep the Mavericks in the title hunt pretty much every year for the foreseeable future.

It wasn’t quite a unanimous selection of Trout for MVP. He received nine of ten first place votes for a total of 97 points. Since I leave it up to each of you as to whether or not you wish to have your votes made public, I’m not going to say who didn’t have Trout #1, except I’ll give you a pretty big hint by saying it’s probably the last person you would have guessed. Although Trout wasn’t unanimous, his margin of victory was quite large. The next four closest competitors were more than 60 points behind, but within six points of each other. The Jackalope’s suddenly filthy-rich Giancarlo Stanton came in second place with 35 points despite only receiving one second place vote. The Naturals’ Victor Martinez received the lone first place vote that didn’t go to Trout, perhaps due to his value over every other catcher in the league. V-Mart was left off three ballots and finished with 34 points. The player who finished just behind Trout in batting PAR, Demigods second baseman Jose Altuve, only received a pair of second place votes and was left off four ballots, causing him to finish fourth with 32 points. Finally, the Cougars break-out star, outfielder Michael Brantley, rounded out the top five with 29 points, also receiving a pair of second place votes. Besides Trout, the voting was really all over the place. Even one player who didn’t finish in the top five, Miguel Cabrera, received a second place vote. Trout was the only player who appeared on all ten ballots.

Click here to see the full Most Valuable Player award voting results.

Usually, this MVP article is my last article of the year. But that’s not the plan this year. I’m going to start working on updating PAR numbers for previous seasons and will probably write about some of my findings along the way, particularly if I see the need to adjust my formulas. I would also like to chronicle the league PAR totals for each year and maybe take a look at how well the MVP and Cy Young voting meshed with the PAR results in past years. In addition to that, I also have other site enhancements planned for this winter. So be sure to check back on occasion. But until next time, have a great winter!

Kershaw Wins Cy Young Again

Thursday, November 13th, 2014


2014 was the best year for pitchers in the DTBL’s 22 season history. The total league ERA of 3.31 was the lowest mark ever, easily besting the 3.39 combined ERA of 2011. So there was no shortage of great pitching in the league. Yet one player easily stood out among the rest. Despite hitting the disabled list following his first outing of the year, Clayton Kershaw returned as good as new and simply dominated for the next five months. Following a 2013 season in which Kershaw narrowly won the Cy Young award over Max Scherzer, he left no doubt who the winner would be this year. Mavericks ace Clayton Kershaw is the unanimous selection for the 2014 DTBL Cy Young award.

This one really was a no-brainer.  Kershaw had one of the best seasons in league history.  He easily led the league in ERA and WHIP and also led the way with 20 wins.  His 1.77 ERA was the fourth lowest mark ever in the DTBL, even beating his minuscule 1.83 ERA from last year.  His 0.857 WHIP was the third best ever.  Only two DTBL pitchers have put up lower ERA and WHIP numbers in a single season:  Greg Maddux in 1995 and Pedro Martinez in 2000, which happen to be the first two players/years mentioned whenever people discuss the best pitcher seasons of the past quarter century.  More on Kershaw’s place in history with Maddux and Martinez in just a bit.  His early season injury prevented him from having a realistic shot at leading the league in all four starting pitcher categories, but his 239 strikeouts put him on the league leaderboard as well.

This was Kershaw’s best season to date.  And that is saying something considering he has been nothing short of remarkable almost since the day he was drafted by the Mavericks in the sixth round in 2009.  Since his second season, he has never had an ERA over 3.00 or a WHIP over 1.200, numbers that would be a career bests for most pitchers.  Still only 26 years old, he already has 89 career wins with a 2.35 ERA, 1.018 WHIP and 1,296 strikeouts.  He easily holds the DTBL career records in ERA and WHIP among starting pitchers.  The Mavericks pitching staff wasn’t nearly as dominant as it was a year ago, but Kershaw obviously wasn’t to blame.  He was their best pitcher, as he has been pretty much throughout the entirety of his career.

The scary thing is, Kershaw seems to keep getting better.  He has now finished in the top three of the Cy Young vote four years in a row.  But the last two years have been truly remarkable.  He joins Maddux and Martinez as clear cut leaders in terms of best back-to-back seasons for pitchers in the DTBL.  Maddux’s 1994 and 1995 seasons featured the two lowest ERAs ever.  Martinez wasn’t far off with his 1999 and 2000 campaigns.  And now Kershaw in 2013 and 2014.  It is too early to judge Kershaw’s ultimate place in history.  But it won’t be long before the conversation about pitching greats begins with those three…. and then moves on to everybody else.

As mentioned, Kershaw was a unanimous selection for the Cy Young award.  It wasn’t due to a lack of solid competition though.  The Demigods’ Johnny Cueto rode a career year to a distant second place finish with 56 points, receiving half of the second place votes.  Jackalope ace Felix Hernandez received the other half of those second place votes and finished just one point behind Cueto.  The difference wound up being that Hernandez did not appear on one of the ballots.  Yesterday’s Rookie of the Year winner, Demigods’ Corey Kluber came in fourth place with 17 points.  It is interesting that Hernandez beat Kluber so easily after Kluber nabbed the AL Cy Young from King Felix.  But keep in mind that Kluber was in the minors for the Demigods for a few weeks in April.  There was a three way tie for fifth place, including the champion Naturals’ ace David Price and a pair of Cougars hurlers:  Adam Wainwright and post-season hero Madison Bumgarner.  All three received ten points.

Click here to view the full Cy Young voting results.

The big one will have to wait until next week.  I intend to announce the MVP winner on Monday evening.  Kershaw probably would have been a leading candidate for that one too, except we reserve that award for hitters in this league.  So who will it be?  Check back on Monday to find out!

Kluber Nabs Rookie of the Year

Wednesday, November 12th, 2014


Just a couple hours after winning the AL Cy Young award in a bit of an upset, Corey Kluber has his name attached to another honor.  The first year DTBL pitcher was, hands-down, the steal of this year’s draft.  Picked in the tenth round to provide some depth to a very strong Demigods rotation, Kluber wound up playing a leading role for a staff that put up some of the best numbers in league history.  His performance propelled him to the top of a very deep rookie class.  Corey Kluber is the 2014 DTBL Rookie of the Year.

On a team with Yu Darvish, Johnny Cueto, Cole Hamels, Doug Fister and first round draft pick Jose Fernandez, Kluber had to wait his turn to become a fixture in the Demigods’ rotation.  He spent most of April in a minor league slot.  But after being activated in late April, he never looked back.  Despite not having the opportunity to put up a full season of stats, his numbers were still quite impressive.  He won 16 games with a 2.40 ERA, 1.089 WHIP and 241 strikeouts for the Demigods.  On most teams, those stats would have made him the obvious staff ace.  But he was slightly bested by Cueto in all four categories.  However, he easily led all DTBL rookies in wins, ERA and strikeouts and was second in WHIP.  His 11.5 pitching PAR was best among rookies as well and fourth among all pitchers.  His brief stint in the minors will probably keep him from being a serious contender for the DTBL Cy Young award, but he should receive plenty of consideration there as well.  Not bad for a tenth round pick.

The Demigods seemed to have their rotation set well before Kluber was drafted.  Jose Fernandez was chosen with the third pick in the draft and was supposed to be the final piece in their loaded rotation.  But once Fernandez succumbed to Tommy John surgery in May, Kluber’s presence became absolutely essential.  Even without the young phenom Fernandez, the Demigods put together one of the best pitching seasons in league history.  Unfortunately for them, it wasn’t quite enough to beat out the Naturals for their first league title.  But Kluber played a key role in their best season ever and now appears to be an important piece of the puzzle moving forward as well.

As mentioned, this was a pretty strong rookie class overall, especially among later round picks.  There were actually quite a few first round busts, at least for the 2014 season.  But some of the guys picked much later picked up the slack.  The Rookie of the Year voting was competitive, but Kluber won by a fairly comfortable margin.  He received seven first place and three second place votes for a total of 91 points.  His main competition for this award wound up being another draft steal, Naturals second baseman Anthony Rendon.  Rendon was a sixth round pick and rewarded the Naturals with a rookie leading 5.2 batting PAR.  He received the other three first place votes and was the only player besides Kluber to appear on all ten ballots.  He accumulated 75 points in finishing second.  In third place was Moonshiners third baseman Josh Donaldson.  Considered the favorite for this award through much of the season, Donaldson was clearly the most productive of this year’s first round picks.  He received 34 points.  Finishing fourth was the only other rookie pitcher who came anywhere near Kluber’s numbers, Darkhorses pitcher Julio Teheran, who received 30 points.  There was a sizable gap between those four and the rest of the pack.  But rounding out the top five were a pair of Athletics pitchers who tied for that spot with 10 points.  Jackalope youngster Sonny Gray and Kings closer Sean Doolittle were key contributors to their respective squads.

Click here to view the full Rookie of the Year voting results.

My plan is to announce the Cy Young award winner tomorrow (Thursday) evening with the MVP announcement coming early next week.  So be sure to check back soon for those results.

The Forgettable Five

Thursday, November 6th, 2014


With two teams breaking point records at the top of the standings, one could assume that records in futility may have been in danger as well. That wasn’t exactly the case for any one team in the 2014 DTBL season, but collectively, five teams did manage to make some history. It was a season to forget for the Kings, Moonshiners, Darkhorses, Gators and Cougars.

Those five teams were essentially out of the race before the All-Star break. The only real question was which bottom half position would each team wind up in. These five were separated by just a handful of points almost the entire season and frequently shuffled standings places. In the end, none came close to breaking any low water mark records. All five finished with point totals between 32 and 43. But the distance they were behind the champion Naturals is where records were broken.

It is common for one or two teams to finish miles behind the champions. But five teams is unheard of. The sixth place Kings finished an astonishing 46 points behind the Naturals. In the league’s history, never have more than three teams finished that far out of first place. And the only times when three teams did it (1998 and 2000) were expansion years where two of the bottom three were expansion teams and the third bottom-feeder was a team that folded following that season. To have five teams finish so far out of the hunt this year is really quite amazing.

The biggest disappointment of the bottom five has to be the Kings. They just barely avoided the worst finish ever for a defending champion, coming in one spot higher than the 2011 Darkhorses. However, a sixth place finish for a team that was considered a favorite coming into the year is pretty embarrassing, particularly when you look at just how far they were from being a contender. It was sort of a Murphy’s Law season for the Kings with everything imaginable going wrong. They were absolutely decimated by injuries, particularly early in the year. At one point in May, literally half of the players who were on their Opening Day roster were either on the disabled list or nursing some sort of injury. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Even the healthy players failed to meet the most modest of expectations. In one year, the Kings have fallen from a juggernaut squad with hopes of establishing a new dynasty to a team full of washed up players with a seemingly bleak future. Not one Kings player figures to receive strong consideration for the post-season awards. Only Max Scherzer, Ian Desmond, Jonathen LuCroy and a couple relief pitchers could be considered bright spots.

Expectations weren’t as high for the Moonshiners, but 2014 will still go down as a disappointing season for them too. Their problem entering the season appeared to be a lack of superstar players who could carry the squad in multiple categories. That remains their main weakness today. No Moonshiners appeared in the top ten in batting or pitching PAR. The early season loss of Prince Fielder was a dagger and David Wright was a disappointment all year. Two of their better offensive players were a pair of rookies: Josh Donaldson and Brian Dozier. Donaldson was a pleasant surprise out of a first round draft class which included a whole bunch of busts. Jared Weaver led the pitching staff with 18 wins, but didn’t get much help from anyone else in the rotation. Next year, they will try once again to acquire top level players to push them back into contender status.

The Darkhorses offense was respectable, but their pitching staff really let them down, leading to an eighth place finish. Veterans Adrian Gonzalez and Jacoby Ellsbury were joined by younger players like Todd Frazier and Christian Yelich to form a pretty decent offense. But they are still waiting to get a full, healthy, superstar season out of Bryce Harper. And this year’s first round pick, Xander Bogaerts was a huge disappointment this year. They did strike gold with their second round pick though. Julio Teheran was their best pitcher this season. James Shields and Lance Lynn were solid too. The rest of the starters were not and the bullpen finished dead last in saves. Since completing their four-peat in 2010, the Darkhorses have now finished in the bottom half of the standings four years in a row. But they probably have a better stable of young players than any of the other four teams covered in this article. Also worth noting, the Demigods finished in this eighth place slot just a year ago. Perhaps next year the Darkhorses will make a similar leap.

The Gators have this ninth place thing figured out. For the fourth consecutive year, they finished in that same dreaded spot.  Part of their problem was a very disappointing DTBL rookie campaign for second overall draft choice Wil Myers who struggled through an injury plagued and ineffective season.  Also, losing their longtime ace C.C. Sabathia for most of the season was a huge blow considering how heavily they have relied on him to carry their pitching staff in the past.  On a more positive note, Nelson Cruz bounced back from his PED suspension in a big way, leading the league with 40 home runs.  Scott Kazmir and Alex Wood were shrewd mid/late round draft picks who were solid, but unable to completely fill the void left by Sabathia.  The bullpen was once again a team strength, although it took a bit of a blow towards the end of the season when Rafael Soriano and even Koji Uehara lost their closer roles.  One of these years, the Gators will put it together and avoid another ninth place finish.  Maybe next year.

This was an extremely disappointing season for the Cougars coming off a very solid fifth place finish in 2013.  Their last place finish was very surprising, especially for a team with such a solid pitching staff.  The offense was not solid though.  In fact, it couldn’t have been much worse.  They finished dead last in all five offensive categories, earning the minimum five batting points.  They are the second team in league history to earn the minimum batting points, joining the 1997 Tidal Wave.  The strange thing is that they actually had one of the best offensive players in the league as Michael Brantley burst into superstar status with his .327, 20 HR, 23 SB season.  Alexei Ramirez and Denard Span were decent.  The rest of their hitters really struggled, led by last year’s team MVP Chris Davis.  Davis hit an awful .193 before having his season popped short due to a drug suspension.  The pitching staff was actually quite good though.  Adam Wainwright won 20 games and was among the league leaders in ERA (2.38) and WHIP (1.03) too.  Madison Bumgarner, before cementing his legacy as a post-season hero, had another great regular season as well.  The bullpen was pretty good too.  Even a slight improvement to the offense next year to complment this very talented pitching staff should make this last place finish a distant memory a year from now.

We are well into awards season now with MLB announcing winners of some of the lesser awards this week.  The big ones will come next week.  So we better get our own award voting done soon too.  The awards ballot is now available on the main page.  Please take some time this weekend to complete your ballot.  I will begin announcing the winners next week.