Yes, I am continuing last year’s feature of naming a DTBL Batter and Pitcher of the Month following each month of the season. Yes, we are more than a third of the way through May already. No, I haven’t announced the April winners yet. No, I don’t have a particularly good excuse for my tardiness. Away we go…
As a reminder, these Players of the Month selections are not subjective. I am simply calculating each player’s PAR for the month and giving the awards to the batter and pitcher who led the league in that category. I will also use these monthly posts to run down the list of players who won the weekly honors, which are also given to the players with the highest PAR during that week.
Although the 2016 season is still quite young, it does seem fairly clear that we will not have a repeat of last season with one team running away from the competition right from the start. April saw a bunch of teams swap the top spots in the standings. At the end of the month, the top half of the standings looked like a bit of a flashback to the early years of the league more so than recent seasons. The Choppers finished the month in first place, with the Gators and Kings in the mix as well. The defending champion Jackalope appear to be quite strong again and the Mavericks are right there as usual. As for individual player performances, April was dominated by a number of players. Before we get to the best players of the month, here are the weekly award winners:
Batters of the Week:
Week 1 (4/3 – 4/10) – Eugenio Suarez, Cougars
Week 2 (4/11 – 4/17) – Bryce Harper, Darkhorses
Week 3 (4/18 – 4/24) – Welington Castillo, Gators
Week 4 (4/25 – 5/1) - Victor Martinez, Mavericks
Pitchers of the Week:
Week 1 (4/3 – 4/10) - Clayton Kershaw, Mavericks
Week 2 (4/11 – 4/17) - Chris Sale, Choppers
Week 3 (4/18 – 4/24) - Drew Smyly, Moonshiners
Week 4 (4/25 – 5/1) - Clayton Kershaw, Mavericks
There are some pretty surprising names on that list of hitters. But the one of them who won the monthly award is not hard to identify. Kershaw won half of the weekly pitching honors, but was edged out for the monthly award. Here are the award winners for April 2016:
Batter of the Month:
Bryce Harper, Darkhorses
.286 AVG, 9 HR, 24 RBI, 16 R, 5 SB, 2.17 PAR
Pitcher of the Month:
Chris Sale, Choppers
1.66 ERA, 0.684 WHIP, 5 W, 0 SV, 32 K, 3.41 PAR
Harper, the reigning NL MVP, picked up right where he left off last season. He actually faded a bit in the final week of April and almost lost this honor as a result. But his first three weeks were simply awesome. He finished April tied for the league lead in RBI and one behind the leader in home runs. His five steals were just one short of his full season total in 2015. Jose Altuve and Nolan Arenado also had great Aprils and I believe both passed Harper in PAR on the first day of May.
Early in 2016, Chris Sale’s strikeouts are down a bit. But the rest of his numbers are as good or better than ever. He won every game he started in April and led the league in both wins and WHIP. His numbers were nearly identical to his crosstown counterpart, Jake Arrieta. But Sale gets the nod for this award by finishing with a PAR that was a couple hundredths of a point higher.