Archive for October, 2016

Three Near Misses

Saturday, October 29th, 2016


The Kings winning the championship by the narrowest of margins, a year after finishing dead last, was a pretty good story in and of itself. But even if things had turned out differently, we were pretty much guaranteed to have a compelling narrative on our hands with this year’s champion. There were the Demigods, still looking for their first ever league title, dealing with the tragic loss of their star pitcher. Then there were the Choppers, who have quietly been among the better teams in the league the past four years, but hadn’t come particularly close to winning it all since their last championship 17 years ago. Finally, there were the Mavericks, who have probably been the league’s best franchise the past five years but have somehow not won a championship in a decade. In the end, these three teams fell painfully short of their ultimate goal.

This could have, maybe even should have been the Demigods big moment. As I already outlined in the Kings championship article, the Demigods very well could have won their first DTBL championship had they not suffered the ultimate loss with a week left in the season when their young phenom pitcher, Jose Fernandez, was killed in an accident. One more win would have elevated the Demigods to co-championship status and one fewer win for the Kings would have given the Demigods the outright crown. But there were other ways in which this appeared to be the Demigods year to win as well. In the summer months, they were by far the most balanced team in the league. While the Kings were dealing with a ton of injuries and a struggling pitching staff and the Mavericks were basically playing two or three pitchers short, it was the Demigods who were near the top of the league in both batting and pitching points.

As has been the case with the Demigods for several years now, their strength was their lack of weaknesses. Jose Altuve is probably the only player on their team who will receive MVP consideration, but the list of positive offensive contributors is long. Freddie Freeman, David Ortiz, Francisco Lindor and Matt Kemp (?!) were some of their top hitters. A late season surge (and Kings collapse) gave them the league lead in average, home runs and RBI. They finished just one point behind the Darkhorses for most batting points in the league. On the pitching side, they were also near the top of the league despite finishing a distant last in saves. Their rotation was as good as anybody’s, led by Fernandez, Corey Kluber and Johnny Cueto. Veterans Cole Hamels and John Lackey were pretty good on the back-end of that rotation as well. That’s five pitchers who accumulated 5+ PAR. No other team had more than three.

The Choppers ultimately fell short of their first championship season in 17 years. But this was easily their best effort since then. It was their fourth straight season finishing in the top four of the standings, but their smallest margin of defeat since their championship in 1999. They finished 2 1/2 points behind the Kings. The last time they finished fewer than nine points off the lead was way back 2001. But this wasn’t just a matter of keeping it close. With just a week left in the season, they found themselves in a first place tie with the Demigods. Unfortunately for them, they were unable to put together a great final week to win it all.

There are a lot of similarities between the Choppers and Demigods. The Choppers also had a solid all-around team with few weaknesses. They don’t have an obvious MVP candidate, but do have plenty of hitters who had really good years. Perhaps first on that list would be Anthony Rizzo. Mark Trumbo easily led the league in home runs with 47. D.J. LeMahieu sat the final weekend of the season to preserve his NL (and DTBL) batting title, but that wasn’t particularly helpful for the Choppers. Finally, the veteran trio of Adrian Beltre, Albert Pujols and Dustin Pedroia all had very productive years for the Choppers as well. The pitching staff was really the strength of the Choppers though. They finished just 1/2 point behind the ballyhooed Mavericks staff with 39 1/2 pitching points. The rotation was led by three of the games best southpaws: Jon Lester, Chris Sale and J.A. Happ (yes, Happ belongs in that discussion). The bullpen was decent, but saves was the only pitching category in which the Choppers did not finish in the top three.

I’m not exactly sure what to say about this Mavericks season. On one hand, going into the season, they were expected to be one of the teams to beat, just like they are every year, thanks to their impeccable pitching staff. So not winning it all would have to be a bit of a disappointment. But then when you look at how many devastating injuries hit their staff, it was something of a miracle that they were even in the race until the end. When all was said and done, the fourth place finish was their lowest since 2011. But it was their third time in the past five years in which they finished within four points of a championship. Shockingly, it has now been ten years since their last DTBL title.

The Mavericks entered this season staring at the possibility of having the following five pitchers anchor their rotation for most of the season: Clayton Kershaw, Stephen Strasburg, Matt Harvey, Yu Darvish and Taijuan Walker. All five of those guys, along with their top alternative Joe Ross, fought through signifcant injury problems and not one of them reached the 150 IP requirement for ERA and WHIP leaderboard qualification. A team that was supposed to have one of the best starting staffs ever finished the season with Anibal Sanchez and Anthony DeSclafani (a reliever) in their rotation. Despite all of that, they still led the league in pitching points, thanks to an untouchable bullpen of Kenley Jansen, Andrew Miller, Dellin Betances and Aroldis Chapman. With just a little more potent offense, they could have won the league. But it was pretty much just a two man show on offense. Mike Trout and Manny Machado continue to be two of the best players in baseball, with Trout having his best all-around season since his DTBL rookie year. I guess Hanley Ramirez had a pretty good season as well. But that’s about it. The final fourth place finish was disappointing for the Mavericks, but they once again acquitted themselves as one of the league’s elite franchises.

Sorry it took me so long to get to this article. Hopefully, I’ll actually have a chance to write about the rest of the teams before the post-season award season kicks off. So much more to come soon!

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Kings Reign Again

Thursday, October 6th, 2016


With three weeks to go in the season, the Kings held a 9 1/2 point lead over the Demigods and Mavericks and appeared to be headed to an uneventful coronation as league champions.  But then the wheels fell off.  Just two days later, the lead was down to five points.  With exactly two weeks remaining, it was cut down to a point.  On September 20, not only did they relinquish first place, but they found themselves all the way down to fourth and headed in the wrong direction.  However, the standings were so close in so many categories, that any of four teams had nearly identical odds of finishing on top.  When it was all said and done, the Kings picked up a much needed half point on the final day, which wound up being their margin of victory over the Demigods.  For a growing record sixth time, Kevin’s Kings are the DTBL Champions.

This league has seen some pretty incredible finishes in its history and this season’s pennant race has to be near the top of that list.  However, the excitement that normally would have been felt in a four team sprint to the finish line had a bit of a somber tone this year as tragedy struck the baseball world with just a week to go in the season.  Miami Marlins and Demigods young ace Jose Fernandez was killed in a boating accident on September 25.  I don’t have much to add that hasn’t already been said about what a joy it was to watch Fernandez pitch and how deeply he will be missed by virtually all baseball fans.  Perhaps I will take some time to write some of my own thoughts about Fernandez during the off-season.  But for now, I would be remiss not to mention how major of an impact his passing had on this league’s title race.

The Kings won the league by 1/2 point.  Although there were a whole bunch of categories that could have swung the title in a different direction, the place where the Kings gained their margin of victory on the final day was in wins.  Max Scherzer won his league high 20th game for the Kings that final afternoon, moving them out of a tie with the Mavericks and into a tie with the Moonshiners in that category.  Scherzer recorded the win, despite giving up five runs.  His opponent?  Fernandez’s Marlins.  Impossible to know for sure what the Marlins would have done with their rotation in the final week without the tragedy, but it is very possible that Fernandez could have been Scherzer’s opponent that day.  And he probably would not have given up five runs, since he rarely ever did.  One more win for Fernandez in either of two potential starts in the final week would have given the Demigods their first ever DTBL Championship.

So some of the thrill of victory was drained from the Kings, knowing things very well could have ended differently.  But the Kings are not undeserving champions.  They dominated the league for a good portion of the season, despite having to hang on by a thread down the stretch.  Oh, and how did I make it this far without mentioning that this same team finished dead last a year ago?  Believe it or not, this is not the first time a team has turned that trick in this league.  The Darkhorses won their first championship in 2007, a year after finishing at the bottom.  The Kings are just three years removed from their last title, but it was two pretty ugly seasons in between.

Despite holding onto first place almost the entire year, it really was a roller coaster season for the Kings, particularly when you break things out between hitting and pitching.  They cruised to a large lead in the first half on the back of the league’s best offense (at the time).  On July 1, they held 47 of a possible 50 batting points, and had huge leads in the power categories.  Meanwhile, the pitching staff was average at best and was at the bottom of the league in ERA.  But then in July, the tables turned and the offense started to leak oil while the pitching staff was firing on all cylinders.  Although it wasn’t until September that they really started coughing up batting points, their leads in most offensive categories had been shrinking for months.  But fortunately for them, the pitching staff was awesome down the stretch and carried them home.  In the end, they finished second in the league in batting points, just one behind the Demigods, and third in pitching points, two behind the leading Mavericks.  So it was a very solid team in all phases, though not nearly as dominant as they once seemed.

Two players led the way for the Kings and figure to be among the top candidates for the top two post-season awards:  Mookie Betts and Max Scherzer.  Each led the league in PAR, among hitters and pitchers respectively.  Betts had an all-around awesome season, hitting .318 with 31 homers, 113 RBI, 122 runs and 26 stolen bases.  He was on the top ten leaderboard in all of those categories, except homers.  He also led the Kings in those four categories and blew away the rest of his teammates in accumulating a 10.85 PAR.  Meanwhile, Scherzer was also in the top ten in four categories.  He led the league with 20 wins and 284 strikeouts.  His 0.97 WHIP ranked second and he was seventh in ERA at 2.96.  His season was right up there with another season in which he helped the Kings win a title, 2013, for tops of his career.  Without either of these players, the Kings would have had no chance.

There were other important contributors too though, including some of their veteran stars who were mostly disappointing a year ago.  Robinson Cano may have had the best season of his impressive career, following two very pedestrian campaigns.  Similarly, Ian Desmond rebounded from a rough ’15 to become one of the most valuable middle infielders in the league once again (his final year as a shortstop in this leauge).  Jonathan LuCroy and Jay Bruce had much more productive, healthier seasons as well.  Carlos Gonzalez didn’t have one of his better years, but was a major contributor as well.  Finally, youngsters Carlos Correa and Gregory Polanco had good years too.

On the pitching side, the other player besides Scherzer who was key to the Kings success was Justin Verlander.  Once considered the best pitcher in baseball, the past few years have been pretty rough for Verlander.  But this year, he appeared to be back to his old form, winning 16 games with 244 strikeouts, which were his highest marks in those categories since 2012.  Had the Kings not been so deplete of apparent talent last winter, Verlander may not have even been retained.  But fortunately for the Kings, he was still around for 2016.  The rest of the rotation was not very impressive, which just goes to show how great Scherzer and Verlander were to lead the Kings to 37.5 pitching points.  The bullpen led the league in saves, thanks mostly to Jeurys Familia and his league leading 51.  That was the fifth highest single season save total in league history and hasn’t been exceeded since 2004.  Francisco Rodriguez and Santiago Casilla racked up plenty of saves too, despite mediocre peripherals.

So how does a team go from last place to first without making any major roster shakeups outside of the draft?  Well, first of all, the Kings were not your typical last place team a year ago.  As you may recall, the bottom six teams in the league were all within seven points of each other last year.  So the Kings weren’t really *that* bad in 2015.  The blueprint they used was to make smart draft choices while banking on veterans with proven track records to bounce back to career norms.  Perhaps a dangerous strategy if those veterans were truly over the hill, but in this case, their trust was rewarded.  And of course, as is the case for almost all champions, the Kings had a bit of luck on their side.  Not only because of several tight category battles going their way, but some major derailments suffered by other teams.  I’ll cover those in greater detail in my next article.

The Kings have now won six DTBL Championships in 24 years, exactly one quarter of the league’s seasons.  No other franchise has won the league more than four times.  There are other franchises that have been more consistently among the league’s elites, but nobody has been better at winning it all.

Coming up next, I’ll examine the three teams who came within an eyelash of stealing this title from the Kings.  All three had spectacular, fascinating seasons that came up just short.

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