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It’s been a two team race for the DTBL Championship for several months now. Despite the fact that the Mavericks and Naturals have been dealing with injuries to several of their most important players and neither team has truly put it all together yet, no other team besides these two has come close to sniffing first place in recent months. At the end of July, the Mavericks and Naturals were tied for first place, but the Mavericks have moved into a 1 1/2 point lead at the time of writing. It is still very much possible for other teams to get back into the race since the gap between the top two and the rest of the pack is just over ten points. But we just haven’t seen any other team make a run yet.
Two teams looking to make such a run struck a deal a couple weeks ago. The Moonshiners and Kings completed a trade that was intended to solve roster problems created by injuries. But as it has turned out so far, this trade has only created further problems as both teams seemingly received damaged goods. The Moonshiners traded shortstop Zack Cozart and pitcher Jon Gray to the Kings in exchange for outfielder Avisail Garcia and pitcher Jeff Samardzija. At the time, the Kings were in desparate need of a shortstop to replace the injured Carlos Correa while the Moonshiners were looking for an outfielder to fill in for Gregory Polanco and Keon Broxton. Of course, within a week of the trade, both Cozart and Garcia hit the disabled list. This marks the second trade between these teams that appears to have been a bit of a bust for both sides. The March swap of Polanco for Kyle Seager hasn’t been terribly productive for either team.
This seems like a good time to remind you that the DTBL trade deadline is coming up on August 15. That is a Tuesday, meaning any trades must be confirmed by both sides before midnight on the 15th even though they will not be processed until the following Monday. Now, onto the award winners for July 2017.
Batters of the Week:
Week 14 (7/3 – 7/9) – Jose Altuve, Demigods
Week 15 (7/14 – 7/16) – Anthony Rendon, Jackalope
Week 16 (7/17 – 7/23) – Nolan Arenado, Naturals
Week 17 (7/24 – 7/30) – J.D. Martinez, Demigods
Pitchers of the Week:
Week 14 (7/3 – 7/9) – Clayton Kershaw, Mavericks
Week 15 (7/14 – 7/16) – Jose Quintana, Gators
Week 16 (7/17 – 7/23) – Jon Lester, Choppers
Week 17 (7/24 – 7/30) – James Paxton, Naturals
The way these weekly honors usually work is that my weekly transaction processing program will create a database record for the players with the highest batting and pitching PAR for the week at the time of processing. But because of the All-Star break, I wasn’t able the capture who had the highest PAR for Week 14 (7/3 through 7/9). So instead, I used the FanGraphs’ splits leaderboard to eyeball the stats for that week and decided Altuve and Kershaw were the likely PAR leaders for the week. It could be wrong though, particularly in the case of Altuve who had stiff competition from his Astros teammate George Springer. There wasn’t particularly stiff competition for the monthly awards though. Here are the winners.
Batter of the Month:
Jose Altuve, Demigods
.485 AVG, 4 HR, 21 RBI, 22 R, 8 SB, 3.38 PAR
Pitcher of the Month:
James Paxton, Naturals
1.37 ERA, 0.788 WHIP, 6 W, 0 SV, 46 K, 4.08 PAR
Jose Altuve nearly hit .500 in July! He went 48 for 99, which penciled out to a .485 average for the month. It is the highest monthly batting average since recently inducted Hall-of-Famer Ivan Rodriguez hit .500 in June of 2004 and the fourth highest total in league history: https://www.baseball-reference.com/tiny/i0mzo. It wasn’t just the average though. He also hit four homers, scored and drove in over 20 runs and stole eight bases. Altuve’s hot month has inserted the Demigods second baseman right into the thick of the MVP conversation. He won this award easily. Following him were a bunch of closely packed players, with Bryce Harper leading the way.
On the pitching side, another pretty rare feat was achieved by the Naturals’ James Paxton. He won six games in the month, becoming the first DTBL player to do that in a single month this season. Along with all those wins came a very impressive 1.37 ERA and 0.788 WHIP. The Canadian left-hander has become the de facto ace for the Naturals in their championship hunt, replacing the injured Noah Syndergaard. It was a comfortable win for Paxton, but the Choppers’ Chris Sale was the runner-up.