Archive for October, 2017

Mavericks Rise to the Occasion

Wednesday, October 4th, 2017

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The Mavericks drafted Mike Trout in the second round of the 2012 DTBL Draft, which remains nearly undisputed as the best draft pick in league history, since the inaugural draft. Not coincidentally, since the day they drafted Trout, the Mavericks have been a championship contender. Clearly they have been the most dominant franchise in the league over the past half-dozen years. But one fairly important thing was missing during that stretch: a league championship. Well, their sustained excellence has finally been rewarded. For the third time in franchise history, Marc’s Mavericks are the DTBL Champions.

Since 2012, the Mavericks have finished in second place three times, third once and their “worst” finish was fourth place a year ago, when they were only 3 1/2 points behind the league champs. Prefer judging teams’ individual season performances by points rather than place of finish? Well, the Mavericks have been consistently dominant in that area as well. They haven’t finished with fewer than 66 points since 2011. This year, no other team even came close to that mark. They won the league by a convincing 11 1/2 points. Since 2008, the only team with a larger margin of victory was the 2015 Jackalope.

So what made this Mavericks squad slightly better than their recent teams that fell just a little short? Well, from a points perspective, not a lot changed. It was largely a matter of all other contenders having fatal flaws while the Mavericks continued to ride a dominant pitching staff and a good, but not great, offense. The Mavericks once again had the best pitching staff in the league. They led the way with 43 1/2 pitching points and have now topped the league in pitching four of the past five seasons. On the hitting side, they actually took a slight step back from a year ago, finishing with 29 batting points, which was bested by seven other teams.

It’s actually pretty shocking that the Mavericks finished eighth in offense, because they had a bunch of guys who had outstanding seasons. They lacked the offensive balance of a few other teams, but had plenty of star power. As usual, Mike Trout was dominant. But a thumb injury cost him nearly 1/3 of the season and prevented him from leading the team in PAR for the sixth straight season. Instead that honor went to another guy who the Mavericks somehow found off the scrap heap better known as the free agent pool. All rise…

Aaron Judge was signed as a free agent by the Mavericks during the second week of the season. The mammoth outfielder was in the draft pool, but was passed over by 120 other players. In fairness, Judge had the look of a potential bust of a prospect having shown major contact problems during his first MLB stint. Some were surprised he even made the Yankees Opening Day roster. But the Mavericks beat the rest of the league to the punch and signed him following his solid start to the season. 49 home runs later, Judge is a mortal lock to win Rookie of the Year and will receive strong MVP consideration as well. With Judge a free agent signing, Trout a second round pick and Clayton Kershaw a sixth round pick, it is hard to say which current Maverick was the biggest steal in franchise history, but all three rank right up there in league history as well.

Besides Trout and Judge, the Mavericks also got great seasons from a number of other hitters: third basemen Manny Machado (33 HR, 95 RBI) and Mike Moustakas (38 HR), first round draft pick Andrew Benintendi (20 HR, 20 SB) and speedy outfielder Billy Hamilton. Hamilton led the league with 58 stolen bases. But the biggest surprise had to be second baseman Jonathan Schoop. All the ninth round pick from 2016 did was hit 32 bombs with 105 RBI.

Enough about the hitters though. It was the continued excellence of the Mavericks pitching staff that carried them to this championship. They led the league in ERA and WHIP by wide margins and tied the Demigods for most wins. Both the rotation and bullpen were unmatched in terms of dominance. Unlike the offense, which featured some key newcomers, the pitching staff was the same old guard. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Clayton Kershaw and Stephen Strasburg did the heavy lifting, with an assist from Yu Darvish. Strasburg’s performance was especially key since the rotation didn’t have quite the same depth as previous versions. Kershaw was unable to make it through a full healthy season again, but still wound up finishing in the top three in the league in ERA, WHIP and tied for first in wins. Strasburg wasn’t as flashy, but topped 200 strikeouts and had his best season since 2014.

The bullpen gave the Mavericks a huge advantage over the rest of the league in ERA, WHIP and especially strikeouts. Kenley Jansen and Dellin Betances both topped 100 strikeouts. Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman may have done the same had they been 100% healthy for the full season. Aroyds Vizcaino, who finished the season as the Braves closer, couldn’t even crack the Mavericks lineup most of the year. This bullpen was truly an embarrassment of riches.

Another way in which you can see how loaded the Mavericks roster was is in the quality of the players they cast aside. Four players they released at some point this year could receive consideration as keepers for teams that signed them later in the year: Josh Bell, Byron Buxton, Steven Souza and Dylan Bundy. It is going to be very interesting to see how the Mavericks cut down to 16 keepers this winter, because they have a lot more guys than that who most teams would want.

This is the third DTBL Championship for the Mavericks and the first in over a decade (2004, 2006). They are now tied with the Cougars for the fourth most DTBL titles, trailing the Kings (6), Darkhorses (5) and Naturals (4). Only the Kings have more top two finishes than the Mavericks’ eight. The Mavericks are pretty clearly one of the league’s elite franchises. Now they have a recent championship to prove it.

Congrats to Marc on a great season! Much more to come over the next few weeks as I recap the 2017 season.