Archive for November, 2019

Yelich Wins Stacked MVP Race

Wednesday, November 27th, 2019

Embed from Getty Images
Not since 2005 have we seen three different players hit 40+ homers and steal 15+ bases in a single season.  In that season 14 years ago, Alex Rodriguez, Derrek Lee and Albert Pujols all reached those milestones.  2019 saw fewer league-wide stolen bases than any previous season since the league expanded to eight teams in 1996.  Despite a historic lack of steals, three players managed to swipe at least 15 bags while slugging over 40 home runs.  Two of them actually doubled that stolen base mark with 30+.  Ronald Acuna, Cody Bellinger and Christian Yelich all had seasons that were among the most valuable this league has seen in recent times.  But only one of them could win the league’s MVP award.  In an extremely competitive vote, Darkhorses outfielder Christian Yelich is the 2019 DTBL Most Valuable Player.

Yelich suffered a broken kneecap injury in early September that cost him an opportunity to reach all sorts of unprecedented milestones.  Yet despite missing the last several weeks of the season, he still managed to post numbers every bit as good as any player in recent memory.  He hit .329 with 44 home runs and 30 stolen bases, all three marks were among the top five in the league.  His 100 runs scored and 97 runs batted in were quite impressive as well, considering the missed time in September.  He is one of only six players in league history to have hit 40+ homers with 30+ steals and a batting average over .300.  Among those six, the only player to post a higher batting average was Larry Walker in 1997 (.366) and he benefited from playing half his games in Denver.  Yelich produced a 12.0 Batting PAR season, the third highest since 2005, just barely trailing Acuna this year and 2007 Alex Rodriguez.  Had he remained healthy, it is probably safe to assume he would have claimed the top spot on that list.

Yelich has been an excellent player his entire career.  But it was an offseason trade from Miami to Milwaukee prior to the 2018 season that seemed to push him to a new level.  He has now posted two consecutive MVP caliber seasons since joining the Brew Crew, winning the NL MVP in 2018 and finishing second for that award in the DTBL a year ago.  A third round pick by the Darkhorses in 2014, Yelich has been a fixture in their outfield since.  He has a career batting average of .304 with 134 home runs and 111 stolen bases.  He will only need a couple more seasons like the previous two to catch Matt Holliday and Hanley Ramirez as the best player in franchise history.  Shockingly, this year was the first time he was named to a DTBL All-Star team.  But he made his first appearance a memorable one, slugging a grand slam to lead the National Division to victory and was thus named the game’s MVP.  His special two year run has also vaulted the Darkhorses into championship contention.  The Darkhorses have finished runner-up to the Kings the past two years and have had the league’s best offense both seasons, in large part because of Yelich.  They have finished in the top half of the standings every year since Yelich’s rookie campaign and appear primed to make another run next season.

The vote for the MVP award was as competitive as any we’ve seen in recent years.  With three players having historically strong years, this isn’t too surprising.  Yelich only received four of the ten first place votes.  But what ultimately decided things in his favor was receiving second place votes on all of the other six ballots.  That computed to 82 total points, 11 ahead of Acuna.  The Jackalope outfielder, and Rookie of the Year recipient, also received four first place votes, but only three seconds.  Curiously, he was left off one ballot entirely.  That alone didn’t cost him the award though since he finished more than 10 points behind Yelich.  As a reminder from the ROY post, Acuna set a new high water mark for Batting PAR since 2005.  Komodos first baseman Bellinger was a top three choice on all ten ballots, but only two of them were first place nods.  The NL MVP had impressive five category totals in his own right, but fell a bit short of Yelich and Acuna in steals.  Bellinger finished third with 62 points.  I only have the full award voting results dating back to 2005, but this is the first time since then that three different players have received at least 60 points in the MVP vote.  Needless to say, there was a bit of a gap after those three.  Coming in fourth was the AL MVP and perennial DTBL MVP candidate, Mavericks outfielder Mike Trout.  Amazingly, Trout has now been an All-Star and a MVP vote recipient in every season of his DTBL career, which dates back to 2012.  And perhaps even more amazing, he has only won this award once, in 2014.  His consistent greatness should never be ignored.  He has posted a Batting PAR of at least 7.6 every season of his career.  Trout appeared on nine of the ten ballots and accumulated 21 points.  There was a tie for fifth place between a couple of slugging third basemen:  Moonshiners’ Rafael Devers and Jacklope’s Anthony Rendon.  They finished with eight points each.

Click here to view the full voting results.

That concludes the 2019 DTBL awards announcements.  Usually, this MVP post is my final one of the year.  But that will not be the case this year.  With the decade about to end next month, I plan on doing some sort of 2010s decade recap in December.  At the very least, it will include an All-Decade Team and perhaps a look at the league’s best teams over the past 10 years as well.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted in Awards, Darkhorses | No Comments »

Verlander Back on Top

Monday, November 25th, 2019

Embed from Getty Images
The current decade began with Justin Verlander as one of the best pitchers in baseball. A few years later, he appeared to be a pitcher in decline. Not surprising for someone who was on the wrong side of 30. But then in 2016, he began to return to his old form. By the time he was traded from Detroit to Houston in 2017, he was basically back to being one of the most dominant pitchers in the game. That late career resurgence was taken to a new level in 2019. This year, he recorded a career high in strikeouts and won over 20 games for the first time since 2011. The longtime Kings right-hander was a major contributor to the team winning their second consecutive DTBL Championship. Justin Verlander is the 2019 DTBL Cy Young award winner.

The 2019 season saw DTBL pitchers compile a 3.87 ERA, the highest cumulative ERA since 2006.  Despite the improved offensive environment in baseball, Verlander managed to compile one of the best seasons of his career.  His 2.58 ERA was fourth best in the league.  But he was the league leader in WHIP (0.80) and wins (21).  He struck out exactly 300 batters, a career high.  Only his Astros teammate Gerrit Cole topped him in whiffs.  His 17.3 Pitching PAR is a new record (among seasons that have been calculated).  In fact, Cole’s 16.4 also surpassed the old record, previously held by… Verlander in 2011.  Verlander and Cole became just the fourth and fifth DTBL pitchers to record 20+ wins and 300+ strikeouts in a season, joining Pedro Martinez (1999), Randy Johnson (2001, 2002) and Curt Schilling (2002).  Verlander’s 0.80 WHIP is the second lowest among qualified pitchers in league history, trailing just Martinez’s ridiculous 2000 season (0.74).  He clearly had one of the greatest pitching seasons this league has ever seen.

To the best of my knowledge, Verlander has set a record for longest gap between Cy Young wins.  He is a second time winner, also receiving the award in 2011.  That 2011 campaign is the only other on his resume that could possibly be compared favorably to 2019, though he did finish third for the award just last season as well.  Originally drafted by the Demigods in 2007, he was dropped by them following a very rough 2008 season.  The Kings selected him in the third round in 2009 and have been reaping the benefits ever since.  Although they also came close to dropping him following his mediocre 2014 and 2015 seasons.  All told, he is a six time All-Star and now a two time Cy Young winner.  His case for one of the top pitchers in DTBL history is an easy one to make.  Earlier this season, he became just the fifth pitcher to reach the 200 win plateau and currently sits tied with Tom Glavine for fourth all-time.  He is third on the career strikeout leaderboard.  With a decent season in 2020, he should move up to second, trailing only Randy Johnson.  And he has a pretty good chance of joining Johnson as the only DTBL pitchers to record 3,000 strikeouts.  Speaking of Johnson, the Big Unit is the only pitcher ahead of Verlander on the Kings all-time wins and strikeouts lists as well. Verlander has now been a key piece of three different Kings title winning squads (2013, 2018, 2019).

As expected, this Cy Young race turned into a two way battle between Astros teammates.  Verlander and Cole were the only two pitchers to receive first place votes.  Verlander grabbed seven of them and was placed second on the other three ballots for a total of 91 points.  The Jackalope’s Cole probably would have won this award had he put up his same numbers any other season.  He ever so slightly trailed Verlander in wins, WHIP and PAR.  But he had a slightly lower ERA and 26 more strikeouts.  He received three first place votes and six seconds.  That garnered him 77 points, putting him significantly ahead of everyone but Verlander.  This shook out similarly to the AL Cy Young race where Verlander also edged Cole.  On the other hand, the two time defending NL Cy Young award winner, Darkhorses righty Jacob deGrom, is still looking for his first DTBL Cy Young.  He led the league in ERA (2.25), but trailed Verlander and Cole in the other categories.  DeGrom was the majority choice for third place, receiving six of those votes and a point total of 42.  Coming in fourth was another veteran pitcher who had arguably the best season of his career.  The Mavericks’ Stephen Strasburg recorded a career high 18 wins and 251 strikeouts before cementing his status as an elite postseason pitcher as he helped the Nats win the World Series.  Strasburg received one second place vote and appeared on all ten ballots, finishing with 26 points.  Those were the four pitchers who appeared on every ballot, but the fifth place finisher received significant support as well.  Moonshiners veteran Zack Greinke has experienced a bit of a career resurgence in his own right.  He had his best season since 2015.  Greinke appeared on eight ballots and tallied 14 points.  So three of the top five finishers completed the season as members of the Astros rotation.  And building off a year-long theme of veteran starters leading the way, four of these five pitchers are over 30 years old and none are younger than 29.

Click here to view the full voting results.

You can expect the Most Valuable Player award winner to be announced on Wednesday. That figures to be an extremely competitive race as three players, in particular, have incredibly strong cases to be made for the honor.

Posted in Awards, Kings | No Comments »

Acuna Bursts Onto Scene

Tuesday, November 19th, 2019

Embed from Getty Images
Ronald Acuna had one of the best rookie seasons in DTBL history. Actually, let’s revise that. He had one of the best seasons in DTBL history, regardless of age or experience. The fact that he was in his first year in the league only highlights what a special talent he is. The first pick in this year’s draft lived up to the hype and then some. He nearly became the third player in league history to compile a 40/40 HR/SB season. He did manage to rack up the highest single season PAR of any offensive player that has been calculated to date (since 2005). The Jackalope outfielder stood well above a very strong rookie class. Unsurprisingly, Ronald Acuna was the unanimous choice for the 2019 DTBL Rookie of the Year award.

A late season injury may have cost Acuna an opportunity to become the league’s third 40/40 player. He hit 41 home runs and stole 37 bases, finishing sixth and second in the league in those categories. He wasn’t too shabby in the other three categories either. He had a .280 average with 127 runs scored (3rd in league) and 101 RBI. The last player to have a line of at least .280/35/35/100/100 was Matt Kemp in 2011. So it has been quite a while since we’ve seen a five category performance like the one Acuna put up in 2019. As mentioned, his 12.15 Batting PAR is the highest we’ve seen since 2005. He just barely edged out Christian Yelich and Cody Bellinger in that stat. So those three players figure to be the top contenders for the MVP award. The last player to win both the Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player awards was Ryan Howard in 2006. We will soon see if Acuna can change that.

The Jackalope had a pretty easy choice when they selected Acuna with the first pick back in March. But they could not have possibly expected the pick to pay off so handsomely in the first season. Acuna was largely responsible for the Jackalope nearly doubling their 2018 batting point total this season (13 to 25). He and Anthony Rendon were easily the squad’s two best hitters. Acuna led the team in homers, steals and runs. The Jackalope have been fielding an impressive infield for quite some time. Should Giancarlo Stanton return to health next year, he and Acuna will make for a fearsome duo in the outfield as well. Interestingly, four of the past five Rookie of the Year winners have been members of either the Jackalope or Cougars. Jake Arrieta won the award for the Jackalope in 2015.

The ease by which Acuna won this award should not diminish the strength of the rookie class as a whole. But he did receive all ten first place votes and is the third straight unanimous winner, the fourth in the past five years. Finishing second was another young phenom outfielder, who also finished second to Acuna in the NL Rookie of the Year vote last year, the Mavericks’ Juan Soto. Soto’s age 20 season was absolutely brilliant and culminated in a World Series title. Soto wasn’t quite the stolen base threat that Acuna was, but was similar in all of the other categories, hitting 34 homers with 110 runs scored and batted in. He received seven second place votes, appeared on all ten ballots and compiled 58 points. That total narrowly edged out Choppers pitcher Shane Bieber. Bieber led all rookie pitchers in wins (15) and strikeouts (259). Of the top four finishers for this award, he was the only one who wasn’t a top draft choice. A third round selection, he may have been the steal of this year’s draft. Bieber was also on all ten ballots, including three second place and six third place votes. He finished four points behind Soto. Picked between Acuna and Soto in the draft, Komodos pitcher Walker Buehler had an impressive debut season as well. Buehler had very similar numbers to Bieber, but fell a little short in strikeouts. He received a pair of third place votes and finished with 25 points. Those four guys have very bright futures ahead of them. But maybe the most interesting rookie on this list is the guy who finished fifth. 30 year old Eduardo Escobar has had a nice career. But until the past couple years, he was a bit of a fantasy baseball afterthought. He finally got his chance in the DTBL this year and proceeded to slug 35 homers. Not bad for an eighth round pick. Escobar appeared on six ballots and accumulated 10 points. Although they didn’t appear on many ballots, I think it is also worth mentioning that Cougars second baseman Gleyber Torres and Mavericks pitcher Jack Flaherty also had great rookie seasons. That pair, along with Acuna, Soto and Buehler meant that there weren’t many bad picks in the first round this year.

Click here to view the full voting results.

I’m hoping to announce the Cy Young award winner later this week (probably Thursday), with the Most Valuable Player announcement to come early next week. Both of those awards figure to be more competitive than this one was.

Posted in Awards, Jackalope | No Comments »