Archive for April, 2023

2023 Season Preview: Part IV

Monday, April 3rd, 2023

Embed from Getty Images
It is now time for the final installment of the 2023 DTBL season preview series.  If you thought we’d seen the last of projected ties after the last section where three teams were slotted to finish tied for fourth place, you’d be wrong.  There are two more teams with exactly four more projected standings points than that trio, which puts them in a tie for second place in these standings.  Then, in a bit of a departure from the norm, the projected champion has a fairly decent lead over all challengers according to these numbers.  That is particularly surprising since that team is expected to have a below average offense.

Based strictly on 2022 results, the presense of two of these teams in the final preview section is quite surprising.  But then if you look at the rosters and examine the reasons for the disappointing seasons a year ago, it starts to make sense.  All three of these squads have the goods to win the DTBL in 2023.  Here are the projected top three teams in the league heading into the 2023 season.

 

Jay’s Jackalope

Category – Projected Rank (2022 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 8th (10th)
  • Home Runs – 3rd (5th)
  • Runs Batted In – 5th (5th)
  • Runs Scored – 7th (9th)
  • Stolen Bases - 2nd (4th)
  • Earned Run Average - 4th (6th)
  • WHIP Ratio - 1st (1st)
  • Wins – 9th (8th-T)
  • Saves – 8th (9th)
  • Strike Outs - 3rd (5th)
  • Total Batting Points – 4th (7th-T)
  • Total Pitching Points - 3rd (5th)
  • Total Points - 2nd-T (7th)

Summary:

Impressively, the Jackalope are expected to finish at or above their point total from last year in all 10 categories.  That’s how you go about turning a disappointing finish one season into championship contention the next, by improving across the board.  While I mentioned the Kings being one of the most balanced teams in the league, the Jackalope probably deserve the title in that regard.  They are projected to finish in the top four in both batting and pitching points.  No other team can claim that.  Having said that, the pitching projections mainly expected full healthy seasons from the Jackalope hurlers, and the season is off to a bad start in that regard.  With Tyler Glasnow, Luis Severino and Triston McKenzie all starting the season on the I.L., they are down three projected rotation pieces.  That still leaves them with two of the best pitchers in the game though in Gerrit Cole and Luis Castillo.  They also have Lance Lynn returning to anchor a spot.  The newcomers who will need to pick up the slack early are Brady Singer and Andrew Heaney.  The bullpen is also banged up heading into the season, most notably without top closer Raisel Iglesias.  Alex Lange, Giovanny Gallegos and Jason Adam give them some other interesting options in relief.  The good news is, they should get all of those ailing pitchers back at some point.  Perhaps the offense will need to carry the load early on though.  Fortunately, they are equipped to do just that.  Ronald Acuna is back to full health and could be a legit 40/40 candidate this year.  His Braves teammate Michael Harris joins him in the Jackalope outfield as well.  Like Acuna, the first round pick Harris figures to be an elite power and speed guy.  And then there is Adolis Garcia, giving the Jackalope three outfielders with at least 20/20 HR/SB projections.  If Giancarlo Stanton can stay healthy, this should be the best outfield in the league outside of the Mavericks.  On the infield, Paul Goldschmidt is the main returning cog.  There are several new additions here, including Jeremy Pena and Josh Jung, with Cal Raleigh behind the plate.  The infield is unproven compared to the outfield, but there are a bunch of young guys with breakout potential.  It has been a couple disappointing seasons in a row for the Jackalope.  These numbers point to a big turnaround in 2023 though.

 

Mike’s Moonshiners

Category – Projected Rank (2022 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 1st (2nd)
  • Home Runs – 5th (4th)
  • Runs Batted In – 4th (3rd)
  • Runs Scored – 3rd (4th)
  • Stolen Bases – 5th (1st)
  • Earned Run Average – 8th (4th)
  • WHIP Ratio – 3rd (5th)
  • Wins – 8th (1st)
  • Saves – 7th (7th-T)
  • Strike Outs – 6th (4th)
  • Total Batting Points – 2nd (2nd)
  • Total Pitching Points – 7th (4th)
  • Total Points – 2nd-T (1st)

Summary:

The Moonshiners finally won their first DTBL championship in 2022 thanks to solid contributions throughout the roster.  On the offensive side of things, they didn’t have any single player with eye-popping numbers.  Kyle Tucker was the only Moonshiner in the top 15 of Batting PAR.  But they got very good seasons out of pretty much everybody.  So they will attempt to defend the title with another strong, deep roster that actually has room for improvement on offense.  The infield is particularly deep with Vladimir Guerrero Jr, Rafael Devers and Tim Anderson leading the way.  Amed Rosario and Ryan Mountcastle return after being two key breakout performers from a year ago.  They lost the benefit of Daulton Varsho occupying a catching slot while spending most of his time in the outfield, but replaced him in that spot with MJ Melendez who will likely do the same thing:  play most days in the outfield while holding down a catching spot.  Varsho will still be a valuable contributor for the Moonshiners as well, but will have to do it as an outfielder.  He’s joining an outfield that already has two of the most dynamic players in the game in Shohei Ohtani and Kyle Tucker.  After a couple straight seasons of excellent work as both a hitter and a pitcher, the Moonshiners had a more complicated decision to make this winter on Ohtani’s position status for ’23.  Ultimately, they opted to leave him in the outfield where he’s been excellent the past three years.  Meanwhile, Tucker is one of only three players (Acuna, Judge) with a 7+ Batting PAR projection for this season.  Part of the reason why the Moonshiners elected to keep Ohtani in the outfield is because they already have arguably the best starting rotation in the league.  Justin Verlander, Alek Manoah and Yu Darvish were three of the top five finishers in Pitching PAR last year, with Verlander taking home the Cy Young award.  Unfortunately, he’ll start this season on the I.L.  Dustin May, Reid Detmers and Jeffrey Springs were all added to the roster in the draft, giving the Moonshiners incredible depth in the rotation.  The bullpen suffered a crushing blow with Edwin Diaz tearing his ACL during a WBC postgame celebration.  This seventh place saves projection was pre-Diaz injury, so they will be hard pressed to not finish near the bottom of the league in saves.  Clay Holmes is probably their best bet to rack up saves.  But Diaz is irreplaceable across all of his numbers.  The Moonshiners certainly have the talent to defend their title.  It just might come in a different manner this time around.

 

David’s Darkhorses

Category – Projected Rank (2022 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 9th (3rd)
  • Home Runs – 8th (9th)
  • Runs Batted In – 8th (9th)
  • Runs Scored – 6th (5th)
  • Stolen Bases - 3rd (2nd)
  • Earned Run Average – 1st (10th)
  • WHIP Ratio – 2nd (10th)
  • Wins – 2nd (7th)
  • Saves – 2nd (1st)
  • Strike Outs – 1st (8th)
  • Total Batting Points – 8th (4th)
  • Total Pitching Points – 1st (8th)
  • Total Points – 1st (8th)

Summary:

When I first saw these projections, I thought maybe I made a mistake.  How could a team that was among the worst in the league in pitching points last year be far and away the best pitching staff on paper heading into this season?  Well, there are actually a couple credible explanations for this.  First, Jacob deGrom is projected to throw 175 innings this season according to FanGraphs Depth Charts.  That would be 175 more innings than the Darkhorses got from him a year ago.  And on a per inning basis, there is no better starting pitcher in baseball than deGrom.  Of course, you could argue that 175 innings from him is pretty unrealistic since he hasn’t reached that number since 2019.  The other big change is the addition of Spencer Strider to the rotation.  Strider was far and away the best pitcher available in this year’s draft.  So with those two guys in the fold, it is close to a lock the Darkhorses will have a much improved staff.  47 pitching points may be a tad optimistic though.  Strider isn’t the only fireballer joining the rotation.  Hunter Greene was added to the mix as well.  Logan Webb is the key returning rotation piece.  The bullpen being projected to finish second in saves is a product of a lot of unsettled closer situations across the league.  The Darkhorses only have two sure things for saves themselves in Kenley Jansen and Felix Bautista.  Andres Munoz should be a positive contributor out of the pen regardless of how many save opportunities he gets.  Four of the Darkhorses first five draft picks were pitchers.  Combine that with the return of deGrom and the optimistic outlook for the pitching staff starts to make sense.  It is also interesting that a team expected to take a big step back in batting points would still come out on top of the projected standings, but here we are.  Part of that is because of Bryce Harper’s elbow injury recovery, which is baked into these numbers perhaps more pessimistically than recent news would suggest is warranted.  He could be back sooner than later.  And they could use him because no individual hitter has a Batting PAR projection over 4.  Believe it or not, Tommy Edman is the top guy on that list.  He along with Xander Bogaerts, Andres Gimenez and Brandon Lowe make up a solid middle infield.  The Darkhorses could use a return to old form from at least one of their third base pair of Alex Bregman and Matt Chapman.  J.T. Realmuto remains one of the best catchers in the game.  Christian Yelich is another guy from whom they could use a bounce back season.  George Springer is the most reliable producer in the outfield.  All in all, this is a very talented roster and a championship would not be terribly surprising.  I would not blame you if you question them being the preseason favorites though.

 

So there you have it.  We’ve previewed the 2023 season for all 10 teams.  Here are the full projected standings and team point totals for the ten categories:

 

With all the rule changes, it is hard to know exactly what to expect during this 2023 baseball season.  I do expect it to be a lot of fun though.  Good luck to all!

Posted in Darkhorses, Jackalope, Moonshiners | No Comments »

2023 Season Preview: Part III

Saturday, April 1st, 2023

Embed from Getty Images
With a couple days in the books, we’re already seeing what a difference the new MLB rules are making on the game.  Most obvious is the shortening of the length of games due to the pitch clock.  From a fantasy perspective, the biggest change is probably the increase in stolen bases due to pickoff attempt limits and slightly shorter distances between bases caused by the increased base size.  It is probably still a bit too early to predict *exactly* what this means from a fantasy perspective though.  Will stolen bases simply increase across the board such that no particular type of roster benefits disproportionately?  It will probably cause some funky PAR numbers to pop up though since the threshold for being an above average stolen base contributor had been at a historic low prior to this season.  Anyway, that’s an analysis that can be done at another time when we have more data.

If you were wondering why I only covered a pair of teams in each of the first two preview sections, it is because I kind of had to plan the whole series around today’s trio of teams who are all projected to finish with the exact same number of points.  So it would not have made sense to split them up.  The 56 standings points each are projected to accumulate is pretty much where the similarities end among these teams though.  One is expected to have the best offense in the league, paired with the worst pitching staff.  Another is pegged to have one of the best pitching staffs, but with a near bottom offense.  And then there is the third team that is quite balanced in both parts of the game.  Here are the three teams projected to tie for fourth place.

 

Charlie’s Thunder Choppers

Category – Projected Rank (2022 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 6th (9th)
  • Home Runs – 10th (8th)
  • Runs Batted In - 10th (8th)
  • Runs Scored – 9th (6th)
  • Stolen Bases – 4th (8th)
  • Earned Run Average – 2nd (1st)
  • WHIP Ratio – 4th (3rd)
  • Wins - 4th (3rd)
  • Saves – 3rd (2nd)
  • Strike Outs – 2nd (1st)
  • Total Batting Points – 9th-T (9th)
  • Total Pitching Points - 2nd (1st)
  • Total Points – 4th-T (5th)

Summary:

Last year, the Choppers had far and away the best pitching staff in the league.  However, their offense really dragged them down and prevented them from giving the Moonshiners a serious threat down the stretch.  These projections paint a similar picture, although the Choppers did solidify their lineup with some very talented young players who could break out and smash these numbers.  It is a little hard to imagine a team with sluggers like Pete Alonso and Kyle Schwarber finishing dead last in home runs.  They are the only two on the team slated for more than 25 homers though.  The infield consists of a litany of young players with breakout potential:  Ke’Bryan Hayes, Alec Bohm, Vaughn Grissom, Triston Casas, Nico Hoerner and CJ Abrams.  First round draft pick Adley Rutschman joins Alejandro Kirk to give the Choppers one of the best catching tandems in the league.  The outfield is where they are a bit thin on impact players, besides defending NL home run champion Schwarber.  Steven Kwan and Lars Nootbaar are the newcomers to this group who will try to add a spark.  The pitching staff remains the strength and is mostly unchanged from last year’s pitching point leading group.  Reigning DTBL Rookie of the Year winner Dylan Cease, Brandon Woodruff and Shane Bieber all carry projections that would put them in the conversation for the Cy Young award this season.  Even though he’s been an elite pitcher for quite some time now, Bieber seems to fly under the radar in discussions about the top pitchers in baseball.  He actually has the highest PAR projection of this trio.  Blake Snell and Logan Gilbert round out the rotation and they added Nick Lodolo to give themselves a solid depth piece as well.  Snell’s return to elite form last season was quite a boon to the Choppers staff.  Gilbert being their fifth highest projected PAR starter is pretty envious.  The bullpen is very strong too.  With Edwin Diaz out for the season, Emmanual Clase is pretty much in a class by himself among relievers who can dominate not only in saves, but ERA, WHIP and strikeouts as well.  Jordan Romano is about as steady as they come too.  Trevor May has a shot at getting saves with the A’s.  Brusdar Graterol has the stuff to enter the closer conversation for the Dodgers at some point.  The last couple seasons, the Choppers have put themselves into title contention.  This year, they hope to finally end their near-quarter century title drought.

 

Kevin’s Kings

Category – Projected Rank (2022 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 7th (5th)
  • Home Runs – 6th (1st)
  • Runs Batted In – 3rd (1st)
  • Runs Scored – 2nd (1st)
  • Stolen Bases - 9th (5th)
  • Earned Run Average – 3rd (8th)
  • WHIP Ratio – 5th (8th)
  • Wins – 6th (6th)
  • Saves – 5th (4th)
  • Strike Outs – 8th (6th)
  • Total Batting Points – 5th-T (1st)
  • Total Pitching Points – 4th (6th-T)
  • Total Points – 4th-T (2nd)

Summary:

On paper, the Kings look like one of the most balanced teams in the league.  They are one of only two to have batting and pitching point projections in the top half of the league.  They don’t have a glaring weakness.  The problem is, they also don’t appear to be particularly strong in any area.  The batting projections are actually a bit troubling for a squad that led the league in batting points a season ago.  Also troubling is the fact that these numbers were compiled before they lost Rhys Hoskins for the season with a torn ACL.  The good news is they do have capable corner infielders to attempt to fill that void with Matt Olson, Austin Riley and newcomer first round pick Gunnar Henderson.  Marcus Semien continues to be one of the most productive middle infielders in the game.  Carlos Correa had a wild offseason of free agent drama, but in the end he’s back in Minnesota and anchoring the shortstop position for the Kings as well.  Will Smith and Sean Murphy return to provide stability and solid production behind the dish for the Kings.  The outfield has a bunch of new additions in Andrew Benintendi, Miguel Vargas and Michael Conforto, but the main guys out there are the returning trio of Mookie Betts, Randy Arozarena and Tyler O’Neill.  Arozarena is someone who could be capable of carrying an offense if he is allowed to run wild this season.  Same goes for Betts, although his stolen base production has been tailing off in recent years.  The Kings almost completely rebuilt their pitching staff.  Max Scherzer and Zack Wheeler are the only healthy holdovers from last season’s rotation.  They remain the Kings co-aces.  They’ll need some help from a couple of the newcomers though.  The new additions include George Kirby, Nestor Cortes and Drew Rasmussen, none of whom were household names before last year.  The Kings bullpen could be decent, but it is hard to feel confident about that at the moment.  Camilo Doval appears to be the only sure thing closer in the group.  Paul Sewald and Pete Fairbanks could be in line for plenty of saves too though.  The Kings are strong enough in all areas to remain a title contender.  It’s just not clear if they have enough elite level talent to push them over the top.

 

Marc’s Mavericks

Category – Projected Rank (2022 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 2nd (1st)
  • Home Runs - 1st (3rd)
  • Runs Batted In - 1st (7th)
  • Runs Scored – 1st (8th)
  • Stolen Bases – 10th (10th)
  • Earned Run Average – 10th (3rd)
  • WHIP Ratio – 9th (4th)
  • Wins – 3rd (10th)
  • Saves – 10th (10th)
  • Strike Outs – 7th (10th)
  • Total Batting Points – 1st (5th-T)
  • Total Pitching Points – 10th (9th)
  • Total Points – 4th-T (9th)

Summary:

For the first time in three years, the Mavericks are not the pre-season predicted champion.  Perhaps that is just as well as they have fallen short of expectations every season since winning the league in 2017.  Last year was an especially disappointing season as they had the worst finish in franchise history, falling all the way to ninth place.  Unless everything that can go wrong does again, we probably won’t see a repeat of that.  This is an absolutely loaded roster on the hitting side, which creates a pretty high floor, even though the pitching staff is full of question marks.  Pretty much the lone bright spot for the Mavericks last season was Aaron Judge who won the league MVP and broke the AL home run record with 62 bombs.  He’s back along with the rest of the league’s best outfield.  Mike Trout, Juan Soto, Eloy Jimenez and Nick Castellanos are all looking to bounce back from disappointing and/or injury plagued seasons.  Second overall draft pick Bobby Witt Jr gives the Mavericks infield a significant boost and immediately becomes their top stolen base threat.  Manny Machado continues to be the dependable anchor of the infield.  First baseman Nate Lowe had a nice breakout campaign in ’22.  He’s joined at first base by second round pick Vinnie Pasquantino.  In addition to the outfielders mentioned above, another guy looking to stay healthy and go back to being one of the premier players at his position is second baseman Ozzie Albies.  As long as they aren’t ravaged by injuries like they were a year ago, expect the Mavericks to have the best offense in the league.  The pitching staff is another matter though.  The Dodgers pair of Julio Urias and Clayton Kershaw are the only safe bets to provide great numbers from the rotation.  Pablo Lopez is a pretty solid #3 option though.  The rest of the starters fall into at least one of these two categories: returning from injury or looking to regain lost form.  This group includes Chris Sale, Jack Flaherty, Freddy Peralta, Tony Gonsolin and Michael Kopech.  So the good news is they have plenty of options.  It remains to be seen which of these guys will step up in 2023.  The bullpen is a complete wild card.  The Mavericks finished the draft with just one healthy reliever in Alexis Diaz.  They hope to add Liam Hendriks as a reliable closer at some point as he is currently battling back from cancer.  Hunter Brown is an intriguing bullpen piece as a decent bet to hold down a rotation spot for the Astros for parts of the season.  The Mavericks don’t have their typical rosy outlook heading into this season, but they are close to a lock to put last season behind them and be a competitive team this year.

Posted in Choppers, Kings, Mavericks | No Comments »