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Welcome to the 2018 DTBL season! This will be our 26th season, but also a year-long celebration of our 25th Anniversary. In case you forgot what happened in 2017 after a long winter, here’s a quick summary: the Mavericks dominated. They led the league most of the season and won the championship by 11 1/2 points over the Cougars and Naturals. After the Mavericks, very little separated the rest of the league. The Cougars and Naturals had very good years, but it wouldn’t have taken much more for any of the other teams to have been right up there with them in the standings. So, how do things look heading into 2018? I’m glad you asked.
As has become an annual tradition, I am going to preview the upcoming season by using standings/stats projections to tell most of the story. For the second straight year, I will be using FanGraph’s Depth Charts projected stats of players to generate projections for each DTBL team. These are a blend of ZiPS and Steamer projections, with playing time adjustments done by the FanGraphs staff. The reason I made the switch to Depth Charts last year is because I think it gives a more accurate guess at playing time so that players who are expected to play less than an every day role in the big leagues this year don’t disproportionately affect these prognostications.
Additionally, I have made one other change for this year. In the past, I’ve scaled all the pitching stats so that the number of projected innings are the same for each team, no matter how many pitchers are on the roster. For hitters, I have attempted to do the same, but rather than scaling to a certain at bat or plate appearance target, I would scale based on the number of hitters on the roster. This year, I decided it would make more sense to do the same thing for hitters as pitchers. So now the team totals in hitting categories will be scaled such that each team is projected to accumulate 8285 plate appearances. I came up with this number by looking at the team totals in at bats the past five seasons and then applying the PA/AB ratio that has existed in MLB over that same time period, since I don’t keep plate appearance data for DTBL teams. I figured this would be more accurate than simply using at bats since some teams may be high on guys who walk a lot while others may have a bunch of free swingers. So team plate appearances are more likely to be similar across the league than at bats. Anyway, the main reason for this change is so that teams who have players projected to spend far less than full seasons on major league rosters don’t kill the team’s projections across the board. For instance, Victor Robles is only projected for 90 plate appearances this season. In the past, including his modest numbers in the Naturals projections would have really hurt the “per player” totals. With this change, his numbers simply won’t make up as significant of a percentage of the Naturals totals, which is logical since he probably won’t be on their active roster much of the season. So the end result, I think, is that these projections will do a better job of predicting which players will actually be on major league rosters for DTBL teams. Having said that, I’m still not making any personal predictions about how much time each player will spend on the active roster. Stats for all 28 players on the post-draft rosters are included in these projections.
Anyway, let’s get started. As usual, I’m going to break this into four parts. Normally, each of these posts previews two or three teams. But you get a special treat to kick things off this year: four teams! The reason? Three teams are projected to tie for 7th place. So here are the four teams that the numbers say will be near the bottom of the standings. Two of these four were among the top four finishers a year ago, so perhaps we could see some major shuffling in the standings, which of course winds up happening every year anyway.
Kelly’s Cougars
Category – Projected Rank (2017 Rank)
- Batting Average – 6th (5th)
- Home Runs – 8th (6th)
- Runs Batted In – 9th (5th)
- Runs Scored – 6th (2nd)
- Stolen Bases – 7th (5th)
- Earned Run Average – 9th (3rd)
- WHIP Ratio – 8th (7th)
- Wins – 9th (8th)
- Saves – 5th (3rd)
- Strike Outs – 8th (5th)
- Total Batting Points – 8th (5th)
- Total Pitching Points – 9th (4th-T)
- Total Points – 10th (2nd-T)
Summary:
We kick off the team previews with what is probably the most surprising result my spreadsheet spit out. Last year, the Cougars tied for second place, which was their best finish in over 20 years. These projections don’t like their chances of duplicating that result. One possible explanation for this dreary outlook is that the Cougars current roster consists of 13 pitchers, which is more than any other team and two more than most. This means that a good chunk of their pitching totals are made up of numbers from pitchers who won’t actually contribute this season and waters down the impact of the numbers from their best pitchers. However, on that note, their best pitcher is clearly Madison Bumgarner who will spend the first month of the season on the DL with a broken finger. Chris Archer, Jameson Taillon and Luke Weaver will look to pick up the slack. The Cougars have a bunch of interesting young pitchers who they will be able to shuffle in and out of the rotation until they find the best combination. I would heavily bet the over on the Cougars saves projection, which was also impacted by the sheer quantity of relief pitchers on the current roster. They should be able to roll out four closers most of the season, so a finish near the top in saves seems likely. The offensive projections are a little more worrisome for the Cougars. Charlie Blackmon and Kris Bryant are elite players, but they are going to need a couple other guys to reach All-Star caliber levels this season. Some candidates for that include first round pick Tommy Pham and last year’s first overall pick, shortstop Trevor Story. Story bouncing back from a disappointing DTBL rookie campaign might be the key to the Cougars season. Somebody has to come in last in these prognostications. It would be pretty surprising if the Cougars fell all the way to the bottom of the league in 2018 though.
Charlie’s Thunder Choppers
Category – Projected Rank (2017 Rank)
- Batting Average – 9th (9th)
- Home Runs – 10th (10th)
- Runs Batted In – 10th (9th)
- Runs Scored – 10th (9th)
- Stolen Bases – 1st (7th)
- Earned Run Average – 8th (4th)
- WHIP Ratio – 4th (3rd)
- Wins – 4th (6th)
- Saves - 2nd (2nd)
- Strike Outs – 4th (1st)
- Total Batting Points – 10th (10th)
- Total Pitching Points – 4th (3rd)
- Total Points – 7th-T (7th)
Summary:
After four straight seasons in the top half of the standings, the Choppers took a step backwards in 2017 and fell to seventh place. Their strong pitching staff couldn’t overcome an offense that finished dead last in batting points. According to these projections, they could be in for a repeat of that again this season. The Choppers attempted to improve their offense by drafting Whit Merrifield and Delino DeShields Jr and trading for Andrew McCutchen. Clearly, this will be a speedier team in ’18. With regular playing time, DeShields could contend for the league lead in stolen bases. But questions remain on where the power will come from. Anthony Rizzo and Byron Buxton appear to be the best offensive players on the squad. After those two though, the player with the next highest projected batting PAR is actually 10th round pick Randal Grichuk. The pitching numbers are much more promising. I’m not sure they will be able to lead the league in strikeouts again this year, but Chris Sale, Danny Duffy and Jon Lester form an impressive trio of left-handed starters. Joining them this year will be Trevor Bauer, who had a sneaky impressive strikeout total a year ago. The bullpen remains one of the best in the league, led by Craig Kimbrel and Ken Giles. It would be surprising if the Choppers don’t have one of the better pitching staffs in the league this year. But in order for them to return to the top half of the standings, they will need to be a better hitting team.
Dom’s Demigods
Category – Projected Rank (2017 Rank)
- Batting Average – 2nd (2nd)
- Home Runs – 7th (4th)
- Runs Batted In – 5th (2nd)
- Runs Scored – 7th (8th)
- Stolen Bases – 9th (6th)
- Earned Run Average – 4th (5th)
- WHIP Ratio – 5th (5th)
- Wins – 6th (1st-T)
- Saves – 7th (9th)
- Strike Outs – 10th (8th)
- Total Batting Points – 7th (3rd-T)
- Total Pitching Points – 7th (6th)
- Total Points – 7th-T (4th)
Summary:
Much like the Cougars, the Demigods are projected to take a tumble in the standings after finishing in fourth place a year ago. Also like the Cougars, a possible explanation for the fall could be tied to their current roster construction. In the Demigods case, four of the five extra players are hitters. They continue to have a very deep roster of solid hitters. Jose Altuve and J.D. Martinez were two of the best players in the league last year and should be again this season. Add in Francisco Lindor and Freddie Freeman and you have the makings of a team that doesn’t look like the seventh best offense in the league, but that is what the projections are saying. Perhaps some of their veterans could be declining a bit, like Buster Posey and Evan Longoria. And it remains to be seen if Ryan Zimmerman can build on his ’17 resurgence. Overall though, this looks like a good hitting team. Outside of Cy Young winner Corey Kluber, the pitching staff was a little disappointing last year though. Aaron Nola and newcomer Alex Wood could blossom into stars this season. The Demigods will be looking for bounce-back seasons from Johnny Cueto and Cole Hamels. The bullpen is likely to be a weakness. While they could have as many as three closers, not one of them is in a particularly safe situation. Fernando Rodney did manage to save 39 games a year ago though. While the Demigods are projected to finish seventh in the league in both batting and pitching points, I believe their offense is much stronger than the pitching staff right now. Will Kluber be able to carry them into contention again this year?
Kat’s Komodos
Category – Projected Rank (2017 Rank – Gators)
- Batting Average – 7th (6th)
- Home Runs - 3rd (5th)
- Runs Batted In – 7th (10th)
- Runs Scored - 2nd (3rd)
- Stolen Bases - 2nd (1st)
- Earned Run Average – 10th (8th)
- WHIP Ratio – 10th (8th)
- Wins - 3rd (5th)
- Saves – 9th (10th)
- Strike Outs – 9th (9th)
- Total Batting Points – 2nd (6th)
- Total Pitching Points – 10th (10th)
- Total Points – 7th-T (10th)
Summary:
The Komodos inaugural DTBL seasons should be pretty interesting. They inherited a Gators roster that finished in last place a year ago, but had a relatively decent offense. Early signs are that the Komodos could be more than just decent with the bats. The pitching staff, however, is still a work in progress. Adding Cody Bellinger to an already potent lineup has helped make the Komodos the second best offensive team in the entire league, according to these projections. Jose Ramirez looks to build on his breakout ’17 campaign. Other young players who could be poised to do big things in ’18 include Starling Marte, Joey Gallo and Corey Seager. Also, don’t forget about Wil Myers, Yoenis Cespedes, Eddie Rosario and Nelson Cruz. The Komodos received some bad news today with catcher Salvador Perez suffering an off-field knee injury that will shelve him until mid-May or so. But otherwise, things are looking up for the Komodos hitters. The pitching staff will have trouble escaping the cellar, however. Jose Quintana is definitely the ace of the staff. Rich Hill and Gio Gonzalez are solid veterans. As is Ervin Santana, but he will likely miss the first month with a hand injury. One young pitcher to keep an eye on is Dylan Bundy. The bullpen has some interesting guys, most notably recent acquisition Aroldis Chapman, but may struggle to rack up saves. Greg Holland remains an unsigned free agent. Getting him onto a roster as a closer would certainly help. It will be fun to see if the Komodos can make some noise in their first season.