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One of the cool things about the longevity of this league is that now most of the newly inducted members in the Baseball Hall of Fame are players who accumulated most of their Hall of Fame credentials as members of DTBL teams. This has been the case for a while, but some year’s classes carry more significance to this league than others. The 2018 class featured four of the best players in our league’s history: Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Chipper Jones and Jim Thome. Also inducted were Alan Trammell and Jack Morris. Trammell played until 1996, but was never on a DTBL major league roster. Morris had a brief, unimpressive stint with the Gators in the league’s inaugural season. But here is a synopsis of the DTBL careers of the big four who were inducted in Cooperstown the last week of July.
Vladimir Guerrero was originally drafted by the expansion Angels in 1998 and was a member of that team for their only season of existence. He then returned to the draft pool the following year and somehow fell all the way to the Choppers with the 8th pick of the 1999 draft. Needless to say, that pick worked out pretty well for them. He spent the remaining 13 seasons of his DTBL career with the Choppers, winning a championship in his first season with them (1999). Guerrero ranks sixth in DTBL history with a .319 average and is in the top 10 in RBI as well (1,415). His name is littered all over the Choppers franchise leaderboard: second in average (.319), RBI (1,306) and runs (1,130), third in home runs (390) and sixth in stolen bases (165). Not everyone recalls his base stealing prowess. There are 16 DTBL players with 400 home runs (Adrian Beltre just recently joined this group). Of those 16 guys, only Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds and Gary Sheffield have more than Guerrero’s 176 career steals. Vlad was as consistent of a hitter as the league has ever seen. In his first nine seasons, he hit over .300 with 30+ homers and 100+ RBI in all but one year (2003). In seasons in which he qualified for the batting title (400 at bats) his *worst* batting average was .300 in 2010.
In the history of baseball, only one pitcher has recorded more saves than Trevor Hoffman (Mariano Rivera). The same is true of DTBL history. His 560 saves is 136 more than any pitcher not named Rivera, so he figures to hold onto the second spot for quite some time to come. Unlike the other three players covered here, Hoffman doesn’t have an obvious choice of team cap to wear on his fictional DTBL Hall of Fame plaque. He spent time with six different franchises. His longest tenures were five seasons with two different teams: Panthers (1997-2001) and Moonshiners (2004-2008). He started his career with the Kings (1995-1997), spent two stints with the Darkhorses (2002-2003, 2009) and split his final season (2010) with the Mavericks and Naturals. He is the Moonshiners franchise leader in saves (202) and ranks third on the Panthers list (191). Hoffman recorded at least 30 saves every year from 1995 through 2008, except for an injury marred 2003. In addition to the gaudy save totals, he also struck out 948 batters, which ranks fourth among pitchers who spent their entire careers in the bullpen. His 2.78 career ERA ranks fourth among all pitchers. He was a member of two DTBL championship winning teams, near the end of his career: the 2009 Darkhorses and 2010 Naturals.
Chipper Jones was a slugging third baseman in an era when that wasn’t really a thing. It is basically him and Adrian Beltre at the top of all of the DTBL third baseman hitting rankings. Most of his best seasons were spent as a member of the Jackalope. He started his career with the Tidal Wave and was with them for both of their years of existence. Then he joined another expansion team, the Jackalope, as their first pick in 1998. He was released by the Jackalope after a decent 2006 season and added a couple more solid years with the Darkhorses in 2007 through 2009. His final three seasons saw him bounce from the Cougars to the Mavericks and then back to the Darkhorses. It was the Jackalope years that really made him a Hall of Fame player though. With them, he hit .310 with 276 home runs, 874 RBI and 868 runs, all four totals rank in the top four of Jackalope history. His career numbers also put him in elite company: .308, 411 HR, 1,422 RBI, 1,414 runs. The only other members of the .300/400/1,400/1,400 club are Barry Bonds, Manny Ramirez and Albert Pujols. While Jones’ best seasons were with the Jackalope, his championship winning years came with the Darkhorses. He was a member of the Darkhorses for the first three of their four consecutive titles (2007-2009). He was a teammate of Hoffman’s on that 2009 squad.
Finally, we have Jim Thome, one of the most feared sluggers of the past quarter century. Thome ranks fourth on the DTBL career list in home runs (546) and fifth in runs batted in (1,492). No current member of the Baseball Hall of Fame has accumulated more DTBL home runs or RBI than Thome. He is one of the few sluggers at the top of those lists without any PED taint. He spent his entire DTBL career with just two teams. Thome was originally a member of the Kings, but is best remembered as a member of the Choppers, who acquired him in the second round of the 1999 draft. Yes, the Choppers selected Hall of Famers in the first two rounds of that ’99 draft. He spent 11 seasons with the Choppers (1999-2009), which was surrounded by a pair of stints with the Kings (1995-1998, 2010). With the Choppers, he amassed 401 home runs, bested only by Sammy Sosa. His 1,094 RBI and 976 runs both rank fourth in Choppers history. Thome hit at least 40 home runs in six different seasons. Probably the best season of his career came in 2002 when he slugged a career high 52 homers with a .304 average. From 1999 through 2003, he hit at least 30 home runs with 100+ RBI and runs each year. His lone DTBL championship came in his first season with the Choppers, 1999, when he was a teammate of Guerrero’s. Coincidentally, all four of these new Hall-of-Famers were members of either the 1999 Choppers or 2009 Darkhorses.
Congratulations to four of the greatest players in DTBL history: Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Chipper Jones and Jim Thome!
Now here are the weekly and monthly award winners for July 2018.
Batters of the Week:
Week 15 (7/2 – 7/8) – Yulieski Gurriel, Demigods
Week 16 (7/9 – 7/15) – Jose Ramirez, Komodos
Week 17 (7/16 – 7/22) – Matt Carpenter, Choppers
Week 18 (7/23 – 7/29) – Jonathan Schoop, Mavericks
Pitchers of the Week:
Week 15 (7/2 – 7/8) – Dallas Keuchel, Moonshiners
Week 16 (7/9 – 7/15) – Aaron Nola, Demigods
Week 17 (7/16 – 7/22) – Zack Greinke, Moonshiners
Week 18 (7/23 – 7/29) – Rick Porcello, Cougars
Compiling the information above exposed a bit of a flaw in my code that captures the Batter and Pitcher of the Week winners each week. In two instances, the above players were not the ones I captured. Instead, I had players who weren’t on an active DTBL roster at the time. This has happened before, but I don’t recall seeing two instances of it in the same month. I should probably take some time to fix this. Anyway, because I don’t store weekly PAR numbers beyond the top batter and pitcher, I had to take a guess at who should have won these awards. So it is quite possible that Yulieski Gurriel and Rick Porcello were not the rightful winners in their respective weeks. What is certain is the accuracy of the monthly PAR totals for July. Here are the players of the month.
Batter of the Month:
Jose Ramirez, Komodos
.322 AVG, 8 HR, 25 RBI, 21 R, 11 SB, 3.55 PAR
Pitcher of the Month:
Zack Greinke, Moonshiners
1.60 ERA, 0.891 WHIP, 4 W, 0 SV, 35 K, 2.61 PAR
When I see eye-popping numbers in all five categories, I often will run a Baseball Reference Play Index search to see if any other players in DTBL history have matched or exceeded all of the monthly numbers compiled by the batter or pitcher of the month. In this case, Jose Ramirez’s July, I found no results. So, prior to July, no DTBL player had ever hit .322+ with 8+ home runs, 25+ RBI, 21+ runs and 11+ stolen bases in a single month. These numbers were especially impressive coming in July with the All-Star break taking away a couple additional games played. Ramirez is currently leading the DTBL in Batting PAR and home runs. He is second in stolen bases and not far behind the leaders in RBI and runs either. The Komodos third baseman has a strong case for MVP if he continues to be a five category force. Ramirez won this award in a landslide, but finishing second was his Indians teammate Francisco Lindor.
Zack Grienke is quietly compiling another great season to add to his impressive career resume. When discussing the top pitchers of the game today, Greinke is rarely mentioned. But he is posting a sub 3.00 ERA with a dozen wins and more than a strikeout per inning. In July, Greinke tied for the league lead with four wins while compiling a 1.60 ERA and 0.89 WHIP. With the recently added 2005 PAR numbers, Greinke’s entire career PAR has been calculated. Since 2005, only three other pitchers (Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer) have exceeded his 79.0 PAR. Greinke just barely edged out Chris Sale for this monthly honor.