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The Mavericks were clearly the best team in the DTBL 2020 Sim league, nearly from the start of the season to the finish. Yes, they trailed the Demigods by a couple games at the mid-season mark, but the underlying numbers pointed to them being the better team. That certainly manifested itself in the second half when the Mavericks cruised out in front and won the regular season title by seven games. But in a couple best-of-seven series against solid teams, anything can happen. Yet the Mavericks continued to exert their strength throughout the Postseason. They topped the Demigods in six games in the Semi-Finals and then dominated the Choppers in the World Series, finishing them off in five games. Marc’s Mavericks are the DTBL 2020 Sim Champions.
While it would have been tough to predict what to expect in such a sim league, the Mavericks winning it all is not a huge surprise. What was surprising was the overall composition of the playoff field. The Choppers and Demigods finished in ninth and tenth places in the DTBL in 2019. They finished second and fourth in this league. The Choppers numbers indicate that they may be better constructed for a real baseball setup than a fantasy league because they led the league in several areas that play no role in fantasy baseball. They were #1 in all defensive metrics and in base running efficiency. That said, they were a strong offensive team as well, leading the league in runs. The Demigods were probably the league’s most overachieving team. They rode that hot start to a playoff spot despite being below average in both run scored and runs allowed. The fourth playoff qualifier, the Kings, were not a surprise postseason participant, but never really displayed any sort of dominance in this league. They were simply an above average team in almost all aspects.
Then there were the Mavericks, who were rode a deep lineup and easily the league’s best pitching staff to the regular season and World Series championships. They finished second in Batting WAR and first in Pitching WAR, by a wide margin. Their 3.60 team ERA was basically 7/10 of a run better than the next best team. On the individual player front, the leaderboards were loaded with Mavericks. Juan Soto and Mike Trout finished second and third in both WAR (7.1/6.4) and OPS (.930/.897). Jack Flaherty led the league in ERA (2.36), strikeouts (257) and Pitching WAR (5.9). Stephen Strasburg was top three in those categories as well and won more games than any other pitcher (19). No team could match the Mavericks lineup and rotation depth. Aaron Judge and Javy Baez are pretty scary bottom third of the order hitters. And I don’t think Clayton Kershaw would have been all the way down in the fourth spot of any other team’s rotation.
The Postseason played out to form with the favored teams winning all three series. The Demigods did give the Mavericks a bit of a scare, winning Game 1 and forcing the series back to Maui where the Mavericks eventually finished it in an exciting Game 6 that went extra innings before Mike Trout hit a walk-off three run homer to send the Mavericks to the World Series. The Kings/Choppers series also lasted six games and featured a couple wild ones. The Choppers stole Game 2 by scoring six runs in the bottom of the 9th to shock the Kings 13-12. Then they won a critical Game 4 by a score of 8-5 in 10 innings to tie up the series. The Choppers would go on to win the next two to close out the series. Bullpens struggled for both teams in this series, especially for the Kings.
The World Series was pretty one sided on the whole, but did end with a couple exciting games. The Mavericks cruised to victories in the first three games, each of which featured Mavericks starting pitchers stifling the Choppers offense. Jack Flaherty, Stephen Strasburg and Mike Soroka were nearly untouchable. The Choppers showed some life in Game 4, putting up 11 runs which was eight more than they had scored in the previous three games combined. But it was back to pitching domination in Game 5, this time by both teams with Flaherty and Chris Sale throwing nearly identical seven inning gems. The game was scoreless until the ninth inning when Eloy Jimenez hit a three run homer. The Choppers rallied in the bottom half, but only pushed across one run, so the Mavericks won the decisive game 3-1. Jimenez’s huge Game 5 homer was his fourth of the series. He was named World Series MVP.
Not surprisingly, the Mavericks were well represented among the full season award winners as well. Jack Flaherty was the unanimous choice for the Cy Young award, with teammate Stephen Strasburg finishing second. Kings outfielder Mookie Betts took the Most Valuable Player honor with the Mavericks trio of Juan Soto, Mike Trout and Flaherty all finishing in the top five as well. Moonshiners LHP Brendan McKay might have been the most surprising star of the season. He took home the Rookie of the Year award for his efforts.
I hope you enjoyed following along with this sim the past four months. It was no substitute for the real thing, but it was nice to have some baseball to digest during these difficult times. Fortunately, it appears we will have some real fantasy baseball (how about that oxymoron?) to follow starting later this week. With that, I will be kicking off my 2020 DTBL season preview articles tomorrow.