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Starting pitchers dominated the first couple of rounds of the 2022 DTBL Draft. Seven starters were chosen in the first twelve picks, six of them having DTBL rookie eligibility. While a couple of them had disappointing seasons due to injuries and/or underachievement, this will still go down as one of the best rookie pitching classes in recent memory. Three of those pitchers, in particular, were impactful contributors to their teams and wound up finishing at the top of the rookie of the year vote. In one of the tightest votes imaginable, Choppers right handed hurler Dylan Cease is the 2022 DTBL Rookie of the Year.
Cease took a bit of a circuitous route to this award. First, while he obviously was a DTBL rookie this season, it was not his first season in the league’s player pool. After making his much anticipated MLB debut in the summer of 2019, he was added to the league for 2020, but went undrafted prior to that pandemic shortened campaign. Late in the season, the Choppers took a flyer on him as a free agent signing, but did not put him on their major league roster. Because of his somewhat pedestrian numbers that year, leading the American League in walks without a terribly impressive strikeout total, he was released by the Choppers and then dropped from the league for the 2021 season. 2021 was his true breakout season, significantly reigning in the walks while nearly doubling his strikeout rate, making him a hot commodity for the 2022 draft.
The Choppers took Cease with the ninth pick of the first round this year. He proceeded to build upon that strong 2021 season with an even better 2022. His ERA hovered around 2.00 most of the summer before settling to an extremely impressive 2.20. He actually led MLB in walks. But despite that, his hit suppression was so strong that he still finished with an excellent 1.11 WHIP. He won 14 games and led all rookies with 227 strikeouts. Only three other pitchers recorded more strikeouts this season. The Choppers led the league in pitching points and Cease was the primary reason for that. He led the staff in wins, strikeouts and ERA among qualified pitchers. It was all the Choppers could have hoped for in solidifying their staff. Cease, along with fellow rookie Logan Gilbert, should give the Choppers a formidable pitching staff for quite some time to come.
This Rookie of the Year award was hotly contested. Cease was hardly the only rookie pitcher to have a season worthy of the award. And the vote reflected that. Cease received five of the nine first place votes cast. On the other four ballots, he was ranked second. Meanwhile, Moonshiners pitcher Alek Manoah, who was picked two spots before Cease in the draft, received the other four first place tallies and was placed second on all of the other ballots. Manoah won two more games than Cease and had a better WHIP, while Cease had more strikeouts and an ever so slight edge in ERA. Manoah also had a slight edge in PAR (11.7 vs. 10.4). So this was a tough call for voters. In the end, Cease’s 78 points put him three ahead of Manoah’s 75. Both figure to be candidates for the Cy Young award as well, so it will be interesting to see how they stack up in that vote. Yet another starting pitcher came in third in the vote. Komodos lefty Shane McClanahan was possibly the leading candidate for this award before being knocked out by injury for a bit in the late summer. He still managed to strike out 194 with a 2.54 ERA and a sub-1.00 WHIP. McClanahan was the third and final player to appear on all nine ballots, receiving five third place votes for a total of 35 points. Finally, we have a hitter in the mix with Jackalope outfielder Adolis Garcia finishing in the fourth spot. Garcia led all rookies with a 5.7 Batting PAR. He hit an impressive 27 home runs with 25 stolen bases. Garcia received the other four third place votes that didn’t go to McClanahan and finished with 28 points. Rounding out the top five is another starting pitcher. Darkhorses first round selection Logan Webb also lived up to the rookie hype with 15 wins and a 2.90 ERA. Webb compiled 10 points in the vote to finish in fifth place.
Click here to view the full voting results.
I haven’t figured out the exact schedule for the announcement of the other two awards, but am hoping to do both before the end of this week. It seems unlikely the vote for either will be as close as this one, but we shall see!