Kings Win Again!

[Kevin]

This may sound like old news (actually it is old news since I'm just getting around to writing this article a month after the season ended), but Kevin's Kings are the Dream Team Baseball League champions. The Kings won their fourth consecutive league title. They are the first franchise to capture four championships, passing up Kelly's Cougars who have won three. Early in the season, it seemed unlikely that the Kings would hold onto their crown. Certainly nobody would have expected them to have the league locked up with more than a month to go, but that is exactly what happened. The Kings put on a run early in the summer and never looked back. They cruised to an 11 point victory over the Moonshiners. It was the third largest margin of victory in league history, behind the '00 Kings (13) and the '94 Cougars (14). Unlike previous years, the Kings won this title because of their offense. They lead the league with 43 batting points. This team does not have a lot of top MVP candidates, but plenty of guys who had great seasons. Alex Rodriguez led the bunch with 47 home runs and 118 RBIs. He was one of nine players to hit at least 25 home runs for the Kings. Six players drove in at least 100 runs. Rodriguez tied for the league lead in home runs, while Juan Pierre blew away the competition with 65 stolen bases, giving the Kings an unusual second place finish in both home runs and steals. The pitching staff wasn't too bad either, finishing with 36 points and leading the league in wins. The starting rotation was outstanding, especially considering that injuries sidelined Randy Johnson for much of the season and ended A.J. Burnett's year almost before it even started. Tim Hudson, Russ Ortiz and Jason Schmidt all had terrific seasons. Schmidt led the league in WHIP (0.954) and finished second in ERA (2.34). Ortiz could have led the league in wins had he not been benched for a couple weeks early in the season. He finished with 19 wins for the Kings. A couple moves helped the Kings reclaim the title. They acquired Luis Gonzalez from the Mavericks to shore up a questionable outfield. That outfield was anything but questionable after adding Gonzalez and then stealing Vernon Wells with the 20th pick in the March draft. Wells was the Kings most consistent hitter all season. Finally, the Kings traded for Tim Worrell to shore up an otherwise weak bullpen. 2003 was a very good year for a few other teams as well. The Moonshiners proved they are one of the league's top teams, finishing a franchise high second place. The Gators returned as one of the elite teams, finishing in third place. Meanwhile, the Mavericks and Naturals made huge strides in a postive direction. On the flip side, a couple teams would like to forget that this season ever happened. The Jackalope were considered a favorite to win the title before the season began. Somehow, they followed up a second place season with a second-to-last finish. The Choppers finished out of the top four for the first time since 1996. Nothing went right for the Darkhorses, who finished last by a large margin. The post-season awards voting should be extremely interesting and tight. A lot of players had tremendous seasons, but no one player really stood out like years past. Eleven DTBL seasons have been completed. Still, only four franchises have won titles, all of which were original DTBL members. However, that should change soon since many of the former elite teams have fallen and some new blood seems to be rising to the top.