2025 Season Preview: Part III

March 30th, 2025 by Kevin

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The first weekend of the 2025 MLB season has come to an end.  Early indications are the Yankees might torpedo the record book if they keep up their current home run pace.  Nothing like an equipment controversy to get the season started!

This brings us to the final installment of our 2025 DTBL season preview series.  My cutoff decision for which teams will be covered in which sections is generally determined by grouping teams that are all expected to finish closely bunched in the standings.  That was true of both of the first two parts this year.  That is not exactly the case for this last one though.  The team that is projected to win the league this year has no peer according to these rankings.  They would have deserved their own article if my grouping rule was strictly enforced.  That’s not to say these other two teams don’t look strong in their own right though.  This final group contains last year’s top two teams joined by what would be the team with the biggest jump in the standings this year if these numbers turn out correct.  These are the teams projected to finish in the top three spots in the standings.

 

David’s Darkhorses

Category – Projected Rank (2024 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 4th (4th)
  • Home Runs – 9th (10th)
  • Runs Batted In – 8th (10th)
  • Runs Scored – 9th (9th)
  • Stolen Bases – 9th (3rd)
  • Earned Run Average – 1st (7th)
  • WHIP Ratio – 1st (8th)
  • Wins – 4th (5th-T)
  • Saves – 1st (2nd)
  • Strike Outs – 2nd (7th)
  • Total Batting Points – 9th (7th)
  • Total Pitching Points – 1st (7th)
  • Total Points – 3rd (8th)

Summary:

Here we have the biggest movers relative to their 2024 finish in this preview series.  It makes some sense because last year was a bit of an aberration for the Darkhorses who fell to eighth place a year after finishing a close second.  Their fall can almost entirely be pinned on being without arguably their best two starting pitchers and best relief pitcher for almost the entire season.  These projections show them returning to their prior spot as the top pitching staff in the league.  Whether or not you believe such a turnaround is possible depends on the belief in Spencer Strider, Jacob deGrom and Felix Bautista returning to their pre-injury form and doing it for most of the season.  Logan Webb, Hunter Greene and Sonny Gray join Strider and deGrom to make up what projects to be the best rotation in the league.  But it remains to be seen if Strider and deGrom will be able to recapture their prior stuff and remain healthy throughout the season.  Justin Steele and Brandon Woodruff were nice insurance adds in the draft, though the latter is also coming back from his own major injury.  The Darkhorses managed to finish second in the league in saves last year even without Bautista.  So having him back in the mix along with Andres Munoz, Robert Suarez, Chris Martin and maybe even Calvin Faucher make them the favorites to lead the way in saves this year.  Unless injuries ravage the Darkhorses again, the pitching staff is too good for them to finish near the bottom of the standings again this year.  Whether or not they can contend for a title will depend on if the offense is able to take a big step forward.  Interestingly, the Darkhorses have an overall third place projection despite also having one of the poorest batting point projections in the league.  That’s because only two players are projected for Batting PAR totals over 3:  Bryce Harper and third overall draft pick Jackson Merrill.  Merrill provides the most hope for an improved offense.  He will supplement a mostly veteran lineup.  In the outfield, Merrill is joined by Christian Yelich, George Springer, Taylor Ward and Cedric Mullins.  The infield is also full of veterans like Harper, Xander Bogaerts, Alex Bregman and Carlos Correa.  The infield youth injection is second round pick Jackson Holliday, who had a rough introduction to the big leagues last year.  But at this time a year ago, he was the consensus top prospect in the game, so enormous upside still remains.  Another pre-prime infielder on the roster is shortstop Masyn Winn.  This third place projection does make sense for a talented Darkhorses roster.  Their most likely path to this sort of finish though will require more offensive production because there are just too many health concerns on the pitching front to be confident of them racking up 46 out of 50 possible pitching points.

 

Mike’s Moonshiners

Category – Projected Rank (2024 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 2nd (5th)
  • Home Runs – 3rd (2nd)
  • Runs Batted In – 4th (2nd)
  • Runs Scored – 3rd (3rd)
  • Stolen Bases – 8th (8th)
  • Earned Run Average – 2nd (3rd)
  • WHIP Ratio – 5th (4th)
  • Wins – 2nd (1st-T)
  • Saves – 6th (4th)
  • Strike Outs - 3rd (5th)
  • Total Batting Points – 3rd (3rd)
  • Total Pitching Points – 3rd (2nd)
  • Total Points – 2nd (2nd)

Summary:

The Moonshiners are the only team projected to finish within shouting distance of the top dog.  They are similarly one of only two teams that are projected to be above average in both batting and pitching points.  Most years a roster like this might even come out on top of such an exercise.  Of course, it would be pretty hard *not* to have an above average offense with Shohei Ohtani on the squad.  He comfortably leads the league in projected Batting PAR at an incredible 10.6, two points higher than any other player.  He’s not doing it alone though.  Kyle Tucker and Vladimir Guerrero Jr are also among the top hitters in the league.  Ohtani and Tucker are joined in the outfield by a couple underappreciated performers in Ian Happ and Riley Greene.  Guerrero and Rafael Devers will continue to anchor the corner infield spots.  The spring controversy over what position Devers will play shouldn’t be too much of an issue for the Moonshiners as long as he keeps hitting.  The middle infield was perhaps a bit if a weakness, so they traded for Bo Bichette to unite him with Guerrero in this league as well as Toronto.  Bichette joins Ezequiel Tovar at shortstop.  Tovar is another guy on this team whose production easily exceeds the hype.  Perhaps the top breakout candidate on the roster is third baseman Junior Caminero who had a nice cameo in the big leagues at the end of last season and is now ready to do it for a full campaign for the first time.  Tarik Skubal was a bit of a one man show in the Moonshiners rotation a year ago.  The Cy Young winner was the only standout performer of the group, but was so dominant that the team finished second in pitching points.  He is the only pitcher who was a member of that rotation for a majority of last season who is back this year.  But now he has some help in the way of first round draft pick Garrett Crochet.  The Red Sox new ace gives the Moonshiners the nastiest pair of left handed pitchers in the league.  A potential third nasty left hander on this staff is MacKenzie Gore who got his season off to a grand start on Thursday.  And of course they added Robbie Ray in the draft too because you just can’t have enough nasty lefties.  Kodai Senga was added as well, but last I checked he throws with his right hand.  The Moonshiners bullpen has an interesting mix right now with Tanner Scott and Edwin Diaz likely to keep them afloat in saves.  They added Edwin’s brother Alexis Diaz, however he is starting the season on the injured list.  They also return Clay Holmes in a relief slot, while he is now a starting pitcher and Opening Day starter for the Mets, which could provide an avenue for extra strikeouts and wins.  There is a lot to like about this entire roster.  They do not appear to have any of the flaws that plague the teams that have been covered to this point.  However, despite that, they are also quite a ways behind the predicted champions.

 

Marc’s Mavericks

Category – Projected Rank (2024 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 3rd (1st)
  • Home Runs – 1st (1st)
  • Runs Batted In - 1st (1st)
  • Runs Scored - 1st (1st)
  • Stolen Bases - 3rd (1st-T)
  • Earned Run Average – 5th (2nd)
  • WHIP Ratio – 2nd (6th)
  • Wins – 1st (4th)
  • Saves – 5th (8th)
  • Strike Outs - 1st (1st)
  • Total Batting Points – 1st (1st)
  • Total Pitching Points - 2nd (3rd)
  • Total Points – 1st (1st)

Summary:

Is anybody actually surprised the Mavericks are the projected champions?  I did them a disservice by never getting around to writing about their incredible title winning squad from a year ago, particularly the historic performance by their offense.  They led the league in all five offensive categories, only falling a stolen base short of achieving the maximum 50 batting points.  The only team to ever accomplish that feat was the 2010 Naturals who actually had to share the championship with the Darkhorses that year.  The 1994 Cougars also had the max batting points, but it was only 30 at the time with just six teams in the league.  By the looks of things, the Mavericks should have a shot at chasing that record again this season.  They are projected to finish atop three batting categories and top three in the others.  As has been the case for quite some time now, the Mavericks have by far the best outfield in the league.  All time great Mike Trout is now quite clearly the fifth best player in this group.  Well ahead of him are perennial MVP candidates Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, last year’s breakout star Jarren Duran and Jazz Chisholm who figures to move out of this crowded outfield back to the dirt next year.  If the first weekend of the season is any indication, we’re going to be talking about Judge in particular an awful lot this year.  The infield is only weak in comparison to the outfield, not other teams’ infields.  Bobby Witt Jr leads the way at shortstop, a MVP candidate in his own right.  Ozzie Albies, Manny Machado and Willy Adames are the other mainstays here.  William Contreras may be the best offensive catcher in the game now.  He’s joined behind the plate by newcomer Austin Wells who could be a fantasy stud as well.  It is truly an embarrassment of riches up and down the Mavericks lineup.  The scary thing for the rest of the league is that the pitching staff looks a decent bit better than last year’s squad which was already quite good.  They used their first two draft picks on starting pitchers with big upside:  Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Spencer Schwellenbach.  They will join reigning NL Cy Young award winner Chris Sale, Pablo Lopez, Hunter Brown and Freddy Peralta.  Not only does this staff have several potential aces, it is also quite deep now.  The bullpen is the only spot on the roster where you could maybe make a case they aren’t elite.  Mason Miller is though.  In addition to saves, he could put up a strikeout total that more closely resembles that of a starter with twice as many innings thrown.  He is the only certain closer on the team though.  Liam Hendriks and A.J. Puk are potential wild cards to add on here.  In total, the 87 projected standings points are easily the most ever since I’ve started doing this over a decade ago and the 15 point gap over all other teams is also unprecedented.  To say the Mavericks are the team to beat this year is an understatement.

 

That brings us to the conclusion of this consolidated 2025 DTBL season preview series.  Here are the full projected standings and team point totals for the ten categories:

 

Good luck to all this season.  Let’s have another great year!

Posted in Darkhorses, Mavericks, Moonshiners | No Comments »

2025 Season Preview: Part II

March 29th, 2025 by Kevin

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Before I get to the next set of teams in this DTBL season preview series, I want to take a moment to expand upon a passing comment I made up top in the first section.  I was a bit pressed for time while writing that night.  I mentioned that I was leaning towards switching away from the Fangraphs Depth Charts as the projection system of choice next year.  The reason for this is because I think it seriously overrates players who are either injury prone or are returning from major injuries.  As a quick refresher, Depth Charts combines two other projections systems, ZiPS and Steamer, and then adjusts for expected playing time depending on the MLB team’s current roster.  The reason why I’ve liked this in the past is because it more accurately accounts for how much, or how little, of a role upcoming prospects might play for their teams and which guys might be stuck in platoon situations.  However, as MLB teams are now incentivized to call up prospects earlier, this has become less useful.  So some of the strengths of this system are being outweighed by the weaknesses in projecting playing time for injury prone players.  Let’s take a player who wasn’t drafted this year as an example:  Rays pitcher Drew Rasmussen.  He has the 11th highest projected Pitching PAR of any player who was available in this year’s draft.  The reason for that is because one projection system, ZiPS, was especially high on his performance, but in only 76 innings.  When you extrapolate that out to Depth Charts’ 125 projected innings, you get outstanding numbers.  However, that’s not really what ZiPS was projecting.  Rasmussen has only pitched more than 80 innings once in his career.  So the ZiPS innings projection makes more sense to me than what Depth Charts spits out.  There are similar weaknesses among hitters who can’t stay healthy as well.  So I’m going to take a closer look at this next winter and possibly pick a different projection system to use for this effort.

Anyway, as the first weekend of the 2025 MLB season gets underway, let’s take a look at a few more DTBL teams heading into the new season.  This group is projected to finish in the middle of the pack, comfortably ahead of the four teams covered in part one, but also a decent ways behind the top contenders.  These teams don’t have the glaring weaknesses of the teams covered in the first section, but also may need some special overachieving performances to chase for a title.  Here are the teams projected to finishing fourth through sixth places this year.

 

Kat’s Komodos

Category – Projected Rank (2024 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 1st (6th)
  • Home Runs – 5th (4th)
  • Runs Batted In – 3rd (6th)
  • Runs Scored – 8th (8th)
  • Stolen Bases – 7th (7th)
  • Earned Run Average – 6th (8th)
  • WHIP Ratio – 7th (3rd)
  • Wins – 7th (5th-T)
  • Saves – 3rd (5th)
  • Strike Outs – 9th (6th)
  • Total Batting Points – 4th (6th)
  • Total Pitching Points – 6th (5th-T)
  • Total Points – 6th (6th)

Summary:

The Komodos have been quietly sneaking up the standings the past couple years and could now be in a position to break into the top half of the standings, although here they are picked to finish the same place as last year in sixth place.  The offense is well rounded with solid, reliable contributors across the board.  Jose Ramirez remains the star of the show and once again should be expected to be among the league’s best all around players.  Josh Naylor is replacing Christian Walker at first base in Arizona, but both return as teammates with the Komodos where they are joined by Yandy Diaz to provide quality depth.  Corey Seager and Anthony Volpe will anchor the shortstop position once again.  The newcomer on the infield is Luis Garcia Jr who finally put it all together last year and is now a quality power and speed guy at a pretty shallow second base position.  The Komodos outfield was a bit of a disappointment last year.  However, on paper, this looks like a very strong group heading into this season with the addition of first round pick James Wood.  Yordan Alvarez should be in the running to lead the league in homers.  A change of scenery could do Cody Bellinger some good, especially now playing in the lefty hitting paradise of Yankee Stadium.  Then there is Luis Robert Jr who is coming off of a miserable, injury plagued season.  If he can return to form, he remains one of the highest upside fantasy stars in the game.  A return to form could also help get him traded away from the sorry White Sox.  These projections call for the Komodos to finish fourth in the league in batting points.  I could see them moving up even higher than that if all goes well.  The pitching staff will likely determine the team’s ultimate fate though.  There is a proven track record of success from their entire rotation.  However, I’m a tad skeptical that Shane McClanahan and Walker Buehler, with their checkered health in recent years, will accumulate 150+ innings as these projections call for.  Framber Valdez and Tanner Bibee are the safer bets to lead this pitching staff.  Bailey Ober is a reliable anchor and Christopher Sanchez was a nice pickup in the second half of the draft.  Ultimately, health will be the number one factor in determining how strong this Komodos rotation will be.  The bullpen should be outstanding.  Devin Williams and Jhoan Duran are an excellent 1-2 punch that should ensure they are near the top of the league in saves.  Kenley Jansen may be past his prime, but is firmly entrenched in a closer role as well.  If Lucas Erceg is able to wrestle some saves away from former Komodo Carlos Estevez in Kansas City, the Komodos could find themselves atop the saves rankings.  There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the Komodos this season.

 

Kevin’s Kings

Category – Projected Rank (2024 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 7th (10th)
  • Home Runs – 8th (3rd)
  • Runs Batted In – 9th (7th)
  • Runs Scored – 4th (4th)
  • Stolen Bases – 5th (5th)
  • Earned Run Average – 3rd (1st)
  • WHIP Ratio - 3rd (1st)
  • Wins - 3rd (3rd)
  • Saves – 7th (3rd)
  • Strike Outs – 5th (2nd)
  • Total Batting Points – 7th (5th)
  • Total Pitching Points – 4th (1st)
  • Total Points – 5th (3rd)

Summary:

This is as low as the Kings have been projected to finish since 2021 when they were coming off of a miserable ninth place finish in the pandemic shortened 2020 season.  This time around, a fifth place finish would be a two spot drop from a respectable third place in 2024.  Taking a close look at the roster, this projection makes sense though.  The Kings entered this season with a bit of a roster construction problem as their two best offensive players, Gunnar Henderson and Mookie Betts, both moved to shortstop, leaving holes at other positions, most notably the outfield.  Randy Arozarena was their only outfield keeper.  So rebuilding that was job one heading into this season.  They did that by selecting Dylan Crews and Jasson Dominguez with their first two draft picks.  Both have tantalizing upside, but also very short major league track records, causing modest projections entering this season.  Heliot Ramos was another youngster added to the outfield mix.  The only “safe” addition to the group was Tommy Edman.  So the Kings outfield has an extremely high ceiling, but also a very low floor.  How it all works out is anyone’s guess.  One the flip side, with the arrival of Betts, the infield is quite loaded with reliable producers.  Betts, Henderson, Marcus Semien and Bryson Stott make up a loaded middle infield that caused them to trade away Bo Bichette for a second round draft pick that turned into Matt Chapman.  Chapman joins Austin Riley at the hot corner and Matt Olson at the other corner.  Other than Stott, every infielder I just mentioned is a safe bet for at least 20 homers.  The catching duo of Will Smith and Logan O’Hoppe is pretty solid as well.  The Kings offense is definitely capable of exceeding these modest expectations.  It will totally depend on what they get out of their very young outfield.  Meanwhile, they return their entire starting rotation that helped them lead the league in ERA, WHIP and total pitching points a year ago.  Zack Wheeler, Cole Ragans, George Kirby, Michael King and Bryce Miller make up the fearsome fivesome.  Kirby is starting the season on the shelf though, so he will be temporarily replaced by Carlos Rodon, back for his second stint with the Kings.  Assuming Kirby’s injury isn’t a long term concern, this is as solid of a 1-5 as any team in the league.  Like the outfield, the Kings also had to do a nearly complete rebuild of their bullpen.  Jeff Hoffman is the only returner.  Trevor Megill joins him to give the Kings two solid closers.  They hope to lock down a majority of the Phillies saves with Jordan Romano and Orion Kerkering.  However, early indications are both might be setting up for Jose Alvarado.  It seems unlikely the Kings will be able to finish as high as third in saves again this year.  The Kings infield and rotation are as good as it gets, but major questions in the outfield and bullpen make this an extremely difficult team to predict.  Fifth place would be a disappointing finish for them though.

 

Dom’s Demigods

Category – Projected Rank (2024 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 5th (3rd)
  • Home Runs - 2nd (5th-T)
  • Runs Batted In - 2nd (3rd)
  • Runs Scored - 2nd (2nd)
  • Stolen Bases – 4th (1st-T)
  • Earned Run Average – 7th (4th)
  • WHIP Ratio – 9th (9th)
  • Wins – 6th (1st-T)
  • Saves – 8th (9th)
  • Strike Outs – 8th (4th)
  • Total Batting Points – 2nd (2nd)
  • Total Pitching Points – 7th-T (5th-T)
  • Total Points – 4th (4th)

Summary:

In a world in which the Mavericks didn’t exist, we would be talking more about how great of an offensive team the Demigods were a year ago and how good they should be again this year.  The Demigods have above average hitters at pretty much every position.  Willson Contreras and Yainer Diaz project to be the best catching duo in the league, with this likely being Contreras’ last season at catcher in this league.  Speaking of guys changing positions, this also figures to be Jose Altuve’s last season anchoring second base for the Demigods.  Francisco Lindor’s incredible 2024 season got overshadowed by a few other players having historic campaigns.  He and Freddie Freeman give the Demigods a pair of MVP candidates on the infield.  A lot has been said about Isaac Paredes having the perfect swing for his new ballpark home in Houston, so that makes him an exciting addition to this already strong group.  Then there is first round pick Jordan Westburg who is only beginning to scratch his potential in Baltimore.  The Demigods outfield is perhaps not quite as deep in talent as the infield, but it does contain a pair of players who are capable of carrying the load in Corbin Carroll and Fernando Tatis Jr.  Carroll is coming off a slightly disappointing season, in which he still hit 22 homers and stole 35 bases.  Once again, the Demigods will hope for a healthy season from Byron Buxton to give this group an extra boost.  If that doesn’t happen, it may expose the only apparent weakness with the Demigods offensive roster:  a lack of depth in the outfield.  The Demigods will be looking for a better season from their pitchers if they hope to win their second title in three years.  These projections don’t quite see that happening though.  The best pitching projection belongs to second round pick Shota Imanaga, who could immediately become the staff ace in a group of solid veterans.  Max Fried is taking his talents to New York.  Zac Gallen and Aaron Nola continue to do their thing too.  The Demigods no longer get to deploy Reynaldo Lopez as a reliever, but he’s still a nice fit in the rotation.  All five of these guys have projections hovering around 4 Pitching PAR.  That’s incredibly valuable.  However, they do seem to lack a true Cy Young contender.  Traditionally, the Demigods tend to punt the saves category.  They may have assembled a group that can scrape up a few points in that category this year though.  David Bednar is the only returner.  They added Pete Fairbanks and Aroldis Chapman in the draft as a pair who should be able to grab some saves as well.  They are also hoping for a repeat of the Lopez experiment last year, with another Braves rotation piece occupying a relief pitcher slot on their roster.  This year’s version is Grant Holmes.  If he makes the All-Star team like Lopez did last year, we may be able to tag this as a foolproof plan.  The Demigods have all of the pieces to contend again this season.

 

Posted in Demigods, Kings, Komodos | No Comments »

2025 Season Preview: Part I

March 26th, 2025 by Kevin

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We’re just hours away from the real start of the 2025 MLB season, after last week’s two game appetizer in Japan.  So it’s probably about time I start the DTBL season preview series.  Because I’m so tardy getting started, I’m going to consolidate this down to a three part series, covering nearly half of the teams in this Part I.  I intend to get through all ten teams before the end of the weekend.

As usual, I’m going to use outside projections as the guiding light for my team previews.  I’ve computed projected standings using FanGraphs’ Depth Chart projections, which merges two other projection systems, ZiPS and Steamer, and then adjusts to expected playing time based on each MLB team’s depth chart.  As this year’s draft progressed, it started to occur to me that Depth Charts might not be my best option for this, for reasons that I’m not going to get into right now.  I’m just throwing this out here to remind myself to reevaluate next year.  One thing I will point out, which is a flaw in my own methodology and not the projections themselves, is that I compiled these player projections a few days prior to the start of the draft.  So injuries and other spring training developments this month may not be factored into these numbers.  Where especially relevant, I will mention this in the team write-ups.  As I say every year, I wouldn’t read into the specific ordinal rankings too heavily.  The purpose of this exercise is to get some sense of where each team’s strengths and weaknesses exist, in a largely objective fashion.

Let’s get started.  This first part is going to contain previews of the four teams projected to finish at the bottom of the standings.  I went with four both because I’m trying to consolidate this into one fewer section than in previous years, and also because these four teams are projected to finish extremely close to one another in the standings.  Just six points separate the seventh and tenth place finishers in the full projected standings, which I will share in the final article of this series.  Meanwhile, the sixth place finisher is double digit points ahead of all of these teams.  So if the projected standings are to be believed, which they honestly shouldn’t be, these are the four teams least likely to contend for the league title.

 

Charlie’s Thunder Choppers

Category – Projected Rank (2024 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 8th (9th)
  • Home Runs – 10th (9th)
  • Runs Batted In – 10th (8th)
  • Runs Scored – 5th (6th)
  • Stolen Bases – 2nd (6th)
  • Earned Run Average – 9th (6th)
  • WHIP Ratio – 8th (2nd)
  • Wins – 10th (8th)
  • Saves – 4th (6th)
  • Strike Outs – 7th (3rd)
  • Total Batting Points – 8th (8th-T)
  • Total Pitching Points – 7th-T (4th)
  • Total Points – 10th (7th)

Summary:

Well, somebody has to be last.  As mentioned up top, there really isn’t much separating any of the teams covered in this section.  The Choppers happen to wind up with the fewest projected standings points though.  Pitching is largely to blame for this, which is a bit surprising since they had an above average staff a year ago and are bringing back pretty much everyone who was responsible for that.  Although that also sort of explains the drop in the projections compared to the rest of the league.  They did not add any significant pitching pieces, at least on paper.  Their first five draft picks were all hitters and they didn’t pick a starting pitcher until the 10th round.  So the rotation to start the year figures to be the main five from last year:  Logan Gilbert, Dylan Cease, Blake Snell, Brian Woo and Taj Bradley.  There are a couple wild cards here that could improve things on the pitching side.  One would be a strong return from Tommy John surgery from last year’s first round pick Eury Perez, though that probably won’t happen until the second half of the season.  The other is the possible emergence of top pitching prospect Jackson Jobe who will begin the season in the Tigers rotation and could eventually give the Choppers a huge boost as an extra starter in a relief pitching slot.  The methodology I use for these projections fails to reward teams with extra starting pitchers since all team inning totals are normalized.  So if Jobe can stick in the rotation and put up good numbers in the process, that could be a huge boon to the Choppers in several categories, particularly strikeouts and wins.  The bullpen should be a strength for the Choppers regardless of how they deploy Jobe.  Emmanuel Clase remains one of the best closers in baseball.  Kyle Finnegan and Carlos Estevez aren’t at that level, but should be reliable sources for saves.  Like the pitching staff, the Choppers infield has a very familiar look to it with Adley Rutschman behind the plate, Pete Alonso at first and CJ Abrams at shortstop leading the way.  It is not a flashy group on the whole, but reliable contributors across the board.  The outfield is where things look completely different this year.  Wyatt Langford, Lawrence Butler and Colton Cowser were all drafted in the first four rounds this month.  All three provide power and Langford and Butler add speed to the mix as well.  The one returning stalwart in the outfield is Kyle Schwarber.  This outfield group is probably where the Choppers are going to need the breakouts to occur to soar past these modest offensive projections.  While the Choppers are in the midst of a quarter century title drought, they almost never finish dead last either.  That last happened in 2008.  So needless to say, expectations are much higher than the numbers thrown out here.

 

Kelly’s Cougars

Category – Projected Rank (2024 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 10th (7th)
  • Home Runs – 7th (7th)
  • Runs Batted In – 7th (4th)
  • Runs Scored – 10th (10th)
  • Stolen Bases – 10th (10th)
  • Earned Run Average – 4th (10th)
  • WHIP Ratio – 4th (7th)
  • Wins – 5th (10th)
  • Saves – 9th (10th)
  • Strike Outs – 4th (9th)
  • Total Batting Points – 10th (8th-T)
  • Total Pitching Points – 5th (10th)
  • Total Points – 9th (10th)

Summary:

This is the second straight year that the Choppers and Cougars have come out on the bottom of these pre-season projections, so maybe there is something about their team builds that don’t fit well into this model.  Although in the case of the Cougars, the last place projection a year ago proved to be correct.  There are some signs of significant improvement this year on the pitching side.  That’s largely thanks to the arrival of first overall draft pick Paul Skenes.  Skenes has the fourth highest projected Pitching PAR in the league, first among rookies.  The rest of the rotation is mostly unchanged from last year, with Corbin Burnes and Joe Ryan being the top returners.  Besides Skenes, the other reason for improved projections is the expectation that Kevin Gausman will return to form after a disappointing 2024.  Seth Lugo could have been a steal in the 10th round of the draft.  He had a breakout season last year that actually put him in the thick of the AL Cy Young award race late into the season.  It would be very surprising if the Cougars rotation isn’t vastly improved this year.  The bullpen remains a question mark though.  There are a lot of good stuff, late inning high leverage guys in this group, but only Ryan Walker enters the season with a closer gig locked up.  Justin Martinez is a decent bet to contribute saves too.  The rest of the relievers are a bit further down the pecking order on their clubs.  The projections on the hitting side are not great.  Only last year’s breakout star Brent Rooker is pegged to finish over 4 PAR.  It is a little surprising that Ketel Marte isn’t at that threshold considering how great of a season he had a year ago.  One guy to watch will be middle infielder Matt McLain who the Cougars used a second round pick on last year, but missed the entire season due to a shoulder injury.  There is still tremendous upside potential there as a five category stud.  The catching duo of Salvador Perez and Shea Langeliers is one of the league’s best pairs.  Newcomer shortstop Xavier Edwards should easily lead the team in steals, which could be hard to come by for the rest of the roster.  The outfield is a bag of mysteries outside of Rooker and Bryan Reynolds.  This group took a hit this week when Nolan Jones was traded away from Colorado back to Cleveland.  There are probably too many question marks on the hitting side to expect the Cougars to have an above average offense.  So it will be up to Skenes and the rotation to take this team well out of the cellar.

 

Jay’s Jackalope

Category – Projected Rank (2024 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 6th (8th)
  • Home Runs – 6th (8th)
  • Runs Batted In – 6th (9th)
  • Runs Scored – 6th (7th)
  • Stolen Bases – 6th (9th)
  • Earned Run Average – 8th (5th)
  • WHIP Ratio – 6th (5th)
  • Wins – 8th (9th)
  • Saves – 10th (7th)
  • Strike Outs – 6th (10th)
  • Total Batting Points – 6th (10th)
  • Total Pitching Points – 7th-T (9th)
  • Total Points – 8th (9th)

Summary:

Any hopes the Jackalope had in 2024 quickly died when reigning MVP Ronald Acuna Jr tore his ACL in late May.  Unfortunately for the Jackalope, injuries are already shaping up to be a big part of the story again this season.  But let’s start out with some positives.  The Jackalope offense looks to be perfectly adequate across the board, projected to finish with more standings points this year in all five batting categories.  This is largely thanks to the expected May return of Acuna, although I think the projections are probably a bit too optimistic about the number of plate appearances he will record and bases he will be allowed to steal.  The other main boost to the offense is second overall pick Jackson Chourio who figures to be a five category star right from the get-go.  Chourio joins an already strong cast of returning outfielders in Acuna, Michael Harris, Anthony Santander, Adolis Garcia and Pete Crow-Armstrong.  This is clearly the Jackalope’s strongest position group, putting them up there with any team in the league besides the Mavericks.  Cal Raleigh is among the league’s best catchers, but I would not say the Jackalope have superstars at any other infield position.  Second round pick Mark Vientos should give them a nice boost at the hot corner though.  Where these projections fall apart, and frankly are probably overcooked, is on the pitching side.  That’s because I pulled these numbers in early March before it was known there was anything wrong with Gerrit Cole, much less that he will miss the entire season following Tommy John surgery.  Cole would be impossible for any team to replace, but especially the Jackalope who are in crisis mode with the health of several other starting pitchers as well.  Second round pick Jared Jones also has an elbow injury, which thankfully won’t require surgery at this time, but will probably cost him half the season.  Grayson Rodriguez and Ranger Suarez will also start the year on the IL.  Amazingly, oft injured Tyler Glasnow is the healthy ace of the staff at the moment.  It is going to be tough for the Jackalope to keep afloat with their rotation in shambles to start the season.  The bullpen does not appear equipped to pick up the slack either.  Raisel Iglesias is the only pitcher on the staff who is a good bet to pick up a significant number of saves.  Interestingly, the Jackalope opted to build their bullpen out of high strikeout guys who can perhaps boost the other non-saves pitching categories as well.  Not a terrible strategy as difficult as saves can be to project.  However, what was unusual about the Jacklope approach is that they picked several of these non-closers in the first half of the draft.  One could assume this would have played out differently if they had known what was about to happen to their rotation.  At any rate, the Jackalope have a solid offense, easily the best among the teams covered in this section according to the projections.  The question is will it matter if they can’t field a full staff of healthy pitchers?

 

Dan’s Diamond Dogs

Category – Projected Rank (2024 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 9th (2nd)
  • Home Runs – 4th (5th-T)
  • Runs Batted In – 5th (5th)
  • Runs Scored – 7th (5th)
  • Stolen Bases – 1st (4th)
  • Earned Run Average – 10th (9th)
  • WHIP Ratio – 10th (10th)
  • Wins – 9th (7th)
  • Saves – 2nd (1st)
  • Strike Outs – 10th (8th)
  • Total Batting Points – 5th (4th)
  • Total Pitching Points – 10th (8th)
  • Total Points – 7th (5th)

Summary:

We wrap up this segment of the preview series with last year’s most pleasant surprise.  The Diamond Dogs followed up three straight last place finishes (two under current ownership) with a very solid fifth place standing.  It was a vastly improved offense that was mostly responsible for the boost.  That still appears to be the strength of the team heading into this season, with the pitching staff projected for the fewest points in the league.  The makeup of the offense is a bit different this year though.  These Dogs can run.  Seven of them are projected to steal at least 20 bases this year, led by shortstop and reigning Rookie of the Year Elly De La Cruz.  Newcomer second baseman Brice Turang and returning star shortstops Trea Turner and Oneil Cruz give the Dogs the fastest middle infield in the league, and a pretty powerful group as well.  The outfield has a ton of potential upside.  Veterans Teoscar Hernandez and Marcell Ozuna complement superstar Julio Rodriguez.  Josh Lowe is someone to watch as a possible breakout star this season, particularly playing half his games in the very left-handed hitter friendly minor league park the Rays will call home this year.  Adding to that outfield mix is first round pick Brenton Doyle who also plays in a hitter friendly environment in Denver.  Take it to the bank that the Diamond Dogs will lead the league in stolen bases.  These projections show a bit of a step backwards in batting average though.  Overall, it is a solid offensive squad.  The pitching staff will need to exceed the projections for them to take another step forward in 2025.  The Dogs did not use any of their early draft capital on the rotation.  The good news though is that they are entering this campaign in far healthier form.  Returning after missing all of 2024 is Sandy Alcantara.  He figures to pick up right where he left off in 2023 as the ace of this staff.  Jack Flaherty is the one new piece to the rotation and has the next best projections behind Alcantara.  Nathan Eovaldi and Chris Bassitt are solid veterans, but not star producers at this stage of their careers.  The Dogs could really use breakout seasons from one or both of Shane Baz and Mitch Keller to raise the ceiling of this staff.  The bullpen figures to be one of the league’s best again after topping the league in saves a year ago.  Josh Hader and Ryan Helsley are back to lead the way, while Ryan Pressley figures to return to a closing role now that he is no longer a teammate of Hader’s in real life.  Although the final projection is for the Diamond Dogs to drop a couple places in the standings this season, I would still consider this an arrow up franchise that just needs to get better starting pitching in order to reach contender status.

Posted in Choppers, Cougars, Diamond Dogs, Jackalope | No Comments »

Paul and Jacksons Kick Off Draft

March 9th, 2025 by Kevin

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The 2024 MLB season saw the infusion of one of the best crop of rookie outfielders in recent memory.  But it was a rookie pitcher who stole the show.  Less than a year after being selected by the Pirates with the first pick in the 2023 Draft, and with just 12 professional starts under his belt, right handed fireballer Paul Skenes made his big league debut in May of 2024.  Two months later, he started the All-Star Game for the National League.  After the conclusion of the season, he was named NL Rookie of the Year, finished third in the NL Cy Young vote and even garnered some MVP votes.  Now, he’s been selected first overall in another draft with the Cougars selecting him to start the 2025 DTBL Draft.

Skenes is the first player to be selected first overall in both the MLB and DTBL drafts since Carlos Correa.  But for Correa, who was selected by the Astros out of high school, those selections were separated by four years (2012 and 2016).  Skenes did it in a 20 month span.  While Skenes probably would have been the favorite to lead off this draft regardless of who was picking, he especially made sense for the Cougars who had a very rough season from their pitchers in 2024, finishing last in total pitching points as well as the categories of ERA and wins, with a ninth place finish in strikeouts.  In comes Skenes who should give them a huge boost in all of those categories.  In just 133 MLB innings, he struck out 170 batters with a miniscule 1.96 ERA and 0.95 WHIP.  He even won 11 games despite not being allowed to work terribly deep into games to keep his inning count under control.  It is scary to think what he might be capable of he is fully let loose.

Here is a fun fact for you.  Prior to this year, there had never been a DTBL player with the first name Jackson.  Now all of the sudden, three of the first 13 players selected in this year’s draft have that given name and a fourth remains available in the draft pool.  Must have been a popular name choice two decades ago.  With the second pick in the draft, the Jackalope selected Milwaukee outfielder Jackson Chourio.  Chourio made the big league Opening Day roster last year at the ripe age of 20 and made an immediate splash.  He hit .275 with 21 homers and 22 stolen bases.  He finished third in the NL Rookie of the Year vote, behind the two players he was sandwiched between in this draft.  The Jackalope will be happy to have Chourio on hand to rebound from last year’s ninth place finish that saw them at the bottom of the batting point standings.

Another Jackson was selected with the third pick.  That would be Padres outfielder Jackson Merrill, picked by the Darkhorses.  Like Chourio, Merrill made his MLB debut on Opening Day last year.  He was about a year older though, having turned 21 a couple weeks into the season.  In addition to learning how to handle life in the big leagues, he was also learning a new position.  Merrill was almost exclusively a shortstop during his rise through the minors.  That learning curve did not appear to derail his hitting.  He hit an impressive .292 with 24 home runs and 16 stolen bases.  He finished between Skenes and Chourio as the NL Rookie of the Year runner-up.  Now those three will get to duke it out again for DTBL ROY honors.  Merrill provides some youth to a very experienced Darkhorses lineup.  No returning Darkhorses player has quite the same power and speed combo as Merrill.

While the run of Jacksons ended with pick four, the run of young dynamic outfielders did not.  The Choppers selected Rangers outfielder Wyatt Langford with the number four pick.  2023 MLB Draft:  #1 Skenes, #4 Langford.  2025 DTBL Draft:  #1 Skenes, #4 Langford.  Langford was another guy given the opportunity to debut on Opening Day of ’24.  However, he missed about a month of time due to injury.  He finished the season quite strong, rebounding from a slow start to his career.  He racked up 16 homers with 19 steals, proving to be another versatile fantasy producer.  The Choppers will look to Langford to pump some life into an offense that has been their downfall in recent years.

Next comes yet another young outfielder.  With the fifth pick, the Komodos selected Nationals slugger James Wood.  Wood didn’t make his debut until July, so his rookie numbers weren’t quite as gaudy as those taken ahead of him in this draft.  But he did show off a propensity for hitting the ball hard.  Once he starts hitting more of those balls in the air, the sky is the limit (no pun intended).  He probably has the most raw power of anyone taken in the first round of this draft.  Oh, and despite his hulking 6’7″ frame, he can run too.  Wood is a nice fit on a Komodos offense that could be sneaky good.

How about another outfielder?  With the sixth pick, the Diamond Dogs selected Rockies center fielder Brenton Doyle.  Doyle was the first player selected in this draft who didn’t make his MLB debut in 2024.  But he is brand new to the DTBL just like the others.  Doyle initially came up as a glove first outfielder.  While he remains an elite defender, he also broke out as a hitter last year, hitting 23 home runs to compliment 30 stolen bases.  The Dogs should benefit from Doyle playing half his games in Denver for the foreseeable future.  However, an encouraging sign is that he hit almost as many homers on the road as at home a year ago (11 vs 12).  Doyle joining Elly De La Cruz and second round pick Brice Turang ought to make the Diamond Dogs the overwhelming favorite to lead the league in steals.

The outfielder run finally came to an end with pick number seven.  The Demigods used that slot to select third baseman Jordan Westburg.  Westburg was the first non-DTBL rookie off the board.  Interestingly, he actually finished the 2024 DTBL season in the free agent pool after an August release by the Mavericks.  Perhaps his impending move from 2B to 3B scared some teams off from signing him late in the season.  While not a DTBL rookie, Westburg is still quite new to the big leagues with ’24 being his first extended run.  He hit .264 with 18 home runs.  As a right handed hitter, he could be one of the prime beneficiaries of the Orioles moving in the fences in left field at Camden Yards.  Most teams would probably value Westburg more if he remained at second base, but the Demigods had a gaping hole at third that he should fill nicely.

My easily searchable draft records go back as far as 2005.  Since then, on two occasions half of the players selected in the first round were outfielders (2011 and 2021), but never more than that.  Until now.  With the eighth pick in the draft, the Kings selected Dylan Crews, the sixth outfielder to go off the board.  Crews is yet another product of the 2023 MLB Draft, where he was the second overall selection behind his LSU teammate Skenes.  Like all of the other outfielders taken in this first round, Crews can both run and hit for power.  Perhaps he leans a little more towards the speed side than the others though.  He didn’t debut with the Nationals until late August last year, but still managed to steal a dozen bases.  The Kings were in desperate need to join in on the outfield fun as they lost Mookie Betts to the infield and only kept one remaining outfielder from last year’s squad.  Crews will be a nice first piece towards that outfield rebuild.

Most years, there is little chance a player with Garrett Crochet’s profile would drop all the way to the ninth pick in the draft.  But the way this year’s draft order shuffled out, most of the teams in the middle of the round had bigger needs than pitching.  The Moonshiners, on the other hand, only kept three starters from last year and had an obvious need for someone to compliment reigning Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal, their first round pick a year ago.  So the Moonshiners being able to grab Crochet at #9 worked out quite nicely for them.  Crochet’s first professional season as a starting pitcher was a roaring success.  Had he not been on a strict innings limit in the second half of the season, he may have challenged Skubal for the AL Cy Young award.  He struck out 209 batters in just 146 innings.  And now he’s been freed from a god awful White Sox roster and has a chance to be a bonafide ace in Boston.  Crochet remains rookie eligible in the DTBL.  He was drafted by the Jackalope as a reliever in 2022, but tore his UCL and had Tommy John surgery before the season started.  He has not been on the league roster the past two years.

The defending champion Mavericks closed out the first round by selecting starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, another pitcher who probably would have been picked earlier in a different year.  This also worked out quite nicely for the Mavericks who already have one of the best offenses in league history coming back.  One of their very few weaknesses a year ago was starting pitching depth.  Now Yamamoto joins Chris Sale and Pablo Lopez to form a trio that should easily keep them near the top of the standings.  Yamamoto was the preseason favorite to win that NL Rookie of the Year award that ultimately went to Skenes.  But injuries limited him to just 90 innings.  Unlike most Japanese pitchers who had come over to MLB before him, Yamamoto is still approaching the prime of his career.  This will be his age 26 season.  There is perhaps some post-hype sleeper potential here.

So the six outfielder first round was bookended by three starting pitchers.  That means just one infielder and no catchers were selected in the first round, the fewest from that group of five positions in any draft since 2005.  The most comparable year was 2011 when there was also just one infielder selected, but amusingly there were three first round catchers that year.  Not surprisingly, infielders were very prominent in the second and third rounds of this year’s draft.  Hopefully we’ll be wrapping up the draft around this time next week and Opening Day preparations can begin in earnest.

Posted in Choppers, Cougars, Darkhorses, Demigods, Diamond Dogs, Draft, Jackalope, Kings, Komodos, Mavericks, Moonshiners | No Comments »

Ohtani Creates 50/50 Club

November 26th, 2024 by Kevin

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Normally, when you put up a statline of a .322 batting average with 58 home runs and 144 runs batted in, you would be a shoe-in for the league’s Most Valuable Player award. But this year, that was not nearly enough for Aaron Judge to win his second DTBL MVP award. Bobby Witt and Jose Ramirez also had seasons that would have won them the award in many other years. In 2024, however, there was another player who had a truly historic season. Shohei Ohtani became the first member of the 50/50 Club. Prior to this year, no DTBL player with at least 50 home runs had stolen as many as 25 bases. Ohtani more than doubled that, finishing with 59 steals to go along with his 54 home runs. The Moonshiners versatile slugger is the 2024 DTBL Most Valuable Player.

Ohtani filled up the league leaderboard this season. His .310 average ranked fifth. He led the league with 144 runs scored. The 54 home runs, 59 stolen bases and 130 runs batted in all ranked second. His 16.4 Batting PAR lapped the field and ranks second in all calculated seasons since 2005, trailing only Ronald Acuna Jr’s MVP winning campaign from last year. In both Acuna and Ohtani’s situations, the stolen base component of PAR has been wildly inflated the past two seasons since steals have exploded across the league since the introduction of the pitch clock and other rules changes in 2023. However, by any reasonable measure, they were still two of the best seasons this league has ever seen. Ohtani and Judge became the 25th and 26th players in league history to hit the 50 home run plateau. Before Ohtani this year, the highest stolen base total among that group was Alex Rodriguez with just 24 in 2007. On the other side of the equation, there have been 51 players to steal at least 50 bases in a season. The only other player to pair that with more than 30 home runs was Acuna last year. Truly unprecedented stuff from Ohtani this year. I guess he took full advantage of his year off from pitching after his second major elbow surgery last fall.

When the Moonshiners drafted Ohtani with the fourth pick in the 2019 Draft, what his future would hold in this league was a very open question. While they opted to use him as a hitter in 2019, most believed his future was brightest on the mound. To date, he has only pitched in one fateful game for the Moonshiners before being shut down from pitching for the remainder of the shortened 2020 season. Since then, he has been a mainstay in the Moonshiners lineup and would appear to have far more value at that spot moving forward as well. He has been a DTBL All-Star the past four seasons. 2021 had been the best season of his career prior to this one. In that season, he slugged 46 home runs with 26 steals, but with a much more pedestrian .257 batting average. It earned him a second place finish in that year’s MVP vote, behind his Moonshiners teammate Vladimir Guerrero Jr. This year, Ohtani and Guerrero once again teamed up to lead a much improved Moonshiners offense. They finished a distant second place to the Mavericks in the overall standings, which was a nice bounce back after a disappointing 2023. As an aside, that 2019 DTBL Draft is looking like an all-timer in this league’s history. Ohtani fell to the fourth pick, but two of the players chosen ahead of him are no slouches either: Acuna and Juan Soto.

The MVP vote largely came down to how much weight people put into the Batting PAR stat, as Ohtani blew away the competition there. But as I have stated a few times, stolen bases are overvalued in that figure right now. So there was a decent case to be made for other players as well, most notably Mavericks slugger Aaron Judge. In the end, Ohtani received nine of the ten first place votes and ranked second on the other ballot for a total of 97 points. Meanwhile, Judge’s historic season in its own right that led to him winning the American League MVP placed him second in this vote. His votes were scattered all over the place though: one first, six seconds, two thirds and a fourth for 65 total points. He will have to wait for another year to win his second league MVP. While Ohtani entered a class of his own in the power/speed departments, Bobby Witt Jr and Jose Ramirez were in pretty impressive territory as well, with both joining the 30/30 Club. Witt, the Mavericks young superstar shortstop, won the batting title with a .332 average to go along with his 32 homers and 31 steals. He and Judge combined to form one of the most impressive offensive teammate partnerships this league has ever seen, and were a major reason why the Mavericks absolutely dominated the league in batting points. Witt received a pair of second place votes and 42 total points. Finishing right behind him is Komodos third baseman Ramirez. Ramirez continues to be the most consistently dominant offensive player in the league. He has hit a minimum of 20 home runs with 20 stolen bases in every season of his DTBL career except for the pandemic shortened 2020 and his rookie year of 2017 when he came up three steals short. This season, he had arguably the best season of his career, tying his career high with 39 home runs and setting a new personal high with 41 steals. Ramirez has been so consistent that he is often overlooked come MVP time. This is the fourth time he has finished in fourth place for the award, and never higher than that. He received one second place vote and 40 total points. There was a pretty big drop-off after those four. Diamond Dogs Rookie of the Year winning Elly De La Cruz rounds out the top five. His impressive rookie campaign earned him fifth place votes on eight of the ten ballots.

Click here to view the full voting results.

That brings an end to the 2024 DTBL awards announcements.  I do still owe Marc an article to document his dominant championship season, so I intend to do that sometime soon.  I hope you have a great Thanksgiving!

Posted in Awards, Moonshiners | No Comments »

Skubal Claims Cy Young

November 24th, 2024 by Kevin

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As mentioned in the Rookie of the Year article, the 2024 DTBL Draft class was not particularly loaded with can’t miss rookies and prospects.  But Elly De La Cruz wasn’t the only near certain superstar taken in the first round.  The Moonshiners went down a somewhat unconventional path by using the third overall pick on a non-DTBL rookie.  Tarik Skubal debuted for the Kings in 2022 and was having a solid first season in the league before an elbow injury led him to Tommy John surgery, missing the final two months of that season.  Since he was likely to miss most of 2023 as well, he was then removed from the league roster for that campaign.  An impressive return late in ’23 made him a highly coveted player entering this season.  The Moonshiners decision to grab him early paid off in a big way.  Tarik Skubal is the unanimous choice as the 2024 DTBL Cy Young award winner.

While Skubal had significant prospect pedigree leading up to his MLB debut with the Tigers in 2020, his first couple seasons in the big leagues were fairly pedestrian.  It wasn’t until the fateful 2022 campaign that he really started to put things together.  With a hat tip to modern medical advancements, he has returned from Tommy John surgery as an even better pitcher than he was pre-surgery.  He was the most dominant pitcher in baseball in 2024, by a comfortable margin.  The Moonshiners southpaw led all pitchers with 228 strikeouts, 18 wins and 14.8 Pitching PAR.  His 2.39 ERA ranked second, just .01 point behind Chris Sale.  His 0.92 WHIP was also second in the league, trailing only Logan Gilbert among qualified pitchers.  Few pitchers in recent years have combined such impressive strikeout and walk rates.  Skubal struck out over 30% of the batters he faced while walking fewer than 5%, for a very impressive 6.5 K/BB ratio.

Skubal was drafted by the Kings in the eighth round  of the 2022 draft.  While not initially expected to be a core piece of that Kings rotation, he did wind up throwing 95 very quality innings for them before succumbing to an elbow injury.  Despite his very successful debut season, the Kings did not seriously consider keeping him since he was expected to miss most of the 2023 season while recovering from Tommy John surgery.  Perhaps a questionable decision in retrospect, but he was completely dropped from the league roster for that ’23 campaign anyway.  What is not questionable was the Moonshiners decision to pick him in this year’s draft.  He immediately revitalized a pitching staff that struggled to defend their league championship the year prior.  The Moonshiners finished with 37.5 pitching points, their most since 2020.  That figure ranked second in the league this year, with Skubal leading the team in all relevant categories and having more than double the Pitching PAR total of all his teammates.

Not that he was undeserving of the honor, but it was a tad surprising that Skubal won this award unanimously since there were several other pitchers who had elite seasons.  The top two competitors were a pair of National League pitchers who fought for that league’s Cy Young honor.  We had a slightly different voting result in this league though.  Kings veteran Zack Wheeler had the best season of his impressive career.  He had nearly identical numbers to Skubal in every category except with a slightly worse ERA and WHIP and two fewer wins.  While Skubal received all ten of the first place votes, Wheeler got six of the second place nods and the other four were for third place, totaling 62 points.  Just behind him is Mavericks southpaw Chris Sale, who edged out Wheeler for the NL Cy Young award.  This season, Sale reestablished himself as one of the best pitchers in the league, leading the league with a 2.38 ERA.  While the Mavericks offense stole all the headlines, it was Sale who led the pitching staff to a convincing league championship.  Sale received four second place votes and a total of 56 points, six behind Wheeler.  It is his highest Cy Young finish since placing second in 2017.  As usual, starting pitchers were the favorites among Cy Young voters, but this was truly the year of the reliever.  Choppers closer Emmanuel Clase had one of the best seasons for a reliever in league history.  His 47 saves with an 0.61 ERA and 0.66 WHIP were truly dominant numbers.  His 10.8 Pitching PAR was the best for a reliever in years that have been calculated to date (since 2005).  If a relief pitcher was ever to win the Cy Young award again, this probably would have been the year.  Instead, Clase did not receive any first or second place votes.  His 21 total points comfortably ranked fourth though.  Rounding out the top five is another Choppers pitcher, righty Logan Gibert.  Gilbert led the DTBL with 208 innings pitched and an 0.89 WHIP.  While not really his fault, the fact that he only recorded nine wins probably sabotaged his chances of winning this award.  He has had three straight seasons of elite pitching for the Choppers.  He received 14 points in the Cy Young vote. Interestingly, there were nine players who received Cy Young votes, the same as last year. But not one player on that list was among the group from last year. Complete turnaround among the top pitchers in the league.

Click here to view the full voting results.

Two unanimous decisions for the DTBL awards so far.  For MVP, there is a clear favorite as well except there were a couple guys who had historically strong seasons, so we’ll see who comes out on top.  Look for the MVP announcement sometime in the next couple days.

Posted in Awards, Moonshiners | No Comments »

De La Cruz Cruises To ROY Win

November 20th, 2024 by Kevin

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The 2024 DTBL Draft class did not have the same hype as the group from the year prior.  Nor did it prove to have as many immediate impact players taken in the first round as there were in the 2023 Draft.  But that wasn’t because of the player picked first.  The Diamond Dogs owned that first pick for the third straight year.  They had a fairly straightforward choice to make, with the only problem being that they were already loaded at the shortstop position.  After making a pre draft trade to open up a spot, the no brainer decision to select Elly De La Cruz was made.  And for the second straight year, it seems they may have gotten themselves a franchise building player in the process.  Elly De La Cruz is the unanimous selection for the 2024 DTBL Rookie of the Year award.

De La Cruz smashed onto the big league scene in 2023 and immediately became a fantasy stud, hitting 13 home runs with 35 stolen bases in 98 games.  Just a modest improvement over those numbers would have made him an exceptionally valuable fantasy player.  Instead, he nearly doubled both of those figures.  He hit 25 homers with a gaudy 67 stolen bases.  He also scored 101 runs and improved his batting average to a respectable .259 figure.  His league leading 67 steals were the eighth most in league history and second most among rookies, trailing only Scott Podsednik’s 70 steals for the Moonshiners in 2004.  Kenny Lofton also stole 70 in 1993, but every player was technically a DTBL rookie in the league’s inaugural season.  The only DTBL player to ever top both De La Cruz’s HR and SB figures in a single season was Ronald Acuna Jr just last season.  His 9.7 Batting PAR (which was actually 11.0 before last week’s adjustment) topped all rookie hitters by almost three points.  In a normal year, with the numbers he accumulated, he’d be a likely pick for the Most Valuable Player award as well.  But he’ll have some stiff competition for that honor this year.

De La Cruz is the kind of player who pretty much guarantees that the Diamond Dogs will always be competitive in the steals category no matter what, allowing them to focus on other categories for future acquisitions.  In year one, he lifted them from dead last in stolen bases in 2023 to fourth place this season.  Overall, he was the driving force behind them improving from 22.5 batting points to 33.5 and an extremely respectable fifth place finish in the final standings.  Largely because of him, the Diamond Dogs streak of first overall picks will end in 2025, unless they were to trade for the top spot.  Their shortstop trio of De La Cruz, Oneil Cruz and Trea Turner combined for an incredible 18 Batting PAR.  Oneil Cruz switched to the outfield too late in the season to be making a DTBL position switch in ’25, so the Dogs figure to run it back with the same trio in the infield again next year.  De La Cruz is the first Diamond Dogs player to win any of the three major DTBL individual player awards.

Before I get to the vote results, a quick thanks to Mike for immediately brining to my attention that I completely botched the initial Rookie of the Year ballot.  Somehow, De La Cruz wasn’t on it!  In my initial compilation of the list, I had picked out the top candidate from each team and then worked down from there.  For reasons I can’t explain, I actually overlooked De La Cruz at first and had Jake Burger as the Dogs’ top candidate.  Fortunately, Mike pointed this out before anyone had submitted a ballot so I didn’t need to issue a re-vote.  De La Cruz was indeed the unanimous selection, topping all ten ballots.  Second place was extremely tight.  Mavericks’ outfielder Jarren Duran edged out Kings’ starting pitcher Bryce Miller by one point.  Duran and Miller were two of the biggest steals of the draft, selected in the fourth and fifth rounds respectively.  Duran was a major cog in the Mavericks all time great offense and championship winning roster.  He was quite the power/speed force in his own right with 21 homers and 34 steals.  Miller was part of a rejuvenated Kings rotation, leading all rookies in the Pitching PAR at 8.9.  Miller actually received a majority of the second place votes (6), but was bested in the overall tally by Duran who got three seconds and six thirds to finish with 54 points.  Following Miller is another Kings starting pitcher, Cole Ragans.  The southpaw was a second round selection, but the first pick made by the Kings in this year’s draft.  He didn’t receive any votes higher than third place, but joined De La Cruz and Duran as the three players who were on all ten ballots.  Ragans finished with 30 points.  Rounding out the top five is perhaps this year’s most surprising breakout star, Cougars outfielder Brent Rooker.  Rooker not only went undrafted, but remained a free agent until mid-May when the Cougars finally snatched him up.  He still managed to hit 29 homers in 3/4 of a season.  Rooker picked up a second place vote which accounted for a bulk of his 12 points to place fifth.

Click here to view the full voting results.

Thanks to everybody for getting your ballots in.  I’ll be announcing the Cy Young award winner later this week, with the Most Valuable Player announcement mostly likely coming sometime next week.  There are certainly a ton of deserving players for each of those awards, but with clear favorites as well.  Will either of them be unanimous too?  Find out soon!

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2024 DTBL All-Stars

July 11th, 2024 by Kevin

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The 30th edition of the DTBL All-Star Game will take place sometime next week at Moonshiner Ballpark, home of Mike’s Moonshiners.  The American Division All-Stars will be looking to win their fourth in a row, on the heels of four straight victories for the National Division prior to that.  Last year’s game was a thrilling 5-3 American win in extra innings.  The last five games have been determined by two runs or fewer.

There will be 20 players making their DTBL All-Star debuts this season, down a couple from last year.  12 of the newcomers are on the American squad.  The National roster is as veteran laden as any I can recall in recent years with three of the first timers being players who have been around the block a time or two:  Seth Lugo, Reynaldo Lopez, and shockingly, Juan Soto.  A season ago, half of that year’s first round draft class made the All-Star rosters.  This year, just three:  Elly De La Cruz, Tarik Skubal and Grayson Rodriguez.  On the other end of the spectrum, four players have made their eighth All-Star roster:  Freddie Freeman, Chris Sale, Craig Kimbrel and Kenley Jansen.

The Moonshiners’ Skubal will start the game on the mound for the American Division.  He will be opposed by Mavericks’ veteran Sale who is making his eighth appearance, but first since 2018.  Sale is one of five Mavericks players slated to start in this game, by far the most of any team.  They also have the most overall All-Stars with seven, which might explain their current place atop the standings.  The Choppers have the most players on the American roster with six.

I think we all do a great job with our voting, so there are really never any true “snubs”.  However, a few notable players having great seasons who are not on these rosters include Moonshiners third baseman Rafael Devers, Demigods pitcher Aaron Nola and Kings pitcher George Kirby.

Here are the players who did make the 2024 DTBL All-Star rosters.

 

American Division

Starters:

  • Pitcher – Tarik Skubal, Moonshiners (1st All-Star appearance)
  • Catcher – Adley Rutschman, Choppers (2nd)
  • First Base – Christian Walker, Komodos (1st)
  • Second Base – Jonathan India, Jackalope (2nd)
  • Third Base - Jose Ramirez, Komodos (5th)
  • Shortstop – Elly De La Cruz, Diamond Dogs (1st)
  • Outfield – Yordan Alvarez, Komodos (3rd)
  • Outfield - Shohei Ohtani, Moonshiners (4th)
  • Outfield – Marcell Ozuna, Diamond Dogs (3rd)

Reserves:

  • Catcher – Cal Raleigh, Jackalope (1st)
  • Third Base – Alec Bohm, Choppers (1st)
  • Shortstop – CJ Abrams, Choppers (1st)
  • Shortstop – Trea Turner, Diamond Dogs (5th)
  • Outfield - Kyle Tucker, Moonshiners (3rd)
  • Outfield – Steven Kwan, Choppers (1st)
  • Pitcher – Logan Gilbert, Choppers (1st)
  • Pitcher – Tyler Glasnow, Jackalope (6th)
  • Pitcher – Grayson Rodriguez, Jackalope (1st)
  • Pitcher – Ranger Suarez, Komodos (1st)
  • Relief Pitcher – Emmanuel Clase, Choppers (3rd)
  • Relief Pitcher – Kyle Finnegan, Diamond Dogs (1st)
  • Relief Pitcher – Ryan Helsley, Diamond Dogs (1st)
  • Relief Pitcher – Craig Kimbrel, Komodos (8th)

National Division

Starters:

  • Pitcher – Chris Sale, Mavericks (8th)
  • Catcher – William Contreras, Mavericks (1st)
  • First Base – Bryce Harper, Darkhorses (5th)
  • Second Base – Jose Altuve, Demigods (7th)
  • Third Base – Gunnar Henderson, Kings (1st)
  • Shortstop – Bobby Witt, Mavericks (2nd)
  • Outfield – Aaron Judge, Mavericks (5th)
  • Outfield – Juan Soto, Mavericks (1st)
  • Outfield – Christian Yelich, Darkhorses (3rd)

Reserves:

  • Catcher – Salvador Perez, Cougars (4th)
  • First Base – Freddie Freeman, Demigods (8th)
  • Second Base – Ketel Marte, Cougars (2nd)
  • Shortstop – Francisco Lindor, Demigods (3rd)
  • Outfield – Mookie Betts, Kings (6th)
  • Outfield – Jarren Duran, Mavericks (1st)
  • Pitcher – Corbin Burnes, Cougars (2nd)
  • Pitcher – Sonny Gray, Darkhorses (2nd)
  • Pitcher – Seth Lugo, Demigods (1st)
  • Pitcher – Zack Wheeler, Kings (3rd)
  • Relief Pitcher – Kenley Jansen, Darkhorses (8th)
  • Relief Pitcher – Reynaldo Lopez, Demigods (1st)
  • Relief Pitcher – Mason Miler, Mavericks (1st)
  • Relief Pitcher – Robert Suarez, Darkhorses (1st)

All-Stars per team

  • 7 – Mavericks
  • 6 – Choppers
  • 5 – Darkhorses, Demigods, Diamond Dogs, Komodos
  • 4 – Jackalope
  • 3 – Cougars, Kings, Moonshiners

 

Jay and Dom are officially the managers of the American and National teams respectively.  However, due to availability and time constraints, Charlie and I were actually the ones who broke the voting ties and selected the 23rd and final player for each roster.  The 23rd man is Trea Turner for the American Division and Ketel Marte for the National.  Here are the full voting results.  There were nine ballots submitted, so players who received nine votes were unanimous selections.

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2024 Season Preview: Part IV

March 31st, 2024 by Kevin

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With the first three full days of the MLB season in the books, we’re off and running.  Mookie Betts is on pace to hit .611 with 130 home runs and 324 runs batted in.  Let’s see if he can keep it up!  On a negative note, four of the top twelve picks from this month’s draft have already found their way to the injured list.  The rash of injuries is something to keep an eye on as it *seems* like there are far more than usual this early in the season.

Now to the final part of the 2024 DTBL season preview series.  This one will cover the three teams projected to finish at the top of the standings this year.  As I keep mentioning, the margins between these teams and the ones covered in the most recent article are razor thin.  Feel free to skip all the way to the bottom to see for yourself.  It is not particularly surprising to see any of these three teams in this part of the preview as they were all among the top five finishers a year ago.  These might be the three most balanced teams in the league as each of them are projected for at least 30 batting and pitching points, the only three teams that can make that claim.  Without further ado, here are the teams expected to finish in those top three spots.

 

Jay’s Jackalope

Category – Projected Rank (2023 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 1st (4th)
  • Home Runs – 5th (4th)
  • Runs Batted In – 5th (8th)
  • Runs Scored – 4th (3rd)
  • Stolen Bases – 6th (4th)
  • Earned Run Average – 3rd (9th)
  • WHIP Ratio – 5th (6th)
  • Wins – 6th (4th)
  • Saves – 6th (4th-T)
  • Strike Outs – 2nd (5th)
  • Total Batting Points – 3rd (4th)
  • Total Pitching Points – 4th (6th)
  • Total Points – 3rd (5th)

Summary:

The Jackalope category projected rankings point to a team that is well rounded with no obvious weakness.  They also show a team that appears to be a little bit better than last season’s fifth place finish.  For what its worth, they were projected to finish third last year as well.  Offensively, they made small upgrades, but the top contributors figure to be the holdovers.  And of course, it all starts with reigning MVP Ronald Acuna Jr.  He is projected for a ridiculous 14.4 PAR, which I think I can safely assume is a record since I’ve started doing these pre-season projections.  It is almost six points higher than all other hitters in the league.  Makes sense though, coming off a record setting 18.9 PAR season.  His Braves and Jackalope outfield teammate Michael Harris is no slouch either.  Adolis Garica, Anthony Santander and newcomer Jordan Walker fill out what might be the league’s best outfield.  The infield is pretty solid too with veteran Paul Goldschmidt and Josh Jung holding down the corners and Luis Arraez and Dansby Swanson up the middle.  The catching duo of Cal Raleigh and Francisco Alvarez is back for another season.  As long as Acuna remains healthy, it is hard to imagine this not being one of the better offensive teams in the league.  The pitching projections may be a tad inflated though.  They were compiled before staff ace Gerrit Cole got hurt.  It remains unclear how much time he will miss.  He will certainly be tough to replace.  Luis Castillo and Tyler Glasnow are pretty solid top of the rotation pitchers in their own right.  First round draft pick Grayson Rodriguez is an exciting addition to this group.  They also opted to roll the dice on a couple currently injured pitchers coming off great seasons in Kyle Bradish and Kodai Senga.  The Jackalope do have enough starting pitching talent to survive a lengthy absence from Cole, but maybe drop the expectations a notch or two.  The bullpen is a bit of a wild card.  Raisel Iglesias is the only well established closer, but Jose Alvarado is likely to join him if the Phillies don’t opt to go with a committee.  The health of the pitching staff is certainly the thing to watch early with the Jackalope.  If they come out unscathed, this will be a very dangerous team with understandably high expectations.

 

Kevin’s Kings

Category – Projected Rank (2023 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 5th (6th)
  • Home Runs – 1st (2nd)
  • Runs Batted In – 1st (4th)
  • Runs Scored – 1st (1st)
  • Stolen Bases – 8th (9th)
  • Earned Run Average – 5th (8th)
  • WHIP Ratio – 4th (4th)
  • Wins – 7th (5th-T)
  • Saves – 2nd (2nd)
  • Strike Outs – 7th (6th)
  • Total Batting Points – 1st (3rd)
  • Total Pitching Points – 5th (5th)
  • Total Points – 2nd (3rd-T)

Summary:

The Kings already had a very good offense, but now they may have the league’s best.  That is despite trading away their first round pick and not drafting a hitter until round three.  Of course, it was that trade of the first round pick that netted them Bo Bichette, who gives a big boost to a position that they were lacking production from a year ago.  The infield really has no weak spot now with Bichette at short, Marcus Semien at second, Austin Riley and Gunnar Henderson at third and the pair of Matt Olson and Rhys Hoskins at first.  They will benefit from having Hoskins back after missing all of last season with a knee injury.  Will Smith is one of the top catchers in the league.  They aren’t quite as deep at that position having traded away Sean Murphy, but Logan O’Hoppe will look to replace most of his productivity.  The outfield has been largely rebuilt.  The two holdovers are hard to beat though with Mookie Betts and Randy Arozarena.  The red hot Betts will most likely move to the Kings crowded infield next year as he is moonlighting as a shortstop for the Dodgers this season.  To fill out the outfield, the Kings drafted Chas McCormick and Eloy Jimenez and brought back Tyler O’Neill later in the draft as well.  There are probably other teams with a better group of outfielders on the whole, but Betts alone makes this a very solid group.  The Kings also rebuilt a mediocre pitching staff.  Gone is longtime ace Max Scherzer.  Zack Wheeler and George Kirby are back though and should provide ace-like quality once again.  Michael King moves into the rotation as a full time starter for the first time in his career.  The exciting addition to this group is second round pick Cole Ragans.  The lefty who the Royals acquired from the Rangers in a trade last year was one of the top starters in baseball in the closing months of 2023.  Finally, the Kings picked up another Mariners starter in addition to Kirby, with Bryce Miller rounding out the rotation.  The success of these five starters could be what determines the Kings fate this season as it is the one group that isn’t clearly among the best in the league.  The bullpen should be excellent, at least in terms of racking up saves.  Pete Fairbanks, Camilo Doval and Paul Sewald have solid grasps on closer roles, although Sewald is currently on the shelf with an injury suffered late in spring training.  Hunter Harvey may even have a shot at picking up saves if the Nats ultimately decide to go with their best pitcher in that role.  Despite pretty significant roster upheaval, the Kings should once again be in the mix for the league championship and at the very least should have an excellent chance of finishing in the top three for the fourth consecutive season.

 

Dom’s Demigods

Category – Projected Rank (2023 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 4th (3rd)
  • Home Runs – 6th (3rd)
  • Runs Batted In – 7th (2nd)
  • Runs Scored – 3rd (2nd)
  • Stolen Bases - 3rd (2nd)
  • Earned Run Average – 1st (3rd)
  • WHIP Ratio – 2nd (3rd)
  • Wins – 1st (1st-T)
  • Saves – 7th (6th)
  • Strike Outs – 6th (9th)
  • Total Batting Points – 4th (1st)
  • Total Pitching Points – 3rd (2nd-T)
  • Total Points – 1st (1st)

Summary:

The Demigods finally won their first DTBL championship last season, doing so by being good at pretty much everything.  They finished in the top three of the league in every category except for saves and strikeouts.  These projections show them once again being strong across the board, but maybe taking a small step back in a few categories.  The trio of Freddie Freeman, Fernando Tatis Jr and Corbin Carroll all head into this season as potential MVP candidates, at least if Ronald Acuna doesn’t have another season like last year.  Carroll won the Rookie of the Year award and finished second in MVP voting.  He and Tatis lead a very strong outfield that brings back almost everyone from a year ago, although Tatis is actually new to the outfield in this league this season.  Seiya Suzuki and J.D. Martinez are back.  The one key addition is Brandon Nimmo.  The infield will once again be anchored by Freeman, Francisco Lindor and Jose Altuve, three guys who have been making the Demigods infield a strength for many years.  It is unlikely they will get the same kind of production from their first round draft pick as they did a year ago with Carroll, but Spencer Steer is that guy this year.  They do have a bit of a problem with another draft pick, third baseman Noelvi Marte receiving an 80 game PED suspension.  Replacing him will be the same person who will be asked to replace him for the Reds, Jeimer Candelario.  Marte’s second half return could give this infield a big boost though, assuming his prospect pedigree wasn’t enhanced unnaturally.  The Demigods should get nice production from their catching duo of Willson Contreras and newcomer Yanier Diaz.  The Demigods have had a strong pitching staff for quite some time now and that should be the case again this season.  Their entire rotation from last season is back.  Zac Gallen, Max Fried and Aaron Nola have been reliable mainstays.  Joe Musgrove has been excellent when healthy too.  And last year’s breakout star was Justin Steele, who unfortunately suffered a hamstring injury on Opening Day.  When healthy, that’s as strong of a 1 through 5 rotation as you will find.  I don’t want to say the Demigods punt saves, but filling their bullpen with closers has never really been a priority for them.  They do bring back the excellent David Bednar and added Adbert Alzolay in the draft.  Like the Choppers, the Demigods will start the season with two actual starting pitchers filling relief slots with Reynaldo Lopez and Garrett Whitlock.  This could give them an advantage in wins and strikeouts that isn’t really captured in these projections.  While the margin is extremely tight, it is not surprising to see the defending champions at the top of these projections.  The Demigods are looking to be the first team to successfully defend their DTBL title since the Kings in 2019.  They certainly have a roster capable of doing just that.

 

And with that, we have completed the 2024 DTBL season preview.  Here are the full projected standings and team point totals for the ten categories:

 

Good luck to everybody this season!  Happy Easter!

Posted in Demigods, Jackalope, Kings | No Comments »

2024 Season Preview: Part III

March 27th, 2024 by Kevin

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Happy Opening Day Eve!  Unfortunately, we aren’t going to get a full slate of 15 games tomorrow as originally scheduled since games in New York and Philadelphia have already been postponed to Friday.  But 13 games is still enough to get excited about.  It will be year two of the drastic rule changes that had a major impact on the game a year ago, most notably the pitch clock.  Now that we know what kind of impact those changes had, we pretty much know what to expect from a fantasy perspective now too.  Steals were way up a year ago and figure to level off at a similar total again this year.  A slight boost to hitters as a whole, but not at historic levels.  Just a reversal of recent trends of pitching domination.  However, the game is always changing even when the rules do not.  So we’ll see what this season brings.

We have six more DTBL teams to preview, and these projections show very little separating any of them.  There is just a six standings point gap between the team projected to finish in first place and the two teams pinned to tie for fifth place.  That gap is just two points for the three teams covered in this section.  This includes a pair of teams that consistently find themselves near the top of the standings and a team that is looking for a huge turnaround after an extremely disappointing 2023.  These are the teams project to finish in fourth and a tie for fifth places.

 

David’s Darkhorses

Category – Projected Rank (2023 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 6th (8th)
  • Home Runs – 9th (9th)
  • Runs Batted In – 9th (9th)
  • Runs Scored – 5th (5th)
  • Stolen Bases – 1st (1st)
  • Earned Run Average – 4th (1st)
  • WHIP Ratio – 3rd (1st)
  • Wins – 3rd (3rd)
  • Saves – 3rd (1st)
  • Strike Outs – 3rd (1st)
  • Total Batting Points – 7th-T (7th)
  • Total Pitching Points - 2nd (1st)
  • Total Points – 5th-T (2nd)

Summary:

While a majority of the league’s teams were involved in a tight race for the ’23 title for much of the season, eventually the Darkhorses were the only ones who kept within striking distance of the eventual champion Demigods.  They were able to keep it tight because they had by far the best pitching staff in the league.  Unfortunately for them, their offense just wasn’t good enough to win it all.  That was quite surprising because the Darkhorses have almost always been known more for their hitting.  Last year was just the second time since 2010 that they had more pitching points than batting points.  These projections show that trend continuing.  There may be teams with deeper rotations, but Spencer Strider and Logan Webb as a top two is pretty hard to beat.  Sonny Gray, Eduardo Rodriguez and Hunter Greene round out the five they figure to roll with early.  The Darkhorses pitching domination last year was especially impressive since they did it without Jacob deGrom for a majority of the season.  It remains to be seen when deGrom will return to action this year.  They have already proven they can be one of the best staffs in the league without him, so he will be a nice cherry on the top whenever he returns.  The bullpen will be without their top performer from a year ago, Felix Bautista, likely for the full season.  But they do still have four other guys who look like good bets to rack up saves:  Andres Munoz, Kenley Jansen, Jose Leclerc and Robert Suarez.  Since it is probably unrealistic to expect 48 pitching points again the year, the offense is going to need to be better.  One reason to think that is likely is because Bryce Harper should be good to go from Day 1 this year, unlike last year when he was recovering from a UCL tear.  He moves to first base in this league this year, joining a stout infield with Alex Bregman, Xander Bogaerts, Andres Gimenez and first round draft pick Royce Lewis.  J.T. Realmuto had a bit of a disappointing ’23 and is a strong bounce back candidate.  Without Harper, the outfield doesn’t have the same star power it once did, but they do have a bunch of guys with solid projections in George Springer, Christian Yelich, Lane Thomas and another bounce back candidate, Starling Marte.  This may not be the juggernaut offense the Darkhorses were once known for, but it sure looks like a better squad than what the results said a year ago.  Combine that with their outstanding pitching staff and you’ve got a team that should contend again this year.

 

Marc’s Mavericks

Category – Projected Rank (2023 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 3rd (5th)
  • Home Runs – 3rd (1st)
  • Runs Batted In – 4th (1st)
  • Runs Scored – 2nd (4th)
  • Stolen Bases – 7th (7th)
  • Earned Run Average – 6th (10th)
  • WHIP Ratio – 6th (5th)
  • Wins – 5th (1st-T)
  • Saves – 9th (10th)
  • Strike Outs – 1st (3rd)
  • Total Batting Points – 2nd (2nd)
  • Total Pitching Points – 6th (7th)
  • Total Points – 5th-T (3rd-T)

Summary:

For the last decade or so, it has pretty much been a lock that the Mavericks would be near the top of these projections because they had Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw and nobody else did.  Now, Kershaw’s 15 year run with the Mavs is over (well, I suppose they could pick him up later this summer as he nears a return from shoulder surgery) and Trout is no longer a perennial MVP candidate.  In fact, the Mavericks have six other hitters ahead of Trout’s still very respectable 3.7 Batting PAR projection.  They probably do still have the league’s best outfield with Trout, Aaron Judge, Juan Soto and Jazz Chisholm all being players every team would want to have.  Soto joining forces with Judge at Yankee Stadium this year should be particularly dangerous for the rest of the league.  The Mavericks middle infield is also in the discussion for best in the league with Ozzie Albies, Bobby Witt Jr and Willy Adames.  Spencer Torkelson finally started to live up to that MLB first overall draft pick hype in the second half of last season.  He will be rejoined by a now healthy Vinnie Pasquantino at first base.  And veteran third baseman Manny Machado remains in the fold as well.  The catching duo of William Contreras and Gabriel Moreno is pretty solid.  The Mavericks pitching staff had a very peculiar season a year ago.  Not too often do you see a team finish dead last in ERA, but near the top of the league in wins and strikeouts.  These projections show them continuing to be the league’s best at inducing whiffs, but leveling off in the other categories.  Basically every pitcher on the roster has elite strikeout stuff.  The rotation will be anchored by Pablo Lopez and Freddy Peralta.  First round pick Bobby Miller will look to replace his Dodger teammate Kershaw.  Hunter Brown should get his first full season in the Astros rotation.  And then there is Chris Sale looking to recapture his old form.  They even nabbed long time Kings ace Max Scherzer to be a mid-season addition once he returns from back surgery.  There are a lot of interesting options for the Mavericks rotation.  The bullpen probably won’t add a lot of saves with Alexis Diaz the only guy in a certain closer role.  But Mason Miller, Abner Uribe and Bryan Abreu all have such great stuff that they could be plus contributors just from their gaudy strikeout totals.  There is certainly enough upside in the Mavericks pitching staff to support an excellent offense to make them title contenders once again.

 

Mike’s Moonshiners

Category – Projected Rank (2023 Rank)

  • Batting Average – 10th (7th)
  • Home Runs – 2nd (7th)
  • Runs Batted In – 3rd (3rd)
  • Runs Scored – 6th (7th)
  • Stolen Bases – 9th (6th)
  • Earned Run Average – 2nd (5th)
  • WHIP Ratio – 1st (9th)
  • Wins – 2nd (8th)
  • Saves – 4th (8th)
  • Strike Outs – 5th (7th)
  • Total Batting Points – 7th-T (6th)
  • Total Pitching Points – 1st (9th)
  • Total Points – 4th (8th)

Summary:

Perhaps the Moonshiners made a deal with the devil to finally win their first DTBL title in 2022, because 2023 was a year from hell.  Their offense took a huge step back and the pitching staff completely cratered.  But boy do these projections show that turning back around this season.  The team that finished with the second fewest pitching points a year ago is pegged to lead the league in that metric this season.  That’s mainly because the Moonshiners drafted two of the three pitchers with the highest projected PAR among those available in the draft with their first two picks:  Tarik Skubal and Zach Eflin.  They immediately become the top two projected starters for the Moonshiners, closely followed by Jesus Luzardo.  There are several solid veteran options available for the final two rotation spots among Yu Darvish, Justin Verlander and Jose Berrios.  Time will tell, but the early indication is that this Moonshiners rotation makeover should be a success.  The bullpen also gets a big time boost with the return of Edwin Diaz, who missed the entire ’23 season.  Clay Holmes and Tanner Scott join him to give the Moonshiners a good shot at being near the top of the league in saves.  It is pretty close to a lock that this team is going to be much improved on the mound.  Whether or not the offense can return to championship form is more of an open question.  Vladimir Guerrero Jr, Rafael Devers and Max Muncy will once again lock down the corner infield spots.  However, the middle infield and catching positions are huge question marks.  Ezequiel Tovar is the only player at those positions who grades out as at least an average contributor, though J.P. Crawford would also qualify if he proves last year’s breakout wasn’t a fluke.  The outfield is in much better shape with Kyle Tucker and Shohei Ohtani, who is currently entwined in a gambling scandal.  Riley Greene was having a nice breakout season a year ago before getting hurt.  Daulton Varsho will look to bounce back from a disappointing campaign.  Finally, it is worth mentioning that the Moonshiners rolled the dice on infielder Junior Caminero in the third round of the draft.  He will start the season in the minors.  But he is one of the top prospects in the game, so he could provide a huge boost to this team at some point this year.  With the disappointment of ’23 behind them, this looks like a Moonshiners squad primed to return to contender status.

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