DTBL News

Author: Kevin

  • Naturals Survive, Break Record


    It was a bit of a rough go of it for the Naturals down the stretch. They had to go at it without two of their best hitters along with several other injuries which left them playing short-handed throughout the final month of the season. Meanwhile, they were being chased by a red hot Demigods squad who had cut the lead to just one point with one day left in the season. Despite all of that, not only did they hang on through a dramatic final day to clinch the title, but they managed to smash the ultimate team record along the way. No team has finished with more points than the 89 they earned this year. Nick’s Naturals are the 2014 DTBL Champions!

    You couldn’t have asked for a much better setup for final day drama. The Demigods put up a great final week to close the Naturals lead to just one point heading into Sunday’s games. They did so by passing the Naturals in WHIP, tightening their deficit in RBIs to just two and making moves in several other categories as well. The Demigods lead in WHIP was by the smallest of margins, meaning that category would almost certainly be determined on Sunday when the Demigods had two starters taking the mound (Johnny Cueto and Cole Hamels) opposed by three Naturals hurlers (Zack Greinke, David Price and Jordan Zimmermann). Cueto and Hamels acquitted themselves well, but they were upstaged by the Naturals trio, to say the least. All three picked up victories, allowing a combined one run. Oh, and Zimmermann threw the first no-hitter in Nationals history. Needless to say, that was enough for the Naturals to regain the WHIP title, costing the Demigods a point in the process. They also gained a point in ERA and wins on the final day. The Demigods were able to pass them in RBIs, but that was far too little to overcome the pitching shift. The final tally: 89 points for the Naturals and 86.5 for the Demigods.

    The Naturals’ 89 points broke the league record previously held by the 2007 Darkhorses with 87. Their 47 batting points ranks second all-time behind their 2010 co-championship squad which put up a perfect 50. They finished first or second in all five offensive categories. The pitching wasn’t too bad either. 42 pitching points would normally lead the league, but the Demigods actually outdid them there. But thanks to those last day wins, the Naturals finished in the top half of all ten categories and won four of them (AVG, R, W, SV). I will cover the Demigods more in a later article, but their season was record-breaking as well. Their 86.5 points is not only the most ever for a non-champion, but it actually ranks as the third highest team total in league history, trailing only the Naturals and ’07 Darkhorses. Unfortunately for them, they picked the wrong year to put up those kind of numbers.

    Early in the season, the Naturals benefited from being one of the few teams not totally decimated by injuries. Of course, their luck in that department changed significantly down the stretch. But in the end, their hot start was enough to carry them to the title. They held the lead almost the entire season. Through most of the first half, it appeared there would be no late season drama as their lead was routinely in double digits. But injuries to Troy Tulowtizki and Joey Votto, among others, wound up being a bit of an equalizer. However, it was shrewd draft picks and a couple key free agent acquisitions which made the difference in the end. An already loaded roster became the most talented in the league thanks to those moves.

    It started with the draft when, despite picking seventh, the Naturals managed to acquire several of the best players available. Speedster Billy Hamilton lived up to expectations and was one of the most productive first round picks. Nolan Arenado provided great value from the fourth round. Likewise with Adam Eaton in the sixth. But one of the two biggest steals in the draft was their selection of Anthony Rendon in the sixth round (Demigods drafting Corey Kluber in the 10th probably gets the nod as the biggest steal). Rendon finished second in the league in runs with 115, hit 21 homers with 17 steals and should be a leading candidate for DTBL Rookie of the Year.

    These guys augmented a roster that was already pretty loaded. Andrew McCutchen had another MVP candidate kind of season with a .319 average, 23 home runs and 18 steals. Miguel Cabrera had another .300+, 25+ HR, 100+ RBI and R season that was actually a bit of a disappointment because of his insane standards. Justin Upton pitched in 29 home runs and 102 RBI as well. But probably the most valuable player on the roster was Victor Martinez. V-Mart hit a career high 32 home runs with a .335 average and 103 RBI. He led the Naturals offensive players with a 5.6 PAR, good for sixth in the league, but undervalues him at his hard-to-fill position of catcher.

    The Naturals have been an offensive powerhouse for years now, so it was the elite performance of the pitching staff that may have cemented their championship status. None of these guys are likely to win the Cy Young, but the trio who pitched Sunday (Price, Greinke and Zimmermann) also happened to be their three best pitchers. It was fitting that they were the ones to nail down the title. Price led the rotation with 271 strikeouts and a 1.079 WHIP. Greinke won the most games (17) and had the lowest ERA (2.71). And Zimmermann was strong in all four of those categories as well. The in-season signing of Phil Hughes turned out to be a key move as well as he filled in for the injured Homer Bailey and the injured/traded Matt Cain. The bullpen featured four of the league’s most dominating closers: Greg Holland, Glen Perkins, Francisco Rodriguez and Jake McGee. They blew the rest of the league away in saves. Rodriguez and McGee were also in-season signings. So while the early use of free agent signings left the Naturals short-handed in the final month, it wasn’t like they were wasted moves.

    It is unwise to bet against the Naturals in a close championship race. They have come out on top of most of the great pennant races of the past decade. This was their fourth DTBL title and none of the four have been by more than 3 1/2 points. Their average margin of victory is 1.75 points. In 2010, they tied the Darkhorses for the first/only co-championship in league history. Then two years later they came out on top of the epic five team race. And now you can add this year, when another Naturals championship wasn’t locked up until the final day of the season. With this fourth title, the Naturals have joined the Darkhorses with the second most DTBL championships, trailing only the Kings. Not bad for the league’s youngest franchise. All four of those titles have come in the past ten years and now they have won three of the last five championships, easily putting them in the lead for team of the decade at the half-way mark of the 10s.

    Much more to come soon on these season recaps, starting with the Demigods’ heartbreak and a look at a few other teams who didn’t suck. I hope you enjoy the MLB playoffs, which got off to a thrilling start last night. Once again, congratulations to Nick’s Naturals!

  • Chasing a Title


    With nine days remaining in the 2014 baseball season, the DTBL race looks almost exactly like it has most of the season. The Naturals continue to dominate and appear primed to win their third title in five years, earning a clear place as the league’s best franchise through the first half of this decade. But not so fast, my friends! The Demigods are having a pretty amazing season as well and still have a very realistic shot at closing the five point gap, even though time is not on their side.

    I’ll save most of the superlatives about the 2014 Naturals and Demigods for the eventual post-season articles. But here’s something to chew on in the meantime. The league record for total points belongs to the 2007 Darkhorses with 87. The Naturals currently have 89 1/2 points. This year’s runner-up is a lock to become just the second team to finish with at least 80 points and not win a title. The Demigods sit with 84 1/2 points right now. There is a very good chance both teams will finish in the top five all-time in total points. Yet one of them won’t have a championship to show for it (unless the Naturals find themselves in another championship tie).

    In many ways, this Naturals team doesn’t really look like one of the all-time greats. While they are loaded with talent, they’ve had to do it with less than what may have been expected from some of their stars. Late season injuries to several of those stars made it appear their title ride could be derailed, particularly since they haven’t had any free agent signings available for more than a month now. They have actually been playing a man down for quite some time with no healthy shortstop available. But the depth of talent is really shining through.  They currently hold 49 batting points, just a single point away from a clean sweep of the offensive categories.  Again, they are doing this without a full/healthy major league roster.

    As has been the case most of the second half, the Demigods are the only team within an arms reach of the Naturals.  The Demigods have had a great season themselves and would be in great shape to win the league almost any other year.  Seeking their first DTBL title, they actually overtook the Naturals for a few days last month.  The league’s best pitching staff has kept them in the race, despite losing their first round draft pick, Jose Fernandez, in May and a late season injury to their other top pitcher, Yu Darvish.  The Demigods are the only team in the league in the top half of all ten categories.  But will this balance be enough?  They have a lot of work to do in these last nine days.

    Five points may seem like an insurmountable lead with barely more than a week left, particularly since the Naturals haven’t given any ground in weeks.  It is hard to put odds out on the race, but it would be fair to say the Naturals are huge favorites at this point.  But there is still a very realistic path to the championship for the Demigods.  Let’s outline just how that might happen.  First of all, the Naturals are a mortal lock if they remain at their current point total.  They will need to lose a couple points for the Demigods to have any chance.  They are vulnerable in a few offensive categories in particular:  home runs, RBIs and stolen bases.  RBIs is particularly worth watching with the Demigods just 2 behind the Naturals for the top spot.  A two point swing seems quite possible there.  In the pitching categories, I would say the Naturals are actually better positioned to gain points than to lose them.  So that makes a Naturals fall in those three offensive categories absolutely vital to the Demigods.

    On the other side, the Demigods have an opportunity to pick up points in a couple places.  In addition to RBIs, they also have an outside shot at a two point swing in WHIP where they trail only the Naturals.  Although that lead may appear vulnerable, it’s going to take an especially poor week for the Naturals pitchers for the lead in that category to change hands.  The Naturals have actually increased their lead in WHIP in recent days.  But it is still worth watching.  Finally, the Demigods also have a shot at picking up points in stolen bases and home runs.  In summary, the best chance at closing the five point gap appears to be two point swings in RBIs and WHIP combined with Naturals points dropped and/or Demigods points gained in home runs and stolen bases.

    Meanwhile, the other eight teams are pretty much just playing out the string.  I don’t think any of them are particularly satisfied with their results this year, so it’s all about pride at this point.  One other thing to keep an eye on down the stretch is the position of the Kings.  They currently sit in a tie for seventh place, which would equal the worst finish ever for a defending champion.  Will they suffer the fate of becoming the worst defending champion of all time?  There is also a tight race between the Gators and Cougars to avoid finishing in last place, a race that included the Darkhorses, Kings and Moonshiners through much of the season as well.

    Enjoy the stretch run and good luck to the Naturals and Demigods!

  • Hall Welcomes Six Legends


    On Sunday afternoon, the National Baseball Hall of Fame enshrined six new members:  a trio of all-time great players and three legendary managers.  The three players, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux and Frank Thomas were all elected into the Hall in their first year of eligibility.  And the three managers, Bobby Cox, Tony LaRussa and Joe Torre are almost indisputably the three most accomplished skippers of the past 30 years.  The full class has been lauded as one of the greatest induction classes of all time.  What makes this class noteworthy for our league is that the three players are probably the first full class of inductees who would all be certain DTBL Hall of Famers as well, if such a thing existed.  Although Glavine, Maddux and Thomas made their MLB debuts prior to the formation of this league, the primes of their careers took place while on DTBL rosters.

    The connection between Maddux and Glavine is obvious as long time teammates in Atlanta.  But it’s Glavine and Thomas who spent many years as teammates in the DTBL with the Kings.  Thomas and Maddux also have close ties in DTBL lore as both were first round draft picks in the inaugural DTBL Draft, making them the first official players for their respective franchises.  The Choppers picked Maddux with the second selection in that 1993 draft, following the Gators’ pick of Kirby Puckett.  So Maddux was the league’s first selected pitcher.  Two picks later, the Kings drafted the slugging first baseman Thomas.  As 13 year-olds at the time, Charlie and I may have let our personal fandoms of Maddux and Thomas sway our decisions, but neither of us would ever regret those picks.  In the seventh round of that same draft, the Kings grabbed Glavine.  He and Thomas would be Kings teammates for the first seven years of the DTBL.

    Tom Glavine probably has the weakest DTBL Hall of Fame case (again, if there actually was such a thing) of these three.  However, he is one of only four players to record 200 wins in this league.  He won a total of 204 games for the Kings, Gators and Darkhorses.  He won 13+ games 10 times, a feat only accomplished more often by two other pitchers (Maddux and Mike Mussina).  Nobody has more 20 win seasons.  He did that three times (1993, 1998, 2000 – 4 others also have 3 20+ win seasons).  Glavine’s career ERA of 3.46 and WHIP of 1.317 may not seem terribly impressive by 2014 standards, but keep in mind that he was still going strong in the steroid era of the late 90’s and early 00’s.  His 1,724 career strikeouts isn’t quite enough to put him in the top 10 all-time.  When it comes to the Kings franchise record book, he’s #2 behind Randy Johnson in wins (115) and third in ERA (3.22) and strikeouts (1,048).

    Glavine spent the first seven years of the DTBL with the Kings before being traded to the Gators late in the 1999 season for J.D. Drew.  15 years later, that sounds like an awful trade for the Kings, but it actually worked out quite well for both sides.  Drew wound up being a key contributor for the Kings first three championship teams while Glavine arguably recorded the best season of his career for the Gators in 2000 as he won 21 games.  He remained with the Gators until the end of the 2003 season.  The Kings reacquired him the following year as a free agent.  Finally, the Darkhorses also signed him as a free agent for the twilight of his career.  In his final DTBL season of 2007, he won his first and only league title with the Darkhorses.

    There is a reasonable case to be made that Greg Maddux is the greatest pitcher in league history.  He’s certainly on the very short list.  He holds the league record for most wins with 240.  Only three retired starting pitchers have better career ERAs and WHIPs compared to Maddux’s 3.00 and 1.095.  But those numbers are slightly inflated because of mediocre numbers late in his career.  Nobody can match Maddux’s prime (well, maybe some guys in today’s pitching dominated game, but certainly not in Maddux’s era).  Even though he wasn’t thought of as a strikeout pitcher, only five have a higher career total in that category.  He is the Choppers career leader in wins and is basically tied with current Choppers’ ace Chris Sale in ERA and WHIP.  Only Mussina struck out more hitters while a member of the Choppers.

    The numbers Maddux posted in 1994 and 1995 were easily the two best consecutive seasons by a pitcher in league history and, alone, were the two lowest individual ERA seasons in the books.  He had a preposterous 1.56 ERA in the strike-shortened 1994 season and followed that up with an absurd 1.63 ERA in 1995.  Oh, and his WHIP was under 0.9 both of those years as well.  Maddux won at least 15 games for 12 consecutive seasons, all with the Choppers.  That will be a tall order for anyone else to ever reproduce.  After 13 remarkable seasons with the Choppers, they finally released him after the 2005 season.  He had mediocre stints with the Naturals, Mavericks and Darkhorses (twice) to close out his remarkable career.  He was a member of four DTBL championship teams (’97 and ’99 Choppers, ’07 and ’08 Darkhorses).  So he teamed up with his Hall of Fame buddy Glavine for that ’07 title, although neither were particularly key reasons why the Darkhorses won.

    The career numbers of Frank Thomas speak volumes about what kind of a hitter he was.  However, they were somewhat overshadowed by other players of his generation who would later become tarnished by connections to performance enhancing drugs.  But never mind that.  There still may not have been a better pure hitter in the 90’s than the Big Hurt.  Thomas hit 412 home runs in his DTBL career, which ranks 10th all time.  But more than half of the players ahead of him on that list have been tied to PEDs in one way or another.  Along with the home runs, Thomas had a career average of .297 with 1,323 RBI and 1,045 runs scored.  The full list of players with better career numbers in all four of those categories:  Barry Bonds, Manny Ramirez, Albert Pujols and Vladimir Guerrero.  Thomas trails only the very tainted Alex Rodriguez in HR, RBI and R in Kings franchise history.

    Thomas was a machine for the first five seasons of this league.  Each year, he hit over .300 with at least 35 HR and 100+ RBI and runs.  He even managed to reach those numbers in the strike shortened 1994 season.  He hit over .340 in three different seasons.  It wasn’t until very late in his career when the averages started to fall, bringing his career mark just below .300.  Unfortunately, a series of injuries in the second decade of his career really kept him from putting up numbers to rival anyone who has ever played the game.  But the Kings kept him on their roster for 13 incredible seasons.  He was a member of all four of the Kings four-peat championships (2000-2003).  He had a brief stint on the Mavericks roster in early 2006, but never recorded any playing time with them.  He did play for the Jackalope later that season.  Finally, the Kings picked him back up for his final two DTBL seasons.

    Unfortunately, my historical records on awards and such from the early years of this league are a little disjointed.  So I don’t have an easy way of telling you about some of the honors these three players received during their DTBL careers.  However, I know for a fact that Thomas was the league MVP at least once and Maddux won several Cy Young awards.  Hopefully I’ll be able to fill in these blanks at some point, because this information is available somewhere on old hard drives and printed newsletters.

    Finally, I want to wrap this up by mentioning a little bit about another Hall of Famer.  Sadly, the great Tony Gwynn passed away last month at the much too young age of 54.  Unlike the three players I just chronicled, the prime of Gwynn’s career was a little before this league started.  However, he also holds a special place in DTBL history.  He is the league’s all-time leading hitter (in terms of batting average) with an amazing .357 mark.  That is almost 30 points higher than any other player this league has ever seen and it is hard to imagine anyone ever breaking this record.  Despite that, Gwynn was not always an automatic starter for all of his teams in this league and bounced around to six different teams in nine years.  Of course, part of that was simply circumstances.  He wound up playing on three teams that folded while he was on the roster (Troopers, Titans and Panthers).  He played for the Gators in his first two DTBL seasons, followed by two years with the Choppers.  Despite ridiculous batting averages every season, he wasn’t a sure starter back in those days.  Because there were so few teams in the league, it was hard for some teams to dedicate a spot for a guy with below average power.  Had he put up those same numbers today, he’d be one of the most valuable players in the league.  But as it stands, he just wasn’t able to accumulate enough stats to appear in the record books for anything other than batting average.  His ability to get hits and avoid strikeouts may never be seen again in a player.  Guys who are thought of as good contact hitters today will still strike out more often the next two months than Gwynn did most full seasons.  He was a legendary hitter and will truly be missed by the baseball community.

  • American Pitchers Prevail


    In a season where pitchers have once again dominated while offense has lagged behind, it was fitting that the 21st Annual DTBL All-Star Game turned into a pitchers duel.  On Tuesday night at DK Memorial Field, home of Marc’s Mavericks, the American Division jumped out to an early lead and held on for a 3-2 victory over the National Division in the Mid-Summer Classic.

    As it turned out, there were a lot of similarities between the DTBL All-Star Game and last week’s MLB All-Star Game, especially when it came to the starting pitchers, and particularly Adam Wainwright.  Like the MLB game, Wainwright got the start for the National All-Stars and was opposed by Felix Hernandez.  And in similar fashion to his performance last week, things didn’t go that well for Wainwright.  In the top of the first inning, he promptly allowed singles to Yasiel Puig and Troy Tulowitzki to start the game.  Both would later score on RBI singles by Paul Goldschmidt and Jose Bautista.  So the American Division opened up a quick 2-0 lead before King Felix took the mound.  No truth to the rumors that Wainwright was laying in pipe shots to the American hitters.  Clayton Kershaw relieved Wainwright in the second, but he too was greeted by some quick hits.  Victor Martinez and Ian Kinsler started the second with singles.  Martinez scored on a one out double by Miguel Cabrera.  Kershaw was then able to shut the door, but the American squad already had a 3-0 lead after an inning and a half.  Meanwhile, Hernandez was much more effective in his two innings.  He retired the side in order in the first and kept the National All-Stars off the board in the second despite a pair of hits.

    After the second inning, the pitchers on both sides went into cruise control, racking up strikeouts and extinguishing a few mild scoring threats.  It wasn’t until the sixth inning when the next serious scoring chance popped up.  Jonathan Papelbon surrendered a single and a double to put two American runners in scoring position with just one out.  But Trevor Rosenthal relieved him and struck out the only two hitters he faced to keep the score 3-0.  This appeared to be a potential turning point in the game, particularly with what happened next in the bottom of the sixth.  Facing Jon Lester, Jacoby Ellsbury reached on a one out single.  Then, Mike Trout followed with a two run blast to left to cut the National deficit to a single run.  Sean Doolittle proceeded to extend the streak of American hitters going down on strikes as he struck out the side in the top of the seventh.  Momentum seemed to be completely on the National side at that point.

    But that momentum would not continue.  No hitters reached base in the 7th or 8th for either team.  The American All-Stars handed the ball to Craig Kimbrel to protect a one run lead in the ninth, facing Trout to start the inning.  He induced a ground out from Trout before walking Freddie Freeman.  But a double play ball off the bat of Brandon Moss sealed the deal as the American Division held on for a 3-2 victory.

    Pitchers dominated not only in keeping runs off the board, but also in compiling a ridiculous number of strikeouts.  The National pitchers somehow fanned 16 hitters in a losing cause.  The American pitchers weren’t short on punch-outs either.  They had 10 of their own for a game total of 26.  I only have easy access to the box scores from the last 10 All-Star Games, so I can’t confirm any ASG records.  However, I’m not aware of a single team strikeout performance greater than the National’s 16.  But believe it or not, 26 is NOT the combined record.  Just last year, the teams combined for 29 strikeouts (15 and 14 each)!  So apparently these absurd K totals are now an All-Star Game trend.

    Felix Hernandez recorded the win on the strength of his two scoreless innings.  Adam Wainwright took the loss.  Craig Kimbrel recorded the save.  OOTP inexplicably named Sean Doolittle as the Player of the Game, despite only pitching one inning for the losing team.  So we had to overrule that selection.  Those present at the game selected Moonshiners second baseman Ian Kinsler as the 2014 DTBL All-Star Game MVP.  Kinsler recorded a game high 3 hits in his 4 at bats.  Interestingly, this is Kinsler’s second DTBL ASG MVP award.  He also received that honor back in 2009 when he hit a key three run homer off Johan Santana to spark an American victory.

    Click here to view the game box score.

    Congrats to Charlie on leading the American Division to the victory!  It was fun, despite being on the losing side.  Too bad I won’t be able to get revenge next year since there is no chance I’ll be managing the National Division again in ’15.

  • All-Star Break Grab Bag


    I hope you are having a great Worst Sports Day of the Year.  The day after the MLB All-Star Game is so barren of sporting events that scoreboard tickers are featuring WNBA and cricket scores.  This is frequently the day in which we play the DTBL All-Star Game.  But as previously mentioned, that will not occur until next week on a date that is still TBD.  In the meantime, this is the perfect opportunity for me to get caught up on a few items I neglected to write about during the first half of the season.

    First, there were a pair of trades during the last two months that deserve mentioning.  Although neither were what you would call blockbusters, both were intriguing nonetheless.  At the end of May, the Demigods acquired closer Addison Reed and outfielder Melky Cabrera from the Mavericks in exchange for relief pitcher Danny Farquhar and outfielder Shane Victorino.  Draft picks were also a prominent part of this deal.  The Mavs picked up 2nd and 5th round picks in 2015 while the Demigods acquired extra picks in the 8th and 12th rounds.  At the time of the deal, the Demigods were in a solid second place, just a handful of points behind the Naturals, while the Mavericks were toiling near the bottom of the standings.  So this deal was clearly an attempt by the Demigods to boost their title hopes for this season, while the Mavericks had an eye towards 2015.  Despite that, the Mavericks have actually been the stronger of these two teams since the deal.  However, that’s not because of the trade since the Mavs didn’t acquire anyone who has helped with their resurgence.  Reed has given the Demigods a boost in saves, recording seven of them for his new team so far.  However, they will need a lot more from him and the rest of the team to run down the Naturals in the second half.  Meanwhile, after one year of not being able to acquire any additional early round draft picks, the Mavericks have already ensured they will head into ’15 with extra early picks.  Although this season is far from over for the Mavericks, at worst, they figure to be right back in the title hunt next year.

    The second trade really flew under the radar as the Kings and Moonshiners swapped spare parts last month.  In need of a catcher due to Wilson Ramos’ second DL stint of the year, the Moonshiners picked up Carlos Ruiz from the Kings for outfielder, and Ruiz’s Phillies teammate, Marlon Byrd.  The  main reason for this trade was so the Moonshiners could temporarily replace Ramos without wasting another free agent signing on a catcher.  But as it turns out, Byrd has been a key piece in the Kings recent offensive resurgence.  He already has eight home runs for the Kings, continuing to defy Father Time.  Long term though, this trade doesn’t figure to have much of a lasting impact on either team.  This was simply a short-term stop-gap deal for both sides.  The Kings and Moonshiners continue to toil through very disappointing seasons.

    Most of my first half writing focused on the negative, from the incredibly high number of injuries to the expected title contenders who were suffering through miserable early results.  So I have almost completely ignored the team that has been dominating this league right from Day 1.  The Naturals have held first place basically the entire year.  In April and early May, that lead was small but consistent.  However, in the past month or so, they have seen that lead balloon into double digits.  At the All-Star break, they find themselves with a 13 point lead over the second place Demigods.  The Naturals being in first place isn’t a huge surprise, considering they won the league just two years ago and are almost always in the title hunt.  But I’m not sure anyone saw them dominating the league in this fashion.  Until very recently, they had been leading the league in both batting and pitching points, the latter being a pretty big surprise.

    The Naturals offense has been simply the best in the league, by a comfortable margin.  They lead the league with 45 batting points, not far from a maximum total of 50.  Troy Tulowitzki has been one of the best players in baseball.  Andrew McCutchen is in the MVP discussion as well.  Billy Hamilton and Anthony Rendon are two of the top DTBL rookies.  I have no idea where Victor Martinez’s sudden power surge came from.  Miguel Cabrera hasn’t been quite the same player he was in his two previous MVP seasons, but even so, his numbers are very good.  The scary thing here is that there is actually room for improvement from some of the offensive roster.  Cabrera could easily increase his productivity in the second half.  Joey Votto and Allen Craig have been mostly MIA this year.  If they bounce back the next few months, look out!

    As several teams learned in the first half, one thing that can quickly derail a title run is a sudden surge of injuries.  To this point, the Naturals have been relatively fortunate on that front.  But they are currently dealing with a few issues on the mound.  Homer Bailey and Jordan Zimmermann are dealing with ailments that hopefully won’t knock them out for too long, if at all.  The Naturals only have one free agent signing remaining, so there are only so many holes that can be filled that way.  But they are pretty well stacked with depth at the moment.  By no means is this thing over, but the Naturals are sitting in great shape with two and a half months left to go.

    Finally, a quick update on site related things I’ve been working on.  When I introduced PAR last month, I mentioned slowly rolling out the numbers from previous seasons.  Unfortunately, I haven’t made any further progress on that as we still have just 2013 and 2014 PAR numbers on the site.  I intend to get back to this soon after the break.  But before then, I have some updates to make to individual player pages and the All-Star and Awards pages (the latter doesn’t actually exist yet).  I’m going to be adding a column to the players’ stats tables to list individual All-Star appearances and awards won.  Like PAR, this will be a work in progress as I accumulate the necessary historical data.  But recent All-Star appearances should be displayed on player pages very soon (maybe by the end of the week).  I will keep you posted on this in the site update thread on the DTBL Forum.

    More DTBL All-Star coverage will be coming soon.  Now let’s get to Friday already so we can enjoy some real baseball again!

     

  • 2014 DTBL All-Stars


    I probably could have figured this out by glancing at the standings, but it wasn’t until I went to vote for the 2014 DTBL All-Stars when I realized that the balance of power in this league has dramatically shifted from the National Division to the American Division.  A few years ago, the National Division roster was clearly stronger as several very deserving players were left off the roster.  Last year was fairly even, although even then the clear top two teams were both on the National side.  But this year, it’s all about the American Division.  Three of the top five teams in the current standings are American teams.  But the position depth paints an even more unbalanced picture.  Several very deserving American players won’t be part of this year’s All-Star Game.  Having said that, both teams possess incredible starting pitching depth.  And in one game, anything can happen.

    On a date yet to be determined, but probably in a week or two, the 21st annual DTBL All-Star Game will take place.  This game will occur very close to the 20th anniversary of the inaugural DTBL All-Star Game in 1994, played in my family’s basement using dice and custom player cards made by yours truly.  That game was a slug-fest, due primarily to the fact that only hitters’ stats were used to create said cards.  Interestingly enough, 10 years ago was another one of the more memorable All-Star Games.  Due to a glitch in the OOTP game setup, players were nearly incapable of hitting fly balls.  So the National Division burned a lot of worms on their way to a 2-1 victory.  So will this year provide more memorable moments?  We shall see.  The Mavericks will be the hosts for the game.  Charlie will manage the American Division and I will call the shots for the National Division.  There is some question about Charlie’s availability for the game, but we will sort that out later.

    As managers, Charlie and I broke all ties in the voting and selected the 23rd players for each roster.  Here are the 2014 DTBL All-Stars:

    American Division

    Starters:

    • Pitcher – Felix Hernandez, Jackalope
    • Catcher – Victor Marinez, Naturals
    • First Base – Paul Goldschmidt, Jackalope
    • Second Base – Ian Kinsler, Moonshiners
    • Third Base – Miguel Cabrera, Naturals
    • Shortstop – Troy Tulowitzki, Naturals
    • Outfield – Jose Bautista, Choppers
    • Outfield – Nelson Cruz, Gators
    • Outfield – Giancarlo Stanton, Jackalope

    Reserves:

    • Catcher – Evan Gattis, Jackalope
    • First Base – Anthony Rizzo, Choppers
    • Second Base – Anthony Rendon, Naturals
    • Third Base – Josh Donaldson, Moonshiners
    • Outfield – Andrew McCutchen, Naturals
    • Outfield – Yasiel Puig, Jackalope
    • Pitcher – Zack Greinke, Naturals
    • Pitcher – Jon Lester, Choppers
    • Pitcher – David Price, Naturals
    • Pitcher – Chris Sale, Choppers
    • Relief Pitcher – Craig Kimbrel, Choppers
    • Relief Pitcher – Greg Holland, Naturals
    • Relief Pitcher – Francisco Rodriguez, Naturals
    • Relief Pitcher – Huston Street, Gators

    National Division

    Starters:

    • Pitcher – Adam Wainwright, Cougars
    • Catcher – Jonathan LuCroy, Kings
    • First Base – Edwin Encarnacion, Mavericks
    • Second Base – Jose Altuve, Demigods
    • Third Base – Todd Frazier, Darkhorses
    • Shortstop – Starlin Castro, Mavericks
    • Outfield – Michael Brantley, Cougars
    • Outfield – Carlos Gomez, Demigods
    • Outfield – Mike Trout, Mavericks

    Reserves:

    • Catcher – Buster Posey, Demigods
    • First Base – Brandon Moss, Mavericks
    • First Base – Freddie Freeman, Demigods
    • Second Base – Robinson Cano, Kings
    • Outfield – Adam Jones, Mavericks
    • Outfield – Jacoby Ellsbury, Darkhorses
    • Pitcher – Johnny Cueto, Demigods
    • Pitcher – Clayton Kershaw, Mavericks
    • Pitcher – Julio Teheran, Darkhorses
    • Pitcher – Madison Bumgarner, Cougars
    • Relief Pitcher – Sean Doolittle, Kings
    • Relief Pitcher – Kenley Jansen, Mavericks
    • Relief Pitcher – Jonathan Papelbon, Kings
    • Relief Pitcher – Trevor Rosenthal, Demigods

    All-Stars per team:

    • 9 – Naturals
    • 7 – Mavericks
    • 6 – Demigods
    • 5 – Choppers, Jackalope
    • 4 – Kings
    • 3 – Cougars, Darkhorses
    • 2 – Moonshiners, Gators

    A few comments.  First, nine Naturals on the team is pretty impressive, and completely deserving considering the way they have dominated this league through the first half of the season.  The 23rd players selected for the respective rosters were a pair of first basemen:  Anthony Rizzo (American) and Freddie Freeman (National).  One of the offensive players listed as a reserve for each division will actually start the game since DHs will be used.  The lineups will be compiled at a later time.  Here are the full voting results.  Much more to come soon, including an official announcement of the game date and time.

  • PAR for the Course


    I take a lot of pride in this web site I have developed and enhanced over the years.  Although it lacks some of the bells and whistles you’ll find on the mainstream fantasy baseball sites, this is a fully functional site that handles all of the key elements of fantasy baseball game management.  Just in the last few years, I’ve added a couple new features that I believe have greatly enhanced the overall user experience, namely the live stats tracker and the recent addition of injury notices.  But there is one key element of most fantasy sites that this one has always lacked:  some sort of player rater to help users analyze where their players stack up against the rest of the league.  After several years of spit-balling ideas, I’m happy to announce the addition of a new league statistic that will show up on pages throughout the site:  PAR (Points Above Replacement).

    As the name somewhat suggests, PAR is loosely based on the Sabermetric statistic that is now the de facto #1 stat for rating baseball players, WAR – Wins Above Replacement.  Most of you are probably at least somewhat familiar with WAR, but to put it in very simple terms, it is a stat designed to determine player value based on how many additional wins a player helps his team earn compared to how many wins they would have earned with a replacement level player in that roster spot instead.  So let’s say Player A earns a 4.0 WAR for a 90 win team.  The theory is that the team would have instead won 86 games if Player A had been replaced by a “replacement level” player.  If you want to see a full description of WAR, including the definition of what “replacement level” means, I recommend checking out this page.

    If determining the number of wins a player is worth is widely accepted as the best way of determining a player’s value in real baseball, what about fantasy baseball?  Well, we don’t care about “wins” (team wins, that is).  But we do care about points.  The goal is to earn as many points in the standings as possible.  So wouldn’t it be useful to know approximately how many points a player is worth?  Specifically, how many points in the standings a player helps a team earn compared to a replacement level player.  Enter PAR.  This method of player valuation is something I’ve been working on for quite some time.  It was my goal to complete this effort this past winter and get it up and running before Opening Day.  I made decent progress, but hit a major snag:  my numbers just weren’t adding up.  Specifically, I wasn’t getting anywhere near the expected results in the ratio categories (AVG, ERA and WHIP).  This led to flawed numbers across the board, so I had decided to table it until next winter.  But then a couple weeks ago, I was reading a fantasy baseball article on FanGraphs which contained a link to a second article and then a link to another site.  Suddenly, before my eyes was the exact solution I had been looking for, particularly for fixing my problem with ratio categories.  On one hand, I was a little upset that I hadn’t found (or really even looked for) this site before.  But on the other hand, it was extremely rewarding to discover that fantasy gurus had come up with methods of player valuation that were nearly identical to what I had come up with on my own.  So I think this should give my new stat a little credibility.

    Here’s the page I discovered on a site called Smart Fantasy Baseball.  It’s definitely worth checking out because it probably describes the concepts a lot more clearly than I will be able to.  But what I’ve come up with is not exactly the same, so I will describe PAR in all of its gory details in just a bit.  The linked page describes a concept of player valuation called “Standings Gain Points” or SGP.  So I could have called this new stat SGP as well, but I had already picked PAR before I ever saw anything about SGP.  The concept is the same though.  SGP is the number of points in the standings that a particular player earns for his team.  There is a replacement level concept built into it as well, but that is where my formula is a little different.  One thing to keep in mind is that SGP, and probably other stats like it, are primarily designed to assign values to players to assist with draft preparation or to set future performance projections.  Most of the big sites that develop pre-season player rankings probably incorporate these ideas into their rankings and dollar value assignments.  But that’s not what I’m looking to do here.  I don’t intend to use PAR in pre-season projections or rankings, partly because I assume you all have your own methods of draft preparation (or lack thereof) that you do on your own anyway.

    My intent with PAR is to assign a specific value to the numbers actually accumulated throughout the season in this league.  The formula is based solely on numbers (past and present) from this league.  Many of you probably occasionally glance at player ratings on other sites, which certainly have some value.  But they are usually based on default league settings on those specific sites.  PAR is completely based on our league’s settings and historical results.

    So let’s get to it.  Here is my best attempt to describe what PAR is.  I’ll leave it to you to determine if it is a worthwhile metric, or completely useless information.  I’m not going to go through all of the math involved, but will provide enough information that you could “check my work” if you so desire.  Or if you are a very trusting person, you can immediately buy into this new stat as gospel truth and stop reading now.

    As mentioned, the idea behind PAR is to determine how many points a player helps a team gain in the standings.  For now, only the raw total PAR is displayed on this site, but it is made up of 5 sub-parts:  one for each of the five categories a player helps contribute towards, which are obviously different for hitters than pitchers.  For each of those sub-parts there are two key numbers involved:  the “replacement level” stat total and the number of units in the category necessary to gain a point in the standings.  But before we dive into those, let’s talk sample size, which is applicable to all that follows.

    All of the numbers that feed into PAR come straight out of this league.  At first I thought about only using numbers from the specific season for which I was calculating a player’s PAR.  After all, this would seem to be the best true measure of a player’s value in a given season.  But then I decided this was much too small of a sample size and could be totally thrown out of whack by teams that decided to punt certain categories.  Also, I didn’t want a player who puts up identical numbers in consecutive seasons to potentially have a significantly different PAR for those two years.  So I decided to expand it to a five year sample size.  I chose five years, and not the entire league history, because as you are well aware, there have been major peaks and valleys in offensive production in baseball during the two decades this league has existed.  If I were to use the same numbers to calculate PAR in 2014 as 2001, very few offensive players would have positive value now, while most pitchers would have accumulated negative value during the heart of the “steroid era”, which doesn’t really make sense since there are just as many points to be gained in offensive categories now as there were then.  So I picked five years to produce a decent sample size that wouldn’t be totally ruined by seismic era shifts.  I’ll have more to stay about this later, but now let’s start looking at how players earn points.  I’m going to focus mostly on the counting categories for now, but I’ll get to a separate discussion about the ratio categories (AVG, ERA, WHIP) later.

    To determine what it takes to earn a full point in a given category, I came up with a method of calculating the “average” gap between teams in the standings in that category.  Average is in quotes because it is not exactly the mathematical average, which would only rely on teams that finish in first and last place to calculate this gap.  Initially, that’s exactly what I did.  But then I found that Smart Fantasy Baseball article, which recommended calculating this gap using a slope formula to create a linear distribution.  Check out that article again for the full details, but the main reason to use a slope formula is because it lessens the impact of outliers and includes all teams in the calculation, not just the first and last place squads.  The slope is calculated in each category and averaged over the five year period.  The table a little further down the page displays the calculated values for each category that were used for the 2013 PAR numbers, and will be used in-season for 2014 as well.  So, for example, the calculated gap of 10.05 for home runs means that it generally takes 10 home runs to gain a point in the standings.  Therefore, a player who hits 10 home runs above replacement level will earn a full point towards his PAR for home runs alone.  And for every additional 10 home runs he hits above that, he earns yet another full point.

    Now let’s dive into the replacement level discussion, which is where my method is actually quite different than what I found on other sites.  Replacement level is one of the more controversial aspects of WAR because not everyone agrees on what it should mean.  In fact, prior to a year ago, the two mainstream producers of WAR (FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference) used completely different formulas to determine replacement level.  They have since unified, but it is still far from a 100% agreed upon standard.  This is also a challenge in fantasy player valuation.  Smart Fantasy Baseball’s approach was to set the replacement level baseline based on the projections of players who would just miss being drafted, so basically the best remaining players in the post-draft free agent pool.  This totally makes sense since those guys would be the true replacements for injured/under-performing players.  But keep in mind that I’m not creating a projection system.  I want to use real stats.  And trying to identify who the best available players are in the free agent pool at any given time is not really doable programmatically, especially since we use such a limited pool of players.  So I decided to go a different route.

    The definition of a replacement level player that I came up with is an average player on a team that will finish in last place in any given category.  So basically, for the counting stats (HR, RBI, R, SB, W, SV, K), I determined the typical last place team total in each category and divided that by 14 for the hitting categories and 9 for the pitching categories (14 and 9 being the number of active hitter/pitcher roster spots).  This produces the units that a “replacement level” player would be expected to accumulate in each category assuming he was on the major league roster for the full season.  Wait a second, what does “typical last place team” mean?  Well, I could have just taken the five year average of last place teams in each category.  But again, I didn’t want my numbers to be drastically swayed by teams that intentionally tanked categories.  So instead, I calculated the average team total in each category over a five year span and subtracted from that the “gap” value described above times 4.5.  4.5 because an “average” team would earn 5.5 points in the category, but I’m looking for a total for the team that finished with 1 point (last place).  So this replacement level value is what a last place team would accumulate if all of the team totals truly formed a linear distribution.

    The calculated point differences and replacement level numbers for each category are in the table below.  These were the numbers I used for the 2013 PAR calculations and will be used in-season for 2014 as well.

    Category Point Diff. Gap Replacement Level
    AVG .0029 .2583
    HR 10.05 15.74
    RBI 24.55 65.24
    R 25.35 66.52
    SB 11.02 7.36
    ERA 0.109 4.065
    WHIP 0.0195 1.3162
    W 2.91 7.46
    SV 10.54 5.02
    K 30.60 113.25

    Now let’s do some math and examine exactly how these numbers came about in one category, home runs.  From 2009 through 2013, the average team total in home runs was 265.66.  Using the slope function on each set of 10 team totals (one for each season), the average of those five results is 10.05, which becomes the point difference gap you see in the above table.  The formula to determine the replacement level is:  ((total team average) – (4.5 x point diff gap)) / 14.  So the calculation for the home run replacement level is:  (265.66 – (4.5 x 10.05)) / 14 = 15.74.

    Besides all of that, there are other numbers involved in calculating PAR.  Obviously, a player’s actual stats are included.  But also a new stat that I needed to start tracking in order to make this work:  number of weeks on the active roster.  This is important because I wanted to make PAR a cumulative stat, like WAR, meaning that a player will “earn” value throughout the season towards an end of the year total, but only while on the active roster.  Without tracking weeks on the roster, players who only spend a short period of time on the roster would post a PAR way below zero since they would likely fall well short of the full season replacement level totals.  But this would be misleading because their contribution is not necessarily negative for the team if they produce good numbers during that brief stint.  So another aspect of the PAR formula is multiplying the replacement value by a ratio of the number of weeks a player is on the active roster over 26.  26 is the full number of weeks in the baseball season.  Therefore, a player on the active roster for exactly half the season (13 weeks) would only need to accumulate half of the replacement level total in order to start earning positive value.

    Here is an example of the home run part of the PAR calculation for Jose Bautista in 2013.  He hit 28 home runs in 21 active weeks on the roster, so that’s why those two numbers appear:  (28 – (15.74 x (21/26))) / 10.05 = 1.52.  So Bautista earned 1.52 “points” for HR, which was then added with the four other parts to create a total of 3.6 PAR for the 2013 season.

    I’ve kind of been glossing over the ratio categories to this point.  The number of weeks on the active roster is not used for these categories because we have a better way of determining how much of an impact a player has on those categories:  their actual number of at bats or innings pitched.  In batting average, the first thing needed is the average number of at bats per player over the 5 year span.  This was calculated by taking the total number of at bats in the league over those five years and dividing it by 700 (50 team totals and 14 slots per team).  This came to a total of 531.04 at bats.  Next, the previously calculated replacement level batting average was used to find the replacement level hits:  (.2583 x 531.04) = 137.28.  So our replacement level hitter has about 137 hits and 531 at bats.  The individual player AVG PAR is calculated by taking a team full of replacement level players plus the player being examined.  That’s 13 replacement players plus the examined player to fill up the full 14 slots:  ((137 x 13) + player’s hits) / (531 x 13) + player’s at bats)) = adjusted batting average.  The adjusted batting average will show how much of an effect the player had on the team batting average.  The rest of the calculation is the same as the other categories.  The concept for ERA and WHIP is similar, except the replacement level innings, earned runs, and walks plus hits are calculated and used instead.  This whole paragraph probably makes zero sense, so I once again refer you to the Smart Fantasy Baseball article to get a better grasp on this.  Just keep in mind that I’m using replacement level players instead of average players.  The concept is more or less the same though.

    Now that I’ve described how PAR is calculated, let’s see if the numbers add up.  On a team-by-team basis, you would expect the total batting PAR to be approximately the team’s batting total minus 5 since a team full of replacement level players would still “earn” 5 batting points.  The same applies for pitching.  But looking at individual team PAR totals can be misleading since some teams might win a category convincingly, earning more than the necessary nine points above replacement, in turn skewing the overall numbers.  So a better way to analyze the results is to add up league-wide totals in each sub-part (category) of PAR.  You would expect the league wide total PAR earned in each category to be somewhere around 45 (9 + 8 + 7 + 6 … + 1).  My calculations for the 2013 season produced the following total PAR in each category:

    • Average:  38.27
    • Home Runs:  30.28
    • Runs Batted In:  22.72
    • Runs Scored:  28.12
    • Stolen Bases:  34.84
    • Earned Run Average:  50.73
    • WHIP Ratio:  58.04
    • Wins:  38.26
    • Saves:  49.17
    • Strike Outs:  49.92

    In summary, some categories came closer to the expected result than others.  But even the ones that aren’t close are explainable and not necessarily a sign of a flawed system.  In particular, the league totals in HR, RBI and R were significantly lower in 2013 than over the course of the five year span we examined.  Therefore, I would actually expect these numbers to be well below 45.  To what degree is hard to calculate, but overall, I am satisfied with the results.  Just keep in mind that when I start releasing the PAR numbers for earlier seasons, we should start to see the opposite situation where offensive points earned exceed the expected totals.  I really won’t know for sure how iron clad this formula is until I complete this task for the full league history, and that is going to take a while.  There is a decent chance I will tweak the formula as I proceed.

    Next, I’m going to explain a little about how you should interpret these PAR numbers and possibly add a few words of warning to clear up some potential misconceptions.  First, and in my opinion most importantly, keep in mind that there is no positional adjustment included in these ratings.  PAR is calculated using the same numbers for catchers as outfielders.  Positional strength plays no role.  Since it is much more difficult to get great value out of certain positions, you shouldn’t simply decide Player A is more valuable than Player B based on a higher PAR if they play different positions.  A catcher with a 3.0 PAR is probably more valuable than an outfielder with the same PAR.  Down the road, I intend to come up with a second new stat, closely related to PAR, which will include a positional adjustment.  But that’s not going to happen anytime soon.

    This lack of a positional adjustment is especially noticeable for pitchers.  Relief pitchers, due to their reduced innings and lack of win opportunities, are going to have a tough time earning positive value.  Almost all non-closers are going to have negative PAR.  This may seem like a huge red flag and a flaw in the system.  But I don’t think it is.  These numbers accurately reflect how much more of an impact starting pitchers have on a team’s total stats compared to relievers.  This is not to say relief pitchers have no value though.  A 0.0 PAR player still helps a team more than a -2.0 player.

    Similarly, it is a mistake to make direct comparisons between hitters and pitchers based on PAR.  In general, pitchers are going to have higher PAR than hitters.  The reason for this is because there are just as many points to be gained in the standings in pitching categories as hitting, yet there are far fewer pitchers earning those points so there are more points to go around to each player.  I considered adding an adjustment to pitchers’ PAR to make the average pitcher’s PAR equivalent to an average hitter.  But I decided against it because I wanted to maintain the goal of total league-wide PAR matching the numbers of points actually available in the league standings.  So keep this in mind when comparing the value of a hitter to a pitcher.

    One false impression you could receive from PAR is that your team would be better off with an empty roster spot than playing a guy who is earning negative value.  This is not the case.  A negative value means that the player is providing less value than a replacement player, but a replacement player is more valuable than no player at all.  To illustrate this, let’s say you decide to go the full season with just one healthy catcher and a second catcher who misses the entire season with an injury.  A hypothetical player who puts up zeros in all five categories for the full season would earn a -7.5 PAR.  It would be nearly impossible for any real player to put up a PAR worse than that.  Same goes with pitching.  A pitcher with no stats for a full season would accumulate a -6.7 PAR.  Keep that in mind when determining if it makes sense to play a man short rather than using the below replacement level player on your bench.

    This may be obvious, but simply accumulating the highest team PAR does not guarantee you a championship.  It is very possible to accumulate a category PAR total that is more than the full nine points necessary to finish first in that category.  Ideally, you want to accumulate close to nine points in each of the categories you intend to win.  Of course, it’s not really possible to see what your PAR is in each category right now, but this is something I hope to add in the future.

    Finally, I suggest you pay little attention to the PAR values that are included in the “MLB” lines of a players’ stats for the current season.  Since I don’t have a good way of determining how many weeks a player has been on an active MLB roster, I’m assuming they have been active the full season, which is obviously not the case for a great number of players.  I thought about not calculating these numbers at all, but decided the information could be useful to see how valuable your bench players or free agents have been.  For now, I’m not calculating PAR for the weekly stat lines, but I may add that later.

    So what comes next?  At the moment, the web site contains PAR numbers for the 2013 and 2014 seasons.  The 2014 numbers will be updated every morning as part of the daily stats update.  One thing to keep in mind is that at the beginning of each week most active players’ PAR will take a slight hit as the number of weeks value that is included in the calculations is incremented by one.  This will be barely noticeable later in the season, but you might see some guys drop a tenth of a point or two right now simply for that reason.  I’m going to take a closer look at the year-by-year results in separate posts as I release those numbers to the site.  I’ll analyze the 2013 numbers in greater detail very soon.  Then I will start working my way backwards starting with 2012.  I don’t expect to finish this project until next winter.  I’m definitely going to need to make some changes to the formula as I approach the early seasons of this league when there were fewer teams and fewer points available.  I have no idea how I’m going to do that right now, but I have plenty of time to think about that.

    Wow, that’s one of the longest things I’ve written since college.  I hope you find some of this information helpful in understanding the new stat.  More importantly, I hope you find PAR to be a useful tool in analyzing players’ value in this league.  This is definitely a work in progress and I am very willing to make adjustments.  So if you find flaws in my system or think there are ways I can improve it, don’t hesitate to let me know.  Also, I’m sure there is much of what I described that is not clear to you at the moment.  Please leave me feedback on any questions or comments you have.  Enjoy!

  • Misery Loves Company

    At the one quarter mark of the season, it is far too early to draw conclusions about how the season is going to turn out.  However, the early indication is that this is not going to be a good year for two teams with serious title aspirations.  The Kings and Mavericks were head and shoulders above the pack in 2013 and the pre-season projections indicated that they were the favorites again this year.  But nearly seven weeks into the season, they find themselves in the bottom two spots in the league standings.

    So what’s going on with these two recent powerhouses?  Well, their problems are fairly obvious and similar.  Both have had the strengths of their teams completely neutered by injuries.  Of course, disappointing performances from healthy players haven’t helped the cause either, but it is nearly impossible to remain competitive when fielding a short-handed roster.  At the risk of this turning into an article in which I whine about my team, that’s pretty much what’s going to happen.  So you’ve been warned.

    The Kings won the title last year on the strength of their offense.  They easily led the league in batting points and finished in the top three of all five offensive categories.  So far this year, they find themselves ninth in batting points and last place overall.  They are at or near the bottom of every offensive category except stolen bases.  Here are their currently injured offensive players:  Brandon Belt, Ryan Zimmerman, Carlos Beltran, Jay Bruce, Wilin Rosario, Michael Cuddyer, Aramis Ramirez and Omar Infante.  All of those players, except Ramirez and Infante, were major contributors on last year’s championship squad.  Belt still leads the team in home runs and was pretty much their only offensive player having a good year at the time of his injury.  Among their “healthy” hitters are two more guys who have dealt with injuries earlier this year:  Jose Reyes and Coco Crisp.  Only five offensive players have been in their lineup basically every day.  As much as some of these hitters have struggled this year, the Kings probably weren’t going to be among the leaders right now even with a healthy roster, but these injuries have basically sunk the ship.

    Oh, and the Kings pitching staff hasn’t been a model of clean living either.  Anibal Sanchez and Jason Grilli are currently on the DL (though both are expected back soon).  Three other injured pitchers have been dropped from the roster entirely to make room for injury replacements:  Patrick Corbin, David Hernandez and Nate Jones.  The first two are out for the year and Jones’ return is a complete mystery at this point.  At the time I am writing this, 13 of the 28 players who were on the Kings roster at the completion of the draft are on the disabled list.  That’s almost half the roster!

    I don’t think the Mavericks are feeling too sorry for the Kings though.  The Mavs haven’t had the same quantity of injuries, but the severity of the injuries they have suffered and the fact that they have mostly been consolidated to one specific position has created a grave situation for them as well.  Arguably, the Mavericks had the best pitching staff in league history last year.  Right now, they find themselves dead last in pitching points.  Five of their star pitchers have been dealing with significant injuries this year.  Matt Harvey probably won’t pitch this season following off-season Tommy John surgery.  Martin Perez became the latest of the long list of pitchers lost this year due to torn elbow ligaments.  Clayton Kershaw finally returned to action a couple weeks ago after missing more than a month.  Mat Latos and Taijuan Walker are both yet to pitch in the big leagues this season and their return dates remain unknown.  Of the starting pitchers who played a major role in the Mavericks’ super staff a year ago, only Stephen Strasburg has remained healthy throughout the early part of 2014 (knocking on wood w/r/t Strasburg).  The Mavericks haven’t been dealt the same type of blow to their offensive roster, but the recent loss of Matt Wieters to an elbow injury is problematic.

    The Kings and Mavericks find themselves in a bit of a predicament in terms of attempting to upgrade their rosters as well.  Due in large part to all of the aforementioned injuries, both teams are running out of available free agent signings.  The Kings are down to just four signings to use in the remaining 3/4 of the season while the Mavericks have only three at their disposal.  Of course, a few other teams are in a similar bind.  But it is safe to say these teams simply cannot afford many more injuries.  It’s too early to give up, but the Mavericks and Kings need healthier rosters to get themselves back in the mix.

    Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the biggest injury casualty of the season to date, which occurred earlier this week.  Demigods phenom pitcher Jose Fernandez was diagnosed with a torn UCL and underwent Tommy John surgery yesterday.  I think he and Perez bring the number of Tommy John casualties this season up to a staggering total of 20.  But Fernandez is the biggest loss yet.  After a dominating rookie campaign that earned him the NL Rookie of the Year award, the Demigods selected him with the second third pick in the draft in March.  He had already become the ace of the Demigods staff (well, he and Yu Darvish anyway) and arguably the best pitcher in the league.  At the time of the injury, he led the league in strikeouts.  According to Mike, he was the leading candidate for DTBL Rookie of the Year and very much in the mix for Cy Young as well.  Fortunately, he is still only 21 years old and the success rate in returning from Tommy John surgery is quite high.  So he still figures prominently in the Demigods future.  However, this is a serious blow to their 2014 title hopes.

    I would argue that this is the second straight year, and third time in the past five years, that baseball has lost it’s most electrifying, must-watch pitcher to a torn elbow ligament.  Last year it was Matt Harvey.  In 2010 it was Stephen Strasburg.  Fortunately, there are still a lot of great pitchers out there to watch on a daily basis, but it really stinks that we are missing full seasons from these guys at the peak of their powers.  I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again:  this elbow injury epidemic is hurting the game.  I continue to hope that the best minds in baseball and the medical community are able to solve this dilemma, even if the positive results take years to materialize.

  • Blog Change

    This post really belongs in my web site update thread, but I’m putting it here to do a live test to make sure my latest changes are working properly.

    For years, I’ve been using player action photos in my blog entries, but like a vast majority of small-time bloggers, have done so on somewhat shaky legal ground.  I’ve always been on the look-out for a more legitimate, and free, way of obtaining photos to embed in my posts.  Fortunately, such a source is now available to me.

    A couple months ago, Getty Images, one of the largest image repositories (if not THE largest), announced that they would start allowing almost all of their millions of photos to be embedded in non-commercial web sites, blog posts and social media outlets.  So, starting with this post, I plan on taking advantage of this.  I will embed photos from Getty in all of my future posts.

    As you can see, the embedded image contains links to share the photo as well as a link back to the original Getty host page if you click the photo.  The one negative about the manner in which Getty has decided to make these photos available is that most industry insiders believe they will ultimately go the route of YouTube and include ads in these photos, one way or another.  If/when that occurs, I may revisit this topic.  But in the meantime, I think this should work great for this blog.

    Mostly coincidental, the timing of this change is just about perfect.  Mike has offered to start writing a semi-regular feature for the DTBL News.  I’d hate to put our resident patent examiner in the awkward position of potentially breaking an intellectual property law, but now we don’t have to worry about that.  I’m not going to spoil the theme of Mike’s article, but look for the first one to be posted very soon.

    And on that note, if anybody else is interested in contributing to the DTBL News, whether it be occasional features or even a one time article, please contact me.  I highly encourage this.  You all already have the ability to create blog entries, but I would like to pass along some tips for keeping the posts consistent and compatible with the main site page.

    Finally, I should mention one other temporary change to the site.  In working on this new photo embedding feature, I had to upgrade this WordPress software since it was several years out-of-date.  Unfortunately, in doing so, I had to remove the single sign-on bridge which allowed us to use the same logon account for the main web site, the message board forum and this blog.  That bridge is not compatible with newer versions of WordPress and is no longer supported by the original developer.  So I’m going to be looking for a replacement.  But in the meantime, if you are logged onto your regular site account, you will still be able to make forum posts, but won’t be able to reply to blog posts or create your own blog entries without a separate log on.  I should be able to fix this relatively soon though, so this is just a heads up.

  • Naturals Win Coin Toss

    First of all, the main purpose of this post is to verify that the new RSS feed application I just installed on Facebook is working.  If it is, this post should appear in the newly created DTBL group on Facebook.

    But while I’m at it, I might as well share the latest DTBL News.  Last night, Mike and I did the coin toss to break the tie between the Naturals and Darkhorses for draft position.  As you may recall, not only did the two teams tie for the league championship, but the first tie-breaker criteria also failed to break the tie.  So it came down to a coin toss.  I wanted to make sure I had another unbiased league member present when I did it, so Mike filled that role last night.  The result was that the Naturals will have the ninth pick in each round of the draft, while the Darkhorses will pick tenth for the fourth straight year.

    I’ve been doing some work on the new web site lately.  One of the main goals of this project is to make our league more interactive.  Part of the plan is to tie our league into popular social networking sites.  This is why I created the Facebook group last week.  My hope is to get new DTBL blog entries to show up in your Facebook feeds, so you won’t even have to go to the league web site to see the latest news.  Similarly, I have decided to create a Twitter account.  This account will be used exclusively to post DTBL and baseball related information.  If you are a Twitter user and want to start following me, my account name is @DTBL_Kevin, http://twitter.com/DTBL_Kevin.  You don’t need to sign up for Twitter to get the latest updates though.  I intend to set up a live feed on the new web site which will not only display my tweets, but those of some baseball media personalities as well.

    Although the full new web site probably won’t be finished for a few months, I hope to give you some previews soon.  Stay tuned!