DTBL News

Category: Awards

  • Verlander Completes Comeback

    Embed from Getty Images When Justin Verlander underwent Tommy John surgery after just one start in 2020, it felt like it could be the end of the road for one of this generation's greatest pitchers.  While many pitchers have successfully returned from UCL surgery, most weren't 37+ years old at the time.  After missing almost all of the 2020 season and all of 2021, Verlander returned this season as a slightly different pitcher, but as good as ever.  He helped lead a rejuvenated Moonshiners pitching staff to their first ever DTBL Championship.  In a year of countless great pitching performances, Verlander was quite clearly the best.  In a unanimous decision, Justin Verlander is the 2022 DTBL Cy Young award winner, earning the award for the third time in his career.

    Verlander's comeback season was quite magical.  The 39 year old defied odds to put up one of the best seasons of his career, which is saying something since he had already authored some of the best seasons in league history.  His ERA and WHIP tell most of the story.  His 1.75 ERA ranks sixth all time while his 0.83 WHIP is the fourth lowest single season mark in DTBL history.  Both marks easily led the league this season and were personal bests as well.  His 18 wins also led the league this year, but doesn't quite stack up with historical records due to the modern suppressed pitcher win environment.  185 strikeouts is an impressive number, but was not near the league leaders and highlights a changed approach for Verlander in which he no longer dominates simply by not allowing hitters to put the ball in play.  Verlander's 14.8 Pitching PAR led the league by over 2 points and is the eighth highest mark since 2005.  He now holds three of the top 8 figures in that stat's single season leaderboard.

    The Moonshiners are the third DTBL team for which Verlander has starred.  Originally drafted in the second round by the Demigods way back in 2007, he spent a dozen spectacular seasons with the Kings with whom he won four DTBL Championships and a pair of Cy Young awards.  Those two Cy Young campaigns (2011 and 2019) are on the short list of the greatest pitching seasons in league history.  He won 24 games while striking out 250 in 2011.  In 2019, he had a 0.80 WHIP with 300 strikeouts and a record Pitching PAR of 17.5.  Tommy John surgery ultimately ended his run with the Kings as he was dropped from the league roster while recovering from surgery in 2021.  The Moonshiners made him a second round selection for the second time in his career when they picked him with the 17th overall pick in this season's draft.  That proved to be quite the steal for the Moonshiners.  Verlander joined Alek Manoah and Yu Darvish to make up the league's best starting pitching trio.  Their championship gives Verlander a smooth five DTBL rings to go along with three Cy Young awards.  This is the second straight season in which a pitcher has won his third Cy Young, following Verlander's former Tigers and Kings teammate Max Scherzer turning that trick last year.

    Verlander's gaudy numbers made him the obvious choice for this award.  He received all nine first place votes to become the unanimous choice for this award, totaling 90 points.  That is definitely not to say there weren't other great pitchers this season though.  In one of the most under-the-radar dominant seasons in recent memory, Diamond Dogs righty Sandy Alcantara put himself into the company of the league's elite pitchers.  Perhaps most impressive was his 228.2 innings pitched, which was 26 more than any other pitcher.  Oh, and he also struck out 207 with a 2.28 ERA and 0.98 WHIP.  Alcantara was the only pitcher besides Verlander to appear on every ballot.  He received three second place votes and a total of 41 points.  Next comes what might be the most anticipated aspect of this vote:  where will Dylan Cease and Alek Manoah rank following their narrow Rookie of the Year competition?  Well, turns out they flipped for this award.  Rookie of the Year runner-up, Moonshiners young hurler Manoah finishes third for the Cy Young in his debut season.  His 2.24 ERA and 0.99 WHIP were incredible for such a young pitcher.  He received a pair of second place votes and a total of 31 points.  Right behind him is Rookie of the Year winner, Choppers fireballer Cease.  Cease received three second place votes, but was left off three ballots, which ultimately caused him to fall three points behind Manoah with 28.  For the record, nobody swapped the order between Manoah and Cease on their Rookie of the Year and Cy Young ballots.  It was just a matter of how those points were distributed.  One other pitcher received a second place vote, that being Cougars ace Corbin Burnes.  Burnes finished second in the league with 243 strikeouts.  He is the only pitcher to rack up 200+ strikeouts with a sub 3.00 ERA each of the past two seasons.  Burnes finished in fifth place in the vote with 13 points.  A total of 10 different pitchers received Cy Young votes.

    Click here to view the full voting results.

    It's looking like I won't get around to announcing the 2022 DTBL Most Valuable Player until early next week. There probably isn't too much suspense surrounding who will win that award anyway though.

  • Rookie Cease Fire

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    Starting pitchers dominated the first couple of rounds of the 2022 DTBL Draft.  Seven starters were chosen in the first twelve picks, six of them having DTBL rookie eligibility.  While a couple of them had disappointing seasons due to injuries and/or underachievement, this will still go down as one of the best rookie pitching classes in recent memory.  Three of those pitchers, in particular, were impactful contributors to their teams and wound up finishing at the top of the rookie of the year vote.  In one of the tightest votes imaginable, Choppers right handed hurler Dylan Cease is the 2022 DTBL Rookie of the Year.

    Cease took a bit of a circuitous route to this award.  First, while he obviously was a DTBL rookie this season, it was not his first season in the league’s player pool.  After making his much anticipated MLB debut in the summer of 2019, he was added to the league for 2020, but went undrafted prior to that pandemic shortened campaign.  Late in the season, the Choppers took a flyer on him as a free agent signing, but did not put him on their major league roster.  Because of his somewhat pedestrian numbers that year, leading the American League in walks without a terribly impressive strikeout total, he was released by the Choppers and then dropped from the league for the 2021 season.  2021 was his true breakout season, significantly reigning in the walks while nearly doubling his strikeout rate, making him a hot commodity for the 2022 draft.

    The Choppers took Cease with the ninth pick of the first round this year.  He proceeded to build upon that strong 2021 season with an even better 2022.  His ERA hovered around 2.00 most of the summer before settling to an extremely impressive 2.20.  He actually led MLB in walks. But despite that, his hit suppression was so strong that he still finished with an excellent 1.11 WHIP.  He won 14 games and led all rookies with 227 strikeouts.  Only three other pitchers recorded more strikeouts this season.  The Choppers led the league in pitching points and Cease was the primary reason for that.  He led the staff in wins, strikeouts and ERA among qualified pitchers.  It was all the Choppers could have hoped for in solidifying their staff.  Cease, along with fellow rookie Logan Gilbert, should give the Choppers a formidable pitching staff for quite some time to come.

    This Rookie of the Year award was hotly contested.  Cease was hardly the only rookie pitcher to have a season worthy of the award.  And the vote reflected that.  Cease received five of the nine first place votes cast.  On the other four ballots, he was ranked second.  Meanwhile, Moonshiners pitcher Alek Manoah, who was picked two spots before Cease in the draft, received the other four first place tallies and was placed second on all of the other ballots.  Manoah won two more games than Cease and had a better WHIP, while Cease had more strikeouts and an ever so slight edge in ERA.  Manoah also had a slight edge in PAR (11.7 vs. 10.4).  So this was a tough call for voters.  In the end, Cease’s 78 points put him three ahead of Manoah’s 75.  Both figure to be candidates for the Cy Young award as well, so it will be interesting to see how they stack up in that vote.  Yet another starting pitcher came in third in the vote.  Komodos lefty Shane McClanahan was possibly the leading candidate for this award before being knocked out by injury for a bit in the late summer.  He still managed to strike out 194 with a 2.54 ERA and a sub-1.00 WHIP.  McClanahan was the third and final player to appear on all nine ballots, receiving five third place votes for a total of 35 points.  Finally, we have a hitter in the mix with Jackalope outfielder Adolis Garcia finishing in the fourth spot.  Garcia led all rookies with a 5.7 Batting PAR.  He hit an impressive 27 home runs with 25 stolen bases.  Garcia received the other four third place votes that didn’t go to McClanahan and finished with 28 points.  Rounding out the top five is another starting pitcher.  Darkhorses first round selection Logan Webb also lived up to the rookie hype with 15 wins and a 2.90 ERA.  Webb compiled 10 points in the vote to finish in fifth place.

    Click here to view the full voting results.

    I haven’t figured out the exact schedule for the announcement of the other two awards, but am hoping to do both before the end of this week.  It seems unlikely the vote for either will be as close as this one, but we shall see!

  • Guerrero Named MVP

    Embed from Getty Images On an individual player level, 2021 will be remembered as the year of Shohei Ohtani.  The two-way player did what had previously been thought to be impossible:  dominated the league as both a hitter and a pitcher.  He was unanimously selected as the American League Most Valuable Player.  However, in this league, he was not able to accumulate stats for the Moonshiners as both a hitter and a pitcher, making his MVP case not nearly as clear cut, yet still very much in the discussion.  In the end though, he was edged out by his Moonshiners teammate.  After a somewhat disappointing DTBL rookie campaign, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. lived up to the hype and then some this year.  He is the 2021 DTBL Most Valuable Player.  Amazingly, this is now consecutive seasons in which the award has been won by the son of a former DTBL star.  Last year, Fernando Tatis Jr. shared the award with Jose Abreu.  Maybe Bo Bichette or Cavan Biggio will make it three in a row in 2022.

    In last year's abbreviated season, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit nine homers with a .262 average.  Not a terrible season, but not what the Moonshiners were hoping for when they drafted him sixth overall in the loaded 2020 draft.  This season, he put it all together and became the best hitter in the league.  He hit 48 home runs, tied with Salvador Perez for most in the DTBL.  He also led the league in run scored (123), finished third in batting average (.311) and fourth in runs batted in (111).  His 9.50 batting PAR also topped all hitters.  The Moonshiners have been looking for a star hitter to lead their offense for a while.  Now it seems they have at least three such players, with Ohtani and Rafael Devers joining Guerrero.  The Moonshiners easily led the league in batting points thanks to those three.

    When sitting down to write this article, the first thing that popped into my mind was whether or not Vladimir Guerrero Sr. and Jr. have become the first father and son to win DTBL MVP awards.  Unfortunately, I don't have an answer to this right now because I only have complete awards results since 2005.  Senior's best seasons were before that.  While he had many MVP caliber seasons, I am quite certain he was edged out by others in most of those campaigns, which came during the height of the steroid era.  If we were to retroactively vote on who should have won the award each of those years, I suspect he would fare much better now.  The one year when I think he *might* have won DTBL MVP was 2004.  In the near future, I will try to dig through some data on old computers and hard drives that I still have in my possession to see if I can figure this out.  I may come back and edit this article if I find this information.  In the meantime, while I'm not certain if Vlad Sr. ever won a MVP in this league, I think it is safe to say the Guerreros now have the best peak seasons of any father and son duo in DTBL history.

    Not surprisingly, the vote was very close.  Guerrero received six of the nine first place votes and a pair of seconds.  Mysteriously, he was left entirely off one ballot.  Perhaps it was an oversight.  It did not wind up costing him though as he finished with 74 points.  His Moonshiners teammate Shohei Ohtani was the runner-up.  Ohtani had a remarkable season, even when you exclude his pitching prowess.  The Moonshiners made a tough, but ultimately wise decision to use him as a hitter this year.  All he did was slug 46 homers and steal 26 bases, with a 8.9 PAR that only trailed Guerrero by a little more than a half point.  Clearly he would have won the MVP in this league as well if his pitching numbers counted.  He received two first place votes along with five second place tallies.  He was the only player to appear on every MVP ballot, garnering 65 points.  Finishing third was last year's co-MVP Fernando Tatis Jr.  The Demigods shortstop had another incredible season with 41 home runs and 25 stolen bases.  Injuries were the only thing that prevented him from keeping up with Guerrero and Ohtani.  He received one second and four third place votes for 34 total points.  Not far behind him was Beanballers shortstop Trea Turner.  One of the most underrated players in the game, Turner blew away his career high in homers with 28 and also stole 32 bases.  This is his second straight top 4 MVP finish and he is yet to have a non-elite season in the DTBL.  He received the lone first place vote that didn't go to Guerrero or Ohtani and finished with 27 points.  Rounding out the top five is yet another son of a former DTBL star and another Beanballers shortstop.  Bo Bichette had nearly identical numbers as Turner, with a few more RBI and runs and a lower batting average.  He finished just two points behind Turner in this vote, with 25.  So that makes three sons of former DTBL sluggers in the top five of this year's MVP vote.  Tatis, Guerrero and Bichette were drafted first, sixth and eighth respectively in the 2020 Draft, which is already looking like one for the ages.  That first round also featured Lucas Giolito, Pete Alonso and Yordan Alvarez.

    Click here to view the full voting results.

    That wraps up our 2021 DTBL awards announcements.  Since I was extremely lazy with the blogging this year, I do intend to play some catch-up this winter with some items I neglected to cover earlier in the year, including a season recap detailing the Kings ninth championship campaign.  In the meantime, thank you to everyone for another fun season.  I hope you have a great Thanksgiving!

  • Scherzer Wins Third Cy Young

    Embed from Getty Images The Kings roller coaster ride of a past decade that continually fluctuates between championship and bottom feeder seasons peaked again in 2021 with them winning their ninth DTBL Championship.  While the Kings themselves have been anything but consistent over the years, one thing has not changed.  Max Scherzer has remained one of the best pitchers in baseball.  In 2021, there were a lot of great pitching performances, especially among those who played for National League teams.  In what wound up being almost the polar opposite of the NL Cy Young vote, Max Scherzer is the 2021 DTBL Cy Young award winner, earning the honor for the third time in his career.

    While the final numbers were right where they usually are, it was not exactly a normal season for Scherzer.  As a free agent to be, he was traded from the struggling Nationals to the Dodgers and immediately became a critical piece for the defending World Series champions who lost Clayton Kershaw to injury and Trevor Bauer to administrative leave.  Scherzer wasn't completely healthy himself this season, limiting him to 173 innings, far fewer than his usual workhorse load.  But he made those innings count with a career best 2.49 ERA and 0.86 WHIP.  That WHIP is the sixth lowest by a qualified pitcher in league history.  He won 14 games and struck out 231 batters, both of which put him fourth in the league this season.  His 11.92 pitching PAR led the league, barely edging out his Dodgers teammate Walker Buehler.

    This was the sixth time in the past nine years that Scherzer accumulated a double digit PAR.  He is now just 3 PAR behind his former Kings teammate Justin Verlander for second place on the DTBL career pitching PAR list (caveat:  only includes 2005-present).  It is hard to say where this Scherzer season stacks up compared to the best of his career.  Probably behind his other two DTBL Cy Young campaigns though.  He struck out 300 while winning the award in 2018 and won 20 games in 2016.  The Kings have now won the title in all three of his Cy Young seasons.  In fact, in the Kings five championship seasons in the past decade (2013, 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2021), Scherzer has finished first or second in the Cy Young vote in all but one.  And in that one exception (2019), his Kings teammate Verlander won the award instead.  With Verlander no longer around, Scherzer is the only player to have been on all five of those championship squads.  It is safe to say they would not have won many, if any, of them without him.

    There were four standout pitchers in the DTBL this season.  As it turns out, all four played for National League teams.  So it is interesting to compare how the voting results played out for the DTBL and NL Cy Young awards.  The order in which those four finished was almost exactly the opposite in the two races.  In the NL, the award was won by Corbin Burnes with Zack Wheeler finishing second, Scherzer third and Walker Buehler fourth.  Here's how the DTBL vote shook out.  Scherzer received seven of the nine first place votes and a pair of seconds to finish with 84 points.  The runner-up was Komodos' ace Buehler.  The Dodgers righty was just barely edged out by Scherzer in PAR, WHIP and strike outs, but Buehler had the slight edge in ERA and wins.  He received the other two first place votes, five seconds and two thirds for 65 points.  While it was the Scherzer/Verlander duo leading the way in recent championship seasons for the Kings, this year it was Wheeler replacing Verlander.  Wheeler had a career year, leading the league with 247 strikeouts.  He received one second and six third place votes for 43 points, joining Scherzer and Buehler as the trio who appeared on every ballot.  Finishing fourth was the NL Cy Young award winner Burnes.  The Cougars first round draft pick this year had a sparkling 2.43 ERA and 0.94 WHIP.  One of the talking points post NL Cy Young announcement was that Burnes threw 45 fewer innings than Wheeler.  As for this league's vote, he threw just six fewer innings than Scherzer.  A majority of the votes he received were for the fourth slot and he totaled 27 points.  There was a huge dropoff after those four.  Finishing fifth was the Cougars' Kevin Gausman with four points.  Interestingly, eight out of the top nine finishers played for NL teams.  The only exception was a relief pitcher, Liam Hendriks.  The top finishing AL starting pitcher was Gerrit Cole, who came in tenth.  Of course, AL Cy Young winner Robbie Ray wasn't even on the league roster this year.

    Click here to view the full voting results.

    One more award to come.  It's the big one.  Who will be named the 2021 DTBL Most Valuable Player?  Come back tomorrow to find out!

  • Peralta Nabs Rookie Honor

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    For as long as this league has existed, teams have employed the strategy of using real life starting pitchers who qualify as relievers in relief pitcher slots to attempt to gain an advantage in the wins and strikeout categories.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not.  There is usually a price to be paid in the ERA and WHIP categories when an additional, sometimes marginal starting pitcher is utilized.  But when that extra starter is an All-Star caliber pitcher, the calculus changes quite dramatically and it becomes a huge boon to a pitching staff.  The Demigods took a chance on Freddy Peralta in the eighth round of this spring’s draft, and boy did it pay off.  He is the 2021 DTBL Rookie of the Year.  This is the second straight year the award has been won by a Demigod, following Fernando Tatis Jr. a year ago.

    Peralta struck out 195 batters, which was almost twice as many as any other DTBL reliever recorded and was a single season league record for a pitcher occupying a reliever slot, just surpassing Chris Sale’s breakout season of 2012 in which he pitched almost 50 more innings than Peralta did this year.  Peralta won 10 games, which may not seem especially impressive, but in today’s suppressed starting pitcher win environment, it was another nice bump for the Demigods.  The last DTBL reliever to win more games than that was Josh Collmenter in 2014.  The real risk of using starters as relievers is the damage they could do to ERA and WHIP.  But Peralta was elite in those categories as well, posting a 2.81 ERA and 0.97 WHIP.  In total, he accumulated 6.85 PAR to lead the Demigods staff.  Usually, its a bad sign if a reliver leads a team in pitching PAR.  But in this case, Peralta was a legitimate ace.  That PAR total was tops among DTBL rookies as well.  I do not have complete awards records prior to 2005. But in the years since, Peralta is the first DTBL designated relief pitcher to win Rookie of the Year.

    It is probably safe to call the selection of Peralta in the eighth round a steal for the Demigods, even with him moving to a starting pitcher slot next year.  He was not enough to boost the Demigods into contention this year, but combining him with Max Fried, Aaron Nola and Joe Musgrove does give them a solid foundation on which to build.  The Demigods back-to-back Rookie of the Year winners, Peralta and Tatis, may have arrived with different pedigrees:  Tatis was the first overall pick in the draft while Peralta was taken 74th.  But both should be huge figures in the team’s future.

    Peralta did have strong competition for this award.  Of the nine ballots cast, Peralta was the first choice on seven of them.  The other two ballots had him second, for a total of 84 points.  That gave him the award by a comfortable margin.  Finishing second was Beanballers hurler Chris Bassitt, who might have won this award had he not suffered a gruesome injury when he was hit in the face with a line drive in August and missed most of the remainder of the season.  Bassitt won 12 games with a 3.15 ERA.  He did not receive any first place votes, but was the consensus runner up with five second place votes and 48 total points.  Just behind him was Moonshiners outfielder Ryan Mountcastle who led all DTBL rookies with 33 home runs.  The Moonshiners first round selection received the two first place tallies that didn’t go to Peralta and appeared on all nine ballots for a 43 point total.  The third and final player to appear on every ballot was Kings outfielder Randy Arozarena.  The 2020 Postseason breakout star and 2021 American League Rookie of the Year validated his status as the second overall pick in the draft with a 20/20 season.  He had exactly 20 home runs and stolen bases.  Arozarena received one second place vote and a slew of third through fifths for 37 points.  Rounding out the top five is Mavericks starting pitcher Tyler Mahle.  He led DTBL rookies with 13 wins and 197 strikeouts.  He was a great find for the Mavericks in the sixth round and helped save a staff ravaged by injuries.  Mahle tallied 14 points in finishing fifth.

    Click here to view the full voting results.

    After going months without posting a blog entry, I’m going to try to cram three in consecutive days.  The plan is to announce the Cy Young winner tomorrow and MVP on Wednesday.  Stay tuned!

  • Abreu, Tatis Share MVP Award

    Embed from Getty Images A sixty game regular season didn't afford players much of an opportunity to distinguish themselves from their peers.  Plenty of players made the most of the shortened schedule and had tremendous seasons.  But how do you determine which player was most valuable over such a short time frame?  It would appear the voters for the 2020 DTBL Most Valuable Player award had many different thoughts on that.  In quite possibly the most competitive award vote in league history, not one player received even half of the available points.  Five different guys received a first place tally and four others were ranked in the top three on at least one ballot.  A group of four players finished within four points of each other at the top of the results table.  And finally, two players tied for the ultimate prize.  Cougars first baseman Jose Abreu and Demigods shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. are the 2020 DTBL Co-Most Valuable Players.

    Jose Abreu has been a steady force for the Cougars since 2015.  But prior to this year, he had never received so much as a single MVP vote and has never been named a DTBL All-Star.  This year, however, he was clearly among the league's elite hitters.  He led the league with 60 RBI.  His 19 home runs trailed only Luke Voit.  He also hit .317 with 43 runs.  The batting average was easily a career high for Abreu and the pace he set in those counting stats would have been personal bests as well.  Being among the leaders in runs batted in is nothing new for Abreu though.  He finished second with 123 a year ago and has had at least 90 RBI in every season but one, prior to this season.  Abreu's 4.4 Batting PAR ranked fourth in the league, which is an unusually low ranking for a MVP.  But the margins were so small that distinguishing between players based on that stat alone didn't make a lot of sense this year.  He was just 0.2 points behind the leader (Tatis).

    Abreu was selected by the Cougars with the first overall pick in the 2015 Draft.  By first overall pick standards, perhaps his career had been a slight disappointment prior to this year.  But he's hardly been a bust.  He finished fourth for the Rookie of the Year award in 2015, following a strong first season.  His best full season was probably last year when he .284 with 33 homers and 123 RBI and a career high 5.4 PAR.  He almost certainly would have blown past that figure this year though with a full schedule.  He's now finished with at least 4.0 PAR in four of his six DTBL seasons.  Abreu was a major reason why the Cougars finished second in the league in batting points.

    In case you didn't get a chance to read the Rookie of the Year article, here is a quick recap of Fernando Tatis Jr.'s season.  The first overall selection in this year's draft lived up to the hype and then some.  Tatis led the league with 4.6 Batting PAR.  He hit .277 with 17 home runs and 11 stolen bases.  Only five players had more steals and only two hit more home runs than Tatis.  Nobody exceeded his total in both of those categories.  He also led the league with 50 runs scored.

    While many players have come close in recent years, including Ronald Acuna last year, Tatis is the first player to win both the DTBL Rookie of the Year and DTBL Most Valuable Player in the same season since Ryan Howard in 2006.  Jake Arrieta had been the last person to win a pair of the three major awards, taking the Cy Young and Rookie of the Year in 2015.  While Tatis' resume is quite impressive, he wasn't a lock to be the top finishing Demigod in this vote.  First baseman Freddie Freeman also garnered strong support.  Tatis and Freeman were the primary reasons why the Demigods had the league's most improved offense in 2020.

    As a White Sox fan, I'm reluctant to even mention this, but Tatis and Abreu very easily could have been teammates.  However, the Sox dealt Tatis to San Diego for Big Game James Shields in 2016.  Oops.  I don't think this is the first time that we have had co-MVPs.  In fact, I have a faint recollection of this happening in one of the league's first couple seasons.  Unfortunately, as I've mentioned before, my records are lacking on awards voting from the first decade of the league's existence.  This data is likely sitting on an old hard drive that I still posses, so maybe I can fill in the blanks later.

    The voting for this award was all over the map.  Abreu received the most first place votes with four, but didn't garner any second or third place tallies and was entirely left off one ballot.  He accumulated a total of 49 points, which was matched by Tatis, but in a different fashion.  Tatis received three first place votes along with a pair of seconds.  But he was also left off two ballots.  Perhaps the top stealth candidate for this award was the guy who finished third.  Beanballers shortstop Trea Turner was not among the players strongly considered for the National League MVP award.  He was an extremely valuable fantasy player, however, racking up impressive totals in all five offensive categories.  Turner hit .335 with a dozen homers and a dozen stolen bases.  He scored 46 runs and knocked in 41.  His 4.4 Batting PAR was a smidge ahead of Abreu.  Turner only received one first place vote, but was the top choice for runner-up with three seconds.  He finished with 47 points, just two behind Abreu and Tatis.  Komodos third baseman Jose Ramirez was also just a flipped vote here or there away from winning this award.  Ramirez actually had nearly identical numbers to Tatis across the board, but with a slightly higher .292 average.  Ramirez received a single first place vote, two seconds and three thirds.  He finished with 45 points, just four behind the winners.  But wait, there was one more player who had a reasonable shot at being the MVP.  Demigods first baseman Freddie Freeman didn't receive any first place votes, but was another popular choice on ballots.  He appeared on eight ballots for a total of 32 points.  Those were the five who appeared on a majority of ballots.  Kings outfielder Mookie Betts also received a first place nod as one of the three total votes given to him.  To add to the chaos of these results is another fascinating fact.  The champion Darkhorses easily led the league in batting points.  However, not one of their players were among the eleven players who received MVP votes.  Finally, this is the first time in Mike Trout's illustrious career that he has not received a MVP vote.

    Click here to view the full voting results.

    And with that, official business for the 2020 DTBL season is complete.  It's been a trying year for everybody.  I hope this league was a fun distraction for you at times this summer.  Let's all hope for a return to normalcy in 2021.  Have a great Thanksgiving!

  • Bieber Bests Choppers Teammate

    Embed from Getty Images When it came to elite pitchers, the Choppers had the market cornered in 2020.  This was an unexpected development, particularly after they lost their long time ace Chris Sale to Tommy John surgery back in the spring.  However, Shane Bieber and Trevor Bauer more than picked up the slack.  They were the two most dominant pitchers in the league this season, which earned them the American League and National League Cy Young awards, which were announced last week.  While both pitchers had remarkable seasons, Bieber was the clear standout pitcher of 2020.  And because of that, he is the 2020 DTBL Cy Young award winner.

    This race was basically a runaway right from the start.  Bieber put the league on notice with a scoreless, 14 strikeout performance on Opening Day.  In his second start, the strikeout total fell all they way to 13, but he pitched another eight scoreless innings.  He pitched a dozen times this season, never striking out fewer than eight hitters and without ever allowing more than three runs.  There was not one single dud in his entire season.  The end result was an absurd 1.63 ERA, 0.87 WHIP, eight wins and 122 strikeouts.  He led all qualified pitchers in ERA, wins and strikeouts.  The ERA is the third lowest single season total among qualified pitchers in league history.  Of course, that requires several caveats due to the shortened season, but it is noteworthy nonetheless.  His 7.7 PAR was nearly a point and a half higher than Bauer, the next closest pitcher.  That put him on pace to top Justin Verlander's record 17.5 PAR last year over the course of a full season.  But again, caveats apply.  No matter how you slice it, Bieber was clearly the best pitcher in baseball in 2020.

    This ends a lengthy streak of well established stars winning this award.  Bieber is just 25 years old and figures to be at the very beginning of his prime.  The Choppers selected him in the third round of the 2019 Draft.  His rookie season was quite impressive.  He led the Choppers in most pitching categories last year too.  He won 15 games with a 3.28 ERA and 259 strikeouts.  That earned him third place in a loaded Rookie of the Year race.  Bieber also finished in sixth place for the Cy Young a year ago.  This year, he took his game to a new level, and in doing so, helped the Choppers improve their pitching output by a dozen points.  Bieber didn't do it alone though.  Trevor Bauer finished second in the league in PAR and Brandon Woodruff had an impressive rookie campaign as well.  If Sale is able to come back healthy next year, the Choppers will have an envious rotation anchoring their squad.  My records only contain complete award data since 2005, so I'm not 100% certain about this, but I believe Bieber is the first Choppers pitcher to win the Cy Young award in at least 20 years.  Greg Maddux and Mike Mussina are the only other Choppers who may have won this award previously (I'm almost certain Maddux did at least once).  The Bieber/Bauer duo does bring back memories of the Choppers dominant staffs of the '90s that featured Maddux and Mussina.  Perhaps they can help lead the team to their first championship since that era sometime soon.

    Believe it or not, Bieber wasn't a unanimous selection for this award.  He received top billing on nine of the ten ballots, but was placed second on the other.  Still, that's a pretty impressive 97 total points, well clear of his Choppers teammate.  Bauer was overshadowed by Bieber, but he had fairly similar numbers across the board.  His WHIP was a league best 0.80 and he recorded exactly 100 strikeouts, one of only three pitchers to do so this year.  Bauer was a pretty clear second choice, finishing with seven second place votes and 64 total points.  There was actually a third pitcher who had ridiculous numbers that would have put him in line to win this award in a normal season, and that is Moonshiners veteran Yu Darvish.  Darvish was just slightly behind Bieber and Bauer in every category.  It was his best season since his DTBL Rookie of the Year campaign in 2013.  After falling on some tough times, he is now fully healthy and among the game's best pitchers again.  Darvish had one second place vote and seven thirds to finish with 45 points.  His Japanese countrymate Kenta Maeda finished fourth.  Maeda had his best DTBL season, highlighted by his 2.70 ERA and a miniscule 0.75 WHIP.  He was probably the most surprising name among the Cy Young contenders this year after spending several years flipping between the rotation and bullpen for the Dodgers.  He proved himself to be an elite starter for the Twins.  Maeda received 20 total points.  Finishing fifth was the consensus favorite for this award heading into the season, Jackalope ace Gerrit Cole.  Cole's first season in the Bronx was a little bumpy.  But when it was all said and done, he still had a pretty impressive campaign.  It is hard to feel disappointed with a 2.84 ERA and sub 1.0 WHIP.  But the bar has been set awfully high for Cole after signing that massive deal with the Yankees last winter.  Cole received a second place vote and 17 total points.  Normally I stop the rundown after the top five, but I feel like I have to mention the guy who finished sixth since he was the only person to receive a first place vote besides Bieber.  Mavericks star lefty Clayton Kershaw had a nice bounce-back season in 2020, and apparently it impressed someone enough to give him a first place tally.  It was the only vote he received, however.

    Click here to view the full voting results.

    Fernando Tatis and Shane Bieber were unsurprising recipients of the year's first two awards.  The final award, Most Valuable Player, figures to be a much more competitive vote.  In fact, I'll go so far as to guarantee it.  I have tentatively planned on announcing that winner next Monday, November 23.

  • Tatis Takes Top Rookie Honor

    Embed from Getty Images For the second consecutive year, the first overall pick in the DTBL Draft immediately took the league by storm and became one of its best players.  Last year, it was Ronald Acuna who led the league in PAR and won the 2019 DTBL Rookie of the Year award.  The Demigods didn't have a very difficult choice to make with the first pick of the draft back in March.  While it appeared to be a strong incoming class, there was only one player available who seemed to be a safe bet to carry a team in all five offensive categories.  The young shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. did just that.  Through much of the season, not only was Tatis the league's best rookie, but also seemed a lock to win both of the coveted postseason awards for which he was eligible.  In a very decisive vote, Fernando Tatis Jr. has won the 2020 DTBL Rookie of the Year award.

    Just like Acuna a year ago, Tatis led not only DTBL rookies, but all players in batting PAR.  He accumulated 4.6 PAR in the abbreviated 2020 season, which put him on pace to break Acuna's record setting 11.4 PAR from last year.  Tatis was truly a five category star.  His power and speed combo produced 17 home runs and 11 stolen bases, joining Jose Ramirez and Mookie Betts as the league's only 15+ HR, 10+ SB players this year.  He led the league with 50 runs scored while knocking in 45.  His .277 average was solid as well, though he slipped down to that mark in the closing weeks.  Among rookie hitters, nobody was particularly close to him.  His PAR was more than twice that of the next best rookie hitter.  Now we will wait to see if Tatis is able to accomplish the MVP/ROY double, which Acuna just narrowly missed last season.

    Tatis is the primary reason why the Demigods were in contention for their first DTBL title for much of the season.  They drifted back to a seventh place finish, but nearly doubled their batting point total (14 to 27), and moved into the top half of the league in batting points.  Tatis led the Demigods in home runs, runs and stolen bases.  He had nearly twice as many base thefts as any of his teammates.  He and Freddie Freeman gave the Demigods two of the best players in the league.  Freeman was recently named the National League MVP and figures to join Tatis in the discussion for that award in this league as well.  Tatis and Francisco Lindor give the Demigods an extremely enviable duo at shortstop that should help carry their offense to new heights in upcoming years.  Tatis is the Demigods' first Rookie of the Year winner since Corey Kluber in 2014.

    Despite Tatis' nearly impeccable Rookie of the Year resume, the streak of consecutive unanimous winners of this award ended at three.  Tatis received nine of the ten first place votes, plus one second to finish with 97 points.  While the unanimous selection streak ended, the streak of runaway victories continues.  Tatis was the only player to appear on all ten ballots.  Finishing second was one of this year's breakout stars, Jackalope pitcher Dinelson Lamet.  This was actually not Lamet's first season in the DTBL.  However, he remained rookie eligible because he never appeared on the Naturals active roster in 2018 before succumbing to Tommy John surgery.  This year, Lamet struck out 93 in 69 innings with an impressive 2.09 ERA and 0.86 WHIP.  No rookie pitcher had more strikeouts.  Lamet received six second place votes for a total of 50 points.  Just behind him was another early draft pick of the Demigods, third round pitcher Max Fried.  Their second round pick Zac Gallen also received a vote, which means the Demigods really cashed in with their first three selections.  Fried had a miniscule 1.98 ERA and led rookies with six wins.  He appeared on nine ballots with one second and five third place votes for 41 points.  The fourth place finisher was a major contributor for the champion Darkhorses.  Their bullpen was the best in the league, by far, and Liam Hendriks was a big reason why.  Hendriks had 14 saves with a ridiculous 1.78 ERA and 0.67 WHIP.  He received the lone first place vote that didn't go to Tatis, propelling him to 29 points.  This is the highest finish in the Rookie of the Year vote for a relief pitcher since Craig Kimbrel and John Axford finished second and third respectively in 2011.  Rounding out the top five is one of this season's best free agent signings, outfielder Teoscar Hernandez.  Despite going undrafted, Hernandez was signed in time to accumulate a dozen homers for the Beanballers in just 140 at bats.  He received a second place vote and 12 total points.  In total, 11 different players appeared on at least one ballot.  So while there was a clear consensus for the top spot, many deserving players split the remaining votes.

    Click here to view the full voting results.

    Sorry I'm a little late with the start of these award announcements.  I usually like to do them about the same time as the MLB awards are announced.  But in my defense, I think MLB did theirs a week earlier than usual this year.  At any rate, the Cy Young award should be announced in a few days with MVP to follow either this weekend or early next week.

  • One Month Down, One to Go

    Embed from Getty Images If it feels like the 2020 baseball season just started, well, that's basically true.  However, we're also more than half way through the abbreviated 60 game slate.  I think we all entered this season ready to expect the unexpected, and that is pretty much what we have gotten.  Critical injuries, particularly to pitchers, have decimated rosters.  Multiple MLB teams have had week's worth of games wiped out due to positive COVID-19 tests.  Seven inning doubleheaders and wacky extra inning rules have become a common occurrence.  The season has also had its good moments though, like the breakout of a new wave of stars, including the ones who will be covered below.

    One thing I was expecting from this shortened season was chaos at the top of the standings.  But that really hasn't proven to be the case... at least not yet.  The Darkhorses have been in first or second place every day of the season since the opening weekend and have held the top spot for almost two straight weeks now.  So, as has become an annual tradition, the Darkhorses are right in the thick of the race as we head into September.  But that's about the only thing this season has in common with recent years.  No longer are the Kings their chief competition.  In fact, the Kings are one of probably three teams that have little to no shot at winning the title this year.  Their house of cards tumbled quickly when Justin Verlander was lost to an arm injury in the first week of the season.  The wildly underachieving Jackalope offense and Komodos pitching staff have left them as the other two teams with little hope for a championship season.  But everybody else should feel like they still have a shot.  The Cougars, Moonshiners and Demigods are having breakout years.  The Mavericks have overcome some tough pitching losses to remain in the thick of things.  The Beanballers have bounced back from a very slow start to get back into the conversation.  And the Choppers have amazingly had the best pitching staff in the league despite losing Chris Sale for the season this past spring.  The Darkhorses would seem to be the favorites, not only because of their current lead, but also because they are pretty healthy at the moment.  Of course, that could change in a hurry.

    This will probably be the one and only Players of the Month article this season since I don't usually bother with such things after September.  Usually following the first month of the season in April, the awards are based on stats accumulated in March in addition to April.  But this time, I elected not to include the July stats since there was over a week's worth of games played in that month, compared to typically just a few days in March.  That said, the winners would have been the same even if I had included the July stats.  But the statlines below are August only.  As usual, these are completely based on highest PAR for the week and month.

    Here are the award winners for July and August of 2020.

    Batters of the Week:

    Week 1 (7/23 - 7/26) - Nelson Cruz, Komodos Week 2 (7/27 - 8/2) - Aaron Judge, Mavericks Week 3 (8/3 - 8/9) - Fernando Tatis, Demigods Week 4 (8/10 - 8/16) - Juan Soto, Mavericks Week 5 (8/17 - 8/23) - Jose Abreu, Cougars Week 6 (8/24 - 8/30) - Manny Machado, Mavericks

    Pitchers of the Week:

    Week 1 (7/23 - 7/26) - Shane Bieber, Choppers Week 2 (7/27 - 8/2) - Shane Bieber, Choppers Week 3 (8/3 - 8/9) - Frankie Montas, Kings Week 4 (8/10 - 8/16) - Aaron Nola, Demigods Week 5 (8/17 - 8/23) - Yu Darvish, Moonshiners Week 6 (8/24 - 8/30) - Lucas Giolito, Cougars

    Half of the Batter of the Week honors so far this season have gone to Mavericks hitters, and three different ones at that, displaying the depth of that roster.  While the game may be shifting younger and younger, particularly among position players, a few veterans are still going strong including 40 year old Nelson Cruz and 33 year old Jose Abreu, who is having his best season since his rookie campaign so far.  Due to the way pitching starts are scattered, it is extremely difficult for someone to win Pitcher of the Week two weeks in a row, but that's exactly what Shane Bieber did to start the season.  Two of the three pitchers selected in the first round of the draft in March (Lucas Giolito and Frankie Montas) won weekly honors.  Giolito did so on the strength of the season's first no-hitter.  Two players have really stood head and shoulders above their peers so far this season.  And they happen to be the Batter and Pitcher of the Month for August.

    Batter of the Month:

    Fernando Tatis, Demigods .313 AVG, 11 HR, 24 RBI, 31 R, 4 SB, 3.10 PAR

    Pitcher of the Month:

    Shane Bieber, Choppers 1.63 ERA, 0.905 WHIP, 4 W, 0 SV, 57 K, 3.80 PAR

    Fernando Tatis Jr. has almost single-handedly turned the Demigods from a historically weak team a year ago, the worst in franchise history, to a championship contender this season.  The first overall pick in the draft has lived up to the hype and then some.  He currently leads the league in PAR (by more than a full point), home runs, runs batted in and runs scored.  He is also hitting over .300 and has seven steals.  Ronald Acuna's rookie season last year was among the best this league has ever seen, but Tatis is one-upping him this year, albeit he won't come close to Acuna's counting stat numbers due to the abbreviated season.  At the moment, Tatis would almost certainly win not only Rookie of the Year, but Most Valuable Player as well.  The Demigods do have some ground to make up as they remain slightly below average in batting points, but Tatis could certainly continue to push them up the standings.  Tatis won this award going away, but Mookie Betts and Jose Abreu were the closest competition.

    What is amazing about those Shane Bieber August numbers above is that they don't even include his first two starts of the season, which earned him weekly honors.  As mentioned above, the Choppers lead the league in pitching points despite not having the services of Chris Sale.  Bieber is the reason why.  He already has a two point lead in Pitching PAR with a ridiculous 1.20 ERA and a league leading 84 strikeouts in just 52 2/3 innings pitched.  Bieber is following up an impressive rookie season with an even better sophomore campaign.  The Choppers do have a tall hill to climb to get into the title chase due to a scuffling offense.  If they can improve upon that though, Bieber and the pitching staff are primed to keep them in the hunt.  Because two of Bieber's best starts came in July, this particular award wasn't a runaway.  Pitchers from opposite sides of Chicago, Moonshiners' Yu Darvish and Cougars' Lucas Giolito, came in second and third.

  • Yelich Wins Stacked MVP Race

    Embed from Getty Images
    Not since 2005 have we seen three different players hit 40+ homers and steal 15+ bases in a single season.  In that season 14 years ago, Alex Rodriguez, Derrek Lee and Albert Pujols all reached those milestones.  2019 saw fewer league-wide stolen bases than any previous season since the league expanded to eight teams in 1996.  Despite a historic lack of steals, three players managed to swipe at least 15 bags while slugging over 40 home runs.  Two of them actually doubled that stolen base mark with 30+.  Ronald Acuna, Cody Bellinger and Christian Yelich all had seasons that were among the most valuable this league has seen in recent times.  But only one of them could win the league’s MVP award.  In an extremely competitive vote, Darkhorses outfielder Christian Yelich is the 2019 DTBL Most Valuable Player.

    Yelich suffered a broken kneecap injury in early September that cost him an opportunity to reach all sorts of unprecedented milestones.  Yet despite missing the last several weeks of the season, he still managed to post numbers every bit as good as any player in recent memory.  He hit .329 with 44 home runs and 30 stolen bases, all three marks were among the top five in the league.  His 100 runs scored and 97 runs batted in were quite impressive as well, considering the missed time in September.  He is one of only six players in league history to have hit 40+ homers with 30+ steals and a batting average over .300.  Among those six, the only player to post a higher batting average was Larry Walker in 1997 (.366) and he benefited from playing half his games in Denver.  Yelich produced a 12.0 Batting PAR season, the third highest since 2005, just barely trailing Acuna this year and 2007 Alex Rodriguez.  Had he remained healthy, it is probably safe to assume he would have claimed the top spot on that list.

    Yelich has been an excellent player his entire career.  But it was an offseason trade from Miami to Milwaukee prior to the 2018 season that seemed to push him to a new level.  He has now posted two consecutive MVP caliber seasons since joining the Brew Crew, winning the NL MVP in 2018 and finishing second for that award in the DTBL a year ago.  A third round pick by the Darkhorses in 2014, Yelich has been a fixture in their outfield since.  He has a career batting average of .304 with 134 home runs and 111 stolen bases.  He will only need a couple more seasons like the previous two to catch Matt Holliday and Hanley Ramirez as the best player in franchise history.  Shockingly, this year was the first time he was named to a DTBL All-Star team.  But he made his first appearance a memorable one, slugging a grand slam to lead the National Division to victory and was thus named the game’s MVP.  His special two year run has also vaulted the Darkhorses into championship contention.  The Darkhorses have finished runner-up to the Kings the past two years and have had the league’s best offense both seasons, in large part because of Yelich.  They have finished in the top half of the standings every year since Yelich’s rookie campaign and appear primed to make another run next season.

    The vote for the MVP award was as competitive as any we’ve seen in recent years.  With three players having historically strong years, this isn’t too surprising.  Yelich only received four of the ten first place votes.  But what ultimately decided things in his favor was receiving second place votes on all of the other six ballots.  That computed to 82 total points, 11 ahead of Acuna.  The Jackalope outfielder, and Rookie of the Year recipient, also received four first place votes, but only three seconds.  Curiously, he was left off one ballot entirely.  That alone didn’t cost him the award though since he finished more than 10 points behind Yelich.  As a reminder from the ROY post, Acuna set a new high water mark for Batting PAR since 2005.  Komodos first baseman Bellinger was a top three choice on all ten ballots, but only two of them were first place nods.  The NL MVP had impressive five category totals in his own right, but fell a bit short of Yelich and Acuna in steals.  Bellinger finished third with 62 points.  I only have the full award voting results dating back to 2005, but this is the first time since then that three different players have received at least 60 points in the MVP vote.  Needless to say, there was a bit of a gap after those three.  Coming in fourth was the AL MVP and perennial DTBL MVP candidate, Mavericks outfielder Mike Trout.  Amazingly, Trout has now been an All-Star and a MVP vote recipient in every season of his DTBL career, which dates back to 2012.  And perhaps even more amazing, he has only won this award once, in 2014.  His consistent greatness should never be ignored.  He has posted a Batting PAR of at least 7.6 every season of his career.  Trout appeared on nine of the ten ballots and accumulated 21 points.  There was a tie for fifth place between a couple of slugging third basemen:  Moonshiners’ Rafael Devers and Jacklope’s Anthony Rendon.  They finished with eight points each.

    Click here to view the full voting results.

    That concludes the 2019 DTBL awards announcements.  Usually, this MVP post is my final one of the year.  But that will not be the case this year.  With the decade about to end next month, I plan on doing some sort of 2010s decade recap in December.  At the very least, it will include an All-Decade Team and perhaps a look at the league’s best teams over the past 10 years as well.

    Happy Thanksgiving!