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Bieber Bests Choppers Teammate

Friday, November 20th, 2020

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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.

Posted in Awards, Choppers | No Comments »

Tatis Takes Top Rookie Honor

Tuesday, November 17th, 2020

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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.

Posted in Awards, Demigods | No Comments »

One Month Down, One to Go

Tuesday, September 1st, 2020

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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.

Posted in Awards, Choppers, Demigods | No Comments »

Yelich Wins Stacked MVP Race

Wednesday, November 27th, 2019

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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!

Posted in Awards, Darkhorses | No Comments »

Verlander Back on Top

Monday, November 25th, 2019

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The current decade began with Justin Verlander as one of the best pitchers in baseball. A few years later, he appeared to be a pitcher in decline. Not surprising for someone who was on the wrong side of 30. But then in 2016, he began to return to his old form. By the time he was traded from Detroit to Houston in 2017, he was basically back to being one of the most dominant pitchers in the game. That late career resurgence was taken to a new level in 2019. This year, he recorded a career high in strikeouts and won over 20 games for the first time since 2011. The longtime Kings right-hander was a major contributor to the team winning their second consecutive DTBL Championship. Justin Verlander is the 2019 DTBL Cy Young award winner.

The 2019 season saw DTBL pitchers compile a 3.87 ERA, the highest cumulative ERA since 2006.  Despite the improved offensive environment in baseball, Verlander managed to compile one of the best seasons of his career.  His 2.58 ERA was fourth best in the league.  But he was the league leader in WHIP (0.80) and wins (21).  He struck out exactly 300 batters, a career high.  Only his Astros teammate Gerrit Cole topped him in whiffs.  His 17.3 Pitching PAR is a new record (among seasons that have been calculated).  In fact, Cole’s 16.4 also surpassed the old record, previously held by… Verlander in 2011.  Verlander and Cole became just the fourth and fifth DTBL pitchers to record 20+ wins and 300+ strikeouts in a season, joining Pedro Martinez (1999), Randy Johnson (2001, 2002) and Curt Schilling (2002).  Verlander’s 0.80 WHIP is the second lowest among qualified pitchers in league history, trailing just Martinez’s ridiculous 2000 season (0.74).  He clearly had one of the greatest pitching seasons this league has ever seen.

To the best of my knowledge, Verlander has set a record for longest gap between Cy Young wins.  He is a second time winner, also receiving the award in 2011.  That 2011 campaign is the only other on his resume that could possibly be compared favorably to 2019, though he did finish third for the award just last season as well.  Originally drafted by the Demigods in 2007, he was dropped by them following a very rough 2008 season.  The Kings selected him in the third round in 2009 and have been reaping the benefits ever since.  Although they also came close to dropping him following his mediocre 2014 and 2015 seasons.  All told, he is a six time All-Star and now a two time Cy Young winner.  His case for one of the top pitchers in DTBL history is an easy one to make.  Earlier this season, he became just the fifth pitcher to reach the 200 win plateau and currently sits tied with Tom Glavine for fourth all-time.  He is third on the career strikeout leaderboard.  With a decent season in 2020, he should move up to second, trailing only Randy Johnson.  And he has a pretty good chance of joining Johnson as the only DTBL pitchers to record 3,000 strikeouts.  Speaking of Johnson, the Big Unit is the only pitcher ahead of Verlander on the Kings all-time wins and strikeouts lists as well. Verlander has now been a key piece of three different Kings title winning squads (2013, 2018, 2019).

As expected, this Cy Young race turned into a two way battle between Astros teammates.  Verlander and Cole were the only two pitchers to receive first place votes.  Verlander grabbed seven of them and was placed second on the other three ballots for a total of 91 points.  The Jackalope’s Cole probably would have won this award had he put up his same numbers any other season.  He ever so slightly trailed Verlander in wins, WHIP and PAR.  But he had a slightly lower ERA and 26 more strikeouts.  He received three first place votes and six seconds.  That garnered him 77 points, putting him significantly ahead of everyone but Verlander.  This shook out similarly to the AL Cy Young race where Verlander also edged Cole.  On the other hand, the two time defending NL Cy Young award winner, Darkhorses righty Jacob deGrom, is still looking for his first DTBL Cy Young.  He led the league in ERA (2.25), but trailed Verlander and Cole in the other categories.  DeGrom was the majority choice for third place, receiving six of those votes and a point total of 42.  Coming in fourth was another veteran pitcher who had arguably the best season of his career.  The Mavericks’ Stephen Strasburg recorded a career high 18 wins and 251 strikeouts before cementing his status as an elite postseason pitcher as he helped the Nats win the World Series.  Strasburg received one second place vote and appeared on all ten ballots, finishing with 26 points.  Those were the four pitchers who appeared on every ballot, but the fifth place finisher received significant support as well.  Moonshiners veteran Zack Greinke has experienced a bit of a career resurgence in his own right.  He had his best season since 2015.  Greinke appeared on eight ballots and tallied 14 points.  So three of the top five finishers completed the season as members of the Astros rotation.  And building off a year-long theme of veteran starters leading the way, four of these five pitchers are over 30 years old and none are younger than 29.

Click here to view the full voting results.

You can expect the Most Valuable Player award winner to be announced on Wednesday. That figures to be an extremely competitive race as three players, in particular, have incredibly strong cases to be made for the honor.

Posted in Awards, Kings | No Comments »

Acuna Bursts Onto Scene

Tuesday, November 19th, 2019

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Ronald Acuna had one of the best rookie seasons in DTBL history. Actually, let’s revise that. He had one of the best seasons in DTBL history, regardless of age or experience. The fact that he was in his first year in the league only highlights what a special talent he is. The first pick in this year’s draft lived up to the hype and then some. He nearly became the third player in league history to compile a 40/40 HR/SB season. He did manage to rack up the highest single season PAR of any offensive player that has been calculated to date (since 2005). The Jackalope outfielder stood well above a very strong rookie class. Unsurprisingly, Ronald Acuna was the unanimous choice for the 2019 DTBL Rookie of the Year award.

A late season injury may have cost Acuna an opportunity to become the league’s third 40/40 player. He hit 41 home runs and stole 37 bases, finishing sixth and second in the league in those categories. He wasn’t too shabby in the other three categories either. He had a .280 average with 127 runs scored (3rd in league) and 101 RBI. The last player to have a line of at least .280/35/35/100/100 was Matt Kemp in 2011. So it has been quite a while since we’ve seen a five category performance like the one Acuna put up in 2019. As mentioned, his 12.15 Batting PAR is the highest we’ve seen since 2005. He just barely edged out Christian Yelich and Cody Bellinger in that stat. So those three players figure to be the top contenders for the MVP award. The last player to win both the Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player awards was Ryan Howard in 2006. We will soon see if Acuna can change that.

The Jackalope had a pretty easy choice when they selected Acuna with the first pick back in March. But they could not have possibly expected the pick to pay off so handsomely in the first season. Acuna was largely responsible for the Jackalope nearly doubling their 2018 batting point total this season (13 to 25). He and Anthony Rendon were easily the squad’s two best hitters. Acuna led the team in homers, steals and runs. The Jackalope have been fielding an impressive infield for quite some time. Should Giancarlo Stanton return to health next year, he and Acuna will make for a fearsome duo in the outfield as well. Interestingly, four of the past five Rookie of the Year winners have been members of either the Jackalope or Cougars. Jake Arrieta won the award for the Jackalope in 2015.

The ease by which Acuna won this award should not diminish the strength of the rookie class as a whole. But he did receive all ten first place votes and is the third straight unanimous winner, the fourth in the past five years. Finishing second was another young phenom outfielder, who also finished second to Acuna in the NL Rookie of the Year vote last year, the Mavericks’ Juan Soto. Soto’s age 20 season was absolutely brilliant and culminated in a World Series title. Soto wasn’t quite the stolen base threat that Acuna was, but was similar in all of the other categories, hitting 34 homers with 110 runs scored and batted in. He received seven second place votes, appeared on all ten ballots and compiled 58 points. That total narrowly edged out Choppers pitcher Shane Bieber. Bieber led all rookie pitchers in wins (15) and strikeouts (259). Of the top four finishers for this award, he was the only one who wasn’t a top draft choice. A third round selection, he may have been the steal of this year’s draft. Bieber was also on all ten ballots, including three second place and six third place votes. He finished four points behind Soto. Picked between Acuna and Soto in the draft, Komodos pitcher Walker Buehler had an impressive debut season as well. Buehler had very similar numbers to Bieber, but fell a little short in strikeouts. He received a pair of third place votes and finished with 25 points. Those four guys have very bright futures ahead of them. But maybe the most interesting rookie on this list is the guy who finished fifth. 30 year old Eduardo Escobar has had a nice career. But until the past couple years, he was a bit of a fantasy baseball afterthought. He finally got his chance in the DTBL this year and proceeded to slug 35 homers. Not bad for an eighth round pick. Escobar appeared on six ballots and accumulated 10 points. Although they didn’t appear on many ballots, I think it is also worth mentioning that Cougars second baseman Gleyber Torres and Mavericks pitcher Jack Flaherty also had great rookie seasons. That pair, along with Acuna, Soto and Buehler meant that there weren’t many bad picks in the first round this year.

Click here to view the full voting results.

I’m hoping to announce the Cy Young award winner later this week (probably Thursday), with the Most Valuable Player announcement to come early next week. Both of those awards figure to be more competitive than this one was.

Posted in Awards, Jackalope | No Comments »

Kings vs. Darkhorses Again?

Monday, September 2nd, 2019

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Entering September of 2018, the Kings held a slim four point lead over the Darkhorses.  They would briefly relinquish that lead, but ultimately managed to win the DTBL Championship.  This year, the Kings once again held a four point lead over the Darkhorses heading into the season’s final month.  It is a pretty similar situation with these two seemingly the best bets to win it all.  The margin over the rest of the league is actually a little larger this year though.  As of today, the Mavericks find themselves almost 20 points behind the Kings with exactly four weeks to go.  That’s not completely insurmountable, but they will definitely need some help from both of the top two teams to make up some of that ground.

The Kings and Darkhorses both appear to be slightly better versions of the 2018 editions of themselves.  The Kings still have the league’s best pitching staff.  But this year, they have held the top spot in all five pitching categories for a good portion of the season.  The offense is not as good, but only two other teams have more batting points.  On the other hand, the Darkhorses once again have the league’s best offense.  But this year, no other team is even close.  They have 48 batting points and appear to be close to a lock to win four of the five batting categories (all but stolen bases).  And their pitching staff is pretty good too.  Like Kings hitters, Darkhorses pitchers rank third in total points.

It is really hard to handicap this race, because unlike last year, these two teams have been neck-and-neck pretty much all season.  Neither has had an extended period of poor play.  Both teams are relatively healthy heading into the final four weeks as well.  The Darkhorses are looking for their fifth league title, but first since 2010, while the Kings are seeking their record extending eighth league crown.  It should be a fascinating race.

Here are the award winners for August of 2019.

Batters of the Week:

Week 20 (8/5 – 8/11) – Ronald Acuna, Jackalope
Week 21 (8/12 – 8/18) – Gleyber Torres, Cougars
Week 22 (8/19 – 8/25) – Anthony Rendon, Jackalope
Week 23 (8/26 – 9/1) – Eugenio Suarez, Cougars

Pitchers of the Week:

Week 20 (8/5 – 8/11) – Mike Minor, Naturals
Week 21 (8/12 – 8/18) – Jack Flaherty, Mavericks
Week 22 (8/19 – 8/25) – Dallas Keuchel, Darkhorses
Week 23 (8/26 – 9/1) – Justin Verlander, Kings

The Batters of the Week in August featured four players having monster seasons.  Ronald Acuna and Gleyber Torres have both already reached 30 home runs in their DTBL rookie campaigns.  Anthony Rendon also surpassed that mark in the past week.  And then there is Eugenio Suarez who hit his 40th (!!!) home run of the season yesterday.  As usual, the pitching award winners are a bunch of veterans still going strong, with youngster Jack Flaherty crashing the party.  Justin Verlander locked up the weekly award by pitching his third career no-hitter yesterday.  Because that happened on September 1 though, it didn’t help his cause for winning another Pitcher of the Month award.

Batter of the Month:

Ronald Acuna, Jackalope
.270 AVG, 11 HR, 27 RBI, 23 R, 6 SB, 3.26 PAR

Pitcher of the Month:

Mike Clevinger, Naturals
1.96 ERA, 1.064 WHIP, 5 W, 0 SV, 51 K, 3.06 PAR

Last week, to the best of my knowledge, Ronald Acuna became just the second player to reach the 30/30 HR/SB club in his DTBL rookie campaign.  I don’t have a particularly easy way to confirm this, but I did a Baseball Reference Play Index search looking for 30/30 seasons since 1993 in a player’s first two MLB seasons and the only other result was Mike Trout in 2012.  So I feel pretty confident about this assertion.  Acuna currently has 36 home runs and 33 stolen bases with four weeks to go in the season.  He has a great shot at becoming the league’s fourth 40/40 player.  It once looked like a two horse race between Cody Bellinger and Christian Yelich for the league MVP award, but Acuna is very much in the thick of that race now, in addition to Rookie of the Year.  As strong as his August was, three other players nearly snatched this award from him:  Demigods outfielder J.D. Martinez and the Nationals dynamic duo of Mavericks outfielder Juan Soto (also a DTBL rookie) and Jackalope third baseman Anthony Rendon.

Finally, we have someone who isn’t a grizzled veteran winning the Pitcher of the Month award.  Mike Clevinger was a late bloomer, but is in just his second DTBL season with the Naturals.  At 28, he is easily the youngest to win this award so far in 2019.  Despite losing about two months due to an injury, he has still managed to compile a nice stat line for the season.  Half of his 10 wins came in August though.  He led the league in August strikeouts with 51.  For what it’s worth, he would not have won this award had Jack Flaherty’s first start of the month been as an active member of the Mavericks rotation.  Despite that start not counting, Flaherty still finished third for the award.  The runner-up was the Cougars’ Sonny Gray who is having a very nice career resurgence this summer.

Posted in Awards, Darkhorses, Jackalope, Kings, Naturals | 1 Comment »

Moose, Mo and More

Wednesday, August 7th, 2019

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A few times in recent years, I have taken the opportunity to write about the DTBL careers of a set of players recently inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.  Well, I think I might as well go ahead and make it an annual tradition for my July recap article.  Our league has reached a level of longevity such that virtually every player inducted into the Hall had a significant impact on this league as well.

On July 21, six players were honored in Cooperstown, New York.  All six are DTBL alums and at least three would be sure fire Hall-of-Famers in this league as well, if such a thing existed.  The six honorees were:  Harold Baines, Roy Halladay, Edgar Martinez, Mike Mussina, Mariano Rivera and Lee Smith.  Here is a review of their DTBL careers, going in alphabetical order.

Harold Baines was one of the more controversial selections in recent years, chosen by the Veterans Committee after never receiving much support during his time on the Baseball Writers Association ballot.  Personally, I find arguments over players who *are* selected to be tiresome.  More time should be spent arguing about players who are left out rather than trying to diminish those selected.  Baines was an excellent player, and a personal favorite of mine.  That said, he was probably the least accomplished DTBL player of this group with his prime years coming well before this league started.  He was drafted by the Gators in the inaugural draft of 1993 and spent five seasons with them as their primary designated hitter and was a member of their 1995 championship team.  He then spent his final two seasons as a part time player on a couple expansion teams:  the Angels in 1998 and the Moonshiners inaugural season of 1999.  Baines hit at least .290 in every season except his last one.  All told, he compiled an impressive .303 career batting average with 81 home runs.

The late Roy Halladay was a major part of the modern pitching evolution of the late 2000s and early 2010s when power pitchers started to rule the day.  He spent his entire DTBL career with the Jackalope and litters their career leaderboard.  His run from 2008 to 2011 was just about as good as it gets over a four year span.  In every one of those years, he struck out over 200 with ERAs below 3.00 and at least 17 wins.  He won the DTBL Cy Young Award in 2010 and finished third in 2008 and 2011.  On three occasions, he won 20+ games (2003, 2008, 2010).  In his 12 year career, he racked up 177 victories, which ranks 10th in league history and third among players who debuted after 2000, behind Justin Verlander and C.C. Sabathia.  Halladay is the Jackalope franchise career leader in wins and innings pitched and trails only Felix Hernandez in strikeouts.  His 75.8 Pitching PAR also leads the way, by a margin that will only increase when I get around to calculating the numbers from his first three seasons.  The Jackalope selected Halladay in the fourth round of the 2002 Draft.  I would say that pick worked out pretty well for them.  He was a critical piece of their first championship squad in 2011.

As designated hitters go, nobody has ever been as good for as long as Edgar Martinez.  Interestingly enough though, he actually got his start in this league as a third baseman for three years, even though DH was an official position in our league in those days.  While he could certainly hit for power, his carrying tool was his ability to hit for average.  His career mark of .316 ranks ninth in league history.  But he hit over .320 for six consecutive seasons from 1995 through 2000.  Martinez debuted for the Kings in 1993 and then played for the expansion Metros in 1994 before settling in with the Cougars for the remainder of his career (1995 through 2004).  Unfortunately, my transaction records are a little scattered from the 90s, so I don’t recall exactly how he made those team jumps.  I do know that the Cougars must have cut him loose after his typically solid 1998 season though because they then reacquired him with their first round pick in 1999.  I think expansion draft rules that year may have played a part.  But anyway, the Cougars managed to hang onto him and he continued to hit for them for years to come.  He won a DTBL Championship with the Cougars in 1996.  He is their career batting average leader at .317.  For his DTBL career, Martinez also hit 239 home runs with 956 RBI.  He topped 100 RBI in five different seasons.  There have been few pure hitters better than Edgar Martinez in the past quarter century.

Justin Verlander needs just two more wins to reach 200 for his DTBL career.  When he does that, he will become just the fifth player in league history to reach that mark.  The other four are now all Hall-of-Famers, thanks to the recent induction of Mike Mussina.  Had I not just looked it up, I don’t think I would have remembered or guessed that Mussina finished his career just one win shy of the league’s all time leader, Greg Maddux.  Mussina won 239 games despite never compiling 20 in a single season.  He won exactly 20 for the first and only time in his final season of 2008, but was an in-season free agent signing by the Moonshiners that year and only compiled 16 wins for them.  But he posted double digit wins in an impressive 15 of 16 DTBL seasons.  In addition to all the wins, he also ranks fifth in league history with 2,576 strikeouts and pitched more innings than every pitcher not named Maddux.  They are the only two to record over 3,000 DTBL innings.  Mussina was drafted by the Kings in 1993 and spent two seasons with them before being part of one of the league’s first blockbuster trades during the 1995 Draft.  Unfortunately, as covered earlier, my transaction records from those days are rather lacking, so I don’t have the complete details.  But I do recall it being a huge deal.  Anyway, it certainly worked out for the Choppers who retained his services for the next 13 seasons.  He and Greg Maddux top pretty much all of the Choppers career pitching numbers.  That duo were a big reason why the Choppers won league titles in 1997 and 1999.  While he might not be at the top of your mind when you think of the all-time great pitchers, he should be.  Mike Mussina was one of the best pitchers in DTBL history.

Mariano Rivera was the first player to ever be unanimously selected for the Hall of Fame.  His case for enshrinement was pretty impeccable.  Obviously, that would be true of his DTBL career as well.  His 643 career saves is an incredible 83 more than any other pitcher has accumulated.  I doubt anyone will come close to that total anytime soon.  He topped 30 saves in 15 of his 17 seasons, with injuries cutting short the two seasons in which he failed to reach that total.  Even in his final season of 2013, he managed to rack up 44 saves.  His career high save total came in 2004 with 53 and he reached 50 in 2001 as well.  But it wasn’t just the saves.  His 2.02 ERA and 0.973 WHIP are both easily the lowest in league history among pitchers with at least 800 innings pitched.  He had so many seasons with a sub 2.00 ERA and 40+ saves that it is basically impossible to pick a career best season.  486 of Rivera’s saves came with the Cougars who drafted him in the first round of 1997, coming right off the heals of their third championship in four years.  He remained with the Cougars all the way until 2009, when they traded him to the Mavericks for Mike Lowell, not the best trade the Cougars have ever made.  Rivera had a productive season and a half for the Mavericks before he was traded again during the 2011 Draft to the Choppers in exchange for a second round pick which would become Starlin Castro.  Rivera’s final two seasons were with the Choppers where he continued to be one of the best relievers in baseball.  Oddly enough, Rivera never won a DTBL Championship while winning five World Series titles with the Yankees.  Mariano Rivera rode one pitch, a nasty cutter, to a Hall of Fame career.  He is the greatest relief pitcher in MLB and DTBL history.

Finally, we have Lee Smith, the third former Thunder Chopper of this class.  Like Baines, he was selected by the Veterans Committee and compiled most of his Hall of Fame numbers before this league started.  That said, his DTBL career was short, but productive.  He was an inaugural DTBL Draft selection of the Choppers in 1993.  He saved 114 games for the Choppers in 1993 through 1995, which still puts him fourth in franchise history in that category.  His 33 saves in the strike shortened 1994 season led the league.  Through the first three seasons of this league’s history, Smith held the all-time saves lead.  Obviously that didn’t hold up very long though as he didn’t record a save in his final DTBL season of 1996.  While he bounced around a whole bunch of MLB teams in the latter stages of his career, he did not pitch for any DTBL team besides the Choppers.  One of the original fireballing closers, Lee Smith is a worthy Hall of Famer.

On to the awards for July 2019.

Batters of the Week:

Week 15 (7/1 – 7/7) – Yulieski Gurriel, Demigods
Week 16 (7/11 – 7/14) – Josh Donaldson, Jackalope
Week 17 (7/15 – 7/21) – Ronald Acuna, Jackalope
Week 18 (7/22 – 7/28) – Nelson Cruz, Komodos
Week 19 (7/29 – 8/4) – Starling Marte, Komodos

Pitchers of the Week:

Week 15 (7/1 – 7/7) – Aaron Nola, Demigods
Week 16 (7/11 – 7/14) – Mike Soroka, Mavericks
Week 17 (7/15 – 7/21) – Clayton Kershaw, Mavericks
Week 18 (7/22 – 7/28) – Stephen Strasburg, Mavericks
Week 19 (7/29 – 8/4) – Justin Verlander, Kings

July was a good month for Braves players and Mavericks pitchers, as three of each won weekly awards.  Braves and Jackalope teammates Josh Donaldson and Ronald Acuna took the Batter of the Week honors surrounding the All-Star break.  Two other DTBL teammates won the award the following couple weeks as Komodos sluggers Nelson Cruz and Starling Marte finished the month with a bang.  The Mavericks pitching staff has been heating up as of late.  60% of their rotation claimed a weekly honor in July with Mike Soroka, Clayton Kershaw and Stephen Strasburg all continuing to pitch extremely well.  Two of the players listed above parlayed their strong weeks into a full month of excellence in July.

Batter of the Month:

Yulieski Gurriel, Demigods
.398 AVG, 12 HR, 31 RBI, 18 R, 0 SB, 3.26 PAR

Pitcher of the Month:

Stephen Strasburg, Mavericks
1.14 ERA, 0.916 WHIP, 5 W, 0 SV, 44 K, 3.21 PAR

Yulieski Gurriel has been a solid big league hitter for some time now.  But one thing that has kept him from being discussed among the elite players in the game is a relative lack of power at a position where big home run totals are expected.  Entering this season, his career high for homers was 18 in 2017.  Entering July, he was on his typically pedestrian pace with just eight dingers.  But then he went and hit 12 in a span of 18 games and has already smashed his career high mark.  In addition to the dozen July home runs, he also came just short of hitting .400 for the month (.398).  Despite those gaudy numbers, he won this award by the slimmest of margins over Moonshiners third baseman Rafael Devers, who has basically been on fire for three straight months now.  Nobody else was close to Gurriel or Devers.

It is genarally a good sign for a pitcher when he allows fewer earned runs than he knocks in at the plate in any given game.  In July, Stephen Strasburg pulled that trick for the entire month!  He surrendered just four earned runs while compiling a 1.14 ERA and added six RBIs to help his own cause while at the plate.  Strasburg continues the trend of veteran pitchers winning this monthly pitching honor.  But at 31 years old, he is actually the youngest pitcher to win this award in 2019.  He was a comfortable winner, but two other pitchers who had a great run in July were Astros righties Justin Verlander (Kings) and Gerrit Cole (Jackalope).  With the addition of Zack Greinke to their rotation, it would appear the Astros are well armed for another World Series run.

A reminder that the DTBL trade deadline is coming up next week:  Thursday, August 15.  Trades must be accepted by both parties by midnight on the 15th, even though trades consummated between the 12th and 15th won’t be processed until the following Monday.

Posted in Awards, Choppers, Cougars, Demigods, Jackalope, Mavericks | No Comments »

Pitching Vets Continue Dominance

Friday, July 5th, 2019

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The first half of the 2019 season is in the books.  As covered last month, we remain on pace to have the league total home run record smashed and the highest pitching ERA in well over a decade.  MLB saw the record for most home runs hit in a month fall for a second consecutive month in June.  In the DTBL, we just missed the May total with three fewer homers hit by active players (596).

What stands out to me in perusing the DTBL leaderboards is the stark contrast in experience between the league’s top hitters and pitchers.  On the offensive side of things, there are a few veterans mixed in, but for the most part, the most productive batters are all in their 20s.  On the flip side, the league’s best pitchers are all guys who have been dominating hitters for a decade or so.  Currently, the youngest pitcher in the top five of Pitching PAR is 32 year old Hyun-Jin Ryu.  The average age of those five hurlers is about 35 years old.  Joining the Naturals Ryu in that group of impressive veterans are the Kings Max Scherzer (34) and Justin Verlander (36), and Mooshiners Zack Greinke (35) and Charlie Morton (35).

I’m not sure what to make of the continued success of all these veteran pitchers.  Perhaps this is why teams were mostly uninterested in paying huge money on long term deals to hitters this past winter, while the market’s top free agent pitcher, Patrick Corbin, was signed before Christmas.  For a long time, teams were unwilling to sign almost any pitcher to a long term contract.  But now pitchers appear to be the safer bets to continue to be highly productive well into their 30s.  That would seem to bode well for upcoming free agent pitchers like Gerrit Cole and potentially Stephen Strasburg, should he opt-out of his current deal.

Much to come in the upcoming days, including the announcement of the 2019 DTBL All-Star rosters.  So let’s get straight to the June award winners.

Batters of the Week:

Week 11 (6/3 – 6/9) – Edwin Encarnacion, Darkhorses
Week 12 (6/10 – 6/16) – Charlie Blackmon, Cougars
Week 13 (6/17 – 6/23) – D.J. LeMahieu, Choppers
Week 14 (6/24 – 6/30) – Ronald Acuna, Jackalope

Pitchers of the Week:

Week 11 (6/3 – 6/9) – Walker Buehler, Komodos
Week 12 (6/10 – 6/16) – Trevor Bauer, Choppers
Week 13 (6/17 – 6/23) – Tyler Skaggs, Kings
Week 14 (6/24 – 6/30) – Max Scherzer, Kings

Well, I suppose this is as good a place as any to mention the tragic passing of 27 year old Angels and Kings pitcher Tyler Skaggs earlier this week.  Skaggs was an eighth round selection of the Kings in this year’s draft and did a very nice job for the team, shuffling into and out of the lineup since early May.  As you can see above, he had a very strong final week in the lineup for the Kings in late June.  Skaggs also appeared for the Naturals in 2015.  From all accounts, he was a great person in addition to being a quality big league pitcher.  He will be missed.  RIP Tyler Skaggs.

Batter of the Month:

Ronald Acuna, Jackalope
.331 AVG, 9 HR, 21 RBI, 28 R, 6 SB, 3.36 PAR

Pitcher of the Month:

Max Scherzer, Kings
1.00 ERA, 0.667 WHIP, 6 W, 0 SV, 68 K, 5.34 PAR

Ronald Acuna is continuing to prove the Jackalope correct for selecting him with the first overall pick in this year’s draft, not that anyone was ever questioning that pick anyway.  June was his best month yet though.  He showed off his prowess in all five categories.  He is currently fifth in the league in Batting PAR and joins Christian Yelich as the only two players with 20+ home runs and double digit stolen bases.  This was a very tight race though.  Had Cougars outfielder Charlie Blackmon not missed the first week of the month from the Cougars active roster, he would have finished in a virtual tie with Acuna.  Acuna’s Braves teammate, Demigods first baseman Freddie Freeman had a great June as well.

The race for June Pitcher of the Month was not close.  At this stage of his career, it is hard to rank all of the great Max Scherzer moments.  He has won a pair of DTBL Cy Young awards and three MLB Cy Youngs.  He has pitched two no-hitters and had a 20 strikeout game.  But June of 2019 might be the single best month of his distinguished career.  He even broke his nose in the middle of it, bouncing back to strike out 10 Phillies in seven scoreless innings a day later.  That might have been his most impressive outing of the month, but it wasn’t the best statistically.  In two other starts, he struck out at least 14 batters allowing a single run and one or zero walks.  The complete picture was arguably the best pitching month in DTBL history.  No other DTBL pitcher has ever posted a single month with a 1.00 or lower ERA, 65+ strikeouts and six wins.  His 5.34 June PAR would be a great full season total for most pitchers.  This is the fourth consecutive year that Scherzer has won a Pitcher of the Month award and the third time in that span that he has won it in June.  The awards keep rolling in for the incomparable Scherzer.  Komodos rookie Walker Buehler and Jackalope righty Gerrit Cole finished second and third for this award, but neither had even half of Scherzer’s PAR total.

Posted in Awards, Jackalope, Kings | No Comments »

April Showers Bring May Power

Thursday, June 6th, 2019

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A new single month league-wide home run record was set in MLB in May. 1,135 home runs were hit across baseball this past month, surpassing the previous record of 1,119 in August of 2017. The full season home run record is on pace to be smashed again this season. In the DTBL, I don’t really have a reasonably easy way of determining if this same record was broken, but it is probably safe to assume if it wasn’t, we didn’t miss by much. There were 599 home runs hit by active DTBL players in May. As of this writing on the 6th of June, we are at 1,306 home runs for the season, which is easily above the pace of the record setting 3,231 DTBL homers way back in 2000. Just five years ago, 2014, there were 2,294 home runs hit the entire season. We figure to reach that mark before the end of July this year.  And to think we haven’t even reached the dog days of summer when typically balls fly out of the park at an even higher rate.

On an individual player level, the DTBL did miss out on some of the month’s top home run production, however.  Three of the six players who hit at least 10 home runs in May were not on active rosters for the full month.  Only four of Josh Bell’s dozen homers were after he was activated by the Darkhorses.  Derek Dietrich shocked and confused the baseball world by hitting a dozen homers as well, despite not garnering a DTBL player pool spot.  And rookie Pete Alonso continues to make himself an intriguing draft candidate for next season as he slugged 10 home runs in May.  Of players who actually did produce a full month of stats for DTBL teams, Alex Bregman led the way with 12 home runs, while a pair of Cougars, Jose Abreu and Kris Bryant each hit 10.

Meanwhile, things remain tight near the top of the DTBL standings.  As the calendar turned to June, the Naturals held an ever so slight half point lead over the Kings and four other teams were five or fewer points behind the leader.  Even the eight place team was within 15 points.  So almost everybody remains alive and well heading into the summer months.  May was a great month for the Naturals, in particular.  Not only did they finish the month at the top of the standings, but their players swept the monthly awards as well.  But first, here are the batters and pitchers of the week from May.

Batters of the Week:

Week 6 (4/29 – 5/5) – Alex Bregman, Darkhorses
Week 7 (5/6 – 5/12) – George Springer, Darkhorses
Week 8 (5/13 – 5/19) – Freddie Freeman, Demigods
Week 9 (5/20 – 5/26) – Rafael Devers, Moonshiners
Week 10 (5/27 – 6/2) – Austin Meadows, Demigods

Pitchers of the Week:

Week 6 (4/29 – 5/5) – Noah Syndergaard, Naturals
Week 7 (5/6 – 5/12) – Hyun-Jin Ryu, Naturals
Week 8 (5/13 – 5/19) – Joe Musgrove, Mavericks
Week 9 (5/20 – 5/26) – Brad Peacock, Demigods
Week 10 (5/27 – 6/2) – Max Scherzer, Kings

The Demigods are having a tough season so far, but they do keep racking up these weekly awards as DTBL Rookie of the Year candidate Austin Meadows has now won a pair of weekly honors sandwiching his time on the IL.  Brad Peacock’s honor is notable because relief pitchers rarely ever win these awards.  Of course, Peacock isn’t actually a reliever this season for the Astros, but still interesting.  The Naturals had a whole bunch of players who had great months of May, led by a pair of NL West stars.

Batter of the Month:

Nolan Arenado, Naturals
.425 AVG, 9 HR, 29 RBI, 25 R, 0 SB, 3.29 PAR

Pitcher of the Month:

Hyun-Jin Ryu, Naturals
0.59 ERA, 0.679 WHIP, 5 W, 0 SV, 36 K, 4.35 PAR

Nolan Arenado is leading the Naturals in every offensive category except stolen bases and is near the top of the league in most categories as well.  The perennial All-Star and MVP candidate is quite possibly having his best offensive season so far in 2019.  In May, he led the league with a ridiculous .425 average and 29 runs batted in.  Cody Bellinger and Christian Yelich got off to a huge lead in the Batting PAR race in April, but in May, Arenado and his Rockies teammate Trevor Story started to close the gap.  Already at 4.2, Arenado appears to be a lock to reach 6+ PAR for a fifth straight season.  For the record, Darkhorses first baseman Josh Bell would have won this award had he spent the entire month on the active roster.  Instead, Arenado won by a decent margin over Cougars shortstop Story and Moonshiners third baseman Rafael Devers.  It was a strong month for left side of the infielders as Kris Bryant and Alex Bregman rounded out the top five.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the month was the eye-popping numbers posted by Naturals lefty Hyun-Jin Ryu.  Unlike most of the game’s top pitchers, Ryu doesn’t strike out an overwhelming rate of hitters.  Instead, he just never lets them reach base.  His May ERA of 0.59 was the league’s lowest monthly total since Jordan Zimmermann’s 0.55 in April of 2016 (min. 30 IP).  If you bump the inning threshold up to 40, then you have to go back to Jake Arrieta’s ridiculous final two months of 2015.  Ryu’s 0.679 WHIP was similarly rare.  Ryu currently leads the league in ERA (1.21), a full run better than second place Justin Verlander (2.27).  Needless to say, if he were to somehow keep that up for the full season, he would break Greg Maddux’s record of 1.56 back in 1994.  Ryu won this award in a landslide, a full point ahead of runner up Kyle Hendricks of the Moonshiners (Hendricks wasn’t activated until 5/6, so he probably didn’t actually finished second, but I’m too lazy to do the math).  Last month’s winner, Kings veteran Justin Verlander was also in the mix.

Posted in Awards, Naturals | No Comments »

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