DTBL News

Category: Awards

  • Verlander Back on Top

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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.

  • Acuna Bursts Onto Scene

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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.

  • Kings vs. Darkhorses Again?

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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.

  • Moose, Mo and More

    Embed from Getty Images 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.

  • Pitching Vets Continue Dominance

    Embed from Getty Images 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.

  • April Showers Bring May Power

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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.

  • Someone Old, Someone New

    Embed from Getty Images Five weeks into the 2019 season, it is apparent that we will not have a repeat of 2018 in the DTBL where a single team dominated the league nearly from start to finish.  The Jackalope broke out to an early lead in the first couple weeks of the season, but since then, first place has been a revolving door.  The month of April ended with the Jackalope on top, but five other teams were within nine points of the lead.  It has been a rough start to the season for the Demigods and a couple other teams need to pick it up. But for the most part, everybody is well positioned as we move into May.

    On a macro level, the early season trends in baseball have been fewer hits (lower batting averages), more strikeouts and a lot more home runs.  The current league batting average of .260 would break last season's low water mark of .262.  But overall, offense is up, with the league ERA soaring to 3.89, which is higher than any full season league ERA since 2006.  The league WHIP is up as well.  So while pitchers are allowing fewer hits, they are actually surrendering more base runners due to a spike in walks.

    As you might expect with some of these extreme statistical increases, several individual players are off to record breaking paces as well.  Komodos outfielder Cody Bellinger and Darkhorses outfielder Christian Yelich each slugged 14 home runs in March/April.  That ties a league record for most home runs in the first month of the season, matching Albert Pujols in 2006 and Alex Rodriguez in 2007.  Bellinger's 37 RBI are an April record and his 32 runs also ties the record.  Spoiler alert, Bellinger will be mentioned again below.  Jackalope pitcher Gerrit Cole struck out 65 batters in the first month, which also ties a league record set by Curt Schilling in April of 1998.

    Again this year, I'm going to write monthly posts like this one, recapping the weekly and monthly award winners.  Here are the batters and pitchers of the week for the first five weeks of the 2019 season.

    Batters of the Week:

    Week 1 (3/20 - 3/31) - Cody Bellinger, Komodos Week 2 (4/1 - 4/7) - Anthony Rendon, Jackalope Week 3 (4/8 - 4/14) - Austin Meadows, Demigods Week 4 (4/15 - 4/21) - Christian Yelich, Darkhorses Week 5 (4/22 - 4/28) - Luke Voit, Naturals

    Pitchers of the Week:

    Week 1 (3/20 - 3/31) - Jose Berrios, Darkhorses Week 2 (4/1 - 4/7) - Mike Clevinger, Naturals Week 3 (4/8 - 4/14) - Blake Snell, Cougars Week 4 (4/15 - 4/21) - James Paxton, Naturals Week 5 (4/22 - 4/28) - J.A. Happ, Komodos

    Unfortunately, April was a rough month from an injury perspective for players who were off to hot starts.  Exactly half of the players listed above wound up hitting the injured list shortly after earning their weekly honor.  Rendon and Meadows would have been in the conversation for Batter of the Month if not for their injuries.  Bellinger and Yelich, on the other hand, have remained healthy and are off to historically fast starts.  But only one of them can win the month's top honor.  That goes to...

    Batter of the Month:

    Cody Bellinger, Komodos .431 AVG, 14 HR, 37 RBI, 32 R, 5 SB, 4.64 PAR

    Pitcher of the Month:

    Justin Verlander, Kings 2.45 ERA, 0.864 WHIP, 4 W, 0 SV, 53 K, 3.31 PAR

    An old guy and a (relative) newcomer.  23 year old Cody Bellinger not only had arguably the best month of April in league history, but on the short list for best months at any point of the season.  He is only the fourth player to ever hit 14+ homers with an average over .400 for an entire month (or a month and 4 days, in this case).  The others were Juan Gonzalez in July of 1996, Albert Belle in July of 1998 and Barry Bonds in September/October of 2001.  But Bellinger had a higher average than all of them, scored the most runs of the foursome and easily stole the most bases.  I don't have monthly PAR calculations going back that far, but I would guess Bellinger's was the best in league history.  While his rookie campaign of '18 was slightly disappointing for the Komodos, it appears they are getting everything they could have hoped for out of him this season.  It was unfortunate for Yelich to not have won this award because his numbers were insane as well.  Moonshiners shortstop Tim Anderson came in third.

    Justin Verlander's late career resurgence has continued into his age 36 season.  Last year's third place finisher in the Cy Young vote has started this season on top of the Pitching PAR leaderboard.  His 0.86 WHIP led all starting pitchers in March/April.  With 53 strikeouts in 44 innings, he's also maintaining an impressive strikeout ratio.  He is currently keeping the Kings pitching staff afloat, as no other starting pitcher on the team has a PAR over 1.  Verlander last won this monthly honor last June.  This award could have gone to a bunch of different pitchers.  Verlander barely edged out the Jackalope duo of Tyler Glasnow and Luis Castillo and Choppers righty Trevor Bauer.

  • 2018: Year of Mookie

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    In 2016, the Kings won the DTBL Championship, a Cougars player (Kris Bryant) won Rookie of the Year, Kings pitcher Max Scherzer won the Cy Young award and Kings outfielder Mookie Betts won the Most Valuable Player award.  This year, the Kings won the DTBL Championship, a Cougars player (Blake Snell) won Rookie of the Year, Kings pitcher Max Scherzer won the Cy Young award, and… yes, you have figured out where this is going.  History has repeated itself.  Perhaps no offensive player in league history has been more solely responsible for his team winning a championship than Betts was this season.  Mookie Betts is the 2018 DTBL Most Valuable Player.

    For the first time in his young, but highly productive career, Mookie Betts joined the 30/30 club this season.  He notched career highs in both home runs (32) and stolen bases (30).  Those numbers alone put him in pretty elite company, but his league leading .346 average took things to another level.  Only one player in league history has had a higher average while joining the 30/30 club.  Larry Walker’s insane 1997 season featured a .366/49/33 line.  Oh, Betts also led the league in runs scored with 129.  Somewhat surprisingly, he was not on top of the Batting PAR leaderboard.  His 11.3 was awfully impressive, but was topped by Christian Yelich’s 11.6.  As an entire team, the championship winning Kings accumulated 22.2 Batting PAR.  So yes, Betts was responsible for more than half of that!  No other Kings hitter reached 5 PAR. Not a bad year for him: AL MVP, World Series champion, DTBL MVP and DTBL champion.

    The Kings drafted Betts with the fifth pick in the 2015 draft.  Two of the players taken ahead of him:  Corey Dickerson and Jorge Soler (sorry, Mike).  So far, Betts has won the MVP in half of his DTBL seasons, taking home the honor in 2016 as well.  His numbers from this season were slightly better in most categories, except RBIs, the only category where he didn’t set a career high.  In addition to joining the 30/30 single season club, he also reached the 100/100 HR/SB club for his career this season, now sitting at 105/100 with an average of .303.  He is the only player in the league with 100 homers and stolen bases since 2015.  And only Mike Trout can top Betts’ career PAR of 34.7 since ’15.  There is no question that Betts has established himself as one of the best all around players in the game.

    Despite the gaudy numbers, this award did not come easily for Betts.  As mentioned, he didn’t lead the league in PAR, so it is unsurprising that he wasn’t the clear choice for this award either.  But he did receive a majority of the first place votes:  seven to be exact.  Interestingly, one person did not have him on the ballot.  He compiled 82 points, besting the runner-up by nine.  Finishing second was the PAR leader, Darkhorses outfielder Christian Yelich.  Yelich was insanely hot over the last two months of the season, easily claiming the NL MVP award.  Like Betts, he was a strong five category player, beating Betts in home runs and RBIs, but falling a bit behind in average, runs and steals.  Yelich was the only player who appeared on all ten ballots.  But he received just one first place vote, along with nine seconds, leaving him a bit short of Betts.  While those two were the clear leaders, several others received strong consideration as well.  Betts’ Red Sox teammate and Demigods outfielder J.D. Martinez hit .330 with 46 home runs.  Martinez got a first place vote and earned 42 points to finish third.  Right behind him was Komodos third baseman Jose Ramirez, who proved his breakout ’17 season was no fluke.  Ramirez actually looked like the favorite to win this award before struggling a bit down the stretch.  He also received a first place vote and compiled 40 points.  His Indians teammate rounded out the top five.  Demigods shortstop Francisco Lindor had a pretty great five category performance as well, but was overshadowed a bit by the guys mentioned above.  Lindor made a majority of the ballots (six) and totaled 14 points.  Any of these five guys could have won this award with their numbers in a different season. Although he failed to make the top five for the second straight season, I think it is worth pointing out that Mavericks outfielder Mike Trout has now received MVP votes all seven years of his DTBL career.  Even his worst seasons are elite.

    Click here to view the full voting results.

    And that’s a wrap on the baseball award season.  Now it is time to start jumping into my offseason work.  There will be plenty of enhancements, but I’ve learned not to make any promises on what I will actually accomplished.  So stay tuned.  Happy Thanksgiving!

  • Scherzer Wins Another Cy Young

    Embed from Getty Images On a year-to-year basis, you know exactly what you are going to get from Max Scherzer:  a sub 3.00 ERA, a sub 1.00 WHIP, 15-20 wins, over 200 innings and at least 250 strikeouts.  His stat lines from each of the past six seasons have been astonishingly similar.  But 2018 may have been his best season yet.  He failed to win his third consecutive National League Cy Young award due to the historically great season that Jacob deGrom had, but from a roto perspective, Scherzer's year was better.  This is the fifth time in the past six years that Scherzer has finished in the top five of this league's Cy Young vote and the second time he has come out on top.  Kings starting pitcher Max Scherzer is the 2018 DTBL Cy Young award winner.

    It is hard to pick out Scherzer's best career season, but I would make the case that 2018 is the new leader.  He posted the highest PAR of his career, a league leading 14.0.  He easily set a career high in strikeouts, finishing at exactly 300.  (As an aside, I was in the park for his 300th strikeout.  It was a pretty cool moment in an otherwise extremely disappointing Nationals season.)  He is the sixth different pitcher to record a 300 strikeout season in DTBL history.  Among qualified pitchers, his 2.53 ERA ranked seventh and his 0.911 WHP was third best.  Three other pitchers were ahead of his 18 wins.  In addition to PAR and strikeouts, he also led the league in innings pitched with 220 2/3.

    The Kings acquired Scherzer in a trade with the Jackalope back in 2010.  That trade continues to pay dividends for the Kings, who have now won three championships with Scherzer on the roster.  This is the second time that he has won both a DTBL Championship and the Cy Young award in the same season, repeating what he accomplished in 2016.  The Kings won the title this year mainly on the strength of three players:  Scherzer, Mookie Betts and Justin Verlander.  While Scherzer faced stiff competition for this league-wide award, you could make a decent case that he wasn't even the best pitcher on the Kings staff as his and Verlander's numbers were nearly identical across the board.  Scherzer won a couple more games and had ten more strikeouts, but Verlander had the slight edge in ERA and WHIP.  They combined for 27.0 Pitching PAR, which was an incredible 75% of the team's total Pitching PAR of 36.1.  Needless to say, the Kings would not have been champions without either of these guys.

    As expected, the Cy Young vote was kind of all over the place as there were a whole bunch of players who made compelling cases.  Scherzer did win by a decent margin, but was far from unanimous.  He received seven first place votes, two seconds and a third for a point total of 89.  He was the only pitcher to appear on all ten ballots.  Finishing second was Cougars lefty, and 2018 DTBL Rookie of the Year, Blake Snell.  Snell received nine votes, including two firsts and two seconds, for 53 points.  The league's win leader had quite a rookie campaign and now adds a second place finish for the Cy Young to his resume.  Verlander finished right behind Snell.  He was the third and final player to receive a first place vote (one) and had a pair of second place votes as well.  Like Snell, he appeared on nine of ten ballots and totaled 42 points.  Coming in fourth was the most interesting case of the year, Darkhorses ace Jacob deGrom.  I think most people would agree that deGrom was the best pitcher in baseball this season, compiling a ridiculous 1.70 ERA, which was the fourth best mark in league history.  But wins do matter in fantasy baseball and he only had 10 of them.  He received a second place vote and racked up 32 points.  Those four were well ahead of the rest, but several other pitchers received strong consideration as well.  Moonshiners reliever Edwin Diaz only received three votes, but two of them were second place nods, so he finished fifth in the voting with 15 points.  Diaz appeared to be well on his way to breaking the league's single season save record.  But his pace slowed a bit down the stretch and he finished with 57 saves, falling five short of Francisco Rodriguez's total ten years ago.  57 did put him in the second spot on the single season saves list though.

    Click here to view the full voting results.

    On Tuesday, I plan to announce the third and final award:  Most Valuable Player.  Like the Cy Young, there appear to be plenty of strong contenders for MVP, so expect to see a similar scattering of votes.  Until then, enjoy the rest of your weekend.

  • Snell Snags Rookie Honor

    Embed from Getty Images 2018 was a strong year for first year DTBL pitchers, particularly ones that were not near the top of most teams' draft lists.  But one stood out among the rest.  Blake Snell overcame his modest draft stock and his status on a MLB team that was at the forefront of "bullpenning" to become a front line starting pitcher.  The Rays lefty won the American League Cy Young award earlier this week and will have a shot at winning that same award in the DTBL as well.  The Cougars managed to turn their tenth round draft pick into the top rookie in the league this season.  By unanimous decision, Blake Snell is the 2018 DTBL Rookie of the Year.

    Snell's 2018 campaign is on the short list of greatest rookie pitching campaigns in DTBL history.  He led the entire league with 21 wins, trailed only Jacob deGrom in ERA (1.89) and finished in the top five in WHIP (0.974) as well.  He also struck out 221 hitters in just 180 2/3 innings pitched.  He posted a 12.6 PAR, ranking third among all pitchers and just 1.4 points behind the league leader.  The only past rookie with very similar numbers across the board was Jake Arrieta who won both the Rookie of the Year and Cy Young in 2015.  But Arrieta was a 29 year old veteran at that time.  Snell is just 25 and figures to have a lot more peak seasons ahead of him.  Will Snell repeat Arrieta's feat of the Rookie of the Year and Cy Young double?  Stay tuned.  He has a chance.

    The Cougars absolutely stole Snell in the 10th round of this year's draft.  97 players, including 22 starting pitchers, were selected ahead of Snell.  This is the second straight year that the Rookie of the Year award has gone to a player overlooked by almost everybody.  Aaron Judge won the award after going undrafted a year ago.  The Cougars now have two of the past three winners of this award, joining Kris Bryant who took home the honor in 2016.  Snell was easily their best pitcher this season, helping make up for disappointing and injury riddled seasons from their previous staff aces Madison Bumgarner and Chris Archer.  If Bumgarner can return to form next year, the Cougars could have a very strong top of the rotation with Bumgarner, Snell and another nice draft pick, sixth rounder Jameson Taillon.

    While this was a pretty strong rookie class, particularly in the pitching ranks, Snell was the easy choice for this award.  He received all ten first place votes, the third unanimous winner of the award in the past four years.  Coming in second was a player who was actually playing for his second DTBL team, Jackalope fireballer Luis Severino.  Severino was draft by the Naturals back in 2016, but did not make an appearance on their major league roster, preserving his rookie eligibility.  He had a dominant season, striking out 220 with 19 wins, which also rank quite highly on the all-time rookie lists.  But the overall numbers weren't quite at Snell's level.  Severino appeared on all ten ballots, receiving six second place votes to finish with 60 points.  Just behind him was the best rookie hitter, Choppers second baseman Whit Merrifield.  Merrifield was picked right after Severino in the draft as well, fourth overall.  He posted a somewhat quiet 6.8 PAR season on the strength of a .304 average and a league leading 45 steals.  Merrifield was the third and final player to appear on all ten ballots, including four second place votes for a point total of 52.  There was a pretty big drop-off in the voting after those three.  Coming next, in a tie for fourth place were Naturals pitcher Mike Clevinger and Mavericks second baseman Ozzie Albies.  Clevinger was actually drafted even later than Snell, in the eleventh round.  He joined his Indians teammate Carlos Carrasco as the Naturals best pitchers this season.  Meanwhile, Albies turned in a nice rookie campaign, rewarding the Mavericks for selecting him with the last pick of the first round.  Clevinger and Albies each received a single third place vote on their way to compiling 12 total points.

    Click here to view the full voting results.

    The tentative schedule for the announcements of the other two awards are Sunday for Cy Young and next Tuesday for Most Valuable Player.  Neither of those awards figure to be as lopsided in the voting as this one was, so be sure to check out those results.  I know there were a few technical glitches in the voting this year, so I apologize for that.  Hopefully cleaning up the voting process will be one of many enhancements I make this offseason.