DTBL News

Category: Awards

  • Kings, Darkhorses Vie For Title

    Embed from Getty Images As usual, I have gotten lazy with my DTBL News articles as the season has worn on.  I thought about skipping this one altogether, but decided it would be good to get a least some of the following out of the way before the season ends.  Scroll to the bottom of the article if you have been waiting weeks to find out who the best players of August were, as we near the end of September.  But first, a brief look at what is in store for the final weekend of the season.

    The Kings have been in first place all but four days this season.  The only time they were lower than second place was the day after Opening Day.  They held a share of the lead every single day from April 18 through September 16.  And yet, with just three full days remaining on the calendar, they are hardly a sure thing to win their seventh DTBL Championship.  They dominated the league for the first three months, but faded badly in July and especially August.  It was not a huge surprise when the Darkhorses finally caught them a couple weeks ago.  But the Kings picked a good time to get hot again as their offense has had its best stretch in several months over the past week or so.  With one weekend to go, the Kings lead over the Darkhorses is four points.  That is, by no means, a safe lead.

    The final week began with the Kings leading the Darkhorses by 1 1/2 points.  The Demigods were just five back and the Choppers were in striking distance as well, seven points behind.  But since then, the Kings have picked up 3 1/2 points and have increased their lead over all of the challengers.  I think it is safe to say that the Choppers and Demigods are probably out of it now, barring something miraculous.  But the Darkhorses have several paths to claiming the title.

    The categories that present the best opportunities for the Darkhorses to pick up points are batting average, ERA and maybe home runs.  If Jacob deGrom were slated to pitch one more time, I might have thrown strikeouts in there too.  But realistically, 71-72 points is probably the Darkhorses' ceiling.  In other words, they are going to need a little help as the Kings sit at 73 points.  But the Kings could very easily spit back some points they've gained this week.  They are very vulnerable in home runs, RBIs and ERA.  The game I will have my eye on will be Jon Gray facing a resurgent Nationals offense at Coors Field on Saturday night.  If Gray were to get lit up, a loss of an ERA point would be very possible for the Kings.  On the flip side, the Kings have some suddenly hot power hitters, like David Dahl and A.J. Pollock.  The Darkhorses will be rooting for a power outage from the Kings this weekend.

    Keep in mind that our league does count stats from tie-breaker games.  There is a very good chance that at least one tie-breaker will be required to settle the National League playoff races.  So this thing may not be over on Sunday.  However, no roster moves will be processed before Monday, so the current active rosters will remain in effect until the season is officially over.  If the championship remains up for grabs on Monday, I'll be live blogging the action.

    Now it is time to play catch-up on all of the weekly and monthly awards I missed.  Since I'm so late with these, I'm not going to bother with write-ups.  But here are the weekly award winners from August and September (so far).

    Batters of the Week:

    Week 19 (7/30 - 8/5) - Matt Carpenter, Choppers Week 20 (8/6 - 8/12) - J.D. Martinez, Demigods Week 21 (8/13 - 8/19) - Justin Turner, Darkhorses Week 22 (8/20 - 8/26) - Javier Baez, Mavericks Week 23 (8/27 - 9/2) - Christian Yelich, Darkhorses Week 24 (9/3 - 9/9) - Trevor Story, Cougars Week 25 (9/10 - 9/16) - Whit Merrifield, Choppers Week 26 (9/17 - 9/23) - Tommy Pham, Cougars

    Pitchers of the Week:

    Week 19 (7/30 - 8/5) - Jon Gray, Kings Week 20 (8/6 - 8/12) - Trevor Bauer, Choppers Week 21 (8/13 - 8/19) - Jacob deGrom, Darkhorses Week 22 (8/20 - 8/26) - Kevin Gausman, Kings Week 23 (8/27 - 9/2) - Corey Kluber, Demigods Week 24 (9/3 - 9/9) - Robbie Ray, Moonshiners Week 25 (9/10 - 9/16) - Justin Verlander, Kings Week 26 (9/17 - 9/23) - Hyun-Jin Ryu, Choppers

    And now, here are the Batter and Pitcher of the Month from August 2018.

    Batter of the Month:

    Matt Carpenter, Choppers J.D. Martinez, Demigods .373 AVG, 7 HR, 25 RBI, 24 R, 2 SB, 2.69 PAR

    Pitcher of the Month:

    Jacob deGrom, Darkhorses 1.24 ERA, 0.985 WHIP, 3 W, 0 SV, 60 K, 3.29 PAR

    FYI, Carpenter Martinez just barely edged out the Darkhorses' Christian Yelich, who is probably a strong contender for this award again in September.  Speaking of guys who are strong contenders for September honors, deGrom's unbelievable '18 season was finally rewarded in August.

    It should be an exciting final weekend, both in the DTBL and MLB.  May the best teams win!

    TWO YEARS LATER EDIT:  When going through these articles to retroactively populate the honors table with past monthly award winners, I discovered I completely botched this one.  J.D. Martinez was the actual Player of the Month for August 2018.  My spreadsheet of monthly stats clearly states that, and I verified that the stat line above matches what Martinez produced in 8/18, not Carpenter.  I do not know how I got this wrong.

  • Four DTBL Legends Enshrined

    Embed from Getty Images One of the cool things about the longevity of this league is that now most of the newly inducted members in the Baseball Hall of Fame are players who accumulated most of their Hall of Fame credentials as members of DTBL teams.  This has been the case for a while, but some year's classes carry more significance to this league than others.  The 2018 class featured four of the best players in our league's history:  Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Chipper Jones and Jim Thome.  Also inducted were Alan Trammell and Jack Morris.  Trammell played until 1996, but was never on a DTBL major league roster.  Morris had a brief, unimpressive stint with the Gators in the league's inaugural season.  But here is a synopsis of the DTBL careers of the big four who were inducted in Cooperstown the last week of July.

    Vladimir Guerrero was originally drafted by the expansion Angels in 1998 and was a member of that team for their only season of existence.  He then returned to the draft pool the following year and somehow fell all the way to the Choppers with the 8th pick of the 1999 draft.  Needless to say, that pick worked out pretty well for them.  He spent the remaining 13 seasons of his DTBL career with the Choppers, winning a championship in his first season with them (1999).  Guerrero ranks sixth in DTBL history with a .319 average and is in the top 10 in RBI as well (1,415).  His name is littered all over the Choppers franchise leaderboard:  second in average (.319), RBI (1,306) and runs (1,130), third in home runs (390) and sixth in stolen bases (165).  Not everyone recalls his base stealing prowess.  There are 16 DTBL players with 400 home runs (Adrian Beltre just recently joined this group).  Of those 16 guys, only Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds and Gary Sheffield have more than Guerrero's 176 career steals.  Vlad was as consistent of a hitter as the league has ever seen.  In his first nine seasons, he hit over .300 with 30+ homers and 100+ RBI in all but one year (2003).  In seasons in which he qualified for the batting title (400 at bats) his *worst* batting average was .300 in 2010.

    In the history of baseball, only one pitcher has recorded more saves than Trevor Hoffman (Mariano Rivera).  The same is true of DTBL history.  His 560 saves is 136 more than any pitcher not named Rivera, so he figures to hold onto the second spot for quite some time to come.  Unlike the other three players covered here, Hoffman doesn't have an obvious choice of team cap to wear on his fictional DTBL Hall of Fame plaque.  He spent time with six different franchises.  His longest tenures were five seasons with two different teams:  Panthers (1997-2001) and Moonshiners (2004-2008).  He started his career with the Kings (1995-1997), spent two stints with the Darkhorses (2002-2003, 2009) and split his final season (2010) with the Mavericks and Naturals.  He is the Moonshiners franchise leader in saves (202) and ranks third on the Panthers list (191).  Hoffman recorded at least 30 saves every year from 1995 through 2008, except for an injury marred 2003.  In addition to the gaudy save totals, he also struck out 948 batters, which ranks fourth among pitchers who spent their entire careers in the bullpen.  His 2.78 career ERA ranks fourth among all pitchers.  He was a member of two DTBL championship winning teams, near the end of his career:  the 2009 Darkhorses and 2010 Naturals.

    Chipper Jones was a slugging third baseman in an era when that wasn't really a thing.  It is basically him and Adrian Beltre at the top of all of the DTBL third baseman hitting rankings.  Most of his best seasons were spent as a member of the Jackalope.  He started his career with the Tidal Wave and was with them for both of their years of existence.  Then he joined another expansion team, the Jackalope, as their first pick in 1998.  He was released by the Jackalope after a decent 2006 season and added a couple more solid years with the Darkhorses in 2007 through 2009.  His final three seasons saw him bounce from the Cougars to the Mavericks and then back to the Darkhorses.  It was the Jackalope years that really made him a Hall of Fame player though.  With them, he hit .310 with 276 home runs, 874 RBI and 868 runs, all four totals rank in the top four of Jackalope history.  His career numbers also put him in elite company:  .308, 411 HR, 1,422 RBI, 1,414 runs.  The only other members of the .300/400/1,400/1,400 club are Barry Bonds, Manny Ramirez and Albert Pujols.  While Jones' best seasons were with the Jackalope, his championship winning years came with the Darkhorses.  He was a member of the Darkhorses for the first three of their four consecutive titles (2007-2009).  He was a teammate of Hoffman's on that 2009 squad.

    Finally, we have Jim Thome, one of the most feared sluggers of the past quarter century.  Thome ranks fourth on the DTBL career list in home runs (546) and fifth in runs batted in (1,492).  No current member of the Baseball Hall of Fame has accumulated more DTBL home runs or RBI than Thome.  He is one of the few sluggers at the top of those lists without any PED taint.  He spent his entire DTBL career with just two teams.  Thome was originally a member of the Kings, but is best remembered as a member of the Choppers, who acquired him in the second round of the 1999 draft.  Yes, the Choppers selected Hall of Famers in the first two rounds of that '99 draft.  He spent 11 seasons with the Choppers (1999-2009), which was surrounded by a pair of stints with the Kings (1995-1998, 2010).  With the Choppers, he amassed 401 home runs, bested only by Sammy Sosa.  His 1,094 RBI and 976 runs both rank fourth in Choppers history.  Thome hit at least 40 home runs in six different seasons.  Probably the best season of his career came in 2002 when he slugged a career high 52 homers with a .304 average.  From 1999 through 2003, he hit at least 30 home runs with 100+ RBI and runs each year.  His lone DTBL championship came in his first season with the Choppers, 1999, when he was a teammate of Guerrero's.  Coincidentally, all four of these new Hall-of-Famers were members of either the 1999 Choppers or 2009 Darkhorses.

    Congratulations to four of the greatest players in DTBL history:  Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Chipper Jones and Jim Thome!

    Now here are the weekly and monthly award winners for July 2018.

    Batters of the Week:

    Week 15 (7/2 - 7/8) - Yulieski Gurriel, Demigods Week 16 (7/9 - 7/15) - Jose Ramirez, Komodos Week 17 (7/16 - 7/22) - Matt Carpenter, Choppers Week 18 (7/23 - 7/29) - Jonathan Schoop, Mavericks

    Pitchers of the Week:

    Week 15 (7/2 - 7/8) - Dallas Keuchel, Moonshiners Week 16 (7/9 - 7/15) - Aaron Nola, Demigods Week 17 (7/16 - 7/22) - Zack Greinke, Moonshiners Week 18 (7/23 - 7/29) - Rick Porcello, Cougars

    Compiling the information above exposed a bit of a flaw in my code that captures the Batter and Pitcher of the Week winners each week.  In two instances, the above players were not the ones I captured.  Instead, I had players who weren't on an active DTBL roster at the time.  This has happened before, but I don't recall seeing two instances of it in the same month.  I should probably take some time to fix this.  Anyway, because I don't store weekly PAR numbers beyond the top batter and pitcher, I had to take a guess at who should have won these awards.  So it is quite possible that Yulieski Gurriel and Rick Porcello were not the rightful winners in their respective weeks.  What is certain is the accuracy of the monthly PAR totals for July.  Here are the players of the month.

    Batter of the Month:

    Jose Ramirez, Komodos .322 AVG, 8 HR, 25 RBI, 21 R, 11 SB, 3.55 PAR

    Pitcher of the Month:

    Zack Greinke, Moonshiners 1.60 ERA, 0.891 WHIP, 4 W, 0 SV, 35 K, 2.61 PAR

    When I see eye-popping numbers in all five categories, I often will run a Baseball Reference Play Index search to see if any other players in DTBL history have matched or exceeded all of the monthly numbers compiled by the batter or pitcher of the month.  In this case, Jose Ramirez's July, I found no results.  So, prior to July, no DTBL player had ever hit .322+ with 8+ home runs, 25+ RBI, 21+ runs and 11+ stolen bases in a single month.  These numbers were especially impressive coming in July with the All-Star break taking away a couple additional games played.  Ramirez is currently leading the DTBL in Batting PAR and home runs.  He is second in stolen bases and not far behind the leaders in RBI and runs either.  The Komodos third baseman has a strong case for MVP if he continues to be a five category force.  Ramirez won this award in a landslide, but finishing second was his Indians teammate Francisco Lindor.

    Zack Grienke is quietly compiling another great season to add to his impressive career resume.  When discussing the top pitchers of the game today, Greinke is rarely mentioned.  But he is posting a sub 3.00 ERA with a dozen wins and more than a strikeout per inning.  In July, Greinke tied for the league lead with four wins while compiling a 1.60 ERA and 0.89 WHIP.  With the recently added 2005 PAR numbers, Greinke's entire career PAR has been calculated.  Since 2005, only three other pitchers (Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer) have exceeded his 79.0 PAR.  Greinke just barely edged out Chris Sale for this monthly honor.

  • Mid-Season Mash-up

    Embed from Getty Images We've moved into the second half of the baseball season.  There is a lot going on right now, so I'm going to breeze through several topics in this post.  Thanks to everyone for voting for this year's All-Stars.  The managers for this year's All-Star Game, Marc and Nick, have been tasked with breaking a few ties and selecting the final players for their respective rosters.  Soon after they do that, I will announce the 2018 DTBL All-Star rosters.  This year will mark the 25th annual DTBL All-Star Game.  As you may recall, there was no All-Star Game in the first DTBL season.  But some representation of the Mid-Summer Classic has been played every year since.

    Speaking of 25th Anniversaries, we are just about a month away from the DTBL 25th Anniversary party in Chicago.  In case you didn't pay attention to any of the email traffic from previous months, many of us will be meeting up for the Indians @ White Sox game on Saturday, August 11.  I've already obtained tickets for everyone who previously said they would be able to make it.  But even if that doesn't include you, you are more than welcome to join us!  I bought a couple extra tickets and can easily obtain more, if necessary.  We are going to have a small tailgate outside the stadium, but will be heading into the park relatively early to make sure we get the Jim Thome bobbleheads that they are giving away that evening.  Please contact me if you would like more information.  Looking forward to it!

    Somewhere around that 25th Anniversary gathering, probably soon after, I am going to be announcing an all-time DTBL team.  It will be my version of the 25 greatest players in league history.  Since I prefer to make mostly objective selections, I'm working on a statistical formula to determine this roster.  It will be somewhat based on PAR, but not exclusively.  However, to that end, I'm hoping to get as many seasons as possible of PAR numbers completed in the next month.  Just this past week, I added numbers for 2006.  A few takeaways from these numbers.  First, Johan Santana was very much deserving of the Cy Young award he won unanimously that season.  The Mavericks' lefty accumulated a 14.27 PAR, which was nearly five points higher than the next closest pitcher.  It marks as the highest pre-2010 single season Pitching PAR I've calculated so far.  Among hitters, there was far less separation at the top of the 2006 PAR leaderboard.  Albert Pujols was first at 9.16, but Jose Reyes, Alfonso Soriano and Ryan Howard were all within a point.  Howard edged out Pujols in the MVP vote that year, perhaps because of his gaudy 58 home runs, which had been the league's single season record among non-PED suspected players until Giancarlo Stanton hit 59 homers last year.  Reyes' 19 home runs in '06 is the most for any DTBL player with at least 60 steals as well.

    I am going to try go get PAR numbers completed back to 2003 in the next month.  The reason why 2003 will be my stopping point is because I don't have complete transaction records readily accessible prior to that, which are necessary for me to calculate the number of weeks each player was on a major league roster.  This is the big pain point in completing these PAR calculations.

    On to the weekly and monthly award winners for June 2018.

    Batters of the Week:

    Week 11 (6/4 - 6/10) - Paul Goldschmidt, Jackalope Week 12 (6/11 - 6/17) - Evan Gattis, Kings Week 13 (6/18 - 6/24) - Nolan Arenado, Naturals Week 14 (6/25 - 7/1) - Alex Bregman, Darkhorses

    Pitchers of the Week:

    Week 11 (6/4 - 6/10) - Corey Kluber, Demigods Week 12 (6/11 - 6/17) - Luis Severino, Jackalope Week 13 (6/18 - 6/24) - Trevor Bauer, Choppers Week 14 (6/25 - 7/1) - Blake Snell, Cougars

    Semi-spoiler alert:  you are going to see almost all of the names above when the DTBL All-Star rosters are announced this week.  These guys not only had great weeks at some point in June, but are putting up All-Star caliber numbers through the first half of the season.  We had a little more team diversity for these honors in June as only the Jackalope had multiple players earn weekly honors.

    Batter of the Month:

    Alex Bregman, Darkhorses .306 AVG, 11 HR, 30 RBI, 24 R, 1 SB, 3.00 PAR

    Pitcher of the Month:

    Chris Sale, Choppers 1.76 ERA, 0.756 WHIP, 3 W, 0 SV, 60 K, 3.43 PAR

    Half way through his second DTBL season, Bregman has already almost matched his rookie season numbers.  In fact, he has already set a career high in home runs with 17.  11 of those came in his scorching month of June.  He tied for the league lead in both home runs and RBI in June.  The Darkhorses third baseman appears primed to receive his first DTBL All-Star invitation.  Bregman narrowly won this award over Jackalope first baseman Paul Goldschmidt who had very similar numbers across the board.  Komodos outfielders Nelson Cruz and Eddie Rosario were in the conversation as well.

    Sale will almost certainly receive his seventh straight All-Star nod this week.  If so, he will have been a DTBL All-Star in every season since becoming a full time starting pitcher for the White Sox in 2012.  He was at the peak of his powers in June, striking out 60 batters in just 41 innings.  He is one of four pitchers who have already accumulated over 8 PAR this season, barely beyond the half-way point in the season.  Sale was a comfortable winner of this award, but amazingly, the top three contenders were all Choppers, the other two being Trevor Bauer and Jon Lester.  Jackalope Luis Severino wasn't too far back either.

  • Pair of Kings

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    June is more than half over, so I suppose I should probably get around to announcing the DTBL May award winners.  Sorry for the ridiculous tardiness of this article.  There are a couple of reasons for the delay though.  First, I forgot to run my script to capture the monthly stats on the first of the month, so I had to come up with a slightly different way of computing the numbers for May.  But that didn’t take too long to do.  The main reason for the delay is because I’ve spent most of the past couple weeks watching and celebrating the Washington Capitals Stanley Cup championship.  As you may know, we don’t get an opportunity to celebrate sports championships very often here in the nation’s capital.  The Caps victory came at the expense of the Vegas Golden Knights, so I became accustomed to reading article headlines that were plays on gambling terms.  So, why not one more here?

    Not a whole lot has changed since last month’s article.  The Kings are sill in control at the top of the standings.  However, things started to look a little dicey for them a few weeks ago when a whole bunch of their outfielders got hurt at the same time.  They seem to have weathered that storm though, as they still hold a comfortable lead.  The Darkhorses and Demigods have been putting together solid seasons as well and currently sit in second and third places.  Meanwhile, the Mavericks have been absolutely decimated by pitching injuries, turning what has been their strength for many years into a considerable weakness.  They currently have the fewest pitching points in the league.

    The Kings have been chugging along thanks to spectacular numbers from some of their biggest stars.  In April, Kings ace Max Scherzer won Pitcher of the Month honors and still leads the league in pitching PAR well into the season’s third month.  But it is a teammate of his who was the league’s best pitcher in May.  And another teammate topped the May batting PAR leaderboard.  But before we get to that, here were the weekly award winners in May.

    Batters of the Week:

    Week 6 (4/30 – 5/6) – Eddie Rosario, Komodos
    Week 7 (5/7 – 5/13) – Scooter Gennett, Demigods
    Week 8 (5/14 – 5/20) – Brandon Belt, Mavericks
    Week 9 (5/21 – 5/27) – Jose Altuve, Demigods
    Week 10 (5/28 – 6/3) – Edwin Encarnacion, Darkhorses

    Pitchers of the Week:

    Week 6 (4/30 – 5/6) – Gerrit Cole, Jackalope
    Week 7 (5/7 – 5/13) – Dallas Keuchel, Moonshiners
    Week 8 (5/14 – 5/20) – Lance McCullers, Kings
    Week 9 (5/21 – 5/27) – J.A. Happ, Komodos
    Week 10 (5/28 – 6/3) – Michael Wacha, Kings

    Well, that list of pitchers is pretty interesting for a couple reasons.  First, if you couldn’t tell, May was a pretty good month for Astros pitchers.  Three of them won weekly honors (Cole, Keuchel, McCullers), yet their pitcher who had the best month is not one of those three!  Secondly, if you couldn’t tell, May was a pretty good month for Kings pitchers.  Two of them won weekly honors (McCullers, Wacha), yet their pitcher who had the best month is not one of those two!  Yes, I’m talking about the same pitcher in both cases.  Here are the DTBL monthly award winners for May 2018.

    Batter of the Month:

    Mookie Betts, Kings
    .372 AVG, 9 HR, 19 RBI, 23 R, 10 SB, 3.65 PAR

    Pitcher of the Month:

    Justin Verlander, Kings
    0.86 ERA, 0.696 WHIP, 3 W, 0 SV, 50 K, 3.67 PAR

    Using Baseball-Reference’s Play Index, I was only able to find two other monthly stat totals in DTBL history that were comparable to Betts’ five category stat line:  Mike Trout in July of 2012 and Ryan Klesko in May of 2001.  Had I tightened my search criteria to Betts’ exact stat line, he would have been the only result.  So Mookie had one of the best five category months in league history.  Unfortunately for him, he suffered an injury to his side at the beginning of June which shelved him for a bit, but he is back at it now and trails only Mike Trout in batting PAR for the season.  It is still relatively early, but right now, it looks like a two person race between those two for MVP honors.  A pair of Indians were Betts’ closest competition for this monthly award, however.  Komodos third baseman Jose Ramirez and Demigods shortstop Francisco Lindor also had great months of May.

    Verlander saw a bunch of Astros and Kings teammates win weekly honors in May, but he was clearly the league’s best pitcher in the month.  The modest win total (3) was all that kept him from blowing away everyone else for this award.  The Naturals’ James Paxton and the Kings’ Max Scherzer were in striking distance.  Scherzer and Verlander sit first and second in the league in pitching PAR, which goes a long way towards explaining why the Kings are crushing the rest of the league in pitching points.  They currently have at least a share of the lead in all five pitching categories.

  • Contact Problems

    Embed from Getty Images The first month of the 2018 baseball season is in the books. Early indications are that the recent surge of the three true outcomes (home runs, walks, strikeouts) is far from over. Perhaps most troubling is that MLB saw more strikeouts than hits in the first month of the season. That had never previously happened over a full month in the history of baseball. In our league, I don't keep track of hitters' strikeouts, so I am not certain if that was the case for DTBL hitters. But it definitely was for pitchers. Through Friday's games, DTBL pitchers have recorded 2,663 strikeouts compared to 2,059 hits allowed. To be clear, DTBL pitchers recording more strikeouts than hits allowed isn't new. It has happened over each of the past six full seasons. But the current K/H ratio of 1.29 would blow away last year's record high of 1.14. Because home run rates are still historically high, overall scoring in baseball is only slightly down from the last couple years and still higher than it was a few years back. But the current DTBL league batting average of .259 is eight points lower than the league's record full-season low of .267 (2015). Average tends to rise as the weather warms up though, so I'm not going to read into that too much. The big takeaway from the first month numbers is clearly the rise in strikeouts and drop in hits. Fewer balls in play tends to make for a less interesting game. So let's hope this trend doesn't continue much longer.

    In the DTBL, March/April was dominated by the Kings, who are looking to bounce back from an awful 2017 season.  They finished April with a double digit lead.  They held onto first place most of the month.  The Darkhorses and Mavericks are in pretty good shape as well.  Interestingly, it is the Mavericks' usually reliable pitching staff that has kept them from leading the league in the early stages of the season.

    As for the players, the leaderboards are topped by a lot of familiar names with a bunch of impressive rookies mixed in as well.  Below are the Players of the Week and Players of the Month for March/April.  Please note that the games from March were included in determining the April Player of the Month awards.  Also, there is going to be one extra set of weekly award winners as I did separate that season opening weekend (Thursday through Sunday) into its own week.

    Batters of the Week:

    Week 1 (3/29 - 4/1) - Adam Eaton, Kings Week 2 (4/2 - 4/8) - Didi Gregorius, Jackalope Week 3 (4/9 - 4/15) - Paul Goldschmidt, Jackalope Week 4 (4/16 - 4/22) - Manny Machado, Mavericks Week 5 (4/23 - 4/29) - Gary Sanchez, Jackalope

    Pitchers of the Week:

    Week 1 (3/29 - 4/1) - Jose Berrios, Darkhorses Week 2 (4/2 - 4/8) - Jameson Taillon, Cougars Week 3 (4/9 - 4/15) - Max Scherzer, Kings Week 4 (4/16 - 4/22) - Patrick Corbin, Darkhorses Week 5 (4/23 - 4/29) - Masahiro Tanaka, Choppers

    It was a good month for Jackalope hitters as three of them won weekly honors.  It was an up-and-down month for several of the players listed above, particularly the pitchers.  But at least two of them were strong throughout the month and are recipients of the Player of the Month awards.  As a reminder, these are not subjective choices on my part.  These are the players who accumulated the highest batting and pitching PAR for the month.  Again, "month" isn't entirely accurate in this case as the last few days of March were included as well.  Here are the award winners for April 2018.

    Batter of the Month:

    Didi Gregorius, Jackalope .327 AVG, 10 HR, 30 RBI, 24 R, 2 SB, 2.55 PAR

    Pitcher of the Month:

    Max Scherzer, Kings 1.62 ERA, 0.821 WHIP, 5 W, 0 SV, 57 K, 3.69 PAR

    Didi Gregorius had the unenviable task of replacing a legend at shortstop for the Yankees.  But since taking over for Derek Jeter in 2016, he has been nothing short of spectacular.  This year, it seems he may be reaching a new level though.  He finished April with 10 home runs.  His career high is 25, which he recorded last season.  The Jackalope nabbed Gregorius in the fourth round last year and have been rewarded handsomely ever since.  Gregorius edged out A.J. Pollock for this award.  Five of the top nine finishers were Mavericks, led by first round pick Ozzie Albies.

    Pitcher of the Month awards are nothing new for Max Scherzer.  This is the third time he has won it since I officially started tracking this in 2016:  (June '16, May '17).  At this point, I think it is safe to say that Scherzer is the most consistently dominant pitcher in baseball.  The two time reigning NL Cy Young award winner is the early leader for that award again this season.  His closest competition for this monthly award was his Kings teammate, Justin Verlander.  Corey Kluber and Gerrit Cole had tremendous opening months as well.

  • Stanton Slugs Way to MVP

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    2017 will be remembered as the year of the non-steroid enhanced home run.  A record number of homers were hit in MLB this season and the most in the DTBL since 2000.  29 DTBL players hit at least 30 round-trippers and 70 players hit at least 20.  Despite this proliferation of homers, one player managed to separate himself from the pack.  Jackalope outfielder Giancarlo Stanton slugged 59 homers, 10 more than any other player.  That is the largest gap between the top two home run hitters in DTBL history (tying Albert Belle in 1995).  In a crowded field of strong candidates, Stanton has come out on top as the 2017 DTBL Most Valuable Player.

    Yesterday, I adjusted the 2017 PAR numbers to be based on a five year set of stats including the recently completed season.  In doing so, most hitters saw their PAR take a slight drop, particularly power hitters.  Stanton was no exception.  His PAR dropped from 12.1 to 11.7, which cost him the top spot on the PAR leaderboard since 2009.  Mookie Betts’ 2016 total of 11.72 edged Stanton by one tenth of a point.  Stanton did lead the league in that category in 2017 though, in addition to soaring past the field in home runs and also leading the way in RBI (132).  His 123 runs trailed only Charlie Blackmon.  Even his .281 batting average was quite impressive for such a prodigious slugger.  While Stanton has been a force ever since he made it to the majors, this was easily his best season yet.

    The Jackalope drafted Stanton with the sixth overall pick of the 2011 draft.  He has been their most consistent power hitter ever since.  In his seven DTBL seasons, he has hit at least 20 home runs in each one.  Only injuries have been able to slow him down on occasion.  2017 was clearly his best season to date, but 2014 was pretty darn good as well when he finished second in the MVP race.  This year marked his fourth All-Star appearance.  He was a major contributor to both of the Jackalope’s championships (2011 and 2015).    This was a disappointing season for the Jackalope, but that was mostly because of the pitching staff.  Stanton helped them easily lead the league in home runs with 364, the highest team total since 2003.  Stanton and Jackalope teammate Paul Goldschmidt formed the most fearsome duo in the league this season.

    Stanton clearly had a MVP caliber season, but he was not alone.  He received half of the first place votes and appeared on all ten ballots, but in scattered positions.  In total, he accumulated 77 points, winning this award by 19 over Cougars outfielder Charlie Blackmon.  Blackmon was no doubt a benefactor of the Coors effect, but his numbers across the board were legitimately spectacular, leading the league in runs (137) while hitting .331 with 37 homers, 104 RBI and 14 stolen bases.  He received a pair of first place votes and was the only player besides Stanton to make it on every ballot.  Finishing third was the DTBL Rookie of the Year, Mavericks outfielder Aaron Judge.  Stanton was the only DTBL player to hit more home runs than Judge this year.  Judge received one first place vote and 46 total points.  Interestingly enough, that allowed him to edge out American League MVP Jose Altuve by a single point.  With a AL MVP and World Series championship under his belt, Altuve is now receiving proper recognition as one of the best players in the sport.  This is the third time in four years that he has finished in the top four of the MVP race.  He won the league batting title, hitting .346 with 24 home runs and 32 stolen bases.  The Demigods second baseman received a pair of first place votes, but was edged out by Judge because he received just one second place tally.  The top four finishers all received first place votes and made strong arguments to win this award.  But so did the guy who finished fifth, Jackalope first baseman Paul Goldschmidt.  Goldschmidt accumulated 18 points.  It is definitely worth checking out the voting results.  There was a clear lack of consensus on where each player should finish.

    Click here to view the full voting results.

    As mentioned above, yesterday, I completed the end-of-season PAR adjustments for the 2017 figures.  I’m also in the process of adding PAR numbers for the 2008 season, which means we will have ten full seasons worth of data for that stat very soon.  I have a lot planned for this winter, including a revamp of the transaction processing portions of the web site.  So if you have any suggestions on improvements, please let me know.

    Happy Thanksgiving!

  • Cy Young Goes to a Klubot

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    The 2017 season got off to a rough start for Demigods ace Corey Kluber. He managed to win three of his first six starts, but was far from his usual dominant self, posting a 5.06 ERA before hitting the disabled list for nearly a month. Apparently the time off served him well, because he was the best pitcher in baseball for the final four months of the season. Those four months of dominance were enough to make Kluber’s full season numbers as impressive as any other pitcher in baseball. Corey Kluber is the 2017 DTBL Cy Young award winner.

    Kluber is the definition of a workhorse.  Despite missing a month of the season, he still managed to record 203.2 innings, exceeded by only two other DTBL pitchers.  He has thrown over 200 innings in all four of his seasons with the Demigods.  But it wasn’t just about quantity of innings for Kluber.  The quality was unsurpassed as well.  He easily led the league in ERA (2.25) and WHIP (0.87) and tied for the most wins (18) as well.  His 265 strikeouts ranked third in the league.  In terms of PAR, he was also the best pitcher in the league with a mark of 13.2.  He did all of this while pitching in the hitter friendly American League.  He is the first American League pitcher to win the DTBL Cy Young award since David Price in 2012.

    The Demigods drafted Kluber in the 10th round of the 2014 draft.  Needless to say, that pick has worked out quite well for them.  Kluber won the DTBL Rookie of the Year award in 2014 and has been a Cy Young contender pretty much every season since.  He has struck out over 225 hitters in each season and has never posted an ERA above 3.50 or a WHIP above 1.09.  This season was probably his best to date, but there hasn’t been a bad one yet.  He already sits in the top five in Demigods franchise history in all relevant categories.  Amazingly enough, this season marked his first DTBL All-Star appearance.  I would say that is a sign of how dominant Kluber tends to be in the second half of seasons, because his full season numbers have been All-Star worthy in all four years of his DTBL career.  The Demigods pitching staff was a bit of a disappointment as a whole, keeping them from being a serious championship contender.  But that obviously wasn’t Kluber’s fault.  He easily led his team in ERA, WHIP, wins, strikeouts and PAR.

    Plenty of pitchers had great 2017 seasons, but Kluber won this award pretty easily.  He received eight of the ten first place votes, and was ranked second on the other two ballots for a total of 94 points.  Chris Sale looked like the favorite to win this award at the All-Star break, but he continued his career trend of fading down the stretch, creating quite a contrast to Kluber.  Nonetheless, the Choppers lefty still led the league in strikeouts with 308, the highest single season total since Randy Johnson’s 334 in the 2002 season, 15 years ago.  Sale received one first place vote and eight seconds for a 69 point total.  There was a very close race for third place.  Last year’s Cy Young winner, Kings ace Max Scherzer edged out Mavericks star Clayton Kershaw.  Scherzer received a majority of the third place votes (7) and accumulated 44 points.  This was just enough to beat Kerhaw’s 40 points that included a first place vote.  Finishing near the top of the Cy Young vote is nothing new for this duo.  Scherzer has now finished in the top four in four of the past five seasons.  Amazingly, this is Kershaw’s seventh straight year in this elite company.  He won the award in 2013 and 2014.  There was a huge gap after these four, but Mavericks closer Kenley Jansen took the fifth spot thanks to four fifth place votes.

    Click here to view the full voting results.

    Two down, one to go.  The Most Valuable Player award, which figures to be the most hotly contested of the three races, will be announced on Wednesday.

  • Judge Rules Over Rookies

    Embed from Getty Images Let's cut to the chase.  Putting Aaron Judge at the top of the ballot for Rookie of the Year was probably one of the easiest decisions each of us made this year.  That's not to say there weren't many good first year players in the league this year.  Quite the opposite, actually.  But none of those other rookies had one of the best offensive seasons in recent league history during their maiden voyages.  Judge did.  He already won the American League Rookie of the Year award and is likely to be a strong contender for the DTBL Most Valuable Player award which will be announced next week.  Mavericks outfielder Aaron Judge is the unanimous selection as the 2017 DTBL Rookie of the Year.

    Before I go too much further, I need to point out that I have not yet completed the post-season adjustments to the 2017 PAR totals.  Because of the offensive explosion in the league this season, expect hitters' PAR totals to go down a bit.  With that said, Judge just posted the fourth highest batting PAR for seasons in which it has been calculated to date (since 2009).  Granted, two of the three totals ahead of Judge's 11.0 were also accumulated this year.  So it was a hitter friendly environment.  Nonetheless, Judge's numbers speak of themselves.  He slugged 49 home runs, finishing second in the league behind Giancarlo Stanton and also second in league history among rookies, trailing only Ryan Howard's 58 homers in 2006.  His 120 runs scored ranked third in the league and he also drove in triple digits:  106.  Additionally, he stole nine bases and hit a very respectable .287.  Not bad for a guy with swing-and-miss issues.  Judge led the Mavericks in HR, RBI and R.  Perhaps his most impressive feat was topping Mike Trout to lead the Mavericks in batting PAR.  It is the first time in Trout's career that he has not led them in that category.

    This was a pretty special season for the Mavericks organization, and Judge was obviously a huge part of that.  After hitting just .179 with four homers in 27 games at the end of 2016, none of the ten DTBL teams decided to select Judge during the draft this March.  But the Mavericks wisely moved in with a free agent claim in the second week of the season.  One season does not make a career, but this is already looking like the biggest free agent heist in league history.  One day we may look back and wonder how in the world Aaron Judge was not among the 280 players on a DTBL roster to start this season.  Actually, that day has already passed.  Anyway, all the Mavericks got out of their early season free agent signing was one of the best seasons in recent memory, and with it, a league championship.

    I probably would have had to question anybody who didn't put Judge #1 on their ballot.  Fortunately, that didn't prove necessary as he received all ten first place votes for a point total of a perfect 100.  Jake Arrieta was a unanimous choice for this award two years ago, but the last hitter to do it was Judge's Mavericks teammate Mike Trout.  Trout was also the last Maverick to win this award.  Comfortably finishing in second place was Gators third baseman Jose Ramirez who shocked everybody by hitting .318 with 29 home runs and 17 stolen bases.  Ramirez appeared on all ten ballots and received eight of the ten second place votes for a total of 64 points.  Finishing third was another breakout star with little hype entering the season, Moonshiners 7th round pick, Robbie Ray.  The hard-throwing lefty struck out 195 in just 143 innings for the Moonshiners.  Ray also received votes from all ten people and was the third choice for seven of them, finishing with 46 points.  The only first round pick to finish in the top five was Jackalope catcher Gary Sanchez.  Definitely one of the favorites for this award entering the season, Sanchez did not disappoint.  He clubbed 33 homers at one of the few remaining positions where big offensive numbers are hard to come by.  Sanchez was only on half the ballots, but accumulated 17 points.  Finally, a relief pitcher sneaked into the five hole.  Darkhorses closer Corey Knebel wasn't signed as a free agent until May, but racked up 39 saves anyway.  An interesting note about him is that he was technically on a DTBL roster a year ago, but the Moonshiners never put him on their major league roster, preserving his rookie status into this season.  Knebel received one second place vote which helped him reach 15 total points and this fifth place ranking.

    Click here to view the full voting results.

    Even though all of the major MLB awards are being announced this week, you are going to have to wait until next week to find out who won the other two big DTBL awards.  Next up will be the Cy Young award, which will probably be announced next Monday.

  • September Storylines

    Embed from Getty Images In some circles, it is believed that I have magical powers that allow me to alter the state of the championship race by declaring certain teams dead, thereby causing those teams to actually find their way back into the race. There has been little proof of this, however, as what was described as a two team race a month ago has now become more of a solo act. The Mavericks now hold a double digit lead with just three and a half weeks to go. Is it over? Are the Mavericks a lock to win their first championship in 11 years? Eh, not exactly.

    While the Mavericks have held a double digit lead for a couple weeks now, they are not completely bulletproof. On the batting side, they hold precarious leads over chasing teams in pretty much all five categories. And they are currently nursing several injuries to hitters. Without any free agent signings remaining, they don't have a lot of options to replace injured players either, not that the free agent pool has anybody worth signing at this point anyway. As for pitching, they are sitting pretty and it seems highly unlikely they could lose more than a point or two in pitching categories, especially with Clayton Kershaw healthy again. Perhaps someday I will come up with a way of calculating championship odds, but for now, I'm going to take a blind guess instead. I'd give the Mavericks close to a 90% chance of winning the title, with the other 10% split between the Naturals and Demigods. I suppose a few other teams could enter the picture with a couple ridiculously hot weeks. But it is pretty much the Mavericks title to lose.  There, I said it.

    So the championship race may not be particularly exciting right now, but there are some other very interesting storylines to follow down the stretch. First is the impressive power display by Jackalope outfielder Giancarlo Stanton (spoiler alert: he will be mentioned again below). Stanton currently sits at 53 home runs and has a great chance to be the first person to reach 60 since 2001. In fact, if you exclude the seasons during the peak of the steroid era (1998-2001), Stanton could surpass the next highest single season home run total (Ryan Howard, 58, 2006). While the actual single season home run record (73) is probably not realistic, Stanton does have a great shot at a different kind of home run record: margin of victory for the home run crown. In 1995, Albert Belle hit 10 more homers than any other player. Nobody else has repeated that feat since. Currently, Stanton leads Moonshiners' Khris Davis by 14 home runs. At his recent pace, hard to imagine Stanton not expanding upon that lead.

    The MVP and Cy Young races are both way too close to call right now. In fact, there are so many hitters in play for MVP that I'm not even going to mention all of them here. On the pitching side, Chris Sale and Max Scherzer have been the presumptive Cy Young leaders most of the summer, but Corey Kluber has been coming on strong and a now-healthy Kershaw can't be ignored either. Will Sale reach 300 strikeouts? If he gets to 302, it will be the highest single season mark since 2002.

    Now a belated look back at the award winners for August 2017:

    Batters of the Week:

    Week 18 (7/31 - 8/6) - Willson Contreras, Demigods Week 19 (8/7 - 8/13) - Giancarlo Stanton, Jackalope Week 20 (8/14 - 8/20) - Rougned Odor, Naturals Week 21 (8/21 - 8/27) - Byron Buxton, Choppers Week 22 (8/28 - 9/3) - Jose Ramirez, Gators

    Pitchers of the Week:

    Week 18 (7/31 - 8/6) - Cole Hamels, Demigods Week 19 (8/7 - 8/13) - Corey Kluber, Demigods Week 20 (8/14 - 8/20) - Gio Gonzalez, Gators Week 21 (8/21 - 8/27) - Masahiro Tanaka, Choppers Week 22 (8/28 - 9/3) - Jeff Samardzija, Moonshiners

    August was a good month for veteran pitchers.  Four of the five Pitchers of the Week are at least 31 years old, with Tanaka being the young guy (28).  It was also a good month for a few under-the-radar stars like Jose Ramirez and Gio Gonzalez.  The Moonshiners July trade for Jeff Smardzija has been paying dividends as well.  But let's face it, August was all about one guy, who obviously won the Batter of the Month award:

    Batter of the Month:

    Giancarlo Stanton, Jackalope .349 AVG, 18 HR, 37 RBI, 28 R, 1 SB, 4.81 PAR

    Pitcher of the Month:

    Corey Kluber, Demigods 1.96 ERA, 0.630 WHIP, 5 W, 0 SV, 54 K, 4.35 PAR

    As amazing as Jose Altuve's July was, Giancarlo Stanton kicked it up another notch in August.  He had the best month of this season by a player, by far, according to PAR.  His 4.81 August PAR is a full 1.3 points higher than any other Player of the Month has earned this season.  He slugged an insane 18 home runs in August, which is the second highest single month total in league history, trailing only Sammy Sosa's 20 homers in June of 1998.  As outlined above, this has a chance to be a truly historic season for Stanton.  He is firmly in the mix for MVP now as well.  You want to know who has had the second best month this season?  The Mavericks' Manny Machado, who put up 3.9 PAR in August, but somehow didn't come close to winning this monthly honor.

    Not to be overlooked, Corey Kluber also posted the highest monthly PAR we've seen from a pitcher this season, coming in at 4.35.  He was nearly unhittable in the month, leading qualified pitchers in ERA, WHIP, wins (tied) and strikeouts.  He has also inserted himself into the Cy Young conversation, which didn't seem possible a month ago.  Nobody came close to snatching this honor from Kluber, but recently traded Justin Verlander was the runner-up.

  • Still a Two Team Race

    Embed from Getty Images It's been a two team race for the DTBL Championship for several months now.  Despite the fact that the Mavericks and Naturals have been dealing with injuries to several of their most important players and neither team has truly put it all together yet, no other team besides these two has come close to sniffing first place in recent months.  At the end of July, the Mavericks and Naturals were tied for first place, but the Mavericks have moved into a 1 1/2 point lead at the time of writing.  It is still very much possible for other teams to get back into the race since the gap between the top two and the rest of the pack is just over ten points.  But we just haven't seen any other team make a run yet.

    Two teams looking to make such a run struck a deal a couple weeks ago.  The Moonshiners and Kings completed a trade that was intended to solve roster problems created by injuries.  But as it has turned out so far, this trade has only created further problems as both teams seemingly received damaged goods.  The Moonshiners traded shortstop Zack Cozart and pitcher Jon Gray to the Kings in exchange for outfielder Avisail Garcia and pitcher Jeff Samardzija.  At the time, the Kings were in desparate need of a shortstop to replace the injured Carlos Correa while the Moonshiners were looking for an outfielder to fill in for Gregory Polanco and Keon Broxton.  Of course, within a week of the trade, both Cozart and Garcia hit the disabled list.  This marks the second trade between these teams that appears to have been a bit of a bust for both sides.  The March swap of Polanco for Kyle Seager hasn't been terribly productive for either team.

    This seems like a good time to remind you that the DTBL trade deadline is coming up on August 15.  That is a Tuesday, meaning any trades must be confirmed by both sides before midnight on the 15th even though they will not be processed until the following Monday.  Now, onto the award winners for July 2017.

    Batters of the Week:

    Week 14 (7/3 - 7/9) - Jose Altuve, Demigods Week 15 (7/14 - 7/16) - Anthony Rendon, Jackalope Week 16 (7/17 - 7/23) - Nolan Arenado, Naturals Week 17 (7/24 - 7/30) - J.D. Martinez, Demigods

    Pitchers of the Week:

    Week 14 (7/3 - 7/9) - Clayton Kershaw, Mavericks Week 15 (7/14 - 7/16) - Jose Quintana, Gators Week 16 (7/17 - 7/23) - Jon Lester, Choppers Week 17 (7/24 - 7/30) - James Paxton, Naturals

    The way these weekly honors usually work is that my weekly transaction processing program will create a database record for the players with the highest batting and pitching PAR for the week at the time of processing.  But because of the All-Star break, I wasn't able the capture who had the highest PAR for Week 14 (7/3 through 7/9).  So instead, I used the FanGraphs' splits leaderboard to eyeball the stats for that week and decided Altuve and Kershaw were the likely PAR leaders for the week.  It could be wrong though, particularly in the case of Altuve who had stiff competition from his Astros teammate George Springer.  There wasn't particularly stiff competition for the monthly awards though.  Here are the winners.

    Batter of the Month:

    Jose Altuve, Demigods .485 AVG, 4 HR, 21 RBI, 22 R, 8 SB, 3.38 PAR

    Pitcher of the Month:

    James Paxton, Naturals 1.37 ERA, 0.788 WHIP, 6 W, 0 SV, 46 K, 4.08 PAR

    Jose Altuve nearly hit .500 in July!  He went 48 for 99, which penciled out to a .485 average for the month.  It is the highest monthly batting average since recently inducted Hall-of-Famer Ivan Rodriguez hit .500 in June of 2004 and the fourth highest total in league history:  https://www.baseball-reference.com/tiny/i0mzo.  It wasn't just the average though.  He also hit four homers, scored and drove in over 20 runs and stole eight bases.  Altuve's hot month has inserted the Demigods second baseman right into the thick of the MVP conversation.  He won this award easily.  Following him were a bunch of closely packed players, with Bryce Harper leading the way.

    On the pitching side, another pretty rare feat was achieved by the Naturals' James Paxton.  He won six games in the month, becoming the first DTBL player to do that in a single month this season.  Along with all those wins came a very impressive 1.37 ERA and 0.788 WHIP.  The Canadian left-hander has become the de facto ace for the Naturals in their championship hunt, replacing the injured Noah Syndergaard.  It was a comfortable win for Paxton, but the Choppers' Chris Sale was the runner-up.