DTBL News

Category: Awards

  • Turner Breaks Wrist, Wins Award


    For the second consecutive month, one of the league’s top title contending teams is facing an uncertain future due to the loss of arguably their most irreplaceable player.  So far, the Mavericks have weathered the storm without Mike Trout quite nicely.  They have held onto first place for virtually the entire season and have built a relatively comfortable margin over all but one of their competitors.  The one team that is giving them everything they can handle is the Naturals.  As of this writing, the two teams are tied in first.  But while the Mavericks have Trout on the verge of returning, the Naturals will now be without young star outfielder (now shortstop) Trea Turner.  Turner broke his right wrist when getting hit by a pitch by the Cubs’ Pedro Strop last Thursday afternoon.  He figures to miss close to two months of action. Less than ideal for a Naturals team that is competing for a championship while already missing their best pitcher, Noah Syndergaard.  More on Turner in a bit.

    At the halfway mark of the season, it has become pretty clear that we are headed to a record breaking year for home runs and probably the best league-wide offensive numbers in 15 years.  The record for most home runs hit in the DTBL in a single season is 3,231 back in 2000.  Through Sunday, basically the exact mid-point of the season, 1,625 home runs had been hit.  Runs and RBIs are way up as well.  Even stolen bases are on pace to surpass the totals from the past few years.  Only batting average has stagnated.  Meanwhile, it has been a rough go for pitchers.  The league’s 3.90 ERA is up more than 3/10 of a run from last season and is higher than any full season mark since 2006.  Strikeouts remain the lone strong spot for pitchers compared to recent seasons.

    Despite the incredible power surge, it is guys with speed who have been among the biggest contributors to their teams this season.  Last month, Billy Hamilton won the Player of the Month award despite hitting just one home run.  This month’s honor goes to a guy who only hit a pair of homers in June.  Meanwhile, the Pitcher of the Month was earned by a hurler who has bounced back from a slow start in a big way.  Here are the award winners for June 2017.

    Batters of the Week:

    Week 9 (5/29 – 6/4) – George Springer, Darkhorses
    Week 10 (6/5 – 6/11) – Gary Sanchez, Jackalope
    Week 11 (6/12 – 6/18) – Jose Ramirez, Gators
    Week 12 (6/19 – 6/25) – Corey Seager, Gators
    Week 13 (6/26 – 7/2) – Mookie Betts, Kings

    Pitchers of the Week:

    Week 9 (5/29 – 6/4) – Tanner Roark, Jackalope
    Week 10 (6/5 – 6/11) – Robbie Ray, Moonshiners
    Week 11 (6/12 – 6/18) – Jacob deGrom, Darkhorses
    Week 12 (6/19 – 6/25) – Corey Kluber, Demigods
    Week 13 (6/26 – 7/2) – Max Scherzer, Kings

    The weekly hitter honors went to five guys who were just named to the MLB All-Star teams.  How many of them will make the DTBL All-Star squads as well?  Find out later today!  Interesting that Tanner Roark won a weekly award because he has really struggled recently, outside of that one week in late May, early June.  His Nationals teammate Max Scherzer has basically been a candidate for the weekly award every week this season.  Another one of the weekly winners edged him out for the monthly honor though.

    Batter of the Month:

    Trea Turner, Naturals
    .316 AVG, 2 HR, 9 RBI, 23 R, 22 SB, 3.51 PAR

    Pitcher of the Month:

    Corey Kluber, Demigods
    1.26 ERA, 0.674 WHIP, 4 W, 0 SV, 64 K, 4.33 PAR

    Trea Turner’s incredible June ended poorly with the broken wrist, but prior to that, he was terrorizing pitchers and catchers throughout the league.  Famously, in one of his last games before the injury, he stole four bases off the Jake Arrieta/Miguel Montero duo, causing the latter to throw the former under the bus prior to being designated for assignment.  Turner stole 22 bases in June, the highest single month total since Jose Reyes stole 23 in August of 2007.  There have only been three 22+ stolen base months in DTBL history:  http://www.baseball-reference.com/tiny/cPbAS (Roger Cedeno wasn’t on a DTBL roster in ’99).  Prior to the injury, Turner had been on pace to challenge the league’s full season stolen base record as well.  But that has gone by the wayside with him expected to miss up to two months of action.  This was Turner’s honor pretty easily, but Mavericks young phenom Aaron Judge was the runner-up.

    It has been an interesting season for Corey Kluber.  After getting off to a rough start, he hit the disabled list in early May with an ERA north of 5.00.  But since returning, he has been dominant, to the point where the Demigods ace is now a strong All-Star candidate.  In June, hes sported an impressive 1.26 ERA and led the league with 64 strikeouts.  Despite very strong months from a couple other pitchers, Kluber won this award pretty handily.  His closest competition was a pair of pitchers you may have heard of: Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer.

    Stay tuned for the announcement of the 2017 DTBL All-Stars later today!

  • Trout Injury Dampens Mood


    You never want to see any player lose significant time due to injury, but especially not the elite players who make the game so fun to watch.  So when Mike Trout hit the disabled list earlier this week with a torn ligament in his thumb that figures to sideline him for a couple months, the whole baseball world took a hit.  Obviously, there are ramifications in this league as well.  The Mavericks have held a small but consistent lead almost the entire season so far.  But that will be put to the test in a big way in the upcoming months.  Can a team that was already mediocre offensively tread water long enough until Trout returns?

    The list of teams that figure to benefit from this opportunity is long.  In fact, at the 1/3 mark of the season schedule, all ten teams are legitimately still in the race.  Even before Trout went down, the Mavericks weren’t blowing away the competition.  And no team has completely tanked to this point either.  Due to an issue with my stats source, the stats haven’t been updated through Friday’s games yet, so I’m writing this looking at the numbers through Thursday.  At that time, the Mavs held a slim 1/2 point lead on the Naturals and just a point ahead of the Moonshiners as well.  Meanwhile, even the last place Choppers were only 20.5 points behind.  Making up that much ground in four months is certainly doable.

    The month of May saw 1,060 home runs hit across MLB, the second highest single month total in history.  Yet, shockingly, the DTBL Batter of the Month went to a guy who hit one measly homer.  But first, here are the guys who won the weekly honors in May.

    Batters of the Week:

    Week 5 (5/1 – 5/7) – Billy Hamilton, Mavericks
    Week 6 (5/8 – 5/14) – Mookie Betts, Kings
    Week 7 (5/15 – 5/21) – Corey Dickerson, Gators
    Week 8 (5/22 – 5/28) – Charlie Blackmon, Cougars

    Pitchers of the Week:

    Week 5 (5/1 – 5/7) – Chris Sale, Choppers
    Week 6 (5/8 – 5/14) – Zack Greinke, Moonshiners
    Week 7 (5/15 – 5/21) – Stephen Strasburg, Mavericks
    Week 8 (5/22 – 5/28) – Lance McCullers, Kings

    No big surprises on the pitching list as some of the best pitchers in baseball were at the top of their games in May.  Even though pretty much all of the players listed above were strong contenders for Pitcher of the Month, the award went to someone else.  With the exception of Hamilton, the weekly award winners were certainly part of the huge power surge in May.  But as I hinted at earlier, it wasn’t a gaudy home run total that clinched the Batter of the Month honor.  Here are the players of the month for May 2017:

    Batter of the Month:

    Billy Hamilton, Mavericks
    .288 AVG, 1 HR, 14 RBI, 27 R, 18 SB, 3.10 PAR

    Pitcher of the Month:

    Max Scherzer, Kings
    2.27 ERA, 0.824 WHIP, 3 W, 0 SV, 60 K, 3.19 PAR

    Safe to say Hamilton had the green light in May.  He stole 18 bases, which was six more than any other player.  He currently leads the league in steals with 28, which is twice the total of the next highest player!  He is on pace to blow past the DTBL single season stolen base record which is held by Jose Reyes who stole 78 bags in 2007.  Nobody has reached the 60 plateau since 2011, which Hamilton seems close to a lock to achieve, barring injury.  The rest of the offensive numbers were solid in May for Hamilton too.  It will be important for him to keep up the respectable hitting numbers while keeping the Mavericks offense afloat without Trout.  The race for this award wasn’t as close as you might have thought, but the runner-up was Jackalope first baseman Paul Goldschmidt.

    I had to do a double-take when I saw Scherzer atop the May pitching PAR leaderboard.  He had a couple very poor outings in the month, by his standards, including a game I saw in person in Atlanta in which his velocity was down and his command was off.  Yet he rebounded in a big way, striking out 24 batters in his final two starts of the month, one which was a complete game and another that was one out shy of that.  In total, he led the league with 60 strikeouts in the month.  He just barely won this award, edging out Kings teammate Lance McCullers and the Darkhorses’ Carlos Martinez.  This is the second time in three years that Scherzer has won this award in the month of May.

  • Homer/Whiff Trends Continue


    The early returns are in and the statistical trends of the past few seasons seem to be continuing into 2017.  Last year featured the most home runs in the DTBL since 2001 and the highest K/IP rate in league history.  I didn’t take the time to compute the exact home run and strikeout pace for the league this season, but based on MLB numbers, it appears the all-time league total single season home run and strikeout records are in jeopardy of falling this year.  In MLB, there have been 1.17 HR per team, per game this season, up slightly from 1.16 last year and virtually tied with the all-time record in 2000.  Considering that the weather hasn’t even started to heat up in many of the league’s cities yet, this number only figures to rise.  Meanwhile, batters are whiffing at a significantly higher rate than last season’s record breaking number.  So far this season, there have been 8.22 strikeouts per team, per game, way up from last year’s record 8.03.

    Obviously, the surge in home runs and strikeouts has a big impact on those two categories in this league, but other categories as well.  The league batting average sits at just .260 right now, which would be the lowest mark in league history by eight points!  While batters are reaching base safely via hits at a much lower rate, scoring overall is actually up.  The league ERA sits at 3.65, which is higher than the full season total from any of the past seven seasons.  So, in summary, strikeouts and homers are way up, runs are slightly up and batting average is way down.  The era of the three true outcome hitters (home runs, strikeouts, walks) appears to be here to stay for a while.

    Players of the Month are back again for another season.  As usual, these awards will be handed out to the batter and pitcher who had the highest PAR for the month.  I will also continue to use these articles to chronicle the winners of the weekly honors as well.  Here are the top players from the first month of the 2017 season.

    Batters of the Week:

    Week 1 (4/2 – 4/9) – Nomar Mazara, Mavericks
    Week 2 (4/10 – 4/16) – Marcell Ozuna, Naturals
    Week 3 (4/17 – 4/23) – Bryce Harper, Darkhorses
    Week 4 (4/24 – 4/30) – Ryan Zimmerman, Demigods

    Pitchers of the Week:

    Week 1 (4/2 – 4/9) – Jake Arrieta, Jackalope
    Week 2 (4/10 – 4/16) – James Paxton, Naturals
    Week 3 (4/17 – 4/23) – Max Scherzer, Kings
    Week 4 (4/24 – 4/30) – Dallas Keuchel, Moonshiners

    As the above names indicate, April was a good month for the Nationals and players looking for a bounce-back after disappointing seasons a year ago.  Harper, Zimmerman and Keuchel were among some of the most disappointing players in the league last year, compared to their varying expectations.  So far, so good in 2017.  Here are the monthly award winners for April:

    Batter of the Month:

    Bryce Harper, Darkhorses
    .391 AVG, 9 HR, 26 RBI, 32 R, 0 SB, 3.31 PAR

    Pitcher of the Month:

    Dallas Keuchel, Moonshiners
    1.21 ERA, 0.806 WHIP, 5 W, 0 SV, 36 K, 3.83 PAR

    For the second consecutive season, Bryce Harper has won the April Batter of the Month award.  Of course, last year, things started to go off the rails for Harper soon after the calendar turned to May.  But there are plenty of reasons to think that won’t happen again this year.  For one thing, he looks healthier.  Also, his April was even better this year than last.  He is easily leading the league in runs scored and is right near the top in AVG, HR and RBI as well.  I didn’t run the numbers to confirm it, but I believe this honor would have actually gone to Harper’s Nationals teammate Ryan Zimmerman had he been on the Demigods roster right from Opening Day.  Despite spending a week as a free agent, Zimmerman still came in second in the league in PAR for April.  Another Demigod, Freddie Freeman was third.

    April was a very encouraging month from Dallas Keuchel.  He currently leads the league in wins and is third in both ERA and WHIP.  If he has returned to 2015 form, the Moonshiners should be in good shape.  Keuchel won this monthly honor fairly easily, but three other pitchers had outstanding months as well.  Two not very surprising names:  Clayton Kershaw and Chris Sale, and one not so expected:  James Paxton.  Unfortunately, Paxton’s hot start was tempered a bit as he was placed on the DL yesterday.

    One last note.  I knew this day was coming, but it appears Getty now has ads embedded in their images.  It is annoying, but I think I’m going to continue to use them anyway as I’m not aware of another similar free/legal source for baseball photos.

  • Betts is Best


    2016 was a year of offensive resurgence. There were over 3,000 home runs hit in the DTBL, with the highest league wide total since 2001, which was the heart of the steroid era. The cumulative batting PAR (which will be adjusted this winter) reached an all-time high for years I’ve calculated (2009-present). Many players contributed to this surge, but nobody more so than Kings outfiedier Mookie Betts. The second year player led the Kings to another DTBL Championship. In a surprisingly decisive vote, Betts has won the 2016 DTBL Most Valuable Player award.

    Betts led his championship squad in almost every offensive category. Only his 31 home runs weren’t enough to lead the Kings. He hit .318 with 113 RBI, 122 runs and 26 stolen bases. He was a true five category performer. His run total was second in the league, just one behind Mike Trout. He finished on the leaderboard in batting average, RBI and stolen bases as well. He edged out Trout for highest batting PAR, finishing at 10.9. That is the highest total calculated to date (again, PAR numbers only go back as far as 2009), although this will likely be recalculated down a bit this winter. But no matter how you slice it, Betts had one of the best seasons in recent DTBL history.

    The Kings selected Betts with the fifth pick in the 2015 Draft. That was a strong draft class, but so far, Betts appears to be the cream of the crop, at least among offensive players. He had a solid rookie campaign, accumulating 18 home runs and stolen bases and finished eighth in the ROY vote a year ago. But he made huge strides this season in every category. In his two year career, he is a .305 hitter with 49 home runs and 44 stolen bases.

    If you are surprised that Betts won this award despite finishing behind Trout in the AL MVP vote, the explanation is pretty simple. Trout’s advantage over Betts in that vote was primarily due to skills that don’t apply to fantasy baseball, particularly plate discipline and position scarcity (CF vs. RF). Both are elite five tool players, however.

    In a bit of a surprise, this vote was not particularly close. Betts received nine of the ten first place votes, along with a third, for a total of 95 points. The Mavericks’ Trout received a single first place vote and was on all ten ballots, but those votes were scattered. He finished with 59 points, which was actually closer to third and fourth place than first. In addition to Betts and Trout, Demigods second baseman Jose Altuve was also on all ten ballots. Altuve looked like the favorite for this award at times this season, but faded a bit down the stretch. He came in third place with 38 points. Right behind him is Naturals third baseman Nolan Arenado who accumulated 35 points. Arenado lacked the stolen bases of the three who finished ahead of him, but made up for it with power. Finishing fifth is the NL MVP and DTBL Rookie of the Year, Cougars third baseman Kris Bryant. Bryant’s MVP profile wasn’t quite as strong in fantasy as it was in real baseball, which explains him finishing well behind four others.

    Click here to view the full MVP voting results.

    One final tidbit: this is the second straight year that both the MVP and Cy Young awards have been won by members of the championship team. It is not a surprise that the best performers were members of the best teams. But this year, you can definitely point to the contributions of Betts and Max Scherzer as primary factors in the Kings winning the title.

    There will be more content this off-season, but in the meantime, enjoy the rest of Thanksgiving weekend and have a great winter!

  • Cy Young to the Max


    The Kings did not have a very strong pitching staff, top to bottom. Yet they finished with an impressive 37.5 pitching points on their way to a DTBL Championship. It took a couple pitchers having elite seasons for them to reach that mark. Perhaps more so than any other player, Max Scherzer was hugely responsible for the Kings winning their sixth league title. In a unanimous decision, Scherzer is the 2016 DTBL Cy Young award winner.

    Scherzer was the DTBL’s lone 20 game winner. He also led the league in strikeouts with a career high 284. In fact, that total was 33 more than any other pitcher. That strikeout edge was the primary reason why he also led the league in pitching PAR at 13.2. His 2.96 ERA and 0.968 WHIP were also among the top five in the league. In a season that saw the era of pitching domination come to an abrupt end, Scherzer continued to baffle hitters.

    The Kings acquired Scherzer in a trade from the Jackalope back in 2010. Six years later, that trade continues to pay major dividends. Not coincidentally, his two best seasons have come during Kings championship campaigns. His 2016 numbers were nearly identical to the numbers he posted in 2013, when he finished second in the Cy Young vote. He won 21 games in ’13 with a slightly lower ERA compared to this year. However, his ’16 WHIP and strikeout numbers were better. For his career, he has won 111 games (all but two coming as a member of the Kings) with an impressive 3.27 ERA and 1,546 strikeouts. This is Scherzer’s first Cy Young award. As mentioned, he finished second in the 2013 vote and came in fourth place a year ago.

    Although there were several other pitchers who had great seasons, Scherzer was the clear choice for this award. He received all ten first place votes. After him, there were a slew of pitchers who received strong consideration and finished very close to one another in the vote. Cougars lefty Madison Bumgarner wound up finishing second, despite not appearing on two ballots. He garnered three second place votes and 42 total points. Besides Scherzer, the only other pitcher to appear on every ballot was the Choppers’ Jon Lester. Lester only received two second place votes though, causing Bumgarner to finish two points higher. Yet another southpaw finished fourth, Mavericks ace Clayton Kershaw. Kershaw was a difficult case for voters to consider because he missed significant time due to a back injury. Yet he still wound up finishing second in pitching PAR and had unbelievable numbers across the board. This almost certainly would have been his third Cy Young win had he stayed healthy. It was his sixth straight season finishing in the top four of the vote, but his lowest finish since not receiving votes in 2010. Rounding out the top five is another key piece of the Kings championship team, veteran Justin Verlander. I can’t wait to see what kind of backlash we receive from Kate Upton for voting Verlander fifth. It was also a strong year for relief pitchers, but it continues to be difficult for them to get much consideration for this award. Kenley Jansen did receive a second and third place vote, however.

    Click here to view the full voting results.

    There wasn’t a whole lot of drama with the Cy Young award, but the Most Valuable Player race figures to be much more competitive. Check back on Friday to find out who will be the 2016 DTBL MVP.

  • Bryant is Best of Deep Class


    Leading up to the March draft, the incoming 2016 rookie class was dubbed as one of the strongest and deepest in league history. A bunch of young phenoms made their MLB debuts in 2015 and were therefore part of a loaded 2016 DTBL Draft class. Not surprisingly, those rookies didn’t disappoint. Several of the first year players not only made immediate impacts for their teams, but were also among the top players in the league. The best early performers of that class included several of the first players taken in the draft, as well as a few later surprises. The top two rookies were teammates on the World Champion Cubs. In a relatively close vote, the 2016 DTBL Rookie of the Year is Cougars third baseman Kris Bryant.

    Just last week, Bryant won the NL MVP award a year after winning NL Rookie of the Year. In the DTBL, he will be a candidate to win both in his debut season. He finished eighth in the league in home runs (39) and fourth in runs scored (121). His 102 runs batted in and .292 batting average were quite solid numbers as well. He also stole eight bases, cementing his place as one of the game’s best all-around players already. Bryant topped all rookies with an 8.2 PAR and was easily the best offensive player on the Cougars roster.

    Bryant was clearly one of the most coveted players in this year’s draft. The Cougars were happy to grab him with the second pick in that draft, following the Kings selection of Carlos Correa. Unfortunately for the Cougars, Byrant’s contributions weren’t enough to save them from last place, so they ought to be able to add another key piece to their foundation with the first pick next year. If they hit another home run like they did with Bryant, the future will be bright. The 24 year old Bryant figures to be an offensive star for a very long time to come. This ends a string of three consecutive pitchers winning ROY. The last hitter to win the award, a guy named Mike Trout.

    It basically turned into a two man race for this award between Bryant and his Cubs teammate, Kyle Hendricks. Bryant received seven of the ten first place votes, plus two seconds and a third for a total of 89 points. Hendricks received the other three first place votes and finished with 75 points. Of all the rookies who had great seasons, Hendricks had to have been the biggest surprise. All the Moonshiners 10th round pick did was lead the league in ERA and WHIP and should be a strong contender for the Cy Young award. The other top five vote-getters were all first round selections. Finishing third was Naturals pitcher Noah Syndergaard. He received a bulk of the third place votes and, like Bryant and Hendricks, appeared on all ten ballots. He accumulated 48 points. Next came another early draft pick who lived up to the hype, Gators shortstop Corey Seager. Interestingly, the top four finishers for this award each are members of different teams that finished in the bottom half of the standings, so they provide some hope for the future for their respective teams. Rounding out the top five is yet another early draft pick, Demigods shortstop Francisco Lindor. So for those of you scoring at home, that’s four of the top six picks in the draft finishing in the top five of the Rookie of the Year vote. I think it is also worth mentioning the sixth place finisher, Naturals second baseman Trea Turner, who made a huge impact in just one half a season’s worth of action.

    Click here to view the full voting results.

    Next up on the awards docket is the Cy Young award, which will should be announced on Wednesday.

  • Kings Lead Widens


    The Kings have been in first place for a majority of the season, but things were getting a little too close for comfort in early August as the Mavericks and Demigods were in hot pursuit.  They even briefly surrendered the top spot.  But in the last few weeks, they have built up a more comfortable lead once again.  As September hit, the lead was up to 9  1/2 points, though that has dropped down to 6 1/2 as of today.  The race is far from over, but the Kings are definitely in the driver’s seat.

    It has pretty much been a three team race since the All-Star break.  A month ago, the Demigods may have actually been the presumed favorite just because the Kings and Mavericks were fighting through some serious injury problems.  This is still a major problem for the Mavericks, who haven’t been able to field a full, healthy rotation since June.  The Kings injuries were mostly on the offensive side as they seemed to suffer a new ailment every day in late July.  But things have been patched up recently and they continue to field the league’s best offense.

    At first glance, the Kings simply don’t seem to have a championship caliber pitching staff.  But two of their long time aces have really stepped up of late:  Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander.  Those two guys have led the Kings into the top half of the league in pitching points, which seemed like an unreachable goal as recently as a month ago.  The Kings are still dead last in ERA, yet are in the top three of every other pitching category, which is a little strange to say the least.  But this pitching resurgence has pushed the Kings back up to the 80 point mark in the standings.  If they can hold onto that, they should be able to finish off the improbable worst to first turnaround.

    This race is far from over though.  The Kings are extremely vulnerable in a whole bunch of categories, especially on the pitching side.  The Demigods are the closest competition at the moment.  All year, they have looked like the most balanced team, and as mentioned earlier, some might have considered them the favorite when the Kings and Mavericks were losing players left and right.  The Demigods have possibly been the healthiest team in the league.  But now they need to go on a run to get back into the race for their first championship.

    Perhaps the team most worth watching in the final month is the Mavericks.  In some ways, it is quite remarkable that they are still in this race despite losing basically their entire rotation for significant portions of the season.  But the band is going to start coming back together this week as Stephen Strasburg and Clayton Kershaw are expected to make their returns from the disabled list.  It shouldn’t take long for the Mavericks to gain points in pitching categories with those two back in the lineup.

    Finally, the Choppers and Darkhorses aren’t completely eliminated yet, but will need to get hot in a hurry to get back in the race.  Four weeks to go.  Will the Kings become the DTBL’s first six time champion?  Here are the award winners for August 2016.

    Batters of the Week:

    Week 18 (8/1 – 8/7) – Brandon Phillips, Cougars
    Week 19 (8/8 – 8/14) – Charlie Blackmon, Cougars
    Week 20 (8/15 – 8/21) – Kris Bryant, Cougars
    Week 21 (8/22 – 8/28) – Josh Donaldson, Jackalope

    Pitchers of the Week:

    Week 18 (8/1 – 8/7) – Kyle Hendricks, Moonshiners
    Week 19 (8/8 – 8/14) – Rick Porcello, Darkhorses
    Week 20 (8/15 – 8/21) – Ian Kennedy, Cougars
    Week 21 (8/22 – 8/28) – David Price, Naturals

    It was a weirdly strong month for players on the non-contending teams.  Not one of the weekly awards went to a player on one of the top four teams.  The last place Cougars had three different hitters and a pitcher take home weekly honors.  This carried over to the monthly awards as well, which were won by teammates from a non-contender.  Here are the DTBL monthly award winners for August 2016:

    Batter of the Month:

    Brian Dozier, Moonshiners
    .302 AVG, 13 HR, 27 RBI, 27 R, 3 SB, 3.23 PAR

    Pitcher of the Month:

    Kyle Hendricks, Moonshiners
    1.28 ERA, 0.780 WHIP, 4 W, 0 SV, 36 K, 3.36 PAR

    The month of August saw the Moonshiners creep up the standings a little bit, no longer in serious danger of finishing dead last for the first time in franchise history.  The August surge was largely due to the month’s top two players:  Brian Dozier and Kyle Hendricks.  Dozier is having a career year, already surpassing his previous season highs in home runs and RBI.  In August, he led the league in home runs with 13 and was near the top in RBI and runs, with 27 apiece.  The Moonshiners offense has been carried most of the season by their two second basemen, Dozier and Ian Kinsler.  A whole host of other hitters challenged for the monthly award, with Nolan Arenado as the closest competition.

    In an absolutely loaded rookie class, one player has gone largely overlooked, until now.  Kyle Hendricks has been the most surprising star of the Cubs magical season, making a run at Jake Arrieta for the title of ace of the staff.  He has unquestionably been the ace of the Moonshiners staff, a rotation containing former Cy Young winners Felix Hernandez, Zack Greinke and Dallas Keuchel.  Hendricks was the pretty clear winner of the August honor, but Max Scherzer and Rick Porcello had great months as well.

  • MLB Trade Recap


    The DTBL trade deadline is still a week and a half away (August 15). We have not seen any deadline activity yet, but that could certainly change. In the meantime, there were plenty of players changing teams in the days leading up to the MLB non-waiver deadline this past Monday afternoon. In fact, it would take way too long for me to analyze them all in this space. So instead, I’m going to focus on trades that involved players from the three teams who appear to be the top title contenders in this league this year. Could any of the MLB player movement create a major shakeup in the DTBL championship race?

    Let’s start with the biggest offensive name that changed teams this past week. Kings catcher Jonathan LuCroy opted to enact his limited no trade clause to veto an agreed upon deal that would have sent him to Cleveland. Instead, he was later traded to Texas. Either would have probably been a good outcome for the Kings, but having him inserted into the middle of the Rangers potent lineup and into the hitters paradise of Arlington, Texas could certainly pay huge dividends. This is especially nice for the Kings since he will get to play a full season in Texas next year as well.

    LuCroy wasn’t the only Kings slugger on the move. Outfielder Jay Bruce was dealt to the Mets. Although he is moving to a much better team, I’d call this a net loss for the Kings. He’ll have a much tougher time hitting home runs in Citi Field compared to the bandbox in Cincinnati. Also, the Mets offense has been pretty anemic of late, which could hamper his chances of remaining one of the league’s top run producers. Josh Reddick is another Kings hitter who was traded, from Oakland to the Dodgers. I wouldn’t expect that to be a needle mover though.

    The second place Demigods had a few guys change teams as well. Carlos Beltran is joining LuCroy in Texas. He will no longer benefit from the short porch in right at Yankee Stadium, but again, moving into the Rangers lineup is a good thing. The enigmatic Matt Kemp was shipped from San Diego to Atlanta in one of the more curious deadline deals. He has actually had a pretty respectable season so far, but there is no telling what this change of scenery will do for him.

    There were a bunch of moving pieces in the Demigods bullpen. Will Smith was traded from Milwaukee to San Francisco and Tyler Clippard moved from Arizona back to his original franchise, the Yankees. I don’t have much to say about those two moves. More interesting is how a trade that didn’t involve a Demigods player will impact their bullpen. Mark Melancon is gone from Pittsburgh, leaving the closing job to Tony Watson for now. So that’s nice, although he is now the only Demigods closer with Trevor Rosenthal losing his job before hitting the DL. The Demigods currently sit 30 saves behind the next worst team. So Watson getting save opportunities is nice, but won’t have any impact on their league standing.

    Finally, we have the Mavericks. Only two of their players were traded, but they were two big ones: Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller. Really, the bullpen has been the main reason why the Mavericks have remained in the title race despite being absolutely decimated by injuries, especially to their vaunted starting rotation. The Yankees trio of Miller, Chapman and Dellin Betances put up staggering numbers, despite only one of them actually getting to close games. But now, they could be even better apart. Chapman will continue to get loads of save opportunities with the Cubs while Betances inherits that role for the Yankees. Miller probably won’t get many save opportunities in Cleveland, but you never know. There is definitely an opportunity for the Mavericks to pick up a few key points in the saves category down the stretch while their relievers continue to carry the staff in basically every pitching category, except wins. This remains the best bullpen in the league, by far.

    We’ll have to wait and see if any DTBL trades are made in the next 10 days. In the meantime, here are the award winners for July 2016.

    Batters of the Week:

    Week 13 (6/27 – 7/3) – Kris Bryant, Cougars
    Week 14 (7/4 – 7/10) – Giancarlo Stanton, Jackalope
    Week 15 (7/11 – 7/17) – Khris Davis, Moonshiners
    Week 16 (7/18 – 7/24) – Hanley Ramirez, Mavericks
    Week 17 (7/25 – 7/31) – Mitch Moreland, Gators

    Pitchers of the Week:

    Week 13 (6/27 – 7/3) – Scott Kazmir, Gators
    Week 14 (7/4 – 7/10) – Madison Bumgarner, Cougars
    Week 15 (7/11 – 7/17) – Jacob deGrom, Darkhorses
    Week 16 (7/18 – 7/24) – Scott Kazmir, Gators
    Week 17 (7/25 – 7/31) – Justin Verlander, Kings

    Scott Kazmir picked up two weekly awards in July, which would seemingly make him the top candidate for the monthly award, although the first week was actually split between June and July. But in the end, a pair of Kings won this month’s hand. Here are the monthly award winners for July 2016:

    Batter of the Month:

    Mookie Betts, Kings
    .368 AVG, 5 HR, 15 RBI, 15 R, 5 SB, 1.68 PAR

    Pitcher of the Month:

    Justin Verlander, Kings
    1.69 ERA, 0.891 WHIP, 4 W, 0 SV, 48 K, 3.34 PAR

    Those numbers from Mookie Betts are solid, but don’t come anywhere near the usual level of our monthly award winners. It was a very unusual month on the hitting side. A ton of guys put up very good numbers in July, but nobody was truly spectacular. Betts’ 1.68 PAR is about half of what it usually takes to win this award. Jose Altuve, Albert Pujols and Josh Donaldson were all just a hair behind Betts, with PARs over 1.6. On my first calculation, the award actually was set to go to Justin Turner. However, he was not active until the 4th of July, so I had to recalculate his total. Missing those three days dropped him out of the top five.

    Justin Verlander, on the other hand, won the pitching award pretty easily. It was by far the best month he has had in several years. He led the league with 48 strikeouts while maintaining an excellent ERA and WHIP with four wins. He has managed to move into the top ten of the league in PAR for the season, despite a pretty shaky start to the season. A distant second and third were Stephen Strasburg and J.A. Happ. Strasburg’s month was especially impressive considering he started it on the DL. Verlander is the second straight Kings pitcher to take home the monthly pitching award (Max Scherzer in June), which is interesting since the Kings have been holding onto first place despite a decisively mediocre pitching staff.

  • Baseball’s Power Surge


    For most of the past six seasons, pitchers have been dominating hitters more than at any other point in league history.  ERA, WHIP, AVG and HR have all been at record lows in recent years while strikeouts have skyrocketed.  However, there are signs that some of that is starting to change.  Since we are almost exactly at the halfway mark of the season, it is pretty easy to look at the league stats and see what pace we are on in certain categories.  One category sticks out in a big way:  home runs.  Through Friday, there have been exactly 1,500 home runs hit in the DTBL this season.  So we are on pace to reach approximately 3,000 homers for the season, a mark which has not been reached since 2004.  The pace in other offensive categories isn’t as dramatically different, but it still seems likely that 2016 will be the best offensive season since at least 2012 and possible a lot further back than that.

    Home runs are way up.  RBI and runs are up slightly.  But interestingly, batting average and WHIP are right in line with recent seasons and strikeouts continue to be at all time highs.  So what does this mean?  It appears to me that whatever offensive resurgence that is currently occurring in baseball is almost exclusively the result of the increase in home runs.  Looking outside of the DTBL to MLB as a whole, the current home run per team, per game rate is 1.15.  This is a huge increase over 1.01 from last season, and if it holds up, would be the highest season mark since 2000.  I’m not going to offer any theories for the increase in home runs.  But the affects have been dramatic.

    So the 2016 season is basically half over.  The Kings continue to lead, but they did not have a very good June.  The Demigods have had two great months in a row and are now just four points out of first.  The Mavericks are also in close striking distance, but are currently dealing with a whole host of injuries, most notably Clayton Kershaw, but several other key players as well.  The Darkhorses were probably the team that had the best month, moving into the top half of the standings.  Here are the award winners for June 2016.

    Batters of the Week:

    Week 9 (5/30 – 6/5) – Mookie Betts, Kings
    Week 10 (6/6 – 6/12) – Xander Bogaerts, Darkhorses
    Week 11 (6/13 – 6/19) – Josh Donaldson, Jackalope
    Week 12 (6/20 – 6/26) – Charlie Blackmon, Cougars

    Pitchers of the Week:

    Week 9 (5/30 – 6/5) – Jose Fernandez, Demigods
    Week 10 (6/6 – 6/12) – Jon Lester, Choppers
    Week 11 (6/13 – 6/19) – Julio Teheran, Darkhorses
    Week 12 (6/20 – 6/26) – Chris Sale, Choppers

    It was a good month for somewhat recent high draft picks.  With the exception of Lester and Sale, every player who earned a weekly honor in June was a first or second round pick in the ’14 or ’15 drafts.  All of the players above had excellent months, but interestingly, the monthly award winners are not among them.  Here are your monthly award winners for June 2016:

    Batter of the Month:

    Wil Myers, Gators
    .327 AVG, 11 HR, 33 RBI, 25 R, 5 SB, 3.47 PAR

    Pitcher of the Month:

    Max Scherzer, Kings
    1.96 ERA, 0.726 WHIP, 5 W, 0 SV, 58 K, 3.81 PAR

    Wil Myers was once considered the top prospect in baseball by many.  The Gators bought into that potential, making him the second pick in the 2014 draft.  However, until this past month, his career had been underwhelming at best.  He’s on his third MLB team and now has a new position.  But it is quite possible that June was the beginning of him reaching that superstar potential.  He led the league in HR and RBI in June.  His 11 homers were more than he hit in any full season in his DTBL career to date.  The 3.47 PAR he accumulated in the month accounts for about 85% of his career total.  This was a fairly comfortable win for Myers, but Edwin Encarnacion and Adam Jones were his closest competition.

    On the other side, dominating months are nothing new for Max Scherzer.  He won this same award last May and has been in the running many other months as well.  In June, his numbers were impressive across the board, but especially in strikeouts (note:  his record tying 20 strikeout game was actually in May).  He struck out at least 10 in five of his six starts in June and the 58 for the month were nine more than any other pitcher.  He now leads the league in that category, obviously helped by Clayton Kershaw’s trip to the DL.  Scherzer did not win this honor easily.  Jon Lester was just a couple tenths of a point behind him.  Corey Kluber finished third.

  • Mavericks Stars Dominate May


    I’ve decided to make a slight alteration to my monthly awards posts.  Since those have become pretty much the only articles I ever write anymore, I’m going to make them a little more comprehensive, reviewing the league as a whole a little more and focusing less on the two players who won the monthly awards.  The exact contents of the monthly articles won’t be consistent, other than listing the weekly and monthly award winners.  Sometimes I’ll recap the month and take a temperature of the league title race.  But other times I may have a specific topic of interest to write about.  This month, it will be pretty basic:  a brief rundown of all ten teams at the 1/3 mark of the season.

    The story of the year so far in the DTBL has to be the Kings attempt to go from worst to first.  They’ve held the top spot in the standings for a couple weeks now and even had a double digit lead at one point.  Last year was a bit of an aberration from the usually strong Kings, but I’m not sure anyone saw this coming.  The offense has been the best in the league, but the pitching staff has been the huge surprise.  What looked like a debilitating weakness, their staff is actually above average so far.  Jeff Samardzija and Aaron Nola have been especially key additions.

    The Kings have plenty of company near the top of the league though.  Unsurprisingly, the Mavericks have the best pitching staff in the league.  They are dominating everyone in ERA, WHIP and strikeouts, to the point where their staff would really need to fall apart for them not to bank those 30 points.  As you’ll see in a bit, May was an especially strong month for the Mavericks, led by their two biggest stars.  The three other teams in the top half of the standings are a little more balanced between hitting and pitching compared to the Kings and Mavericks.  The Choppers have had a really strong year on both sides of the ledger.  The Demigods may have been the best team in the league in May (I should probably put numbers to this at some point), thanks in no small part to the return of Jose Fernandez to the ranks of the elite pitchers in baseball.  Besides the Kings, the next most positively surprising team has to be the Gators who have been in striking distance of first place all season so far.  All of these five teams should feel pretty good about their current standing.

    On the other hand, the other five teams are surely disappointed with how things are going so far in 2016.  The Jackalope were due for regression after their magical 2015, but 25 points out of the lead through two months was certainly unexpected.  Some of it can be blamed on injuries to key players, but there are teams above them with even more injured guys.  Obviously, this team has the talent to get back into the race in a hurry.  The Darkhorses are having a great season with the bats, but their pitching staff has been woeful, currently sitting at just 10 points.  That will need to improve soon.  The Naturals, usually one of the best offensive teams in the league, have certainly not been that thus far.  Nolan Arenado is doing his part, but he could use some help.  The Moonshiners have had a rough go of it with the bats too, but their pitching staff has also taken some huge steps backwards, most notably Dallas Keuchel and Zack Greinke.  Now add the misery of Felix Hernandez landing on the DL.  Finally, not much has gone right for the Cougars in the first two months.  They have been entrenched in last place for several weeks now.

    Here are the weekly and monthly award winners for May 2016.

    Batters of the Week:

    Week 5 (5/2 – 5/8) – Robinson Cano, Kings
    Week 6 (5/9 – 5/15) – Todd Frazier, Darkhorses
    Week 7 (5/16 – 5/22) – Mike Trout, Mavericks
    Week 8 (5/23 – 5/29) – Joe Mauer, Demigods

    Pitchers of the Week:

    Week 5 (5/2 – 5/8) – Jose Quintana, Gators
    Week 6 (5/9 – 5/15) – Clayton Kershaw, Mavericks
    Week 7 (5/16 – 5/22) – Madison Bumgarner, Cougars
    Week 8 (5/23 – 5/29) – Clayton Kershaw, Mavericks

    Week 6 exposed a flaw in my code for awarding the weekly honors.  For both batters and pitchers, I had to manually change it to the players listed above because my code had awarded two players who were just activated for the upcoming week and were not actually on the active roster for the week they would have won:  Jackie Bradley Jr. and Jose Fernandez.  Interestingly, both would have been strong contenders for the monthly awards too had they actually spent the entire month on active rosters.  But here are the two players who did win the awards for May 2016:

    Batter of the Month:

    Mike Trout, Mavericks
    .340 AVG, 7 HR, 27 RBI, 26 R, 5 SB, 2.86 PAR

    Pitcher of the Month:

    Clayton Kershaw, Mavericks
    0.91 ERA, 0.523 WHIP, 5 W, 0 SV, 65 K, 5.69 PAR

    After a somewhat pedestrian first month, by his standards, Mike Trout was back to his usual form in May.  He did not lead the league in any single category, but was near the top in all five.  Perhaps most encouraging were the five stolen bases, which is the same number he stole in the final five months of 2015.  There were a whole bunch of players within striking distance of this honor, with Ben Zobrist and Mookie Betts being the two closest.  Meanwhile, Clayton Kershaw lapped the field on the pitching side.  He is the first player (pitcher or batter) to surpass a 5.0 PAR in a month since I started tracking these monthly numbers last year.  All of his May numbers are insane, but especially the 65/2 K/BB ratio.  He had three more wins than walks in May!  Jose Fernandez actually had the second highest PAR for the month, but as I mentioned above, he was not on the active roster for all of that time, so runner-up honors go to Madison Bumgarner who would have had a strong case for this award with his May numbers in almost any other month.