The 2013 AL and NL Cy Young awards were no-brainers. Max Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw stood out among their peers in their respective leagues. Both had outstanding, career-best seasons. The Kings’ Scherzer had the advantage over Kershaw in wins and strikeouts, while Kershaw led the way in ERA and WHIP. In a very tight vote, Mavericks lefty Clayton Kershaw is the 2013 DTBL Cy Young award winner.
Kershaw is just the fifth starting pitcher in DTBL history to post a sub-2.00 ERA in a single season. Greg Maddux and Pedro Martinez accomplished that feat twice while Kevin Brown and Roger Clemens did it once each. Kershaw’s 1.83 ERA was the lowest total the league has seen since Pedro in 2000 and is the fifth lowest mark ever. Needless to say, he obliterated the rest of the league in that category this season, more than 8/10 of a run better than any other pitcher. He easily led the league in WHIP too, at 0.915. Both totals are Mavericks single season records. What kept the Cy Young race tight was the fact that he “only” won 16 games, but even that was fifth best in the league. His 232 strikeouts trailed only Yu Darvish and Scherzer.
This is Kershaw’s first DTBL Cy Young award, but he came very close each of the last two years. A sixth round pick of the Mavericks in 2009, Kershaw burst into the upper echelon of pitchers in his second season in the league in 2010. This was his fourth consecutive season with an ERA under 3, a WHIP below 1.2, at least a dozen wins and over 200 strikeouts. Putting up those numbers once is pretty impressive, but doing it four years in a row puts him among the elite pitchers in league history. Prior to this year, his previous best season was in 2011 when he set career highs in wins (21) and strikeouts (248) while posting a sub 1.0 WHIP. With numbers like that, he would have won the Cy Young most seasons, but finished second to Justin Verlander that year. He followed it up with a third place finish a year ago. But now the award is his.
Kershaw was the ace of the league’s best pitching staff this year. The Mavericks blew away the rest of the league with their 46 pitching points. Kershaw was obviously a big part of that, as he has been for several years now. He is the Mavericks franchise career leader in ERA and WHIP, but still has a ways to go to catch Johan Santana in wins and strikeouts. Kershaw, Stephen Strasburg and Matt Harvey give the Mavericks quite a core to lead their rotation for years to come.
The Cy Young vote was extremely close, perhaps indicating a split between those who value wins and those who don’t (as much). Kershaw received six of the ten first place votes and was placed second on the other four ballots, for a total of 88 points. Scherzer, who led the league with 21 wins, received the other four first place votes and tallied 80 total points. Nine of the ten ballots had Kershaw and Scherzer in the top two spots. The only other player to receive a second place vote was Rookie of the Year winner Yu Davish. The Demigods ace finished third in the vote with 44 points and appeared third on six of the ballots. Cougars veteran Adam Wainwright received a bulk of the fourth place votes and did indeed finish fourth in the voting with 29 points. All of these four pitcher appeared on at least nine ballots. The fifth place votes were much more diverse. Choppers closer Craig Kimbrel rounded out the top five with ten points. You could put together a pretty impressive list of pitchers who didn’t even receive a single vote, which is a pretty good indication of just how many pitchers had stellar 2013 seasons.
Click here to view the full Cy Young voting results.
Check back on Monday night to see who will win the 2013 DTBL Most Valuable Player award. Will it be Cabrera vs. Trout, Round 2, or will Chris Davis crash the party?
Continuing a recent trend, a large number of pitchers were exceptionally dominant in the 2013 baseball season. Among DTBL newcomers, pitchers ruled the season as well. In coming up with the 20 finalists for the Rookie of the Year award, I usually try to include a few more hitters than pitchers since they occupy a larger number of roster spots. However, that simply wasn’t possible this year with so many great rookie pitchers in the league. One of them clearly stood out among the rest though. Demigods pitcher Yu Darvish is the 2013 Rookie of the Year.
Darvish was the shining light in an otherwise dim rotation. The Demigods finished last in the league in pitching points. Everyone but Darvish should be blamed for that. Darvish led the entire league in strikeouts (277), finished fourth in ERA (2.83) and eighth in WHIP (1.07). He won 13 games. His strikeout total destroyed the Demigods single season franchise record, which was previously held by Cole Hamels (216). 277 is the most strikeouts a DTBL pitcher has recorded since Randy Johnson had 290 in 2004. I haven’t 100% confirmed this, but I believe it is also a league rookie record.
It was a pretty easy choice for the Demigods when they picked Darvish with the fourth overall pick in this year’s draft. He was the second pitcher taken, immediately after Kris Medlen. He wound up being the most productive player out of the first round class by a fairly comfortable margin. While he was not able to turn around the Demigods pitching staff by himself, he certainly gives them a solid piece to build around next year.
Darvish received nine out of the ten first place votes. He also received one second place vote, making him the only player to appear on all ten ballots. He finished with 97 points, making him a clear cut winner of the Rookie of the Year award. Pitchers dominated the vote, finishing in the top three spots. The Mavericks’ young fireballer Matt Harvey came in second place with five second place votes and 46 total points. An elbow injury derailed his season in late August, effectively handing the award to Darvish. Harvey probably would have been the favorite to win this award had he stayed healthy. Both Darvish and Harvey figure to get some love in the Cy Young vote as well. Finishing in third place with 38 points was the Gators’ Hisashi Iwakuma. Perhaps the biggest surprise on this list, the 7th round pick Iwakuma was among the league leaders in ERA and WHIP. Next, we finally have a hitter. Gators shortstop Jean Segura received the one first place vote that didn’t go to Darvish. He notched 32 points to finish fourth. Segura was the Gators 8th round pick. So with consecutive picks in the second half of the draft, the Gators managed to pick two of the top four rookies of the year. Finally, rounding out the top five is Mavericks third baseman Manny Machado. Machado and Harvey gave the Mavericks their own pair of rookie sensations.
Click here to view the full Rookie of the Year voting results.
The schedule for the announcement of the other two awards is not firm, but I plan to announce the Cy Young award winner either tomorrow or Friday, with the Most Valuable Player award announcement coming next Monday.
Since the World Series ended a few weeks ago, the biggest debate in baseball has been Miguel Cabrera vs. Mike Trout, who should be the American League MVP? It’s been dubbed “Old School” vs. “New School” in terms of player evaluation. “Old School” being traditional statistics like batting average, home runs and RBI and “New School” methodology using stats like WAR, OPS+ and UZR. This isn’t the first time this debate has popped up. Statheads claimed victory in 2010 when Felix Hernandez won the AL Cy Young award despite only recording 13 wins that season, a total which many believe would have disqualified him in years past.
So this year we have Cabrera, who led the league in those traditional batting stat categories, thus earning him the first Triple Crown in 45 years. And then we have Trout, whose base running and defensive prowess helped him put together what the advanced metrics would tell us was the greatest non-Barry Bonds steroid-aided season in at least 20 years. The debate for DTBL MVP was similar, except in fantasy baseball, we don’t care about defense. Nonetheless, the same two players figured to be the top contenders for the award. In the end, and quite surprisingly to yours truly, Miguel Cabrera wound up winning both awards in fairly comfortable fashion. He is the 2012 DTBL Most Valuable Player.
The Naturals path to the DTBL Championship has been well documented by now. But Cabrera’s contribution to that title cannot be overstated. The Naturals offense took some huge blows, dating back to last winter when Victor Martinez tore his ACL, causing him to miss the entire 2012 season. It continued throughout the year when they lost several other key players to injuries, most notably Troy Tulowitzki. However, the offense was just good enough to keep them in the race, almost entirely thanks to Cabrera. He hit .330 with 44 home runs, 139 RBI and 109 runs scored. He led the DTBL in HR and RBI, but did not win the Triple Crown in this league, finishing fourth in batting average. Only Trout scored more runs than him, so Cabrera finished in the top four of every offensive category except stolen bases. Needless to say, he led the Naturals in all four of those categories as well, with only Andrew McCutchen even coming close to him in most of them.
Cabrera was a first round selection of the Naturals back in 2004 and won the DTBL Rookie of the Year award that season. He has now won three DTBL titles. Carl Crawford is the only other player who has contributed to all three of the Naturals championships, though Crawford’s contributions were quite limited this year. Cabrera has bounced around at three different positions for the Naturals (OF, 3B, 1B), but his hitting has remained consistently solid. Albert Pujols is probably the only other player who has consistently produced at such a high level for almost a full decade now. This is his first DTBL MVP award though. Cabrera has an incredible .321 career average. He passed the 300 home run milestone late in this season (now has 309 in his DTBL career). He also surpassed the 1,000 RBI mark this year too. He is the Naturals’ franchise record holder in every offensive category except stolen bases. Having played almost entirely at third base this year, next year he will shift back to 3B in the DTBL as well, creating some exciting possibilities for the Naturals.
So that brings us to Trout. The DTBL Rookie of the Year easily could have won this award too. He led the league in runs and stolen bases, and even edged out Cabrera in batting average in this league since the Mavericks missed out on his first few MLB games of the year. Trout bested Cabrera in three of five fantasy categories. Also, the Triple Crown wasn’t in play here either. So how exactly did Cabrera win this award? Well, one crucial tie-breaker could have been the fact that the Naturals finished one point ahead of the Mavericks, making them the league champions. In extremely tight races, team success can certainly enter into the equation. Personally, I think the Tigers making the playoffs and the Angels missing out was a poor reason to vote Cabrera over Trout in the AL race considering the Angels actually won more games than the Tigers. But it is a totally justifiable reason to give the nod to Cabrera in this league. Also, some may have decided that Rookie of the Year was enough of an honor for Trout this year. Surely, there will be other MVP opportunities for him down the road.
What surprised me was the way the DTBL (and AL) vote turned out. Not only did Cabrera win, but it wasn’t really that close. In fact, Trout was closer to finishing third than he was to winning the award. Cabrera received seven first place votes, two seconds and one fourth for a total of 87 points. Trout was only at the top of two ballots and received 66 points. Jackalope outfielder Ryan Braun received a first place vote as well and finished just seven points behind Trout. Braun was barely even in the NL MVP discussion, but that is almost certainly due to what many believed to be his tainted 2011 NL MVP award. He had another terrific season but was bested by a pair of players who had historic years. Cougars outfielder Josh Hamilton finished in fourth place and another Natural, Andrew McCutchen, finished fifth. So second through fifth places were all occupied by outfielders. NL MVP, and Demigods catcher, Buster Posey came in sixth.
Before I wrap this up, I want to go back to the Cabrera/Trout debate and add some of my personal thoughts. First of all, I have been amused/amazed by the fallout from yesterday’s announcement. Some statheads are in complete bewilderment, thinking this result is a slap in their faces. On the other hand, some “traditionalists” are using this opportunity to mock these people they view as “new-age nerds”. I think both sets of people are acting ridiculously. A vote for Cabrera OR Trout is completely justifiable. They both had tremendous seasons. Personally, I voted for Trout in this league and would have done the same if I had an AL MVP vote, but I completely understand Cabrera winning this award, and actually expected it.
One thing people need to keep in mind is that there is no 100% foolproof way of judging a player’s value with statistics. WAR (Wins Above Replacement) is probably the best metric at our disposal today to do that, but even WAR is flawed. First of all, there isn’t even an agreed upon formula for calculating WAR. The two most cited WAR producers (FanGraphs and Baseball Reference) use different formulas, and thus have different results. Also, one major piece of the formula is defense. While defensive stats are getting better every day, they still need to be taken with a grain of salt. For example, am I supposed to believe Alfonso Soriano was the 12th most valuable defensive player in baseball this year? That’s what FanGraph’s UZR rankings tell me. Anybody who watched Trout and Cabrera play can tell you that Trout was a far, far superior defensive player. However, judging exactly what the difference between the two players was, in terms of value to their teams, is nearly impossible. Personally, I believe the defensive ratings for those two players are fairly accurate, but this is only my opinion and is very much open to debate.
On to the rest of the post-season! I still have one more season recap to write (covering the non-contenders), so look for that soon. Then we’ll start focusing on 2013. By the way, I am definitely implementing the suggested rule change to push back the roster cut deadline. I haven’t set the official deadline yet, but it will probably be in early February. You still will not be able to trade players until cuts have been made, so we are in a bit of a roster freeze period until the winter ends. At the moment, this is the only rule change I have decided upon for next year, but that may change. Further dialogue is encouraged.
A year ago, the Naturals had a mediocre pitching staff and wound up finishing 10 1/2 points behind the champions. This year, that staff suddenly turned into one of the league’s best and the Naturals won their third DTBL Championship. They had a roster full of pitchers who had great seasons, but one player clearly led the way: David Price. In a result that turned out to be almost identical to the AL Cy Young race, Price just barely edged out Justin Verlander to win the 2012 DTBL Cy Young award.
In his young career, Price has established himself as one of the most dominating pitchers in the game. Few can match his raw stuff, especially from the left side. He has been able to produce stellar numbers despite pitching in the grueling AL East. 2012 was his best season yet though. He finished just a hair behind Clayton Kerhaw with the league’s second best ERA at 2.56. He was second in wins as well, reaching the 20 win mark for the first time in his career. His 1.10 WHIP was the fourth lowest in the league and he struck out 205. The wins, ERA and WHIP numbers were career bests.
A second round pick of the Naturals in 2009, Price has had four quality seasons with the club in a stretch where they have never finished lower than third place. He has now been a member of two DTBL Championship teams: 2010 and 2012, which also happened to be his personal best seasons to date. Currently 27 years old, I’m sure he has quite a few more good years in him. Along with Zack Greinke and Matt Cain, the Naturals don’t expect to have any trouble remaining near the top of the points table in the near future, particularly on the pitching side.
As mentioned up top, this was an incredibly close vote. Verlander just barely missed winning his second straight Cy Young award. The Kings ace led the league in strike outs and had nearly identical ERA and WHIP numbers to Price (slight edge to Price in ERA and Verlander in WHIP). What probably made the difference though was the three extra wins for Price. Verlander finished with 17 victories. Price received five of the ten first place votes, compared to three for Verlander. However, Verlander almost made up for that difference with his five second place votes to just one for Price. Neither were placed lower than third on any ballot though. In the end, Price eked out the prize with 77 points, two ahead of Verlander.
Those weren’t the only two players who received serious consideration for this award. Another lefty, Clayton Kershaw of the Mavericks also received a pair of first place votes. Kershaw led the league in ERA and WHIP and was second in strike outs. But his downfall was just 14 wins. While baseball people are willing to overlook low win totals in these days of advanced statistics, they can’t really be ignored in fantasy baseball since that category counts just as much as any other. Kershaw was completely left off three ballots, but racked up 35 points to finish third in the vote. Meanwhile, the Cougars Gio Gonzalez rode his league leading 21 wins to 30 points and a fourth place finish. Rounding out the top five is Craig Kimbrel who earned 23 points as the highest finishing relief pitcher. The Choppers closer had one of the most dominating seasons you will ever see from a relief pitcher, but had little chance of winning this award with so many strong starters in the field. Not included in this top five are several other pitchers who had incredible seasons: Matt Cain, Johnny Cueto and R.A. Dickey, to name a few. In the case of Dickey, the NL Cy Young winner probably would have had a good shot at this award in the DTBL too had he been on a roster at the beginning of the season. Cain will console himself with his MLB and DTBL championship rings.
Click here to view the full details of the incredibly close vote. Had any of the ten voters moved Verlander up a spot, or pushed Price down a level, we would have had a different winner.
Check back on Friday evening when the Trout/Cabrera MVP debate will be settled once and for all…. or will Ryan Braun crash the party?
File this one under “Least Surprising News of the Year”: Mike Trout has been unanimously selected as the 2012 DTBL Rookie of the Year. The only question is where does his season rank among the top rookie campaigns of all time? Heck, forget rookie seasons. He put together one of the best seasons of any player in league history. He has some stiff competition for the league MVP award, but he is certainly in that conversation as well.
Although Trout has been considered one of baseball’s top prospects for the last couple years, the Mavericks selection of him with the 12th pick in this year’s draft caught some by surprise. He struggled a bit in his brief MLB stop in 2011 and was not expected to play a significant role for the Angels this year due to a very crowded outfield situation. But sometimes you just have to make room for a “once in a generation” type talent. If the rest of his career plays out anything like his rookie season, Trout will be the biggest steal in the DTBL Draft since the inaugural one in 1993.
Just how good was Trout? Well, he led the league in runs scored (128) and stolen bases (48) by wide margins, despite not making it onto the Mavericks big league roster until May. Only one player in the past five years has scored more runs than that in a single season (Curtis Granderson, 2011). Oh by the way, he also hit .330 (3rd in the league) with 30 home runs. He is already combining power and speed unlike anything this league has seen before. His 48 stolen bases are the most in DTBL history for a player who also hit 30+ home runs. He was just two stolen bases shy of becoming the first 30/50 player in this league. Not bad for a guy who just turned 21 in August.
The Mavericks rebuilding plan got kicked up a notch or five thanks to the acquisition of Trout. He led the team in batting average, runs and stolen bases and was largely responsible for their jump from the third worst offense in 2011 to the second best this year. In fact, he was the main reason the team as a whole improved from eighth place to nearly pulling off a shocking upset, coming in just one point away from a league title. Trout is just one of a stable full of young, exciting Mavericks. They figure to be one of the favorites to win it all next year.
Speaking of young Mavericks, the second place finisher in the Rookie of the Year vote is another Maverick: Stephen Strasburg. Sometimes when a player wins a vote unanimously, it is due to a lack of deserving competition. But that was not the case with this year’s group of rookies. Strasburg easily could have won the award in a different year. The second overall pick in the draft won 15 games with 197 strike outs and a 3.16 ERA in just under 160 innings pitched. Of course, it was that limited innings count that created quit a controversy this fall and may have cost both the Nationals and Mavericks a championship. Strasburg received half of the second place votes and finished with 58 points. Right behind him was a rookie only in the DTBL sense of the word, 37 year old R.A. Dickey. Dickey is a strong NL Cy Young candidate and would have had a shot at that award in this league too, except he remained a free agent until the Moonshiners signed him in late May. So only 13 of his 20 wins counted in this league. But he still had extremely impressive numbers across the board. He received four second place votes and finished just a hair behind Strasburg with 52 points. The final second place vote went to Jackalope first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, who finished fourth in the vote with a tally of 31 points. Finally, Choppers first baseman Mark Trumbo finished in fifth place with 14 points.
With one award to his name already, we will see later this week if Mike Trout is able to win the league’s Most Valuable Player award as well. The Trout/Cabrera debate has been brewing for quite some time now, so I’m sure many are anxiously waiting to see how that shakes out. In the mean time click here to view the full 2012 DTBL Rookie of the Year voting results. Check back tomorrow evening for the Cy Young announcement. Also, I haven’t forgotten about the 3rd and final season recap article, but it will have to wait until all of the awards have been handed out.
Earlier today, the Baseball Writers Association of America did what they normally do and awarded the National League MVP to the best player from one of the best teams rather than giving it to a player on a mediocre team with possibly the better overall statistics. Meanwhile, DTBL members did what they normally do and voted stats over team placement. Champion Jackalope outfielder Ryan Braun won the NL MVP, but Demigods outfielder Matt Kemp is the 2011 DTBL Most Valuable Player.
In 2011, Matt Kemp was the textbook definition of a five category star. He was among the league leaders in all five categories. He led the league with 126 runs batted in. His .324 batting average ranked seventh, 39 home runs was third, fourth in runs scored with 115 and was third in stolen bases with 40. He was only one home run shy of reaching the esteemed 40/40 Club (home runs and stolen bases).
Probably the most under-reported story line of the ’11 season was Kemp’s attempt to become the first MLB triple crown winner in 44 years. I’m not sure exactly why that was the case. It was probably a combination of the Dodgers irrelevance, the thrilling late season playoff races, and my own personal theory: the advancement of sabermetrics in baseball. The three triple crown categories just don’t hold the same significance they once did, especially batting average. Whatever the reason, Kemp wound up falling a little short as Braun edged him out for the NL batting title. He was not particularly close to winning the DTBL triple crown though with several AL batters, in addition to Braun, having higher averages.
The Demigods were one of the league’s pleasant surprises this year, jumping from last place in 2010 to a fifth place finish. In particular, their offense was light years better than last year’s squad. They finished with 43 batting points, which was second behind only the Naturals. Kemp was clearly the main reason for that. He led the team in all five categories (tied with Ichiro in stolen bases). A first round pick back in 2008, Kemp has been a significant fixture in the Demigods’ lineup the last four seasons. But he easily exceeded career highs in every category this year.
The MVP voting was very interesting. Even though there were a lot of compelling candidates, Kemp won the award fairly easily. He received eight first place votes, one second and one fourth, for a total of 90 points. NL MVP Braun came in second with a single first place vote and 63 points. Kemp and Braun were the only two players to appear on all ten ballots. Finishing third was Darkhorses outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury with 47 points. Then there was a bit of a gap. Choppers outfielder Curtis Granderson came in fourth. He received the final first place vote, but only appeared on half the ballots and accumulated 20 points. Naturals first baseman Miguel Cabrera came in fifth, and finally, Rookie of the Year winner and Choppers outfielder Jose Bautista finished sixth.
As alluded to earlier, DTBL MVP usually seems to take on a different meaning than AL and NL MVP. The baseball writers clearly put a premium on the success (or lack there of) of a player’s team. However, team success rarely seems to matter in the DTBL vote. This is very apparent by the opposite results of the NL MVP and DTBL MVP votes, despite the fact that Braun played for the DTBL Champions. Personally, I think it makes sense for the DTBL award to be all about the stats. After all, that’s what fantasy baseball is all about. Meanwhile, another MLB MVP debate popped up with Justin Verlander winning the AL MVP. Obviously, that debate doesn’t occur in this league since we don’t make pitchers eligible for the MVP award. It’s actually kind of interesting because pitchers are really more valuable in fantasy baseball than they are in the real game since they account for exactly half of the league’s points, despite fewer pitchers than batters appearing on active rosters at any given time. An argument could be made that the DTBL Cy Young winner is really more valuable than the DTBL MVP in most seasons. But the main reason why I don’t make pitchers eligible for the MVP is because they have their own award. Perhaps the MVP should be called something else to stop this debate (the Babe Ruth Award?). Anyway, I digress…. I just found these MVP discussions to be especially interesting this year.
Roster cuts will be due very soon, so you might want to start figuring out who you are going to keep. In the mean time, have a Happy Thanksgiving!
It was a great year for pitchers as a whole, but one hurler was head and shoulders above the rest. In the least surprising news of the off-season, Kevin’s Kings ace Justin Verlander has unanimously won the 2011 DTBL Cy Young Award, to go along with the American League Cy Young Award which he unanimously won earlier this week.
2011 was an amazing, record-setting year for Verlander. He got off to a hot start, highlighted by his second career no-hitter against Toronto in May. He continued to win games start after start and finished the season with 24 victories, tying the DTBL single season record. John Smoltz won 24 games for the Cougars back in 1996 and Randy Johnson equaled that mark for the Kings in 2002. Since that ’02 season, no pitcher had won more than 22 games in a season. In addition to wins, Verlander also led the league in WHIP at 0.920 and 250 strike outs. That WHIP ratio comes in as the sixth lowest single season value in DTBL history. His 2.40 ERA was pretty good too.
Verlander was almost solely responsible for the Kings tying for the second most pitching points in the league. Only one other King won more than 10 games (Max Scherzer), yet the team wound up leading the league in that category. Verlander accounted for almost 20% of the team’s strike outs as well. The Kings picked Verlander in the third round of the 2009 draft after he had spent two seasons with the Demigods. The Demigods let him go after a very disappointing season in 2008. In his three seasons with the Kings, he has won at least 18 games in each campaign. In fact, he has reached that 18 win mark in four of his five DTBL seasons. He’ll need just 13 wins next year to reach 100 for his career. It has been an impressive early career for Verlander, but 2011 was by far his best year yet.
The Cy Young voting results were not surprising, but very interesting none-the-less. Unanimous decisions for awards are fairly common, but rarely do you see complete agreement in both of the top two spots. Verlander received all ten of the first place votes for the maximum 100 points, while the young Mavericks lefty Clayton Kershaw received all ten of the second place votes for 70 total points. Kershaw, the National League Cy Young winner, won 21 games and was right with Verlander in the other categories. Kershaw had the league’s best ERA at 2.28 and finished second to Verlander in wins, WHIP (0.977) and strike outs (248). These two were clearly the best two pitchers in the league in 2011. Although not quite unanimous, Roy Halladay was the clear choice for third place. He earned eight third place votes with the other two going to his Jackalope and Phillies teammate Cliff Lee. Halladay earned 46 points. Lee finished fourth in the vote with 26 points. There was a bit of a gap following the pair of Jackalope. Former Jackalope, current Moonshiner Jered Weaver finished fifth with eight points. Halladay, Lee and Weaver had numbers which would have made them likely Cy Young winners in many seasons, but not this one.
Click here to view the full 2011 DTBL Cy Young voting results.
I’m going to take this time to mention that I never got around to writing that third piece of my season recap, which was supposed to be a statistical look at how much pitchers dominated the 2011 season. Hopefully, I’ll take the time at some point this winter to delve into this, because after glancing at some of the numbers, it is quite apparent that pitching has never been better than it was this year (in the DTBL, that is). All of the players mentioned above played a huge part in this.
The final award, the Most Valuable Player, will be named next Tuesday. There are plenty of strong candidates for that award as well.
Going into this year’s draft, the 2011 DTBL rookie class was not highly touted. To make matters worse, several of the top youngsters picked in that draft proceeded to have very disappointing and/or injury-plagued seasons. However, the rookie class turned out to be rather deep with a bunch of players taken after the first round easily exceeding expectations. In the end, it was a “veteran” who won the 2011 DTBL Rookie of the Year Award. The honor went to Choppers outfielder Jose Bautista.
2011 was Jose Bautista’s eighth MLB season, but the first season in which he appeared on a DTBL roster, making him eligible for this award. From 2004-2009, Bautista was little more than a platoon/role player in the outfield and at third base with virtually no fantasy value. But in 2010, he broke out in a big way, slugging 54 home runs with 124 RBIs. Those numbers immediately made him one of the most sought after players in this year’s draft. The Choppers felt very fortunate to pick him up with the fourth pick in the draft. Although he entered this season with many wondering if 2010 was a fluke, he did not disappoint. He hit 43 home runs with 103 RBIs and 105 runs scored. His .302 batting average surpassed his previous single season high by more than 40 points. So while ’10 was his true breakout season, ’11 was the year he became a complete hitter and a legitimate superstar. He managed to lead the DTBL in home runs in his very first season. Finishing the season at age 30 made Bautista a very unusual “rookie”, but he is not the oldest DTBL ROY winner. I believe that distinction belongs to Andres Galarraga who won the league’s first Rookie of the Year Award in 1994 at the age of 33.
Bautista was a huge part of a vastly improved Choppers squad. Although they finished the season in sixth place, the Choppers were in the hunt until the final month of the season and were much more competitive than they have been in recent years. That is largely due to the significant power boost provided by Bautista and Curtis Granderson. The slugging duo finished first and second in the league in home runs. Both figure to be strong candidates for the MVP Award, which will be announced next week. The Choppers finished in the top half of the league in all five offensive categories, a year after finishing in the bottom half in all except batting average.
The depth of this year’s rookie class is very apparent after taking a glance at the award’s voting results. American League Rookie of the Year Jeremy Hellickson was on the DTBL ballot as well, but did not receive a single vote. Bautista won the award by garnering 7 of the 10 first place votes and a total of 87 points. The runner up was Bautista’s Choppers teammate, relief pitcher Craig Kimbrel. Kimbrel saved 46 games with a 2.10 ERA, 1.039 WHIP and an extremely impressive 127 strike outs. He was named the National League Rookie of the Year earlier this week. Kimbrel was a third round pick by the Choppers. Since they traded away their second round pick, all the Choppers first two picks wound up doing was finish first and second in the DTBL ROY vote. Kimbrel received the other three first place votes and accumulated 75 points. Another closer came in third, the Jackalope’s John Axford, who matched Kimbrel’s 46 save total. The only pitcher with more saves than these two DTBL rookies was Jose Valverde. Axford received enough votes to get 37 points. His Jackalope teammate, slugging outfielder Mike Stanton, finished fourth. Stanton’s 34 home runs gave the champions just the kind of power threat they needed. Just like the Choppers, the Jackalope struck gold in the first couple rounds of the draft. Stanton was a first round selection and Axford was picked in the second round. Rounding out the top five was yet another closer, the Moonshiners’ Drew Storen. Storen saved 43 games. The Kimbrel/Axford/Storen combination is about as good of a set of rookie closers as you will ever see.
Years from now after his career is over, we will have to give serious consideration to renaming the award for the league’s best player to the Albert Pujols Award. Every single year, he puts up the kind of numbers you would expect for the recipient of such an award. Never once has he had a bad season. And now, for the fourth time in his career, Jackalope first baseman Albert Pujols has won the DTBL Most Valuable Player award.
Has there ever been a more predictable player in terms of fantasy production? Every season is the same for Pujols. His numbers this year (.312 average, 42 home runs, 118 RBIs, 115 runs, 14 stolen bases) are basically identical to every other season of his career. Shockingly, that batting average was a career worst. Not too many guys win the MVP in their worst season in terms of batting average. Basically, all of his numbers were right in line with his career averages. Nothing spectacular, but only by his standards. Pujols led the DTBL in home runs and runs. He came in third in RBIs and tenth in batting average. Even the stolen base numbers were pretty respectable.
This is Pujols’ fourth MVP award. It is the second time he has won the award in consecutive seasons. He did so in 2003 and 2004 and now again in 2009 and 2010. There were some pretty darn good seasons in between as well. Pujols has essentially carried the Jackalope offense ever since they made him their first round pick back in 2002. He is the franchise career leader in home runs (369), RBIs (1095) and runs (1069). He broke the 1,000 milestone in RBIs and runs this season and will reach 400 DTBL home runs sometime next season. It won’t be long before we see him near the top of the all-time league leaders. He already ranks second in career batting average (.331).
Pujols did not win this award easily. In fact, I was a little surprised he won it at all. Four other players had similarly fantastic seasons and this award could have gone to any of them. Those players are Kings outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, Cougars outfielder Josh Hamilton and Naturals first basemen Miguel Cabrera and Joey Votto. Cabrera and Votto may have hurt each others chances of winning this award, although Cabrera had a slight edge on Votto in every category except stolen bases.
Pujols won the award with just three of the ten first place votes. He placed second on four ballots and third on the other three for a total of 73 points. This bested Gonzalez by just six points. Gonzalez, the league’s Rookie of the Year, also garnered three first place votes. Cabrera finished third with a pair of first place votes and 47 points. He led the league in RBIs and also had a higher average than Pujols. Somehow, he did not make the top five on one ballot. Next came the guy who will probably beat out Pujols for the NL MVP, Joey Votto. The MLB team success will be the primary factor in the NL MVP vote, which doesn’t apply here, although Votto did play for the co-champion Naturals. He received one first place vote and 40 total points. Finally, Josh Hamilton finished fifth, but even he received a first place vote. His chances of winning this award were derailed by missing most of the final month with a rib injury though. These five guys had tremendous seasons in a year otherwise dominated by pitching. With the exception of Hamilton, the rest of them kept their DTBL teams in championship contention right until the last week of the season.
So the Jackalope claimed two of the three post-season awards with the other going to the Kings. Neither of the co-champions had an award winner, but I’m sure the Naturals and Darkhorses prefer the championship plaque anyway.
That’s all for now, but a lot more is coming soon. Next up, the roster cut deadline is quickly approaching. Each team will need to cut down to 16 players by the end of November. More to come on that soon.
2010 was the best season for pitchers in DTBL history. The countless number of dominating pitching performances was unprecedented. A man responsible for two of the season’s best moments easily won the 2010 DTBL Cy Young Award. That pitcher is Jackalope right-hander Roy Halladay.
Halladay got his first Phillies and National League season off to a bang with a bunch of impressive starts in the first two months, capped off by throwing the 20th perfect game in MLB history in late May. He wasn’t done with historic outings though. In October, he threw just the second no-hitter in post-season history against Cincinnati Reds in the NLDS. Of course, that performance did not count towards his DTBL accomplishments, but was a nice footnote to an incredible season.
The Jackalope had the best pitching staff in the league and arguably one of the top starting rotations in DTBL history. However, there was no question who the ace of the staff was. Halladay tied for the league lead in wins with 21. His 2.44 ERA and 1.041 WHIP were both the third lowest among qualified pitchers. He finished fifth in strike outs with 219. The win and strike out totals were career bests.
Halladay has had a remarkably consistent career with the Jackalope. This was the third time he reached the 20 win plateau and he is almost always near the top of the league in ERA and WHIP as well. The Jackalope stole him in the fourth round of the 2002 draft and have reaped the rewards ever since. Halladay has 146 wins for the Jackalope with a career ERA barely over 3.00. Only one pitcher on a DTBL roster this season has more DTBL career wins (Andy Pettitte). He ranks in the league’s all-time top 10 in wins, ERA and WHIP. Although he has been a dominating force in the league for nearly a decade, this is his first DTBL Cy Young Award. He finished third in the voting in both 2003 and 2008.
As stated up front, this was a truly remarkable year for pitchers. Although Halladay ran away with the award, the rest of the voting showed just how many deserving candidates there were for the award. Halladay received nine of the ten first place votes for a total of 97 points. 12 other pitchers received top five votes. Usually disbursement like that is saved for the other two awards more so than Cy Young. Cougars pitcher Adam Wainwright finished second, receiving the other first place vote and five seconds for 54 points. Wainwright also won 20 games, and even had a slightly lower ERA than Halladay. Felix Hernandez was a test case in how people value wins. Arguably, he had the most impressive stats of any pitcher if you ignore that he only had 13 wins. He led the league in ERA and finished second in strike outs. His 30 points ranked him third in the award voting, but four people didn’t put him on their ballot. Next came Gators lefty C.C. Sabathia with 23 points. Sabathia tied Halladay for the league lead with 21 wins. Coming in fifth with 20 points was another Gators pitcher, Ubaldo Jimenez. Early in the season, it appeared he would run away with this award. He cooled off in the second half, but still finished with what would be Cy Young worthy numbers most years. Even outside of the top five were a couple of pitchers who could have won in other years, like David Price and strike out champion Jered Weaver. Not to mention a bunch of closers who received some token votes.
So far, Carlos Gonzalez and Roy Halladay have cruised to victories in the first two awards that have been named. I can assure you though that the voting for Most Valuable Player was much, much closer. Stay tuned for that tomorrow evening.
