For the six teams who were not in the running for the DTBL Championship in the final weeks of the season, 2016 was mostly a disappointment. However, a few of these teams did show promise and had their moments when they too appeared to be among the better teams in the league. Unlike last year though, there were some teams that finished so far behind the leaders that they appear to have a huge rebuilding task ahead of them. Here is a brief summary of the 2016 seasons for the six non-contenders.
A fifth place finish for the Darkhorses is probably a little disappointing considering they finished in third a year ago and have one of the most exciting young corps of players in the league. But they actually came closer to winning it all this year than last. They had the best offense in the league, leading the way with 40.5 batting points. Edwin Encarnacion, Daniel Murphy and Xander Bogaerts were the top offensive stars, but many others emerged this season like George Springer, Christian Yelich and Justin Turner. Unfortunately for them, their pitching kept them from being a true title contender. Rick Porcello became a surprise staff ace and Carlos Martinez rewarded them for their faith in making him a first round draft pick. But they didn’t have a lot of pitching depth. If they can shore up this staff with one or two more solid hurlers, they will be a scary team next year.
For much of the year, this looked like it was going to be one of the worst seasons in Naturals franchise history. They were toiling near the bottom of the standings as late into the season as early September. But a late rally pushed them up to a sixth place finish, the same spot they settled for a year ago. Part of the reason for that surge was a resurgence of two of their veteran stars: Miguel Cabrera and Joey Votto. Another was the incredible performance by rookie Trea Turner, who nearly cracked the PAR leaderboard despite spending half the year in the minors. But the star of the team from start to finish was Nolan Arenado who led the league in RBI and was near the top in home runs and runs as well. Despite a pedestrian season overall, the Naturals may come away as the big winners from the 2016 Draft. In addition to Turner, who was an enormous steal in the eighth round, they also solidified their pitching staff for years to come with their first round selection of Noah Syndergaard. He was easily their best pitcher this season. The Naturals remain one of the league’s most talented teams, even if the results haven’t been there the past two years.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: the Moonshiners finished in seventh place. Yes, for the fourth consecutive year, they finished the season in the seven hole. It is obviously not the place they want to be. This year, it was a very weak offense that kept them from moving on up. They finished with just seven batting points and were dead last in every offensive category except for home runs. Really, their entire offense was carried by their two star second basemen, Brian Dozier and Ian Kinsler. Other than that, not much to write home about. Losing Prince Fielder to an early retirement was especially disappointing. There is a lot of work that needs to be done to their lineup. Things weren’t as bad for the pitching staff, although there were some disappointments there too. On the positive side, for the second straight year, the Moonshiners were the proud owners of the Cy Young candidate who came out of nowhere. This year, it was Kyle Hendricks who led the league in ERA and WHIP. Last year, it was Dallas Keuchel. However, Hendricks was pretty much the lone bright spot in the rotation. Their dynamic trio from a year ago, Keuchel, Felix Hernandez and Zack Greinke, all had disappointing seasons this time around.
Through the first couple months of the season, one of the best stories in the league was the return to power of the Gators, a franchise that hasn’t finished in the top half of the standings since 2008 and hasn’t finished above the bottom three spots since 2010. Unfortunately for them, their season unravelled in the second half and that streak of bottom three finishes continued with another eighth place finish. They had the opposite problem as the Moonshiners. They had a decent enough offense, but easily the league’s worst pitching. The offense was carried by two unexpected sources: breakout star and former first round pick Wil Myers and previously enigmatic shortstop Jean Segura. Segura was one of four players to put up a 20/30 HR/SB season. You may be familiar with the other three: Mike Trout, Paul Goldschmidt and Jose Altuve. The Gators easily led the league in stolen bases thanks to Segura, Myers, Starling Marte and Dee Gordon. The pitching staff was a mess, with two notable exceptions: Jose Quintana and Zach Britton. Britton accumulated 47 saves with an absurdly low 0.54 ERA. One of these years, the Gators are going to put it all together. But they are definitely going to need to improve the pitching staff to get to that point.
We nearly had the preposterous situation of one team going from worst to first and another doing the exact opposite this year. However, the defending champion Jackalope were just barely able to avoid finishing dead last while settling for ninth place. Simply put, this season was a write-off for the Jackalope. After everything went their way a year ago, very little went right in 2016. And not to make excuses, but Jay had a pretty good one. He spent most of the summer preparing for a deployment and simply didn’t have time to manage his roster. Had his team been more competitive, we probably would have found a temporary replacement. But anyway, this is still a team loaded with talent. Josh Donaldson had another elite season. Paul Goldschmidt had one of the quietest 24 home run, 32 stolen base years a player has ever had. They did not get even close to the same kind of production out of their starting rotation as they did in ’15. Jake Arrieta was good, but definitely not the same. Gerrit Cole and Sonny Gray had injury riddled years. And overall, the roster just wasn’t as deep as it was in their championship campaign. Next year will almost certainly be better for this squad.
Before the season, I tabbed the Cougars as the most improved team in the league. Well, that didn’t really pan out. For the second time in three years, the Cougars finished in last place. They were among the bottom teams in the league in both batting and pitching points, so there weren’t a ton of bright spots. But there was one: second overall draft pick Kris Bryant, who already appears to be one of the best players in the league. He slugged 39 homers with 102 RBI and 121 runs scored. Charlie Blackmon also quietly emerged as one of the top players in the league. Most of their other key players had disappointing seasons, however. The pitching staff was surprisingly ineffective. Madison Bumgarner was his usual dominant self. But other than him, there weren’t many good performances to point to from this staff. To end on a positive note, this season was proof that a last place finish is hardly a disqualifier for contending the following season. So there is hope for 2017 for the Cougars.