DTBL News

Category: Choppers

  • Elite Rookie Class Arrives


    One of the prevailing storylines of the 2015 baseball season was the infusion of highly touted prospects making their MLB debuts and immediately contributing for their big league clubs.  So it was clear last summer that the 2016 DTBL draft class would be one of the most highly regarded groups we’ve ever seen.  Not surprisingly, those superstars-in-the-making dominated the early part of the 24th Annual DTBL Draft.

    Of the first 14 players selected in the draft, 11 made their MLB debuts during the 2015 season.  One other was classified as a rookie and another has just one full season under his belt.  The one “veteran” of that group is Carlos Martinez, who happens to be just 24 years old .  Martinez was the only first round selection who did not make his MLB debut last season.

    The draft kicked off with a pair of players who arrived in the big leagues with so much hype that it seemed impossible for them to immediately live up to it.  But that they did, on their way to AL and NL Rookie of the Year honors.  With the first pick, the Kings selected shortstop Carlos Correa, making him the third player to have been selected with the first pick of both the DTBL and MLB Drafts (joining Alex Rodriguez and Bryce Harper).  Correa demonstrated all of his five tools for the Astros last season.  He hit .279 with 22 home runs and 14 stolen bases in four months of action.  He will be asked to anchor a position which suddenly became a weakness for the Kings after a disappointing season from Ian Desmond and off the field troubles for Jose Reyes.  The second pick was no slouch either.  The Cougars selected third baseman Kris Bryant who led all MLB rookies with 26 home runs and 99 runs batted in.  He will give an immediate boost to a Cougars offense which was dead last in the league in batting points last year.

    Correa and Bryant were the presumptive top two picks all along.  But they were hardly the only youngsters with huge upside in this draft.  The Gators took shortstop Corey Seager with the third pick.  Seager, the younger brother of Moonshiners third baseman Kyle, hit a robust .337 with four homers in just 27 games after a September call-up.  He figures to be another key piece to a Gators offense which made great strides a year ago.  The Moonshiners kept the run of potential superstar sluggers going by selecting third baseman Miguel Sano with pick four.  Sano probably has the most raw power of any player in the draft not named Bryant.  He hit 18 home runs in just 279 big league at bats.  His eventual position is still TBD, but his power will play anywhere on the field.

    For the second straight year, no pitchers were selected in the top four picks.  Last year, the Jackalope grabbed the first pitcher, Jake Arrieta, in the sixth slot.  This year, the Naturals hope for a similar payout from the first picher off the board.  They selected Noah Syndergaard at number five.  Syndergaard was a key figure in the Mets pennant winning season.  He struck out 166 in 150 innings along with nine wins, a 3.24 ERA and 1.05 WHIP.  This is the second straight year the Naturals have gone with a pitcher in the first round (Carlos Carrasco).  The Choppers followed by selecting outfielder Kyle Schwarber, another slugger with tons of raw power.  Schwarber slugged 16 homers in just 232 at bats.  If he is able to qualify as a catcher down the road, this could be an absolute steal for the Choppers.  He will begin his DTBL career in the outfield though.

    With the eighth pick, the Darkhorses took the only non-rookie of the round.  Pitcher Carlos Martinez still has immense upside though at the tender age of 24.  The former Maverick struck out over a batter per inning and won ten games in his first full season as a member of the starting rotation.  The Darkhorses were really just a pitcher or two away from being a contender last season, so Martinez should play a big role if they are to close that gap.  Next, the Mavericks picked the third Cubs rookie of the first round, second baseman Addison Russell.  Russell will move over to shortstop a year from now, but provides huge upside at either middle infield position.  Finally, the Jackalope finished the first round by selecting third baseman Maikel Franco.  I’m going to go on the record and call Franco the steal of the first round.  It is not normal for a defending champion to have the opportunity to draft a player of Franco’s caliber with the tenth pick.  He is having a huge spring, which could mean that the 14 home runs and 50 RBI he put up in his partial season in 2015 was just the start of him tapping into his potential.  I was badly hoping Franco would slip to me with the next pick.

    We have not seen the same flurry of in-draft trades as last year, but the Mavericks did complete a pair of deals early on.  First, they were finally able to unload Cody Allen after putting him on the block last summer.  The Cougars acquired Allen in exchange for their second round pick (12th overall).  It is a very interesting trade in that a second round pick seems like quite a haul for a guy who didn’t even have a certain roster spot on his old team.  But if you look at just how weak relief pitching was in this draft class, it absolutely makes sense for the Cougars.  If Allen had been part of this draft, he almost certainly would have been the first reliever selected.  And since there was such a large gap between him and the best available closer, a second round pick sounds about right.  But for the Mavericks, this is obviously a win.  They had little use for Allen with their bullpen full of some of the best relievers in baseball (mostly Yankees).  They used the acquired pick to add another young phenom, outfielder Byron Buxton.

    The second trade involved some huge names who have recently changed MLB teams as well.  The Mavericks shipped outfielder Jayson Heyward to the Naturals for shortstop Troy Tulowitzki.  At times, Tulo has been one of the most valuable players in baseball.  But his stock has fallen a bit recently due to a long string of injuries and his depature from Colorado.  Toronto is a pretty good place to hit too though, and he is part of the best lineup in baseball.  So he still has huge upside.  As for Heyward, the Cubs made him the biggest offensive free agent acquisition of the winter.  The Naturals expect him to play a key role in their revamped offense.  Both Heyward and Tulowitzki had spent their entire DTBL careers with their previous team.  Heyward was a first round selection of the Mavericks in 2011.  Tulowitzki spent eight great years with the Naturals after they selected him in the first round of the 2008 draft.

    We have reached the two week mark of the draft and have completed eight rounds.  That is a slower pace than recent years, but recent improvement seems to have us on track to complete the draft with plenty of time to spare.  Good luck with the remainder of the draft.  Just 10 days until Opening Day!

  • Sifting Through the Mediocrity


    Well, this post is about a month overdue.  The World Series is over and we’re already well into awards season, yet I haven’t finished recapping the 2015 DTBL season.  I have a lot of writing to do next week with the awards announcements, so let’s get right to this.

    So far, I’ve reviewed the seasons of the top three finishers and left the other seven for a single article.  The reason for that is simple:  very little separated the bottom seven.  All were in jeopardy of finishing in last place right up to the final days of the season.  In the end, the fourth place Choppers finished just 6 1/2 points ahead of the last place Kings.  That margin is less than what separated the Choppers from third place.  So there were obviously a lot of pretty weak teams in the league this year, which certainly helped the Jackalope cruise to an easy victory.  However, what is really interesting about the bottom seven is that none of them were even close to as poor as usual last place teams.  The Kings finished with 45 1/2 points, which most years would put them closer to the middle of the pack than last place.  In fact, the previous record for most points from a last place finisher was 39 1/2 points for the 2001 Panthers.  While I’m sure none of these seven teams are particularly pleased with the way the 2015 season finished for them, they can take solace that they all have some pretty obvious strengths and aren’t really too far from being title contending teams in the future.

    Let’s start at the top of this tightly packed group.  The Choppers had a pretty rough go of it most of the year, but finished strong to lead this pack.  They finished in fourth place for the second consecutive year.  While they haven’t been in a tight title race in a very long time, they have quietly put together a nice string of above average seasons.  The Mavericks are the only other team to have finished in the top half of the league for three straight seasons now.  The Choppers had a very strong season from their pitching staff, slotting behind only the loaded staffs of the Jackalope and Mavericks in terms of pitching points.  The rotation, led by Chris Sale, went six deep with pitchers who accumulated at least a 4.0 PAR.  No other team had that sort of depth this year.  The offense was a bit of a disappointment, but Jose Bautista and Anthony Rizzo had great years.  Fourth place is a nice finish for this team that looks to be just an offensive player or two away from really making a title run.

    A year ago, the Demigods came very close to earning their first DTBL championship.  Unfortunately for them, they came nowhere near repeating that kind of season in 2015.  The reason is obvious:  their pitching took a huge step backwards.  Losing Yu Darvish to Tommy John surgery before the season began proved to be too much to overcome.  Jose Fernandez’s return from the same surgery limited him to just 65 innings.  Not surprisingly, Corey Kluber and Johnny Cueto were unable to match their very lofty ’14 numbers.  All told, the Demigods’ 19 pitching points were not even close to what they needed/expected.  The offense was actually really good.  Jose Altuve had another strong campaign and J.D. Martinez wound up being one of the steals of the draft.  Nobody else had eye-popping numbers, but this was a very solid offensive squad from top to bottom.  Had the pitching staff lived up to expectations, this would have been a top three team for sure.

    Things definitely didn’t go as planned for the defending champions.  The Naturals slipped to sixth place, their worst finish since 2008.  Interestingly enough, this is the second straight year that the defending champ fell all the way to sixth place.  For the Naturals sake, hopefully they don’t continue to follow the post-championship dive of the 2013 Kings and fall to dead last next year.  So what went wrong for the Naturals?  Well, for one, Miguel Cabrera just wasn’t himself.  He had a decent year, but not even close to his usual form.  Newly acquired Yasiel Puig was a major disappointment.  And injuries hampered a whole bunch of their key players throughout the year.  That being said, Nolan Arenado emerged as a MVP candidate and Joey Votto was outstanding as well.  On the mound, they had a little trouble with the back-end of the rotation.  David Price and Carlos Carrasco were the bright spots, but the rest of the starters were not great.  On the other hand, the bullpen was very good, leading the league in saves.  Certainly a disappointing year for the Naturals who have been one of the league’s premier franchises in the past decade.  But there is little reason to doubt they could bounce back near the top next year.

    The Moonshiners are nothing if not consistent.  For the third consecutive year, they finished in seventh place.  Obviously, that’s not an ideal spot to establish consistency though.  While the results were the same, the process and team make-up were not.  They completely revamped their squad in March, trading for Zack Greinke and Felix Hernandez.  Those two were very productive, especially Greinke who had the best season of his career.  Along with those two, the Moonshiners may have made the best move of the year picking up Dallas Keuchel from free agency in April.  With those three acquisitions, it is hard to believe the Moonshiners weren’t able to improve their final standing.  Unfortunately, that’s about the extent of their players who had great seasons.  Especially troubling was the lack of offensive firepower.  Prince Fielder led the team in batting PAR at 3.4, by far the lowest total for a team leader.  Despite the three previously mentioned pitchers having excellent seasons, the Moonshiners pitching staff was only mediocre since they got very little from anyone besides those three.  They will need strong seasons out of a lot more players next year to get out of this seventh place rut.

    Despite finishing in eighth place, the Gators may have had the most positively surprising offense in the league.  Dee Gordon, Yoenis Cespedes, Nelson Cruz and Starling Marte helped lead the Gators to the fourth most batting points in the league.  This is a franchise that had been one of the worst offensive teams in the league for six straight years.  So this was a huge step in the right direction.  Unfortunately, the pitching staff didn’t move in that same direction, finishing with the same number of pitching points (19) as last year.  Michael Wacha was clearly the staff ace, but there wasn’t much behind him in the rotation.  Unfortunately, this is the fifth straight year the Gators have finished in a bottom three position.  However, this was clearly the best team they have had in that stretch as they finished with their highest point total since 2010.  So there is reason to be optimistic for the Gators’ future.

    If there is one team whose final ranking is not at all indicative of the talent level of the squad, it is the Cougars.  Early on, they looked like a team that could compete for the title.  But a series of late season injuries and performance drop-offs caused them to tumble all the way to a ninth place finish.  Losing Adam Wainwright for most of the season prevented the Cougars from having one of the better pitching staffs in the league.  Madison Bumgarner and Chris Archer were fantastic, but they just didn’t have the depth they had hoped for.  But it was their offense that caused the late season free-fall.  Jose Abreu and Charlie Blackmon were drafted to boost the offense, and pretty much lived up to expectations.  But those two along with Chris Davis weren’t enough to keep them afloat.  As mentioned, several key players got hurt late in the season, which pretty much tanked their season.  Again, this is not your typical ninth place team.  The Cougars have the talent of a top half team.

    Finally, we come to the dumpster fire that was the Kings 2015 season.  Just two years ago, the Kings won their fifth DTBL title.  Boy does that feel like a distant memory now.  What’s really shocking about this fall is the way the team flipped the script during this season.  Early on, they were riding Max Scherzer and Shelby Miller to surprisingly having one of the better pitching staffs in the league, but their offense was holding them back.  But then in the second half, the pitching completely fell apart while the offense turned things around to finish in the top half of the league in batting points.  In the end, their pitching was pretty terrible and the main culprit for the last place finish.  Scherzer and Jeurys Familia were the only above average pitchers on the squad.  Offensively, their first two draft picks were very solid:  outfielders Mookie Betts and Gregory Polanco.  A.J. Pollock became an elite player as well.  So there are some reasons to be optimistic about the Kings’ bats.  Also, for the glass half full crowd, this was simply not your typical last place team in terms of points and talent.  Plus they will have the chance to pick first in the deepest draft in league history.  So not all is lost for this proud franchise, but 2015 was a complete disaster.

  • Players of the Month: June


    June was another very good month for the Jackalope.  They maintained a healthy lead of near 20 points throughout the entire month.  They continue to lead the league in both batting and pitching points.  This is especially impressive since they haven’t exactly had a healthy roster at any point this season.  The latest injury will be their biggest challenge to date.  Giancarlo Stanton will miss at least a month with a broken hand.  A top MVP candidate prior to the injury, Stanton has been just one of several outstanding performers for the first place squad.  This injury might give other teams a little more hope though.

    Besides the Jackalope maintaining their comfortable lead, the other top stories of June involved a couple pitchers putting up historic runs of starts.  One led to a Pitcher of the Month honor, which I will get to in a bit.  But I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Max Scherzer’s incredible run of three consecutive starts with a no-hitter (and near perfect game) sandwiched between two other near no-hitters.  Amazingly, that was not enough to earn Scherzer his second straight Pitcher of the Month award.  In fact, somehow, he didn’t even take home a Pitcher of the Week honor, despite being a hit batsman away from throwing a perfect game!  My method for selecting those honors makes it a near certainty that the weekly pitching award goes to the top starting pitcher who throws two quality starts in a week.  Unfortunately for Scherzer, those three starts came in separate weeks.  Anyway, it was a pretty impressive month for him.  Here are the weekly award winners from June:

    Batters of the Week:

    Week 9 (6/1 – 6/7) – Jose Bautista, Choppers
    Week 10 (6/8 – 6/14) – Giancarlo Stanton, Jackalope
    Week 11 (6/15 – 6/21) – Manny Machado, Mavericks
    Week 12 (6/22 – 6/28) – Nolan Arenado, Naturals

    Pitchers of the Week:

    Week 9 (6/1 – 6/7) – Chris Archer, Cougars
    Week 10 (6/8 – 6/14) – Chris Sale, Choppers
    Week 11 (6/15 – 6/21) – Anibal Sanchez, Kings
    Week 12 (6/22 – 6/28) – Collin McHugh, Cougars

    The races for the monthly awards were both extremely tight with a lot of deserving candidates narrowly missing.  Here are the award winners for June 2015:

    Batter of the Month:

    Nolan Arenado, Naturals
    .304 AVG, 12 HR, 33 RBI, 24 R, 0 SB, 2.57 PAR

    Pitcher of the Month:

    Chris Sale, Choppers
    1.83 ERA, 0.812 WHIP, 2 W, 0 SV, 75 K, 3.77 PAR

    You know the Naturals must have a pretty good infield when Troy Tulowitzki is only their second best Rockies infielder.  Nolan Arenado had an incredible month of June and finished with a flourish.  His 33 RBI easily led the league and were the most in a month since Miguel Cabrera had 34 last May.  Arenado just barely edged out a pair of Mavericks for this award:  Manny Machado and Albert Pujols.

    It is very hard to win the Pitcher of the Month award with only two wins in the month.  But when the rest of your numbers are setting records, you can overcome criminally poor run/bullpen support.  That’s what Chris Sale did in June.  He is currently riding an eight start streak of striking out at least 10 hitters.  He is only the second player in the past 100 years to accomplish such a feat.  His 75 strikeouts in 44.1 June innings looks like a misprint.  It is also a DTBL single month record, surpassing the 72 whiffs Pedro Martinez recorded in June of 1997.

  • 2015 Season Preview: Part III


    Happy Opening Day!  The season kicked off last night in Chicago, but things get started for real across the country today.  This is the third of my four part preview of the 2015 DTBL season.  I hope to finish up the last part on Tuesday evening.  This third part takes a look at a pair of teams that have quietly been building very strong teams and should definitely be championship contenders this year.  But much like the teams covered in part two, these squads have an obvious strength and an apparent weakness which is keeping them a little bit behind the projected top two teams.  They will probably need to improve upon these projected numbers in those areas of weakness to win the league.  But they are close enough where that is a very realistic possibility.  Here are the teams predicted to finish in fourth and third place this season.

    Charlie’s Thunder Choppers

    Category – Projected Rank (2014 Rank)

    • Batting Average – 7th (6th)
    • Home Runs – 7th (3rd)
    • Runs Batted In – 9th (4th)
    • Runs Scored – 7th (2nd)
    • Stolen Bases – 9th (7th)
    • Earned Run Average – 2nd (6th)
    • WHIP Ratio – 2nd (6th)
    • Wins – 4th (2nd)
    • Saves – 3rd (8th)
    • Strike Outs – 2nd (5th)
    • Total Batting Points – 9th (4th)
    • Total Pitching Points – 2nd (5th)
    • Total Points – 4th (4th)

    Summary:

    Two years ago, the Choppers surprised a lot of people by finishing in third place.  Last year, they proved they belonged among the top teams in the league, despite falling to a fourth place finish.  This year’s projection shows more of the same, but also indicates this is a much different team than the one that finished fourth a year ago.  For one thing, it is strange to see a team that is projected to finish in the bottom four of all five offensive categories to still finish in the top half of the standings.  But the Choppers pitching staff appears to be one of the league’s best.  This was clearly the plan as they took pitchers with their first four picks in the draft.  Tyson Ross and Masahiro Tanaka are great additions to a staff that already included Chris Sale, Jon Lester and Alex Cobb.  There are some serious health concerns in this group, but if healthy, they will be one of the league’s best rotations.  The bullpen took a big hit yesterday when the Braves dealt Craig Kimbrel to the Padres, costing Joaquin Benoit his closer gig.  So don’t expect them to finish third in saves.  On offense, the numbers aren’t pretty, but this is still a very talented, veteran group.  Look for Anthony Rizzo to be the team’s MVP.  Jose Bautista should have another great year too.  Really, not a lot has changed from the team that finished fourth in offensive points a year ago.  They just don’t have the shiny new additions that some other teams do.  There are plenty of reasons for optimism in the Choppers camp this year.

    David’s Darkhorses

    Category – Projected Rank (2014 Rank)

    • Batting Average – 6th (7th)
    • Home Runs – 3rd (6th)
    • Runs Batted In – 3rd (6th)
    • Runs Scored – 2nd (6th)
    • Stolen Bases – 3rd (4th)
    • Earned Run Average – 5th (8th)
    • WHIP Ratio – 9th (9th)
    • Wins – 6th (6th-T)
    • Saves – 7th (10th)
    • Strike Outs – 6th (9th)
    • Total Batting Points – 4th (7th)
    • Total Pitching Points – 7th (10th)
    • Total Points – 3rd (8th)

    Summary:

    Probably the biggest surprise of these projections in the positive direction is the Darkhorses coming in third.  But these numbers are pretty good indicators of just how close all of these teams appear to be.  The Darkhorses somehow place third despite being fourth and seventh in projected batting and pitching points, respectively.  But all of those rankings would be significant improvements for the team that finished in eighth place a year ago and hasn’t finished in the top half of the league since winning the championship in 2010.  The Darkhorses look especially strong on offense.  The additions of Edwin Encarnacion (trade) and George Springer (3rd overall pick of the draft) gives them a pair of sluggers that they lacked in 2014.  Bryce Harper, Christian Yelich and Xander Bogaerts are three young returning players who could be primed for huge seasons too.  The pitching staff is still the weakness, but should definitely be better than last year’s squad which finished with the fewest pitching points in the league.  Jacob deGrom is the key newcomer.  Julio Teheran, James Shields and Lance Lynn are the best holdovers.  Not the most impressive staff on paper, of course, but this group should be good enough to put them into contention with their impressive offense.  Sorry about the terrible pun, but if you are looking for a darkhorse pick to win the 2015 DTBL championship, this is definitely your team.

  • Blockbuster Trades Steal Show


    The 23rd annual DTBL Draft began a week ago Thursday. The beginning of the draft always brings plenty of intrigue. But this year, the early rounds were mostly overshadowed by a string of trades that were completed over the first few days of the draft. In total, seven trades were made in four days involving six different teams. And for the most part, these weren’t minor deals involving role players and draft pick swaps. Several of the league’s biggest stars are now on new teams. Some of these trades indicate new philosophical directions for entire franchises.  But before I get to the details of all of those trades, I don’t want the first round picks to feel left out.  So I’m going to do my usual first round recap first.  There were plenty of interesting picks made there too.

    Some years there is a fairly obvious player available for the team with the first pick in the draft.  Other years, there are several strong candidates for that slot.  This year was the former.  In what should have been a surprise to nobody, the Cougars used the first pick in the draft to select White Sox slugging first baseman Jose Abreu.  The Cuban star made his MLB presence felt immediately in the MLB.  He slugged 36 homers with 107 RBI and a .317 average on his way to winning the AL Rookie of the Year award.  Not bad for a guy adapting to a new league, not to mention a new country.  Abreu is the second straight Cuban player to be picked first in the DTBL Draft, following Yasiel Puig a year ago.  The Cougars badly needed an offensive boost after finishing last in all five categories a year ago, further making Abreu the obvious choice.  Really the only slight negative about him is that he is 28 years old.  That makes him the oldest first overall pick since the expansion Naturals took Jeff Bagwell back in 2002.  Curtis Granderson was just a couple months younger when the Choppers picked him in 2009.  Nonetheless, Abreu profiles as a guy who should help the Cougars for many years to come.

    After Abreu came a string of four straight young outfielders with big upside.  With the second pick, the Gators selected the most established of the four when they picked up Corey Dickerson.  The Rockies slugger hit .312 with 24 home runs in his breakout season of 2014.  Playing half his games in Coors Field makes it easy to believe those numbers could get even better with a full season of playing every day.  Next, the Darkhorses selected George Springer of the Astros who displayed his immense power by hitting 20 home runs in his rookie year in fewer than 300 at bats.  He has five tool potential if he can cut down on his strikeouts a bit.  With the fourth pick, the Moonshiners took one of the bevy of up-and-coming Cubs superstars, Jorge Soler.  Somewhat overshadowed by a couple of those other Cubs prospects, Soler is the one who has already proven his worth at the big league level putting up solid numbers after his late season promotion last year.  Finally, the Kings used the fifth pick on another outfielder with big potential, Mookie Betts.  Betts can do it all.  His only current obstacle is a crowded Red Sox outfield, but you would think they will find a way to get him in the lineup one way or another.

    The Jackalope ended the string of outfielders by going with the draft’s first pitcher with pick number six.  They selected Cubs hurler Jake Arrieta, who broke out in a big way last season.  This was not a surprising selection on the heels of the trade the Jackalope made immediately prior to the pick, which I will get to in a bit. Arrieta figures to be a major part of their rebuilt rotation.  The Choppers also took a pitcher in the seventh spot, selecting Tyson Ross.  The Padres pitcher had an outstanding season a year ago, but didn’t garner a ton of attention.  That should change this year thanks to the revamped Padres lineup.

    As is their custom, the Mavericks were able to pick up an extra first round selection in a deal with the Demigods.  So they had two consecutive picks late in the first round.  They used those picks to draft Yankees relief pitcher Dellin Betances and Cubs shortstop Javier Baez.  These were both high risk/reward picks.  Betances put up ridiculously strong numbers out of the bullpen last year, but his value in fantasy depends largely on whether or not he will be a closer this year.  That seems likely, but he hasn’t been officially handed the job.  He can help the Mavericks in ERA, WHIP and K’s though, even if they go a different route (especially since they picked the other leading Yankees closer candidate later, Andrew Miller).  Baez is about as big of a risk/reward pick as you can get.  On one hand, he has immense power that could blow away all other middle infielders on the board.  But on the other, he has shown no plate discipline at all at the big league level and could easily wind up in AAA.  Of course, the Mavs have plenty of other players ready to fill that spot if Baez doesn’t pan out.  Finally, the defending champion Naturals finished the first round by selecting another good, young pitcher in Carlos Carrasco.  Slightly overshadowed by Indians teammate Corey Kluber last year, Carrasco could become a Cy Young candidate himself this year if he pitches like he did in ’14.

    So that first round was all well and good, but it was most certainly NOT the biggest story of the past ten days.  There were four huge trades made on the first day of the draft before Abreu was selected with the first pick.  Then three more major deals were completed before two rounds were in the books.  These trades range from championship contenders looking to solidify their rosters, to second tier teams trying to plug major holes, to major franchise overhauls.  It is difficult to pinpoint which teams will be the big winners and losers from these deals, but one thing is for sure:  the players/picks involved in these trades will play a major role in determining how teams finish this year.

    The first domino to fall was the Naturals trading Zack Greinke and their fifth round pick to the Moonshiners for Wilson Ramos and a second round pick.  Star pitchers being dealt was a big theme of the week and Greinke was the first.  The Moonshiners badly needed an ace to anchor a rotation that hasn’t really had a standout performer in recent years.  Greinke held that ace title for the Moonshiners for about a day.  The Naturals needed a catcher to fill the crucial spot held by Victor Martinez last year.  They used that early second round pick to select Garrett Richards, who they will count on to replace Greinke.  This is the second time Greinke has been involved in a major March trade.  The Naturals acquired him from the Jackalope in 2011 in a deal that saw Ryan Howard go the other way.  Greinke had four tremendous seasons for the Naturals and should be a major piece of the future for the Moonshiners as well.

    The next trade was something you don’t usually see in March:  a one-for-one trade of star pitchers with no other picks or pieces involved.  The Mavericks traded their first round pick from a year ago, young starting pitcher Gerrit Cole, to the Jackalope for one of the best closers in the league, Aroldis Chapman.  This was the first of many changes for the Jackalope, who felt the need to get younger, particularly in the rotation with ailing veteran Cliff Lee’s season being in jeopardy.  Meanwhile, Chapman (along with first round pick Betances) give the Mavericks an almost unfair bullpen full of fireballers.  Their rotation isn’t too shaby either.  If I had to pick one team as a lock to win one category this year, it would be the Mavericks and strikeouts.  Barring injury, they look pretty solid in the other four pitching categories too.

    As it turns out, the Cole/Chapman deal was just a precursor to a couple more one-for-one deals involving superstars.  The Jackalope immediately turned around and dealt their first overall pick from a year ago, Yasiel Puig, to the Naturals for third baseman Anthony Rendon.  This would have looked like an insane trade a year ago considering the Naturals nabbed Rendon in the sixth round.  But he was quietly one of the most valuable players in the league last year and plays a much more difficult position to fill.  Of course, his switch from second to third created a bit of a problem for the Naturals who were already loaded at the corners.  Unfortunately for the Jackalope, Rendon wound up injuring his knee right around the time this deal was made, which was part of a pretty tough week of injury news for their squad.  However, Rendon’s injury isn’t considered to be too serious, but will be worth watching as the season approaches.  Meanwhile, the Naturals are happy to have Puig and hope he can bounce back from a slightly disappointing season a year ago.  He clearly has major talent and big upside at his young age.

    The final pre-draft trade skewed a little older.  The Mavericks dealt slugging first baseman Edwin Encarnacion to the Darkhorses for shortstop Hanley Ramirez.  The Darkhorses acquired one of the most consistent power sources in recent years while the Mavericks picked up a power source of their own at a premium position.  This figures to be Ramirez’s last year at shortstop though since the Red Sox plan to play him in the outfield.  Only Marc knows for sure, but I’m not positive this deal would have happened had they known they would be able to pick Baez in the draft.  As it currently stands, the Mavericks have five middle infielders and dealing Encarnacion temporarily left them without a first baseman.  But that is a much easier position to fill than 2B/SS.  The Darkhorses are hoping two ex-Mavs players will help boost their power output.  They also drafted former Maverick Carlos Santana.

    The start of the draft did not end the flurry of trades.  Halfway through the first round, a deal was made that somehow managed to exceed the four I just detailed in terms of star power.  The Jackalope traded arguably the second best pitcher in baseball, Felix Hernandez, along with Ian Kennedy to the Moonshiners for third baseman Josh Donaldson and a fourth round pick.  Suddenly, the Moonshiners pitching problems were a thing of the past.  The additions of Hernandez, Greinke and Kennedy is about as big of a rotation upgrade as a team can realistically make.  Despite only being 28 years old, King Felix is already 10th on the DTBL’s all-time strikeout list.  He was a workhorse for the Jackalope in his nine seasons with them, pitching at least 180 innings every season and has struck out over 200 batters in six consecutive seasons.  He will be reunited with two other former Jackalope rotation-mates with the Moonshiners:  Greinke and Jered Weaver.  This signals a huge overhaul for the Jackalope who have been slightly burned in recent years by deteriorating health of their once invincible pitching staff.  Roy Halladay and now Cliff Lee seem to have been lost without getting anything in return.  They elected to make sure the same thing didn’t happen with Hernandez.  The Jackalope rotations of about five years ago were some of the best collection of pitchers this league has ever seen.  But now all are gone, except for Lee, who may never pitch again.  Oh yeah, almost forgot to mention that the Jackalope acquired Donaldson who was the Moonshiners first round pick a year ago.  Donaldson had a huge DTBL rookie campaign and could be in for even more now that he has moved to hitter friendly Toronto.

    The next trade was of the more traditional draft day variety.  The Mavericks did what they do best, acquired an extra first round pick from the Demigods in exchange for second and third round picks.  As already mentioned, the Mavericks used that extra pick to acquire Javier Baez following their own selection of Dellin Betances.  As for the Demigods who probably had as few holes to fill as any team entering this draft, they moved down and took outfielder J.D. Martinez with that pick acquired from the Mavericks.  The third round pick turned into relief pitcher Santiago Casilla.  Interestingly, that second round slot was actually a pick they had previously traded to the Mavericks in a deal last May.

    Finally, the Jackalope had one more superstar to trade away.  They dealt franchise icon Albert Pujols to the Mavericks along with a third round pick for Adam Jones.  A couple years ago, trading away Pujols AND a pick for Jones would have been preposterous.  But Pujols is clearly on the downside of his career and is not the perennial MVP candidate that he was for most of his career.  He is the Jackalope franchise leader in home runs, RBI and runs, all by very comfortable margins.  He spent 13 remarkable seasons with the franchise.  So trading him away couldn’t have been easy.  The Jackalope will have a much different look in 2015 without Prince Albert and King Felix.  Adam Jones is no slouch though.  He has hit 25+ homers each of the past four years and has become one of the most consistent outfield contributors in the league.  As for the Mavericks, this deal was mostly about plugging that hole left by the departure of Encarnacion.  Although Pujols isn’t the hitter he once was, by normal standards of judging players, he’s still one of the better first basemen in the league.  If he stays healthy, he should have several more big seasons in him.

    So that sums up the first round of the draft and the seven deals that have been made so far this month.  It has been a well paced draft as we currently sit at the end of the eighth round with still two full weeks before the start of the season.  Thanks to everyone for keeping it moving and good luck with the remainder of the draft.

  • Demigods Fall Just Short

    The DTBL expanded to ten teams in 1998, making 2014 the 17th season with 550 total points distributed among the 10 teams. In those 17 seasons, only three teams have managed to accumulate more than 86 points. So it would stand to reason that those three teams were almost certainly all league champions. That is not the case. The 2014 Demigods finished with the third most points in league history with 86.5, and yet found themselves 2 1/2 points behind the league champion Naturals. It was a painful final result for a franchise who easily had their best season ever, but fell a little short of their first league championship.

    Before I go any further, I think it is important to point out that a team’s point total in any given season doesn’t paint the complete picture of how strong that team actually was. Since the total number of league-wide points is the same every year, team totals often say as much about the rest of the league as the team itself. This year, the Naturals and Demigods clearly benefited from being the only two particularly strong teams in the league. There were three other mediocre squads and five teams that were pretty terrible. While a decent case could be made for the Naturals and Demigods as two of the all time great teams, it is also worth mentioning that they didn’t have a lot of competition. But enough raining on the Naturals and Demigods parade. This second season recap article will focus on the Demigods and the three other teams who didn’t win the title, but didn’t completely tank either (Mavericks, Choppers, Jackalope).

    The Demigods were definitely a sleeper to make a run at the title this year due to a revamped pitching staff and a solid roster, top to bottom. They did not disappoint in that respect. They made the incredible leap from the league’s worst pitching staff in 2013 (in terms of pitching points earned) to the best in 2014. They led the league in ERA, wins and strikeouts, finished second in WHIP and fifth in saves, earning a spot among the best pitching staffs this league has ever seen. The Demigods broke the single season strikeout record, passing the ’07 Mavericks by 41 whiffs. Their 2.70 ERA is only bested by last year’s Mavericks. And their 1.118 WHIP was the third lowest mark ever behind the ’13 Mavericks and this year’s Naturals. They did all of that despite losing the guy who was supposed to be the staff ace, Jose Fernandez, to Tommy John surgery in early May. Johnny Cueto had the kind of season that would make anyone not named Clayton Kershaw jealous, with 20 wins, 2.25 ERA, 0.96 WHIP and 242 strikeouts, all among the league leaders. Tenth round pick Corey Kluber turned out to be the steal of the draft and a strong Rookie of the Year candidate (16 W, 2.40 ERA, 241 K’s). Yu Darvish fought through injuries, but still had a pretty good year. Cole Hamels and Doug Fister were their usual solid selves. That’s six starting pitchers who you would think would be sure keepers heading into next year, opening up some interesting possibilities for this team moving forward.

    The offense wasn’t quite as strong for the Demigods, but still ranked second in the league with 41.5 points. Jose Altuve was the breakout star of the year and a strong MVP candidate. He led the league in batting average (.341) and steals (56). Carlos Gomez was the other offensive star, with his second straight 20/30 season (23 HR, 32 SB). It was a mildly disappointing season for some of their other stars which may have ultimately cost them the title, particularly Evan Longoria and Joe Mauer. But this team really does have all the pieces in place to be a contender again next year.

    Although the Demigods were the only team who gave the Naturals a real run for their money, three other teams can look back at 2014 as something other than a complete failure. The Mavericks fell well short of their lofty expectations, but 69.5 points would have put them in the title race most years. The Choppers never were able to make a serious run at the top of the standings, but did have their second straight solid year while finishing fourth. Finally, the Jackalope bounced back from a horrific last place finish in 2013 to return to the top half of the standings this year.

    The Mavericks have been one of the league’s best teams for quite some time, but it has now been eight years since their last championship. Expectations were extremely high entering this year, despite knowing they would have to go at it without Matt Harvey. So a distant third place finish is slightly disappointing. However, they are very well positioned to make a more serious run next year. As for 2014, Mike Trout, Edwin Encarnacion and Adam Jones helped lead an offense that actually outperformed their ’13 unit. It was pitching where they took a big step back from their record setting numbers a year ago. Of course, Clayton Kershaw was not to blame in any way, shape or form. He once again compiled one of the best pitching seasons in league history, leading the league in ERA (1.77), WHIP (0.857) and wins (21) despite missing about a month due to injury. His ERA and WHIP ranked as the fourth and third best DTBL single season marks, respectively. Stephen Strasburg had a solid year, but the rest of the rotation was a bit of a disappointment. It will be interesting to see if they are able to bounce back to ’13 form with the return of Harvey next year. They have a large stable of interesting young players along with extra early draft picks in 2015.

    The Choppers put together their second solid season in a row, but may have been slightly disappointed in being unable to mount a serious charge for the title down the stretch. In the end, they just didn’t get enough out of their second tier of players to match up with the Naturals and Demigods. The offense was led by Jose Bautista, who had his best season since 2011. He joined Trout as the only two players to record 35/100/100 seasons (35 HR, 103 RBI, 101 R), leading the Choppers in all three categories. Anthony Rizzo had a breakout season as well, recording 32 homers. A few other players had solid years too, like Adrian Beltre, Jayson Werth and Alex Gordon. But in the end, it wasn’t quite enough. The lack of standouts was even more pronounced on the pitching mound. Chris Sale, Jon Lester and Craig Kimbrel were outstanding. Outside of those three though, they lacked the pitching depth of the three teams who finished ahead of them. On the whole though, this was a good year for the Choppers. They easily soared past the pre-season projection of eighth place. With two solid finishes in a row, the Choppers have pushed their lean years well behind them.

    It was a weird season for the Jackalope. After last year’s disaster, things almost certainly had to improve for this team that was a serious title contender just two years ago. So a jump from tenth to fifth was a huge step in the right direction. However, it ended on a sour note with several of their stars suffering season ending injuries. The second half losses of Paul Goldschmidt and Giancarlo Stanton sank any hopes of finishing the season on a strong note. But prior to that injury, what a season it was for Stanton. He elevated himself into the conversation of best players in baseball. His 37 home runs were second most in the league. Albert Pujols had a nice bounce-back season. Hunter Pence and Evan Gattis made solid contributions as well. It was an up and down season for first overall draft pick, Yasiel Puig. But he helps bolster a squad with a ton of upside moving forward. The Jackalope have almost always been built around pitching. But the core that led them to the 2011 title has started to dissipate, with one notable exception: Felix Hernandez. King Felix had a 2.14 ERA and 0.915 WHIP, which trailed only Kershaw. His 248 strikeouts were the third most in the league. He will certainly garner Cy Young consideration. Sonny Gray and Jeff Samardzija solidified their spots in the Jackalope’s revamped rotation. Aroldis Chapman put up ridiculous numbers out of the bullpen, despite not pitching until May after a scary spring training injury. He struck out 103 in just 53 innings, while saving 35 games too.

    Although they were not particularly close to winning the championship this season, it won’t take major overhauls for the Mavericks, Choppers and Jackalope to be contenders in 2015. Mostly, they just need the Naturals and Demigods not to set a record-breaking pace again next year. These teams are all in very good shape. The same can’t be said for all of the five teams who finished miles behind the leaders. We’ll examine those bottom five in the third and final season recap article, coming soon!

    Last week, I updated all of the 2014 PAR numbers for every player who appeared on a DTBL roster this season. As you may recall from my PAR introduction, these values are calculated using five years worth of historical data. Prior to this latest update, the historical data came from the 2009-2013 seasons, just like the 2013 PAR values you currently see on players’ pages. But now that the season is over, I was able to swap out the oldest season (2009) with this year’s numbers. This helps keep PAR more relevant to today’s stats. For the most part, this adjustment caused hitters PAR to go up and pitchers PAR to go down. This makes sense because the “replacement level” offensive numbers all went down when replacing the 2009 stats with the much weaker offensive numbers of 2014. And the opposite for pitchers. On the whole, batters still earned fewer than the expected league-wide batting PAR of 225. But I expected this because 2014 was the worst offensive season in league history. Once I’m able to calculate the historical PAR values all the way back to the league’s origin, the numbers should even out a bit. If I find this not to be the case, I’ll take another look at my formulas. Anyway, expect past season PAR updates to occur sporadically over the winter. I hope to write about the numbers from each season as I release them to the site.

    Enjoy the rest of the World Series!

  • Hall Welcomes Six Legends


    On Sunday afternoon, the National Baseball Hall of Fame enshrined six new members:  a trio of all-time great players and three legendary managers.  The three players, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux and Frank Thomas were all elected into the Hall in their first year of eligibility.  And the three managers, Bobby Cox, Tony LaRussa and Joe Torre are almost indisputably the three most accomplished skippers of the past 30 years.  The full class has been lauded as one of the greatest induction classes of all time.  What makes this class noteworthy for our league is that the three players are probably the first full class of inductees who would all be certain DTBL Hall of Famers as well, if such a thing existed.  Although Glavine, Maddux and Thomas made their MLB debuts prior to the formation of this league, the primes of their careers took place while on DTBL rosters.

    The connection between Maddux and Glavine is obvious as long time teammates in Atlanta.  But it’s Glavine and Thomas who spent many years as teammates in the DTBL with the Kings.  Thomas and Maddux also have close ties in DTBL lore as both were first round draft picks in the inaugural DTBL Draft, making them the first official players for their respective franchises.  The Choppers picked Maddux with the second selection in that 1993 draft, following the Gators’ pick of Kirby Puckett.  So Maddux was the league’s first selected pitcher.  Two picks later, the Kings drafted the slugging first baseman Thomas.  As 13 year-olds at the time, Charlie and I may have let our personal fandoms of Maddux and Thomas sway our decisions, but neither of us would ever regret those picks.  In the seventh round of that same draft, the Kings grabbed Glavine.  He and Thomas would be Kings teammates for the first seven years of the DTBL.

    Tom Glavine probably has the weakest DTBL Hall of Fame case (again, if there actually was such a thing) of these three.  However, he is one of only four players to record 200 wins in this league.  He won a total of 204 games for the Kings, Gators and Darkhorses.  He won 13+ games 10 times, a feat only accomplished more often by two other pitchers (Maddux and Mike Mussina).  Nobody has more 20 win seasons.  He did that three times (1993, 1998, 2000 – 4 others also have 3 20+ win seasons).  Glavine’s career ERA of 3.46 and WHIP of 1.317 may not seem terribly impressive by 2014 standards, but keep in mind that he was still going strong in the steroid era of the late 90’s and early 00’s.  His 1,724 career strikeouts isn’t quite enough to put him in the top 10 all-time.  When it comes to the Kings franchise record book, he’s #2 behind Randy Johnson in wins (115) and third in ERA (3.22) and strikeouts (1,048).

    Glavine spent the first seven years of the DTBL with the Kings before being traded to the Gators late in the 1999 season for J.D. Drew.  15 years later, that sounds like an awful trade for the Kings, but it actually worked out quite well for both sides.  Drew wound up being a key contributor for the Kings first three championship teams while Glavine arguably recorded the best season of his career for the Gators in 2000 as he won 21 games.  He remained with the Gators until the end of the 2003 season.  The Kings reacquired him the following year as a free agent.  Finally, the Darkhorses also signed him as a free agent for the twilight of his career.  In his final DTBL season of 2007, he won his first and only league title with the Darkhorses.

    There is a reasonable case to be made that Greg Maddux is the greatest pitcher in league history.  He’s certainly on the very short list.  He holds the league record for most wins with 240.  Only three retired starting pitchers have better career ERAs and WHIPs compared to Maddux’s 3.00 and 1.095.  But those numbers are slightly inflated because of mediocre numbers late in his career.  Nobody can match Maddux’s prime (well, maybe some guys in today’s pitching dominated game, but certainly not in Maddux’s era).  Even though he wasn’t thought of as a strikeout pitcher, only five have a higher career total in that category.  He is the Choppers career leader in wins and is basically tied with current Choppers’ ace Chris Sale in ERA and WHIP.  Only Mussina struck out more hitters while a member of the Choppers.

    The numbers Maddux posted in 1994 and 1995 were easily the two best consecutive seasons by a pitcher in league history and, alone, were the two lowest individual ERA seasons in the books.  He had a preposterous 1.56 ERA in the strike-shortened 1994 season and followed that up with an absurd 1.63 ERA in 1995.  Oh, and his WHIP was under 0.9 both of those years as well.  Maddux won at least 15 games for 12 consecutive seasons, all with the Choppers.  That will be a tall order for anyone else to ever reproduce.  After 13 remarkable seasons with the Choppers, they finally released him after the 2005 season.  He had mediocre stints with the Naturals, Mavericks and Darkhorses (twice) to close out his remarkable career.  He was a member of four DTBL championship teams (’97 and ’99 Choppers, ’07 and ’08 Darkhorses).  So he teamed up with his Hall of Fame buddy Glavine for that ’07 title, although neither were particularly key reasons why the Darkhorses won.

    The career numbers of Frank Thomas speak volumes about what kind of a hitter he was.  However, they were somewhat overshadowed by other players of his generation who would later become tarnished by connections to performance enhancing drugs.  But never mind that.  There still may not have been a better pure hitter in the 90’s than the Big Hurt.  Thomas hit 412 home runs in his DTBL career, which ranks 10th all time.  But more than half of the players ahead of him on that list have been tied to PEDs in one way or another.  Along with the home runs, Thomas had a career average of .297 with 1,323 RBI and 1,045 runs scored.  The full list of players with better career numbers in all four of those categories:  Barry Bonds, Manny Ramirez, Albert Pujols and Vladimir Guerrero.  Thomas trails only the very tainted Alex Rodriguez in HR, RBI and R in Kings franchise history.

    Thomas was a machine for the first five seasons of this league.  Each year, he hit over .300 with at least 35 HR and 100+ RBI and runs.  He even managed to reach those numbers in the strike shortened 1994 season.  He hit over .340 in three different seasons.  It wasn’t until very late in his career when the averages started to fall, bringing his career mark just below .300.  Unfortunately, a series of injuries in the second decade of his career really kept him from putting up numbers to rival anyone who has ever played the game.  But the Kings kept him on their roster for 13 incredible seasons.  He was a member of all four of the Kings four-peat championships (2000-2003).  He had a brief stint on the Mavericks roster in early 2006, but never recorded any playing time with them.  He did play for the Jackalope later that season.  Finally, the Kings picked him back up for his final two DTBL seasons.

    Unfortunately, my historical records on awards and such from the early years of this league are a little disjointed.  So I don’t have an easy way of telling you about some of the honors these three players received during their DTBL careers.  However, I know for a fact that Thomas was the league MVP at least once and Maddux won several Cy Young awards.  Hopefully I’ll be able to fill in these blanks at some point, because this information is available somewhere on old hard drives and printed newsletters.

    Finally, I want to wrap this up by mentioning a little bit about another Hall of Famer.  Sadly, the great Tony Gwynn passed away last month at the much too young age of 54.  Unlike the three players I just chronicled, the prime of Gwynn’s career was a little before this league started.  However, he also holds a special place in DTBL history.  He is the league’s all-time leading hitter (in terms of batting average) with an amazing .357 mark.  That is almost 30 points higher than any other player this league has ever seen and it is hard to imagine anyone ever breaking this record.  Despite that, Gwynn was not always an automatic starter for all of his teams in this league and bounced around to six different teams in nine years.  Of course, part of that was simply circumstances.  He wound up playing on three teams that folded while he was on the roster (Troopers, Titans and Panthers).  He played for the Gators in his first two DTBL seasons, followed by two years with the Choppers.  Despite ridiculous batting averages every season, he wasn’t a sure starter back in those days.  Because there were so few teams in the league, it was hard for some teams to dedicate a spot for a guy with below average power.  Had he put up those same numbers today, he’d be one of the most valuable players in the league.  But as it stands, he just wasn’t able to accumulate enough stats to appear in the record books for anything other than batting average.  His ability to get hits and avoid strikeouts may never be seen again in a player.  Guys who are thought of as good contact hitters today will still strike out more often the next two months than Gwynn did most full seasons.  He was a legendary hitter and will truly be missed by the baseball community.

  • DTBL June Awards

    We’re finally at the halfway point of the DTBL season, and it’s time to look at the best players up to this point. While a couple of players had ridiculous months that almost placed them in my top 5 list, I’ve decided to focus a bit more on consistency with my rankings. Sorry, Jose Altuve. I’ve again used ESPN’s Player Rater to help sort selections, particularly with Rookie of the Year. However, thanks to Kevin’s hard work with Points Above Replacement (PAR), I’ve used this stat to help with Cy Young and MVP ranks as well.To spice up the column a bit, and without giving away my entire ballot, you’ll find at the end my picks for All Star starters at every position, along with a closer. At the halfway point, it seems appropriate to recognize solid players who aren’t quite good enough to crack the top 5 at the end of year awards positions.

    ROY:

    1. Julio Teheran, Darkhorses – 0.950 WHIP, 2.34 ERA, 7 W, 0 SV, 103 Ks
    2. Josh Donaldson, Moonshiners – .248 BA, 57 R, 18 HR, 61 RBI, 3 SB
    3. Anthony Rendon, Naturals – .281 BA, 53 R, 12 HR, 46 RBI, 6 SB
    4. Yaisel Puig, Jackalope – .311 BA, 44 R, 11 HR, 45 RBI, 7 SB
    5. Billy Hamilton, Naturals – .281 BA, 40 R, 4 HR, 28 RBI, 34 SB

    The top three from May still reside here in the Rookie of the Year rankings. Julio Teheran has continued his stellar rookie season here in DTBL; more on him to come. Josh Donaldson and Yasiel Puig continue to put up big numbers. Anthony Rendon returns to this list after falling off in May, with 6 homers, 19 RBI, 18 runs, and a .310 batting average making up for a lackluster May.

    Unfortunately, Michael Wacha (injury) and Sonny Gray have fallen off this list for now. Brian Dozier and Corey Kluber’s full season numbers would easily be worthy of Top 5 consideration; however, their late entries to their team’s major league rosters continue to keep them off. Finally, Evan Gattis had a ridiculous June with a long hitting streak and 6 homers of his own, but he, too, has fallen victim to the injury bug.

    Cy Young:

    1. Felix Hernandez, Jackalope – 0.919 WHIP, 2.10 ERA, 10 W, 0 SV, 137 Ks
    2. Johnny Cueto, Demigods – 0.836 WHIP, 1.88 ERA, 8 W, 0 SV, 122 Ks
    3. Adam Wainwright, Cougars – 0.903 WHIP, 2.01 ERA, 10 W, 0 SV, 105 Ks
    4. Clayton Kershaw, Mavericks – 0.920 WHIP, 2.04 ERA, 9 W, 0 SV, 107 Ks
    5. Julio Teheran, Darkhorses – 0.950 WHIP, 2.34 ERA, 7 W, 0 SV, 103 Ks

    This list is largely unchanged from May, only seeing Clayton Kershaw’s utter dominance since returning from the DL replacing Zack Greinke. The superlatives of this group run long – top 5 in ERA. 5 of the top 6 in WHIP. Fantastic strikeout totals. Solid win amounts. Anyone in DTBL would be thrilled to have any of this quintet heading their rotation.

    That being said, there is no shortage of pitchers knocking on the door of this group. Greinke. Madison Bumgarner. Jon Lester. David Price. Max Scherzer. Yu Darvish. The overall pitching talent in DTBL may never have been better than it is now.

    MVP:

    1. Giancarlo Stanton, Jackalope – .313 BA, 57 R, 21 HR, 60 RBI, 7 SB
    2. Mike Trout, Mavericks – .314 BA, 54 R, 18 HR, 59 RBI, 10 SB
    3. Edwin Encarnacion, Mavericks – .278 BA, 55 R, 25 HR, 65 RBI, 2 SB
    4. Nelson Cruz, Gators – .281 BA, 48 R, 25 HR, 66 RBI, 1 SB
    5. Troy Tulowitzki, Naturals – .353 BA, 65 R, 18 HR, 47 RBI, 1 SB

    Another month, another top two finish for Giancarlo Stanton and Mike Trout. These two players have almost identical numbers; Stanton’s slight power edge gives him the nod here over Trout’s speed. Edwin Encarnacion, after just missing in May, rightfully shows up here with his prodigious power numbers; better counting stats gives him the edge over Nelson Cruz. Finally, Troy Tulowitzki, who’s been here from the beginning, continues to ride his Coors Field numbers to an outstanding season. Hard to argue with a .353 batting average in June.

    As I mentioned above, Jose Altuve raked in June. A .411 batting average. 17 steals. 11 runs and 9 RBI. He even missed three games. It was hard to leave him off this list, but consistency for the existing top 5 allowed them to hold on to their spots. If Altuve has a July even close to his June, he has a good chance of jumping into best of the best. Rounding out the just missed it group are Carlos Gomez, Michael Brantley, Paul Goldschmidt, and Victor Martinez. And, yeah, I’m still wondering when Miguel Cabrera will show up.

    Here are my All Star starters.

    American Divison:
    C: Victor Martinez, Naturals
    1B: Paul Goldschmidt, Jackalope
    2B: Ian Kinsler, Moonshiners
    3B: Josh Donaldson, Moonshiners
    SS: Troy Tulowitzki, Naturals
    OF: Giancarlo Stanton, Jackalope
    OF: Nelson Cruz, Gators
    OF: Jose Bautista, Choppers
    SP: Felix Hernandez, Jackalope
    CL: Craig Kimbrel, Choppers
    National Division:
    C: Jonathan LuCroy, Kings
    1B: Edwin Encarnacion, Mavericks
    2B: Jose Altuve, Demigods
    3B: Todd Frazier, Darkhorses
    SS: Hanley Ramirez, Darkhorses
    OF: Mike Trout, Mavericks
    OF: Carlos Gomez, Demigods
    OF: Michael Brantley, Cougars
    SP: Adam Wainright, Cougars
    CL: Trevor Rosenthal, Demigods

    Comments? Disagreements? Have at it in the comment section.

  • A Painful Start

    Darkhorses pitcher Matt Moore

    For several years now, it has felt like the number of injuries has been on a steady rise in Major League Baseball. I’m sure there are facts to back this up, but I’m so certain of it, I’m not going to waste my time researching it.  (That, and I’m lazy.)  This year, we’ve reached a new high (or should I say low?). The number of players who have been sidelined due to injuries in the first four weeks of the season is staggering. Actually, this all started well before Opening Day. In March, at least a half dozen pitchers had their seasons end prematurely due to torn ligaments in their elbows. Several other pitchers have been added to that list since the season started. And now position players are dropping like flies as well. The only good thing about these injuries is that no team has been immune. Of course, the level to which each team has been decimated varies greatly. And to a slight degree, this is reflected in the current league standings.

    It would be a lot quicker to list the DTBL teams who have not lost a player for the remainder of the season due to an injury. There are only three: the Choppers, Gators and Naturals. But even those three have been dealing with injuries to key players. Particularly the Choppers who just got Adrian Beltre back while Chris Sale remains disabled for at least another week and Mark Trumbo figures to miss at least another month. Those are three of their top players. The Gators are about to get Hisashi Iwakuma back in their rotation for the first time this season and they are dealing with some minor injuries to offensive players as well. The Naturals have probably been the luckiest team in the league, from a health standpoint. But even they currently have three players on the DL.

    It’s kind of a disaster for the rest of the league. The two top teams from last season have both been dealing with all sorts of pitching injuries. The Mavericks knew they would be without Matt Harvey this year. But losing Clayton Kershaw after one start was a huge blow. Meanwhile, Mat Latos and Taijuan Walker are yet to make their season debuts. Same for Manny Machado offensively. The good news for the Mavericks is that all of those players are expected to return soon.  The Kings may not have had as significant of injuries early on, but the sheer volume is starting to catch up to them now. Anibal Sanchez and Jason Grilli hit the DL last week, joining teammates Ryan Zimmerman, Michael Cuddyer and Nate Jones. They also lost two draft picks to Tommy John surgery within days of their selections: Patrick Corbin and David Hernandez, who both happen to play for the Diamondbacks as well. Several other Kings are dealing with day-to-day injuries too. It isn’t pretty.

    The Cougars also lost a pair of pitchers to torn elbow ligaments: Kris Medlen and Josh Johnson. They are currently dealing with injuries to two of their top sluggers in Chris Davis and Josh Hamilton. Casey Janssen hasn’t pitched yet this year either. Then there are the Darkhorses who have managed to remain near the top of the standings despite another Tommy John casualty in Matt Moore. Mike Minor will finally take a big league mound for the first time this season later this week. But their biggest blow may have come this past weekend when Bryce Harper tore a ligament in his thumb and will be out until at least early July. Oh, Russell Martin is on the DL for them too.

    How about the Demigods? Well, things were looking bleak in March when Doug Fister, Cole Hamels and Johnny Cueto were all dealing with injuries. But Cueto has been excellent and Hamels is back now too. Fister should return next week. So all in all, they are in decent shape. Except they too lost a pitcher, Bobby Parnell, to a torn UCL. Kole Calhoun is currently out with an ankle injury as well. The Jackalope are hopeful about the return of Aroldis Chapman who suffered quite possibly the most gruesome injury of the spring when he took a line drive to the head. On the other hand, Avisail Garcia is out for the year with a torn labrum and Jurickson Profar won’t make his season debut for at least another month. Finally, we have the Moonshiners. Just one season ending injury for them: Brandon Beachy who has undergone Tommy John surgery for the second time in three years and has pitched just 111 innings since the Moonshiners drafted him in 2012. They are also without second round pick Wilson Ramos who is recovering from a broken hand.

    So there you go. That’s a pretty staggering list of injuries, but there are actually plenty of others I didn’t mention who are currently injured or have already returned from previous DL stints, including a whole bunch of current free agents.  Everyone has their own theory on why all of these injuries are occurring, particularly when it comes to the torn elbow ligaments of pitchers.  I don’t think there is a conclusive theory out there yet though.  I certainly hope some of the best minds in sports medicine and therapy will be able to figure this out eventually, because it is taking a toll on the sport to see so many of the best players having full seasons in the middle of their primes completely wiped out.

    There is a little bit of good news though. Injuries usually peak early in the season and settle down as the year goes on. So there is hope for that to occur this year too. But there are already a whole bunch of players who won’t be returning until 2015. Let’s all hope for a healthier May.

  • 2014 Season Preview: Part I

    Choppers pitcher Chris Sale

    For the third straight year, we’re going to preview the upcoming DTBL season by using player stat projections to determine the projected order of finish.  These are NOT my personal predictions, so don’t hold it against me if I have your team projected much lower than you expect.  For a primer, I recommend reading the first part of last year’s preview, where I explained the methodology for the projections.  I did it exactly the same way this year.  ZiPS projections were used for all categories, except for saves, where Steamer projections were utilized instead.

    Here’s the cliff-notes version.  I used the projected stats for all players on each DTBL teams roster (post-draft) to compute team totals in all ten categories.  Because I don’t want to make any guesses on how you plan on utilizing your extra players, all 28 players are included, even those who you may plan on keeping in the minors all year.  Actually, that’s not quite true.  I decided to exclude the handful of pitchers who have recently undergone Tommy John surgery.  I didn’t think it made much sense to include players who probably won’t play this year.

    Multipliers were used to normalize the stats so that the totals are based on approximately 14 full seasons from hitters and 9 from pitchers.  So, while your bench players are included in the projections, the team totals are adjusted depending on how many hitters or pitchers are on your roster.  It should be pointed out that my method does unnecessarily penalize teams who plan to use an extra starting pitcher in a relief pitcher’s slot.  Those teams should be expected to exceed the projected totals in wins and strikeouts since they are likely to exceed the IP totals of the rest of the teams.  So keep that in mind.

    If you are wondering if these projections are even remotely worthwhile, keep in mind that last year’s projections turned out to be quite accurate.  They correctly predicted the top two teams, albeit in the wrong order.  They also identified the Cougars as the team that would take a big step forward, which they did, as well as the Moonshiners going in the opposite direction.  Eight of the ten teams finished within two spots of their predicted slot.  By no means am I suggesting that the teams at the bottom of these projections should give up before the season starts.  But this should give you a pretty good idea of the relative strengths and weaknesses of each team heading into the season.  I will try to point out instances where I don’t trust the projections for certain teams though.

    On to part one of our season preview.  These are the three teams projected to finish at the bottom of the standings.  We’ll start at the very bottom and work our way up.

    Mike’s Moonshiners

    Category – Projected Rank (2013 Rank)

    • Batting Average – 8th (9th)
    • Home Runs – 9th (5th)
    • Runs Batted In – 10th (8th)
    • Runs Scored – 5th (6th)
    • Stolen Bases – 5th (3rd-T)
    • Earned Run Average – 10th (9th)
    • WHIP Ratio – 10th (8th)
    • Wins – 7th (1st-T)
    • Saves – 5th (7th)
    • Strike Outs – 10th (7th)
    • Total Batting Points – 9th (7th-T)
    • Total Pitching Points – 10th (8th)
    • Total Points – 10th (7th)

    Summary:

    Just two years ago, the Moonshiners finished 1 1/2 points away from winning their first league title.  Last year, they had a hugely disappointing year, falling to 7th place.  If these projections are to be believed though, this season will be even worse.  The Moonshiners biggest problem is their starting pitching.  If you glance at ESPN’s SP player rater from last season, not one of the top 25 pitchers are on the Moonshiners roster.  So they lack a true ace who can carry them in most of the pitching categories.  The good news is they will have the benefit of a sixth starting pitcher with Drew Smyly occupying a bullpen spot.  A big year from him would give them a huge boost.  The offensive projections aren’t great either.  They seem to have solid players across the roster, but like the rotation, they don’t have a ton of high volume stat producers.  The Moonshiners have never finished worse than 7th place and have been a consistent contender.  The key for them to avoid their worst season ever will be to have a few guys break out and become stars and for Prince Fielder to return to being one of the elite power hitters in his new hitter friendly environment in Texas.

    Greg’s Gators

    Category – Projected Rank (2013 Rank)

    • Batting Average – 4th (5th)
    • Home Runs – 10th (9th)
    • Runs Batted In – 9th (10th)
    • Runs Scored – 9th (8th)
    • Stolen Bases – 1st (2nd)
    • Earned Run Average – 9th (10th)
    • WHIP Ratio – 7th (6th)
    • Wins – 10th (10th)
    • Saves – 2nd (3rd)
    • Strike Outs – 8th (9th)
    • Total Batting Points – 6th (9th)
    • Total Pitching Points – 9th (9th)
    • Total Points – 9th (9th)

    Summary:

    Well, no other team in these projections looks as similar to their 2013 results as the Gators.  In every single category, they are projected to finish within one spot of where they were last year.  This is somewhat surprising because they are a much younger squad now.  Gone is Gator lifer Derek Jeter.  And in are Wil Myers, Matt Adams, Michael Wacha and some other young stars in the making.  They now have one of the better core of young players in the league that also includes guys like Yoenis Cespedes, Starling Marte and Jean Segura.  They do have a few weak spots and a very unproven rotation, which leads to a projected finish near the bottom of the league.  Two categories they don’t have to worry about are stolen bases and saves.  They have plenty of speed and possibly the best bullpen in the league.  If a couple of the young starting pitchers pan out, the Gators could easily have their best season in many, many years.

    Charlie’s Thunder Choppers

    Category – Projected Rank (2013 Rank)

    • Batting Average – 9th (8th)
    • Home Runs – 5th (1st)
    • Runs Batted In – 8th (1st)
    • Runs Scored – 6th (3rd)
    • Stolen Bases – 7th (10th)
    • Earned Run Average – 7th (3rd)
    • WHIP Ratio – 8th (5th)
    • Wins – 5th (3rd)
    • Saves – 10th (1st)
    • Strike Outs – 3rd (6th)
    • Total Batting Points – 7th (3rd-T)
    • Total Pitching Points – 8th (2nd)
    • Total Points – 8th (3rd)

    Summary:

    Now we come to easily the most surprising projection of all, and the one for which I am the most suspicious.  The Choppers were the breakout team of 2013, finishing in third place.  They were a title contender until late in the season.  So what gives?  The projections show them taking a huge step backwards in both hitting and pitching.  Last year, they led the league in home runs and RBI, but are expected to finish 5th and 8th respectively this year.  It’s true they didn’t really add any sluggers in the draft, but that still seems like an odd fall from the top of the power categories.  Healthier years from Jose Bautista and Curtis Granderson, plus Mark Trumbo moving to the thin air of Arizona should keep them in the top half of the league in those categories.  The pitching staff will be interesting to watch.  Chris Sale was the shining star last year.  Alex Cobb is the newcomer to the rotation.  The one category drop which totally makes sense is saves.  The Choppers will not win that category again this year.  But they have plenty of potential closers who should keep them out of the basement.  In summary, I’m going to bet the over on this Choppers projection.