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2020 Season Preview: Part II

Tuesday, July 21st, 2020

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The first part of the 2020 DTBL season preview covered a pair of teams that were dealt serious blows to their 2020 aspirations many months ago.  But today, we’ll preview three teams that should probably feel pretty optimistic about their chances this season, for a variety of reasons.  First, a couple of these teams are projected to finish higher in the standings than they did a year ago.  All three appear to be relatively healthy heading into the season, despite some early COVID-19 scares.  With some exciting new faces on these rosters, gaping holes from a year ago have been filled as well.  While it may be hard to get fired up for a projected finish in the bottom half of the standings, these teams are absolutely championship contenders in a 60 game sprint.  Here are the teams projected to finish in sixth through eight places in the 2020 standings.

Dom’s Demigods

Category – Projected Rank (2019 Rank)

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

Summary:

There is really no way to go but up for the Demigods after a disastrous 2019.  It was the worst season in franchise history, finishing dead last with just 19 standings points.  That season was an outlier in almost every respect.  They had finished in the top half of the standings the previous five years.  What had been one of the league’s best offenses just one year prior suddenly fell to ninth, and a consistently above average pitching staff managed to finish last in all five pitching categories.  So what will it take to return to their usual form?  Adding Fernando Tatis with the first overall pick in the draft should fix a lot of weaknesses.  He joins Francisco Lindor and Jose Altuve to make up what might be the best middle infield in the league.  So far, Freddie Freeman seems to have been the baseball player who suffered the worst symptoms from COVID-19.  Fortunately, he appears to be fully healthy now and should be ready to go soon.  Ketel Marte and Austin Meadows were among the few bright spots for the Demigods last year and should headline the outfield crew again.  Meadows is currently sidelined with coronavirus, but assuming he returns healthy, this group looks pretty decent too.  The projections show J.D. Martinez continuing to be an offensive force as well.  Pitching is where things get a little dicey.  Again, they can’t possibly be any worse than last year.  Aaron Nola is clearly the staff ace and Max Fried has exciting upside.  You just don’t know for sure what you are getting from anyone else.  Corey Kluber has been on the decline for a while and is now pitching in Texas.  Zac Gallen is an intriguing young arm though, and it will be interested to see how Kenta Maeda’s return to the rotation goes in Minnesota.  The Demigods will look to their bullpen to rack up a lot of strikeouts, but probably not many saves.  Nobody on the roster is a projected closer to start the season.  Josh James could be pretty interesting if he winds up in the Astros rotation.  Expect the Demigods to prove last year was an aberration.  If they get off to a hot start, 2019 will be quickly forgotten.

Kat’s Komodos

Category – Projected Rank (2019 Rank)

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

Summary:

These batting projections for the Komodos are quite interesting.  A team that finished near the bottom of the league in the power categories (HR, RBI) last year is now expected to be among the league’s best.  And this is despite the fact that the only seemingly significant power addition to the roster was first round pick Yordan Alvarez.  Alvarez is indeed a major power addition, but this also may point to some underachieving from the roster in this regard last year.  Jose Ramirez definitely underachieved early last season, but returned to form in the second half.  He is one of the best power/speed players in all of baseball.  Cody Bellinger is one of the best players, period.  And then there are Joey Gallo and Nelson Cruz who also figure to be near the top of the leaderboard in the power categories.  So yeah, those projections actually make sense.  Maybe the one player who will be most important for the Komodos to improve upon last year’s numbers, by staying healthy, is shortstop Corey Seager.  Rougned Odor was a sneaky good add to the infield as well, according to these projections.  Like the Demigods though, the success of the Komodos this year will depend on what they get from their pitching staff.  It was basically a one man show in their 2019 rotation with Walker Buehler being the only one to accumulate a positive PAR.  While he is a capable ace, he’ll need some help this year.  Unfortunately, two of their other top starters, Jose Quintana and Jake Odorizzi, may not be ready to go on Opening Day (definitely not in Quintana’s case).  The rest of the rotation will be filled with steady, but not spectacular veterans.  The bullpen looks to be very good though.  Kirby Yates and Aroldis Chapman give the Komodos two of the top closers in the game.  Brandon Workman was a nice addition to provide them with three guys likely to earn a lot of saves this season.  Dating back to their days as the Gators, these two franchises haven’t finished higher than eighth place since 2010.  With an exciting offense to lean on, this could be the year that changes.

Kelly’s Cougars

Category – Projected Rank (2019 Rank)

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

Summary:

Now we come to what might be the most interesting set of projections in this entire series.  At first glance, a sixth place finish for a team that finished sixth last year doesn’t seem particularly notable.  But look at that category breakdown.  The Cougars surprised many be compiling the second most batting points in the league in 2019.  They were unable to remain competitive though because their pitching staff really let them down.  And now we are seeing the exact opposite in these projections.  The Cougars are the first team covered in this series that appears to have a pretty strong pitching staff.  Yet they are expected to be dragged down by the hitters that carried them a year ago.  Two players who likely won’t be responsible for a fall in batting points are middle infielders Gleyber Torres and Trevor Story.  Kris Bryant and Eugenio Suarez complete a pretty strong infield.  Where they may be a bit lacking in star power is in the outfield.  Tommy Pham has the highest PAR projection of that group, but that’s at a modest 1.1.  This is a veteran group as well, so there might be limited upside.  The pairing of Yadier Molina and Salvador Perez behind the plate should be pretty good though.  The pitching staff should easily lead the Cougars to more pitching points this year.  Lucas Giolito joins Blake Snell to form a great, and relatively young, top of the rotation.  Sonny Gray experienced a career resurgence last year in Cincinnati.  The Cougars will hope for the same from Madison Bumgarner who will now be pitching in Arizona.  The bullpen is pretty intriguing as well.  Alex Colome is the veteran closer in the group, but Nick Anderson is probably the most exciting member.  The peripheral numbers indicate that he has a chance to become one of the next great relievers in the league.  If Hansel Robles proves last year wasn’t a fluke, the Cougars could find themselves near the top of the league in saves.  There is a lot to like about this Cougars roster.  Some combination of last year’s offensive output and these healthy projections for the pitching staff would make the Cougars a darkhorse contender in 2020.

Posted in Cougars, Demigods, Komodos | No Comments »

A Family Affair

Tuesday, March 10th, 2020

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Trivia time!  What do Fernando Tatis, Vladimir Guerrero, Dante Bichette and Craig Biggio all have in common?  If you guessed that they all hit at least .290 with 15+ home runs for their respective DTBL teams in 1999, you are correct!  Oh, and they also all have sons who were selected in the first 15 picks of the 2020 DTBL Draft.  This league has been around long enough that we had already seen a few sons of former DTBL players become second generation league members.  But in the previous instances, the fathers only had a cup of coffee in this league at the tail end of their careers.  This four-some is different.  All four compiled multiple strong seasons in the league and all but Tatis were among the league’s best players in its first 10-15 years.

Interestingly, it is the least accomplished father of those four whose son enters the league with the highest acclaim.  The Demigods selected the do-it-all shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. with the first pick in the draft.  Tatis hit .317 with 22 homers and 16 stolen bases in a MLB rookie campaign that was cut short by injury.  Provided he has a full year of solid health in 2020, it isn’t unreasonable to think he could be the second straight #1 draft pick to post a 30/30 season in his DTBL rookie year.  The Demigods will turn to Tatis to help put their miserable 2019 behind them.  Keep in mind that prior to last year, this is a team that finished in the top half of the standings in five straight seasons.  Tatis has the talent to lift them back up to their recent historic norms.

While Tatis was spectacular last year, he probably wouldn’t have won the NL Rookie of the Year award even if he had stayed healthy.  Not with Pete Alonso breaking the MLB all-time rookie record for home runs.  Alonso slugged 53 homers, which would have led the DTBL by four had he been in the league a year ago.  His 120 RBIs would have been fourth best in the league.  He was worthy of the second overall pick in the draft on his own merit, but he also happens to be an ideal fit for the Choppers who finished next to last in home runs and RBIs and dead last in total batting points a year ago.  This is the third straight year the Choppers have used their first pick on an infielder.  Alonso figures to have the biggest impact of them all.

The Komodos made it consecutive 2019 MLB Rookie of the Year winners when they selected Astros outfielder/DH Yordan Alvarez with the third pick.  Alvarez crashed the AL rookie party that was supposed to be all about a couple guys that will be covered below.  He hit .317 with 27 home runs and 78 RBIs despite not making his debut until June.  Had he been in the majors from the jump like Alonso, perhaps he too could have challenged the rookie home run record.  Alvarez is currently sidelined with a knee issue.  But assuming that doesn’t keep him out of action too long, he figures to be one of the league’s top sluggers.  He will join Cody Bellinger, Joey Gallo, Nelson Cruz and Jose Ramirez to form what could be a sneaky great Komodos offense.

Sneaky great is also an appropriate way of describing Keston Hiura’s young MLB career.  The Jackalope tabbed the Brewers second baseman with the fourth pick.  In 84 games, Hiura managed to hit .303 with 19 homers and nine stolen bases.  Extrapolate those numbers out to a full season and you could have the makings of a stud at a very weak offensive position.  The Jackalope have had one of the league’s best infields for a while now, but Hiura injects it with a needed shot of youth.  The spring is not off to a great start from a health perspective for the Jackalope.  Hiura could help cure much of what ails them, however.

Only one player selected in the first round won’t be making his DTBL debut this season.  Lucas Giolito was signed as a free agent by the Mavericks late in the 2017 season and was subsequently released prior to 2018, when the Mavericks picked him up again in the seventh round of the draft.  But he was released again by the Mavericks that May and had such a poor season that he got dropped from the league last year.  2019 Giolito was basically a brand new pitcher, making the All-Star team and compiling a Cy Young campaign resume.  The pitcher the Cougars drafted with the fifth pick this year really doesn’t resemble the one who pitched for the Mavericks.  In ’19, Giolito posted a 3.41 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, won 14 games and struck out an impressive 228 batters in 177 innings.  The Cougars pitching staff prevented them from being serious contenders a year ago.  Giolito could help change that.

A year ago, it seemed like a near certainty that I would be writing about Vladimir Guerrero Jr. being the first player taken in the 2020 draft.  Not that some of these other guys weren’t highly touted prospects, but Guerrero was at a different level.  His MLB debut became a must-see event, unlike any player I can recall since Bryce Harper.  That incredible, and probably unfair, level of hype made his 2019 season seem a little underwhelming.  He hit .272 with “only” 15 homers.  Here’s another number that is equally relevant though:  21.  That’s the age Guerrero will turn next week.  What Ronald Acuna and Juan Soto have done in their teens/very early 20s just isn’t normal.  Struggling to get your footing in the big leagues like Guerrero did *is* normal.  I have it on good authority that the Moonshiners were shocked and thrilled to grab him with the sixth pick in this draft.  If Vladito does in fact reach his potential, we’ll all look back on this pick and wonder how it came to be.

The Mavericks were also probably quite surprised about the availability of their first round pick.  They selected slugging outfielder Eloy Jimenez with the seventh pick.  Much of what I wrote about Guerrero applies to Jimenez as well, although he is a little older and did wind up posting pretty solid numbers thanks to a strong finish to the 2019 season.  31 home runs and 79 RBIs are impressive totals for a rookie and could be viewed as the floor of what to expect from here on out.  He seems a good bet to improve on the .267 average too.  Assuming good health, the Mavericks outfield is absolutely ridiculous.  Mike Trout, Juan Soto, Aaron Judge, Nick Castellanos and now Jimenez.  The rest of the roster ain’t too shabby either.

The Beanballers first official selection as a member of the DTBL was another flashy young shortstop who is the son of a former DTBL player, Bo Bichette.  Bichette has the fewest big league games under his belt of this first round group, but he made his short stint in the big leagues count.  In just 46 games, he hit .311 with 11 homers.  While not directly fantasy relevant, he also had 18 doubles.  So the extra base power appears to be legit.  With a new league member, it is hard to predict what the draft strategy might be.  In this case, it looks like the Beanballers went with the best young talent available, because shortstop was not a position of need with Trea Turner and Amed Rosario already on the roster.  You can’t go wrong with a middle infielder with huge upside though.  Bichette joins a roster with plenty of talent, so it will be interesting to see how the Beanballers do on their maiden voyage.

Seven of the first eight selections were hitters.  We finally saw a rookie pitcher go off the board when the Darkhorses selected Chris Paddack at #9.  While still at the very beginning of his career, Paddack already has an advanced repertoire, which he used to compile some gaudy numbers in 2019.  His sub 1.00 WHIP and 3.33 ERA were pretty incredible for a first season in the majors.  This selection made all the sense in the world for the Darkhorses, who have fallen a little short of the champion Kings the past two seasons because they didn’t have quite enough pitching.  Paddack will join Jacob deGrom, Patrick Corbin and Jose Berrios in a rotation that seems quite capable of closing that gap and claiming their first DTBL title in 10 years.

The Kings probably would have drafted any of the nine players selected ahead of them if they had fallen to the last slot in the first round.  Instead, they settled for a pitcher with very intriguing stuff, but also one who missed half of the 2019 campaign with a PED suspension.  Athletics hurler Frankie Montas was the final pick of the first round of the 2020 DTBL Draft.  Before the suspension, Montas was electric.  He struck out more than a batter per inning with a 2.63 ERA and 1.12 WHIP.  While starting pitching has been the Kings strength in their recent championship runs, Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer aren’t getting any younger.  So they will turn to Montas as a potential ace in waiting.  In the meantime, he will join those guys in a rather formidable rotation.

A quick note on one second round selection referenced up top:  the Cougars selected second baseman Cavan Biggio with the 15th overall pick.  This connection is intriguing since Cavan’s father Craig was also a second baseman on the first two Cougars championship squads and was an all-time great for both the Cougars and Choppers.

After a bit of a slow start, we’ve hit our stride the past few days and are now on a great pace.  We should have plenty of time between the conclusion of the draft and Opening Day.  Keep up the good work!

Posted in Beanballers, Choppers, Cougars, Darkhorses, Demigods, Draft, Jackalope, Kings, Komodos, Mavericks, Moonshiners | 2 Comments »

DTBL Best of the Decade

Tuesday, December 31st, 2019

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The 2010s marked a decisive change from the first decade of this millennium in the DTBL.  The previous decade saw two teams dominate the landscape with the Kings opening it up with four straight titles from 2000-2003 and the Darkhorses doing the same from 2007-2010.  This decade, half of the franchises won at least one championship and only the 2019 Kings were able to successfully defend a title.  The 2010s started with arguably the craziest season in league history as the Darkhorses and Naturals became the first co-champions.  Two years later, the Naturals were involved in another epic finish as they just barely edged out three other teams to win another title.  The second half of the decade belonged to the Kings, as they have now won three of the past four championships.

As we enter a new decade, it is time to take a look back at the past 10 years in the DTBL.  Here are some of the best teams and players of the 2010s.

Franchise of the Decade:  Kevin’s Kings

It was a bit of a roller coaster ride for the Kings in the 2010s.  In 2013, they were able to put an end to their ten year title drought, barely edging out the Mavericks for the fifth championship in franchise history.  The remainder of the decade was pretty crazy for them.  Three times, they finished in the bottom half of the standings, including a dreadful last place finish in 2015 and a ninth place finish in 2017.  But they somehow managed to turn each of those poor years into a championship run the following year.  All told, they won four championships in the decade, the most of any franchise.  They weren’t the most consistent franchise, but titles are what matter most and nobody had more of them than the Kings.  The clear second choice for this honor would be the Naturals who won three titles, all coming in the same years the Giants won the World Series (2010, 2012, 2014).

Team of the Decade:  2015 Jay’s Jackalope

The Jackalope made their championships count.  Both of their title winning seasons were among the most impressive this league has ever seen.  It is difficult to compare teams from different seasons since so much of fantasy success is relative to the competition.  So simply going with the team with the most standings points doesn’t necessarily make them better than title winning teams from other years.  What sets apart the 2015 Jackalope, and their 2011 squad too for that matter, was the manner in which they dominated the rest of the league.  They won the league by a record breaking 19 points over the Mavericks.  The Jackalope offense was led by MVP winner Josh Donaldson and runner-up Paul Goldschmidt.  Meanwhile, Jake Arrieta led the pitching staff and won both the Rookie of the Year and Cy Young awards, giving the Jackalope a clean sweep of the three major awards.  The year started with the Jackalope making some major March trades, dealing away franchise icons Albert Pujols, Felix Hernandez and Zack Greinke.  But in return, they acquired Josh Donaldson, Gerrit Cole and Anthony Rendon, all of whom continue to reap benefits for them today.  It was one of the most impressive roster shake-ups we’ve ever seen.  Honorable mention in this category could go to a bunch of different teams.  Certainly the 2011 Jackalope who also won the league by double digits, the 2014 Naturals who set the record for most total points (89), the 2019 Kings who successfully defended their title with a much stronger season in the follow-up, and the 2017 Mavericks who finally cashed in a championship to go along with their historically dominant pitching staff for much of the decade.

Player of the Decade:  Mike Trout, Mavericks (2012-2019)

This was about as easy of a decision as you will find.  Mike Trout has been in the DTBL for eight seasons now.  In all eight seasons he has made the All-Star team and received MVP votes.  Shockingly, he only has one MVP award to his name so far.  But he has finished in the top five of that vote six times, including each of his first five seasons.  He also won the Rookie of the Year award in 2012.  In the 2010s, he led all DTBL players in PAR (71.0) by more than 20 points.  His decade ranks in the five offensive categories:  .308 average (5th), 280 home runs (3rd), 736 runs batted in (14th), 882 runs scored (1st), 195 stolen bases (7th).  Keep in mind that many players had a two year head start over him in the counting categories.  In 2015, his worst season according to PAR, he hit .299 with 41 home runs.  A second round pick by the Mavericks in 2012, Trout holds the franchise career record in homers, runs and stolen bases and is second in RBI.  Nobody else really garnered any consideration for this honor, but let’s just say Paul Goldschmidt was the runner-up.

Pitcher of the Decade:  Clayton Kershaw, Mavericks (2010-2019)

This was a pretty easy choice too, and yes, it is another Maverick.  In the 2010s, Clayton Kershaw won a pair of Cy Young awards, finished in the top four for that award seven straight years and made seven DTBL All-Star teams.  His numbers during the four year stretch of 2013-2016 were downright silly, posting ERAs below 2.00 in three of those years.  He won the Cy Young in 2013 and 2014 with ERAs of 1.83 and 1.77.  He posted a double digit PAR for seven straight seasons (2011-2017).  For the decade, his 2.30 ERA and 0.961 WHIP were easily the best among qualified starting pitchers.  His 154 wins ranked third as did his 2,131 strikeouts.  Somehow, the Mavericks nabbed him in the sixth round of the 2009 draft.  He is the franchise leader among starting pitchers in every relevant category.  Two other pitchers had similarly great decades:  the Kings veteran duo of Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander.  But unlike those two, Kershaw was an elite performer for the entire decade.  Scherzer didn’t really reach that level until 2013 and Verlander had some down years in the middle of the decade.

 

Now let’s move onto the All-Decade players.  I’ve selected 46 players and split them into first and second teams.  Unlike the honors I’ve bestowed above, these selections were mostly objective.  I went with the players who accumulated the highest PAR in the decade, with exceptions at two positions:  catcher and relief pitcher.  Because even some above average performers at those positions have trouble accumulating positive PAR, I didn’t want to ding players for longevity in which some negative PAR years may have dragged their total down.  Also, I didn’t want to reward a few closers who have had just a couple great years, enough to put them near the top of the PAR leaderboard.  So I looked at the full set of numbers to make my decisions at those two positions.  For players who changed positions throughout the course of the decade, they were classified at whichever position they appeared in the most seasons.  Without further ado, here are 46 of the best players from the 2010s.

 

First Team All-Decade

C – Victor Martinez (Naturals ’10-’15, Mavericks ’16, Kings ’17):  .301 AVG, 115 HR, 504 RBI, 389 R, 5 SB, 10.8 PAR

C – Buster Posey (Demigods ’11-’19):  .302 AVG, 118 HR, 590 RBI, 521 R, 23 SB, 4.8 PAR

1B – Paul Goldschmidt (Jackalope ’12-’19):  .294 AVG, 235 HR, 781 RBI, 778 R, 123 SB, 51.0 PAR

2B – Jose Altuve (Demigods ’12-’19):  .316 AVG, 125 HR, 514 RBI, 693 R, 240 SB, 43.0 PAR

3B – Nolan Arenado (Naturals ’14-’19):  .298 AVG, 215 HR, 677 RBI, 574 R, 13 SB, 42.2 PAR

SS – Francisco Lindor (Demigods ’16-’19):  .284 AVG, 115 HR, 327 RBI, 423 R, 81 SB, 28.3 PAR

1B/3B – Miguel Cabrera (Naturals ’10-’18, Mavericks ’19):  .317 AVG, 265 HR, 928 RBI, 783 R, 14 SB, 43.2 PAR

2B/SS – Robinson Cano (Kings ’10-’19):  .302 AVG, 227 HR, 851 RBI, 791 R, 34 SB, 38.4 PAR

OF – Mike Trout (Mavericks ’12-’19):  .308 AVG, 280 HR, 736 RBI, 882 R, 195 SB, 71.0 PAR

OF – Nelson Cruz (Mavericks ’10-’11, Gators ’12-’17, Komodos ’18-’19):  .283 AVG, 338 HR, 941 RBI, 761 R, 49 SB, 47.6 PAR

OF – Mookie Betts (Kings ’15-’19):  .302 AVG, 134 HR, 447 RBI, 575 R, 116 SB, 41.3 PAR

OF – Andrew McCutchen (Naturals ’10-’17, Choppers ’18-’19):  .286 AVG, 219 HR, 763 RBI, 864 R, 165 SB, 40.7 PAR

OF – Ryan Braun (Jackalope ’10-’19):  .295 AVG, 236 HR, 796 RBI, 753 R, 164 SB, 40.3 PAR

DH – Edwin Encarnacion (Jackalope ’10, Naturals ’11, Mavericks ’12-’14, Darkhorses ’15-’19):  .265 AVG, 307 HR, 883 RBI, 752 R, 39 SB, 42.3 PAR

SP – Clayton Kershaw (Mavericks ’10-’19):  2.30 ERA, 0.96 WHIP, 154 W, 0 SV, 2,131 K, 112.6 PAR

SP – Max Scherzer (Jackalope ’10, Kings ’10-’19):  3.07 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 155 W, 0 SV, 2,348 K, 98.3 PAR

SP – Justin Verlander (Kings ’10-’19):  3.10 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, 159 W, 0 SV, 2,210 K, 95.5 PAR

SP – Zack Greinke (Jackalope ’10, Naturals ’11-’14, Moonshiners ’15-’19):  3.21 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, 152 W, 0 SV, 1,852 K, 75.1 PAR

SP – Chris Sale (Naturals ’11, Choppers ’12-’19):  3.05 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 102 W, 6 SV, 1,907 K, 68.9 PAR

RP – Craig Kimbrel (Choppers ’11-’19):  2.14 ERA, 0.93 WHIP, 27 W, 344 SV, 855 K, 34.6 PAR

RP – Kenley Jansen (Mavericks ’11-’19):  2.35 ERA, 0.89 WHIP, 29 W, 295 SV, 827 K, 32.1 PAR

RP – Aroldis Chapman (Mavericks ’11, ’15-’17, Jackalope ’12-’14, Komodos ’18-’19):  2.28 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 27 W, 271 SV, 796 K, 27.2 PAR

RP – Jonathan Papelbon (Kings ’10-’15, Jackalope ’15-’16):  2.86 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 27 W, 217 SV, 462 K, 8.8 PAR

 

Second Team All-Decade

C – Yadier Molina (Choppers ’10-’16, Cougars ’17-’19):  .289 AVG, 120 HR, 645 RBI, 500 R, 53 SB, -0.1 PAR

C – J.T. Realmuto (Darkhorses ’16-’19):  .282 AVG, 73 HR, 266 RBI, 290 R, 32 SB, 5.6 PAR

1B – Joey Votto (Naturals ’10-’19):  .306 AVG, 229 HR, 745 RBI, 825 R, 66 SB, 38.2 PAR

2B – Ian Kinsler (Moonshiners ’10-’16, Jackalope ’17-’18):  .268 AVG, 163 HR, 609 RBI, 835 R, 148 SB, 28.5 PAR

3B – Adrian Beltre (Choppers ’10-’18):  .307 AVG, 226 HR, 781 RBI, 691 R, 10 SB, 34.9 PAR

SS – Trea Turner (Naturals ’16-’19):  .292 AVG, 60 HR, 199 RBI, 306 R, 145 SB, 28.1 PAR

1B/3B – Freddie Freeman (Demigods ’12-’19):  .296 AVG, 199 HR, 698 RBI, 699 R, 39 SB, 36.2 PAR

2B/SS – Brian Dozier (Moonshiners ’14-’19):  .245 AVG, 157 HR, 437 RBI, 521 R, 77 SB, 22.2 PAR

OF – Charlie Blackmon (Cougars ’15-’19):  .309 AVG, 142 HR, 389 RBI, 561 R, 87 SB, 37.3 PAR

OF – Bryce Harper (Darkhorses ’13-’19):  .278 AVG, 197 HR, 576 RBI, 607 R, 70 SB, 35.1 PAR

OF – Christian Yelich (Darkhorses ’14-’19):  .304 AVG, 134 HR, 481 RBI, 550 R, 111 SB, 34.8 PAR

OF – Giancarlo Stanton (Jackalope ’11-’19):  .268 AVG, 278 HR, 701 RBI, 627 R, 36 SB, 34.4 PAR

OF – Carlos Gonzalez (Kings ’10-’17):  .293 AVG, 197 HR, 648 RBI, 638 R, 97 SB, 33.7 PAR

DH – Albert Pujols (Jackalope ’10-’14, Mavericks ’15, ’18, Choppers ’16-’17, Darkhorses ’18):  .272 AVG, 250 HR, 813 RBI, 630 R, 49 SB, 34.6 PAR

SP – David Price (Naturals ’10-’18, Komodos ’19):  3.29 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 134 W, 0 SV, 1,804 K, 62.4 PAR

SP – Madison Bumgarner (Cougars ’11-’19):  3.16 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 111 W, 0 SV, 1,664 K, 59.9 PAR

SP – Felix Hernandez (Jackalope ’10-’14, ’18, Moonshiners ’15-’17):  3.20 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 104 W, 0 SV, 1,595 K, 52.1 PAR

SP – Jon Lester (Naturals ’10-’12, Choppers ’13-’19):  3.56 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 144 W, 0 SV, 1,773 K, 51.0 PAR

SP – Corey Kluber (Demigods ’14-’19):  2.94 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 83 W, 0 SV, 1,238 K, 50.9 PAR

RP – Francisco Rodriguez (Moonshiners ’10-’11, Mavericks ’12, Naturals ’14, Kings ’15-’17):  3.22 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 23 W, 181 SV, 407 K, 7.0 PAR

RP – Greg Holland (Gators ’12-’13, Naturals ’13-’17, Komodos ’18, Mavericks ’19):  3.06 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 14 W, 198 SV, 428 K, 4.5 PAR

RP – David Robertson (Cougars ’12-’19):  2.93 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 31 W, 127 SV, 515 K, 8.1 PAR

RP – Roberto Osuna (Moonshiners ’16-’19):  2.80 ERA, 0.91 WHIP, 13 W, 134 SV, 270 K, 13.8 PAR

 

I thought about writing a short blurb for each player above, but decided that would take far too much time.  Here are a couple links to leaderboards for the decade, for your perusal:

Batters

Pitchers

Feel free to chime in below if you feel some player(s) were snubbed.  What an amazing decade it was in the DTBL.  Here’s to the 2020s being just as great.  Happy New Year!

Posted in Choppers, Cougars, Darkhorses, Demigods, Gators, Jackalope, Kings, Komodos, Mavericks, Moonshiners, Naturals | No Comments »

Moose, Mo and More

Wednesday, August 7th, 2019

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A few times in recent years, I have taken the opportunity to write about the DTBL careers of a set of players recently inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.  Well, I think I might as well go ahead and make it an annual tradition for my July recap article.  Our league has reached a level of longevity such that virtually every player inducted into the Hall had a significant impact on this league as well.

On July 21, six players were honored in Cooperstown, New York.  All six are DTBL alums and at least three would be sure fire Hall-of-Famers in this league as well, if such a thing existed.  The six honorees were:  Harold Baines, Roy Halladay, Edgar Martinez, Mike Mussina, Mariano Rivera and Lee Smith.  Here is a review of their DTBL careers, going in alphabetical order.

Harold Baines was one of the more controversial selections in recent years, chosen by the Veterans Committee after never receiving much support during his time on the Baseball Writers Association ballot.  Personally, I find arguments over players who *are* selected to be tiresome.  More time should be spent arguing about players who are left out rather than trying to diminish those selected.  Baines was an excellent player, and a personal favorite of mine.  That said, he was probably the least accomplished DTBL player of this group with his prime years coming well before this league started.  He was drafted by the Gators in the inaugural draft of 1993 and spent five seasons with them as their primary designated hitter and was a member of their 1995 championship team.  He then spent his final two seasons as a part time player on a couple expansion teams:  the Angels in 1998 and the Moonshiners inaugural season of 1999.  Baines hit at least .290 in every season except his last one.  All told, he compiled an impressive .303 career batting average with 81 home runs.

The late Roy Halladay was a major part of the modern pitching evolution of the late 2000s and early 2010s when power pitchers started to rule the day.  He spent his entire DTBL career with the Jackalope and litters their career leaderboard.  His run from 2008 to 2011 was just about as good as it gets over a four year span.  In every one of those years, he struck out over 200 with ERAs below 3.00 and at least 17 wins.  He won the DTBL Cy Young Award in 2010 and finished third in 2008 and 2011.  On three occasions, he won 20+ games (2003, 2008, 2010).  In his 12 year career, he racked up 177 victories, which ranks 10th in league history and third among players who debuted after 2000, behind Justin Verlander and C.C. Sabathia.  Halladay is the Jackalope franchise career leader in wins and innings pitched and trails only Felix Hernandez in strikeouts.  His 75.8 Pitching PAR also leads the way, by a margin that will only increase when I get around to calculating the numbers from his first three seasons.  The Jackalope selected Halladay in the fourth round of the 2002 Draft.  I would say that pick worked out pretty well for them.  He was a critical piece of their first championship squad in 2011.

As designated hitters go, nobody has ever been as good for as long as Edgar Martinez.  Interestingly enough though, he actually got his start in this league as a third baseman for three years, even though DH was an official position in our league in those days.  While he could certainly hit for power, his carrying tool was his ability to hit for average.  His career mark of .316 ranks ninth in league history.  But he hit over .320 for six consecutive seasons from 1995 through 2000.  Martinez debuted for the Kings in 1993 and then played for the expansion Metros in 1994 before settling in with the Cougars for the remainder of his career (1995 through 2004).  Unfortunately, my transaction records are a little scattered from the 90s, so I don’t recall exactly how he made those team jumps.  I do know that the Cougars must have cut him loose after his typically solid 1998 season though because they then reacquired him with their first round pick in 1999.  I think expansion draft rules that year may have played a part.  But anyway, the Cougars managed to hang onto him and he continued to hit for them for years to come.  He won a DTBL Championship with the Cougars in 1996.  He is their career batting average leader at .317.  For his DTBL career, Martinez also hit 239 home runs with 956 RBI.  He topped 100 RBI in five different seasons.  There have been few pure hitters better than Edgar Martinez in the past quarter century.

Justin Verlander needs just two more wins to reach 200 for his DTBL career.  When he does that, he will become just the fifth player in league history to reach that mark.  The other four are now all Hall-of-Famers, thanks to the recent induction of Mike Mussina.  Had I not just looked it up, I don’t think I would have remembered or guessed that Mussina finished his career just one win shy of the league’s all time leader, Greg Maddux.  Mussina won 239 games despite never compiling 20 in a single season.  He won exactly 20 for the first and only time in his final season of 2008, but was an in-season free agent signing by the Moonshiners that year and only compiled 16 wins for them.  But he posted double digit wins in an impressive 15 of 16 DTBL seasons.  In addition to all the wins, he also ranks fifth in league history with 2,576 strikeouts and pitched more innings than every pitcher not named Maddux.  They are the only two to record over 3,000 DTBL innings.  Mussina was drafted by the Kings in 1993 and spent two seasons with them before being part of one of the league’s first blockbuster trades during the 1995 Draft.  Unfortunately, as covered earlier, my transaction records from those days are rather lacking, so I don’t have the complete details.  But I do recall it being a huge deal.  Anyway, it certainly worked out for the Choppers who retained his services for the next 13 seasons.  He and Greg Maddux top pretty much all of the Choppers career pitching numbers.  That duo were a big reason why the Choppers won league titles in 1997 and 1999.  While he might not be at the top of your mind when you think of the all-time great pitchers, he should be.  Mike Mussina was one of the best pitchers in DTBL history.

Mariano Rivera was the first player to ever be unanimously selected for the Hall of Fame.  His case for enshrinement was pretty impeccable.  Obviously, that would be true of his DTBL career as well.  His 643 career saves is an incredible 83 more than any other pitcher has accumulated.  I doubt anyone will come close to that total anytime soon.  He topped 30 saves in 15 of his 17 seasons, with injuries cutting short the two seasons in which he failed to reach that total.  Even in his final season of 2013, he managed to rack up 44 saves.  His career high save total came in 2004 with 53 and he reached 50 in 2001 as well.  But it wasn’t just the saves.  His 2.02 ERA and 0.973 WHIP are both easily the lowest in league history among pitchers with at least 800 innings pitched.  He had so many seasons with a sub 2.00 ERA and 40+ saves that it is basically impossible to pick a career best season.  486 of Rivera’s saves came with the Cougars who drafted him in the first round of 1997, coming right off the heals of their third championship in four years.  He remained with the Cougars all the way until 2009, when they traded him to the Mavericks for Mike Lowell, not the best trade the Cougars have ever made.  Rivera had a productive season and a half for the Mavericks before he was traded again during the 2011 Draft to the Choppers in exchange for a second round pick which would become Starlin Castro.  Rivera’s final two seasons were with the Choppers where he continued to be one of the best relievers in baseball.  Oddly enough, Rivera never won a DTBL Championship while winning five World Series titles with the Yankees.  Mariano Rivera rode one pitch, a nasty cutter, to a Hall of Fame career.  He is the greatest relief pitcher in MLB and DTBL history.

Finally, we have Lee Smith, the third former Thunder Chopper of this class.  Like Baines, he was selected by the Veterans Committee and compiled most of his Hall of Fame numbers before this league started.  That said, his DTBL career was short, but productive.  He was an inaugural DTBL Draft selection of the Choppers in 1993.  He saved 114 games for the Choppers in 1993 through 1995, which still puts him fourth in franchise history in that category.  His 33 saves in the strike shortened 1994 season led the league.  Through the first three seasons of this league’s history, Smith held the all-time saves lead.  Obviously that didn’t hold up very long though as he didn’t record a save in his final DTBL season of 1996.  While he bounced around a whole bunch of MLB teams in the latter stages of his career, he did not pitch for any DTBL team besides the Choppers.  One of the original fireballing closers, Lee Smith is a worthy Hall of Famer.

On to the awards for July 2019.

Batters of the Week:

Week 15 (7/1 – 7/7) – Yulieski Gurriel, Demigods
Week 16 (7/11 – 7/14) – Josh Donaldson, Jackalope
Week 17 (7/15 – 7/21) – Ronald Acuna, Jackalope
Week 18 (7/22 – 7/28) – Nelson Cruz, Komodos
Week 19 (7/29 – 8/4) – Starling Marte, Komodos

Pitchers of the Week:

Week 15 (7/1 – 7/7) – Aaron Nola, Demigods
Week 16 (7/11 – 7/14) – Mike Soroka, Mavericks
Week 17 (7/15 – 7/21) – Clayton Kershaw, Mavericks
Week 18 (7/22 – 7/28) – Stephen Strasburg, Mavericks
Week 19 (7/29 – 8/4) – Justin Verlander, Kings

July was a good month for Braves players and Mavericks pitchers, as three of each won weekly awards.  Braves and Jackalope teammates Josh Donaldson and Ronald Acuna took the Batter of the Week honors surrounding the All-Star break.  Two other DTBL teammates won the award the following couple weeks as Komodos sluggers Nelson Cruz and Starling Marte finished the month with a bang.  The Mavericks pitching staff has been heating up as of late.  60% of their rotation claimed a weekly honor in July with Mike Soroka, Clayton Kershaw and Stephen Strasburg all continuing to pitch extremely well.  Two of the players listed above parlayed their strong weeks into a full month of excellence in July.

Batter of the Month:

Yulieski Gurriel, Demigods
.398 AVG, 12 HR, 31 RBI, 18 R, 0 SB, 3.26 PAR

Pitcher of the Month:

Stephen Strasburg, Mavericks
1.14 ERA, 0.916 WHIP, 5 W, 0 SV, 44 K, 3.21 PAR

Yulieski Gurriel has been a solid big league hitter for some time now.  But one thing that has kept him from being discussed among the elite players in the game is a relative lack of power at a position where big home run totals are expected.  Entering this season, his career high for homers was 18 in 2017.  Entering July, he was on his typically pedestrian pace with just eight dingers.  But then he went and hit 12 in a span of 18 games and has already smashed his career high mark.  In addition to the dozen July home runs, he also came just short of hitting .400 for the month (.398).  Despite those gaudy numbers, he won this award by the slimmest of margins over Moonshiners third baseman Rafael Devers, who has basically been on fire for three straight months now.  Nobody else was close to Gurriel or Devers.

It is genarally a good sign for a pitcher when he allows fewer earned runs than he knocks in at the plate in any given game.  In July, Stephen Strasburg pulled that trick for the entire month!  He surrendered just four earned runs while compiling a 1.14 ERA and added six RBIs to help his own cause while at the plate.  Strasburg continues the trend of veteran pitchers winning this monthly pitching honor.  But at 31 years old, he is actually the youngest pitcher to win this award in 2019.  He was a comfortable winner, but two other pitchers who had a great run in July were Astros righties Justin Verlander (Kings) and Gerrit Cole (Jackalope).  With the addition of Zack Greinke to their rotation, it would appear the Astros are well armed for another World Series run.

A reminder that the DTBL trade deadline is coming up next week:  Thursday, August 15.  Trades must be accepted by both parties by midnight on the 15th, even though trades consummated between the 12th and 15th won’t be processed until the following Monday.

Posted in Awards, Choppers, Cougars, Demigods, Jackalope, Mavericks | No Comments »

2019 Season Preview: Part I

Friday, March 22nd, 2019

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The 2019 DTBL Draft wrapped up earlier this week and the regular season officially started on Wednesday and Thursday with a pair of games in Japan between the Mariners and Athletics.  So it is time to start looking forward to the 2019 DTBL season.  The Kings enter the year as the defending champions, having nearly gone wire-to-wire in first place last year.  They were somewhat fortunate that the season ended when it did though, because they faded badly in the second half.  That would seem to open the door for many other teams to be primed for contention this season.  But as we’ve seen in recent history of the league, that likely would have been the case even if the Kings looked like a juggernaut last year.

As usual, I am going to preview the upcoming season with the assistance of stat projections, computed by using FanGraph’s Depth Charts projections for 2019.  These projections are a combination of the ZiPS and Steamer projection systems with playing time estimates baked in.  The specific methodology I’m using is exactly the same as last year.  See last year’s post for details on the switch I made to adjust teams’ batting totals.  All 28 players who were on each team’s roster at the conclusion of the draft are incorporated into these numbers.  While this methodology has some short-comings, I think it does a decent job of painting a picture of the strengths and weaknesses for each team entering the season.  As for the projected standings, last year’s didn’t prove to be very accurate, as they overrated the Mavericks and Naturals and underestimated the type of season the Demigods, Cougars and Darkhorses would go on to have.  So fear not if your team is one covered below!

Once again, I will split this preview series into four parts.  I’m grouping teams that are projected to finish closely to one another into each post.  This first part will cover two teams that the projections show as having a lot of work to do if they want to compete for a title this season.  But they are also a pair of teams that easily exceeded their projections last season as well, as they finished in the top half of the standings.  So there is reason for optimism.  Here are the teams projected to finish in ninth and tenth places in 2019.

Dom’s Demigods

Category – Projected Rank (2018 Rank)

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

Summary:

This is not a pretty forecast for a Demigods squad that finished in third place a year ago.  But they do have a recent history of beating these projections as they were also picked near the bottom of the league the past couple years and wound up closer to the top.  In fact, the Demigods have finished in the top half of the standings five straight years, but are still seeking their first championship.  These projections show the Demigods taking a pretty big step back in both batting and pitching, but it is the offensive numbers that are most alarming considering they were one of the best hitting teams in the league a season ago.  One thing to note is they currently have a bench of almost all hitters, including a third catcher, which does drag down the numbers a bit by lessening the impact of their top players.  J.D. Martinez, Francisco Lindor, Jose Altuve and Freddie Freeman remain their top hitters.  Their first four draft picks were all hitters, so they are hoping at least one of Jesus Aguilar, Jurickson Profar, Brandon Nimmo and Austin Meadows can break into that upper echelon as well.  With those stars and solid depth, I like the Demigods to easily exceed the batting projections.  I think the pitching staff is the bigger question mark.  Corey Kluber and Aaron Nola are studs, but the rest of the rotation could be a drag.  Perhaps they will be able to ride those two aces similar to the way the Kings did with Scherzer and Verlander last year though.  The Demigods completely ignored saves last year, finishing last.  They might be able to move up a couple spots this year, but they still don’t have any certain full-time closers.  Mychal Givens, Trevor May and Brandon Morrow provide possibilities though.  If the Demigods are going to compete this year, they’ll need some of their new offensive players to break out and the back of the rotation to exceed projections.  This team coming in last in these projections shows just how competitive this league figures to be in 2019, from top to bottom.  The Demigods have a very talented team.

Kelly’s Cougars

Category – Projected Rank (2018 Rank)

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

Summary:

Even though these projections show the Cougars dropping four spots in the standings, if you take a closer look, they are actually projected to be a very similar team in 2019 to the one that finished in the top half of the standings a year ago.  Plus, the Cougars are another team that has frequently beaten these projections in recent years.  The past two seasons have been a nice resurgence for this franchise which hasn’t won a championship in 23 years now.  What they will need to do to put an end to that dry spell is to slightly improve across the board, moving from middle of the pack to elite.  They don’t have a lot of weaknesses, but also have a shortage of superstars.  One player who definitely needs to have a better 2019 is Kris Bryant.  Him returning to production worthy of a MVP candidate would help greatly.  A pair of Rockies, Trevor Story and Charlie Blackmon are the other two offensive standouts, and the only players who had particularly strong seasons for the Cougars a year ago.  Eugenio Suarez is another under the radar key contributor.  Newcomer Gleyber Torres figures to add a boost to the infield as well.  Blake Snell carried the Cougars pitching staff a year ago and appears likely to do the same this season.  Jameson Taillon continues to improve and should be a nice number two.  In addition to Bryant, the other key player for the Cougars who needs a ’19 bounce back is Madison Bumgarner.  Injuries have derailed his past two seasons.  A healthy and productive Bumgarner would go a long way towards proving these projections to be overly pessimistic.  The bullpen has a chance to be the league’s best.  While only projected to finish seventh in saves, bet the over.  Alex Colome is only slotted for three saves in these numbers.  He should exceed that in the first couple weeks.  Blake Treinen, David Robertson, Cody Allen and Archie Bradley give the Cougars the deepest pen in the league.  Perhaps a lot needs to go right for the Cougars to win it all this year, but there are plenty of categories where they have a good chance to beat these projections.

Posted in Cougars, Demigods | No Comments »

Acuna, Soto Highlight Round One

Saturday, March 9th, 2019

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The first round of the DTBL Draft almost always features a crop of young up-and-coming stars.  But this year’s group is especially notable for their youth.  Eight of the ten players selected in the first round are under 25 years old, including the first seven picks of the draft.  And two players, Ronald Acuna and Juan Soto, are among the most accomplished players at their age to ever enter the league.  Acuna and Soto just turned 21 and 20 respectively over the offseason.  All ten first round selections are DTBL rookies.  A trade of two marquee players also highlighted an excellent start to the 2019 DTBL Draft.

For the second straight year, the reigning National League Rookie of the Year was the first pick of the draft.  Ronald Acuna joins the Jackalope coming off a stellar rookie campaign.  He hit .293 with 26 home runs and 16 stolen bases, flashing all of his plus tools.  The Braves outfielder became a star almost immediately upon promotion and helped lead his team to an unexpected division championship.  He could help the Jackalope make a similar jump in the standings this year.  The Jackalope offense was especially disappointing a year ago, but the pieces are still there to be one of the best teams in the league.  Acuna was a pretty clear choice here.

Last year, the Komodos took a young Dodgers star with the first pick of the draft (Cody Bellinger).  This year, they took another young Dodgers star with the second pick.  Walker Buehler should give a significant boost to a pitching staff that really struggled a year ago.  Buehler was pretty clearly the best pitcher available in this draft.  In 137 big league innings, he struck out 151 while posting an impressive 2.62 ERA and 0.96 WHIP.  That ERA is a full point lower than any Komodos starting pitcher posted in ’18, when they finished dead last in the league in that category, by a healthy margin.  Buehler will immediately become the Komodos best pitcher.

Juan Soto has already put himself in rarefied air based on his accomplishments in the big leagues as a teenager.  Nobody was expecting Soto to reach the majors for another year or two, but a series of injuries to Nationals outfielders caused them to bring him up last May. He was an immediate success and made it impossible to send him back down.  He was so good in his rookie campaign that the Nationals decided to only make a halfhearted attempt to retain Bryce Harper this winter.  Soto hit .292 with 22 homers in just 414 at bats.  The Naturals selected him with the third pick and he could have joined his Nationals teammate Victor Robles to form an exciting young duo for the Naturals as well.  But Soto was immediately traded to the Mavericks in a blockbuster swap of outfielders.  In return, the Naturals acquired Andrew Benintendi.  These are two of the best outfielders in the game, so this is quite a swap.  Benintendi is more established and is a little more well-rounded, offering a stolen base threat as well.  But Soto has a nearly unlimited upside in the power categories.  It will be very interesting to compare these players as their careers progress.  For the Mavericks, an outfield of Soto, Mike Trout and Aaron Judge is pretty darn scary.  But the Naturals have no shortage of young star hitters either.

With the fourth pick, the Moonshiners selected this year’s most interesting player, two-way star Shohei Ohtani.  Coming over from Japan, Ohtani was expected to be an immediate star on the mound, but many questioned if he would really be able to hit big league pitching.  In fact, some thought if he truly wanted to be a two-way player, he may need some time in the minors.  Well, turns out he can hit major league pitching.  He hit .285 with 22 home runs in just 326 at bats.  An injury limited him to just 51 innings on the mound, where he struck out 63 with a 3.31 ERA.  Unfortunately, he needed Tommy John surgery and will not pitch in 2019.  He does intend to hit, but probably won’t see action in a big league game until May.  The Moonshiners have all sorts of options with Ohtani.  First, they can use him at 1B or OF this year since he didn’t play a non-pitching field position last year.  And looking forward, they will have the option to use him as either a pitcher or hitter next year, assuming he is a keeper.  The sky is the limit with this pick, but the Moonshiners probably won’t get their money’s worth until next year and beyond.

The Mavericks aren’t used to picking in the first half of the first round, at least not with their own pick.  Last year was the first time they finished in the bottom half of the standings since 2011.  They took advantage of the rare positioning to acquire two of the top five players selected in this draft.  In addition to the trade for Soto, they selected pitcher Jack Flaherty with the fifth pick.  The Mavericks have an absolutely loaded offense, but the once undisputed top pitching staff in the league was anything but that a year ago.  Injuries destroyed the staff and caused them to finish dead last in pitching points.  Flaherty is the first step to try to rebuild that group.  Overshadowed a bit by the players already mentioned above, he had a rather dominant rookie campaign as well.  182 strikeouts in 151 innings is great for any pitcher, much less a 22 year old rookie.  The Cardinals hurler also had a strong 3.34 ERA and 1.11 WHIP.  He should provide stability for this revamped staff.

The Cougars have had a pretty good recent track record of selecting hitters in the first round.  Second baseman Gleyber Torres is the next in line.  The Cougars will likely open the season with their offensive lineup featuring their past five first round picks.  Torres is younger than all of his predecessors though at the time of joining the squad.  He hit .271 with 24 home runs during his age 21 rookie season.  That combination of ability and age should make him a fixture on the Cougars roster for a very long time.  The Yankees have a lot of options in their infield this year, but one thing is certain.  Torres will be playing virtually every day, whether it be at second base or shortstop.

Speaking of impressive young Yankees infielders, another one was selected with the seventh pick, with the Choppers taking third baseman Miguel Andujar.  Andujar hit .297 with 27 homers and 92 RBI, to finish second in the American League Rookie of the Year vote, behind Ohtani.  The only knock on him is his glove, but that matters not at all in fantasy.  The Choppers will look to Andujar to replace team legend and future Hall-of-Famer Adrian Beltre, who retired over the winter.  If Andujar can provide a spark to the Choppers offense, they could have a chance of ending their 20 year title drought.

For the second straight year, the Demigods took the old guy of the first round.  But in this case, it is still a league rookie.  Jesus Aguilar started the 2018 season as a bench player for the Brewers.  But the first baseman immediately showed off his incredible power, quickly earned a starting job, and then made the NL All-Star team.  He slugged 35 homers with 108 runs batted in.  He did cool off a bit in the second half of the season, with only 11 of those homers coming after the All-Star break.  Outside of maybe Acuna and Soto, he was probably the safest bet for power in this draft.  The Demigods finished eighth in home runs last year, the biggest weakness for an otherwise strong offensive team.

The Darkhorses selected Braves pitcher Mike Foltynewicz with the eighth pick, making this the first time since 2015 that more than two pitchers were taken in the first round.  Foltynewicz had a breakout season a year ago, which earned him an All-Star appearance.  He struck out 202 hitters in 183 innings with a sparkling 2.85 ERA and 1.08 WHIP.  His previous best ERA season was 4.31, so ’18 saw quite a dramatic improvement.  While he has spent parts of five seasons in the majors, he is still just 27 years old.  The Darkhorses barely missed winning the championship last year, with a mediocre pitching staff holding them back.  Foltynewicz could be exactly what they need to get over the hump.

Sitting with the last pick in the first round, the Kings believed there was one player remaining who was clearly the best available, but he was at a position in which they were already well stacked.  So instead, they swung a trade with the Jackalope to move up a spot to grab that player.  The Kings received the Jackalope 2nd round pick (11th overall) along with a swap of 4th round slots.  The Jackalope then took Royals shortstop Adalberto Mondesi to close out the first round.  Mondesi is a rare breed in that he is an elite base stealer, but also has surprising power.  He managed to steal 32 bases and hit 14 home runs despite not making his big league season debut until late June.  While he’s unlikely to maintain a pace like that for a full season, he still could be an above average contributor to the power categories while potentially leading the league in steals.  Once considered an elite prospect, Mondesi had slipped under the radar a bit before his 2018 breakout.  Slight spoiler alert for my upcoming season preview articles, but you definitely won’t see the Jackalope projected to finish last again.  They managed to acquire the two players with the highest projected PAR in the entire draft pool.  So the Jackalope started and finished the first round with a bang.  Meanwhile, the Kings selected starting pitcher Zack Wheeler with that pick they acquired from the Jackalope, the first pick of the second round.

Thanks to all of you for the excellent pace to the first half of this draft.  At this rate, we’ll be done with plenty of time to spare before the Japan openers.  Let’s keep up the good work!

Posted in Choppers, Cougars, Darkhorses, Demigods, Draft, Jackalope, Kings, Komodos, Mavericks, Moonshiners, Naturals | No Comments »

Snell Snags Rookie Honor

Friday, November 16th, 2018

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2018 was a strong year for first year DTBL pitchers, particularly ones that were not near the top of most teams’ draft lists.  But one stood out among the rest.  Blake Snell overcame his modest draft stock and his status on a MLB team that was at the forefront of “bullpenning” to become a front line starting pitcher.  The Rays lefty won the American League Cy Young award earlier this week and will have a shot at winning that same award in the DTBL as well.  The Cougars managed to turn their tenth round draft pick into the top rookie in the league this season.  By unanimous decision, Blake Snell is the 2018 DTBL Rookie of the Year.

Snell’s 2018 campaign is on the short list of greatest rookie pitching campaigns in DTBL history.  He led the entire league with 21 wins, trailed only Jacob deGrom in ERA (1.89) and finished in the top five in WHIP (0.974) as well.  He also struck out 221 hitters in just 180 2/3 innings pitched.  He posted a 12.6 PAR, ranking third among all pitchers and just 1.4 points behind the league leader.  The only past rookie with very similar numbers across the board was Jake Arrieta who won both the Rookie of the Year and Cy Young in 2015.  But Arrieta was a 29 year old veteran at that time.  Snell is just 25 and figures to have a lot more peak seasons ahead of him.  Will Snell repeat Arrieta’s feat of the Rookie of the Year and Cy Young double?  Stay tuned.  He has a chance.

The Cougars absolutely stole Snell in the 10th round of this year’s draft.  97 players, including 22 starting pitchers, were selected ahead of Snell.  This is the second straight year that the Rookie of the Year award has gone to a player overlooked by almost everybody.  Aaron Judge won the award after going undrafted a year ago.  The Cougars now have two of the past three winners of this award, joining Kris Bryant who took home the honor in 2016.  Snell was easily their best pitcher this season, helping make up for disappointing and injury riddled seasons from their previous staff aces Madison Bumgarner and Chris Archer.  If Bumgarner can return to form next year, the Cougars could have a very strong top of the rotation with Bumgarner, Snell and another nice draft pick, sixth rounder Jameson Taillon.

While this was a pretty strong rookie class, particularly in the pitching ranks, Snell was the easy choice for this award.  He received all ten first place votes, the third unanimous winner of the award in the past four years.  Coming in second was a player who was actually playing for his second DTBL team, Jackalope fireballer Luis Severino.  Severino was draft by the Naturals back in 2016, but did not make an appearance on their major league roster, preserving his rookie eligibility.  He had a dominant season, striking out 220 with 19 wins, which also rank quite highly on the all-time rookie lists.  But the overall numbers weren’t quite at Snell’s level.  Severino appeared on all ten ballots, receiving six second place votes to finish with 60 points.  Just behind him was the best rookie hitter, Choppers second baseman Whit Merrifield.  Merrifield was picked right after Severino in the draft as well, fourth overall.  He posted a somewhat quiet 6.8 PAR season on the strength of a .304 average and a league leading 45 steals.  Merrifield was the third and final player to appear on all ten ballots, including four second place votes for a point total of 52.  There was a pretty big drop-off in the voting after those three.  Coming next, in a tie for fourth place were Naturals pitcher Mike Clevinger and Mavericks second baseman Ozzie Albies.  Clevinger was actually drafted even later than Snell, in the eleventh round.  He joined his Indians teammate Carlos Carrasco as the Naturals best pitchers this season.  Meanwhile, Albies turned in a nice rookie campaign, rewarding the Mavericks for selecting him with the last pick of the first round.  Clevinger and Albies each received a single third place vote on their way to compiling 12 total points.

Click here to view the full voting results.

The tentative schedule for the announcements of the other two awards are Sunday for Cy Young and next Tuesday for Most Valuable Player.  Neither of those awards figure to be as lopsided in the voting as this one was, so be sure to check out those results.  I know there were a few technical glitches in the voting this year, so I apologize for that.  Hopefully cleaning up the voting process will be one of many enhancements I make this offseason.

Posted in Awards, Cougars | Comments Off

2018 Season Preview: Part I

Wednesday, March 28th, 2018

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Welcome to the 2018 DTBL season!  This will be our 26th season, but also a year-long celebration of our 25th Anniversary.  In case you forgot what happened in 2017 after a long winter, here’s a quick summary:  the Mavericks dominated.  They led the league most of the season and won the championship by 11 1/2 points over the Cougars and Naturals.  After the Mavericks, very little separated the rest of the league.  The Cougars and Naturals had very good years, but it wouldn’t have taken much more for any of the other teams to have been right up there with them in the standings.  So, how do things look heading into 2018?  I’m glad you asked.

As has become an annual tradition, I am going to preview the upcoming season by using standings/stats projections to tell most of the story.  For the second straight year, I will be using FanGraph’s Depth Charts projected stats of players to generate projections for each DTBL team.  These are a blend of ZiPS and Steamer projections, with playing time adjustments done by the FanGraphs staff.  The reason I made the switch to Depth Charts last year is because I think it gives a more accurate guess at playing time so that players who are expected to play less than an every day role in the big leagues this year don’t disproportionately affect these prognostications.

Additionally, I have made one other change for this year.  In the past, I’ve scaled all the pitching stats so that the number of projected innings are the same for each team, no matter how many pitchers are on the roster.  For hitters, I have attempted to do the same, but rather than scaling to a certain at bat or plate appearance target, I would scale based on the number of hitters on the roster.  This year, I decided it would make more sense to do the same thing for hitters as pitchers.  So now the team totals in hitting categories will be scaled such that each team is projected to accumulate 8285 plate appearances.  I came up with this number by looking at the team totals in at bats the past five seasons and then applying the PA/AB ratio that has existed in MLB over that same time period, since I don’t keep plate appearance data for DTBL teams.  I figured this would be more accurate than simply using at bats since some teams may be high on guys who walk a lot while others may have a bunch of free swingers.  So team plate appearances are more likely to be similar across the league than at bats.  Anyway, the main reason for this change is so that teams who have players projected to spend far less than full seasons on major league rosters don’t kill the team’s projections across the board.  For instance, Victor Robles is only projected for 90 plate appearances this season.  In the past, including his modest numbers in the Naturals projections would have really hurt the “per player” totals.  With this change, his numbers simply won’t make up as significant of a percentage of the Naturals totals, which is logical since he probably won’t be on their active roster much of the season.  So the end result, I think, is that these projections will do a better job of predicting which players will actually be on major league rosters for DTBL teams.  Having said that, I’m still not making any personal predictions about how much time each player will spend on the active roster.  Stats for all 28 players on the post-draft rosters are included in these projections.

Anyway, let’s get started.  As usual, I’m going to break this into four parts.  Normally, each of these posts previews two or three teams.  But you get a special treat to kick things off this year:  four teams!  The reason?  Three teams are projected to tie for 7th place.  So here are the four teams that the numbers say will be near the bottom of the standings.  Two of these four were among the top four finishers a year ago, so perhaps we could see some major shuffling in the standings, which of course winds up happening every year anyway.

Kelly’s Cougars

Category – Projected Rank (2017 Rank)

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

Summary:

We kick off the team previews with what is probably the most surprising result my spreadsheet spit out.  Last year, the Cougars tied for second place, which was their best finish in over 20 years.  These projections don’t like their chances of duplicating that result.  One possible explanation for this dreary outlook is that the Cougars current roster consists of 13 pitchers, which is more than any other team and two more than most.  This means that a good chunk of their pitching totals are made up of numbers from pitchers who won’t actually contribute this season and waters down the impact of the numbers from their best pitchers.  However, on that note, their best pitcher is clearly Madison Bumgarner who will spend the first month of the season on the DL with a broken finger.  Chris Archer, Jameson Taillon and Luke Weaver will look to pick up the slack.  The Cougars have a bunch of interesting young pitchers who they will be able to shuffle in and out of the rotation until they find the best combination.  I would heavily bet the over on the Cougars saves projection, which was also impacted by the sheer quantity of relief pitchers on the current roster.  They should be able to roll out four closers most of the season, so a finish near the top in saves seems likely.  The offensive projections are a little more worrisome for the Cougars.  Charlie Blackmon and Kris Bryant are elite players, but they are going to need a couple other guys to reach All-Star caliber levels this season.  Some candidates for that include first round pick Tommy Pham and last year’s first overall pick, shortstop Trevor Story.  Story bouncing back from a disappointing DTBL rookie campaign might be the key to the Cougars season.  Somebody has to come in last in these prognostications.  It would be pretty surprising if the Cougars fell all the way to the bottom of the league in 2018 though.

Charlie’s Thunder Choppers

Category – Projected Rank (2017 Rank)

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

Summary:

After four straight seasons in the top half of the standings, the Choppers took a step backwards in 2017 and fell to seventh place.  Their strong pitching staff couldn’t overcome an offense that finished dead last in batting points.  According to these projections, they could be in for a repeat of that again this season.  The Choppers attempted to improve their offense by drafting Whit Merrifield and Delino DeShields Jr and trading for Andrew McCutchen.  Clearly, this will be a speedier team in ’18.  With regular playing time, DeShields could contend for the league lead in stolen bases.  But questions remain on where the power will come from.  Anthony Rizzo and Byron Buxton appear to be the best offensive players on the squad.  After those two though, the player with the next highest projected batting PAR is actually 10th round pick Randal Grichuk.  The pitching numbers are much more promising.  I’m not sure they will be able to lead the league in strikeouts again this year, but Chris Sale, Danny Duffy and Jon Lester form an impressive trio of left-handed starters.  Joining them this year will be Trevor Bauer, who had a sneaky impressive strikeout total a year ago.  The bullpen remains one of the best in the league, led by Craig Kimbrel and Ken Giles.  It would be surprising if the Choppers don’t have one of the better pitching staffs in the league this year.  But in order for them to return to the top half of the standings, they will need to be a better hitting team.

Dom’s Demigods

Category – Projected Rank (2017 Rank)

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

Summary:

Much like the Cougars, the Demigods are projected to take a tumble in the standings after finishing in fourth place a year ago.  Also like the Cougars, a possible explanation for the fall could be tied to their current roster construction.  In the Demigods case, four of the five extra players are hitters.  They continue to have a very deep roster of solid hitters.  Jose Altuve and J.D. Martinez were two of the best players in the league last year and should be again this season.  Add in Francisco Lindor and Freddie Freeman and you have the makings of a team that doesn’t look like the seventh best offense in the league, but that is what the projections are saying.  Perhaps some of their veterans could be declining a bit, like Buster Posey and Evan Longoria.  And it remains to be seen if Ryan Zimmerman can build on his ’17 resurgence.  Overall though, this looks like a good hitting team.  Outside of Cy Young winner Corey Kluber, the pitching staff was a little disappointing last year though.  Aaron Nola and newcomer Alex Wood could blossom into stars this season.  The Demigods will be looking for bounce-back seasons from Johnny Cueto and Cole Hamels.  The bullpen is likely to be a weakness.  While they could have as many as three closers, not one of them is in a particularly safe situation.  Fernando Rodney did manage to save 39 games a year ago though.  While the Demigods are projected to finish seventh in the league in both batting and pitching points, I believe their offense is much stronger than the pitching staff right now.  Will Kluber be able to carry them into contention again this year?

Kat’s Komodos

Category – Projected Rank (2017 Rank – Gators)

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

Summary:

The Komodos inaugural DTBL seasons should be pretty interesting.  They inherited a Gators roster that finished in last place a year ago, but had a relatively decent offense.  Early signs are that the Komodos could be more than just decent with the bats.  The pitching staff, however, is still a work in progress.  Adding Cody Bellinger to an already potent lineup has helped make the Komodos the second best offensive team in the entire league, according to these projections.  Jose Ramirez looks to build on his breakout ’17 campaign.  Other young players who could be poised to do big things in ’18 include Starling Marte, Joey Gallo and Corey Seager.  Also, don’t forget about Wil Myers, Yoenis Cespedes, Eddie Rosario and Nelson Cruz.  The Komodos received some bad news today with catcher Salvador Perez suffering an off-field knee injury that will shelve him until mid-May or so.  But otherwise, things are looking up for the Komodos hitters.  The pitching staff will have trouble escaping the cellar, however.  Jose Quintana is definitely the ace of the staff.  Rich Hill and Gio Gonzalez are solid veterans.  As is Ervin Santana, but he will likely miss the first month with a hand injury.  One young pitcher to keep an eye on is Dylan Bundy.  The bullpen has some interesting guys, most notably recent acquisition Aroldis Chapman, but may struggle to rack up saves.  Greg Holland remains an unsigned free agent.  Getting him onto a roster as a closer would certainly help.  It will be fun to see if the Komodos can make some noise in their first season.

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Komodos Nab Bellinger

Monday, March 19th, 2018

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The 2018 DTBL Draft kicked off Thursday, March 8.  The first pick belonged to the league’s newest member, Kat’s Komodos.  Inheriting a Gators roster that was well stocked with hitters but very much lacking in pitching, the biggest question going into the draft was if they would select a player based on need or take the best player available.  The Komodos did the latter, picking the consensus top player in the draft pool, Dodgers first baseman Cody Bellinger.  As usual, the first round as a whole skewed young with nine DTBL rookies selected, four of whom didn’t make their MLB debuts until after the All-Star break last season.  The first round was light on pitching this year as eight of the top ten were hitters.

In retrospect, the decision to take Bellinger with the first pick was probably pretty easy for the Komodos.  The reigning National League Rookie of the Year will give them a huge power boost and may even position them as one of the deepest offensive teams in the league.  Bellinger made his presence known right from the start.  He was a NL All-Star as a rookie.  He hit 39 home runs with 97 RBI and 87 runs despite not making his debut until late April.  His .267 average was quite respectable for a slugging rookie and he even stole 10 bases.  Bellinger should be a star for the Komodos for a long time to come.

In many ways, the Kings faced a similar predicament to the Komodos with the second pick and made the same decision, taking the player they believed to be the best available despite it not being a position of great need.  With that pick, the Kings selected first baseman turned outfielder Rhys Hoskins.  The Phillies young slugger came up through the minors as a modestly rated prospect who did nothing but mash at every level of the minors.  That continued in the majors, despite also having to learn a new position at the big league level.  Hoskins slugged 18 homers in just 50 major league games, pumping out a ridiculous 1.014 OPS.  With the Phillies signing Carlos Santana this winter, it appears they will continue to deploy Hoskins to the outfield.  Even if that goes poorly, Hoskins’ bat will force its way into the lineup on a daily basis.

With the third pick, the Jackalope were able to do both of the things mentioned above:  pick the best player available and fill a glaring hole in the roster.  They selected Yankees starting pitcher Luis Severino.  Severino is technically a DTBL rookie, having never appeared on an active roster before.  But this is the second time he has been drafted.  The Naturals picked him in the 5th round in 2016, but he started the season in the minors and was released in May.  After that disappointing ’16 campaign, he was removed from the league last year, causing us to miss out on his breakout season.  In 2017, he became one of the most dominant pitchers in the league, posting a 2.98 ERA, 1.04 WHIP with 14 wins and 230 strikeouts.  The Jackalope pitching staff really struggled a year ago, making Severino a perfect fit.  They are also quite heavy on Yankees now, employing Severino, Giancarlo Stanton, Gary Sanchez, Didi Gregorius, Sonny Gray and Dellin Betances.  Not a bad group.

The top three of the draft seemed pretty clear cut.  Predicting who would go fourth and beyond was a bit more challenging.  The Choppers had the fourth pick and used it on second baseman Whit Merrifield who went from relative obscurity to fantasy monster during the course of the 2017 season.  The Royals infielder hit .288 with 19 home runs, 34 stolen bases, 80 runs and 78 RBI.  He was a plus contributor to all five categories, but especially stolen bases.  The Choppers had the worst offense in the league last year (in terms of batting points), so adding a do-it-all infielder makes plenty of sense.  It remains to be seen if the power was real, but in today’s home run climate, it seems quite possible it was.

Last year, the Moonshiners somewhat regretted passing on a young Red Sox up-and-comer in the first round in Andrew Benintendi.  They ensured that the same mistake wouldn’t be made again this year, grabbing third baseman Rafael Devers with the fifth pick.  Devers was just 20 years old when he made his MLB debut last summer.  But he earned his promotion by demolishing every level of the minors on his way up.  And the hitting continued when he reached the big leagues.  He hit .284 with 10 homers in 58 major league games.  Considering his age, the sky is the limit with this guy.  Early signs are that he is going to be a great hitter with above average power.  That should make him a fixture at hot corner for the Moonshiners for a very long time.

While hitters took most of the spotlight of the first round, there were a couple very intriguing pitchers selected as well.  The second of those was Twins starter Jose Berrios, picked sixth by the Darkhorses.  Berrios earned elite prospect status on his ascension up the minor league ladder, but a rocky MLB debut season in 2016 dampened expectations a bit.  But in 2017, he regained his status as an exciting young hurler.  He posted a solid 3.89 ERA and 1.229 WHIP with 14 wins and 139 strikeouts in 145 innings, helping lead the Twins to a surprising Wild Card berth.  He should immediately boost a Darkhorses pitching staff that finished last in ERA, WHIP and wins last season.

The Demigods selected the lone non-DTBL rookie of the first round with pick number seven.  Outfielder Ender Inciarte continues to be one of the more underrated all-around players in baseball.  With a weak Braves team around him last year, he managed to hit .304 with 11 homers, 93 runs scored and 22 stolen bases.  What a difference a year can make to a player’s stock.  The Darkhorses drafted Inciarte for the second time last year, in the 12th round.  Now he’s a first rounder.  For the record, the Darkhorses also drafted him in the fourth round in 2016.  With the investment of a first round pick, I have a feeling he will stick around for a while this time with the Demigods.

Following that selection of a DTBL “veteran”, the Cougars picked an outfielder who will be a rookie in this league, but is actually almost three years older than Inciarte.  Now 30 years old, Tommy Pham broke out big time for the Cardinals in ’17.  He hit .306 with 23 home runs and 25 stolen bases, becoming a legitimate five category force, seemingly out of nowhere.  This has become a consistent trend in the Cardinals organization:  late blooming non-prospects becoming excellent major league contributors.  There are plenty of reasons to believe Pham’s breakout is sustainable, most notably that he has been able to harness his degenerative vision problems.

For the second straight year, the Naturals used their first round pick on one of the top prospects in baseball who probably will spend a bulk of the upcoming season in the minors.  With the ninth pick, they selected young Nationals outfielder Victor Robles.  Considered the possible heir apparent to Bryce Harper in the Nats outfield, should Harper decide to take his talents elsewhere next winter, Robles has elite hitting, fielding and running skills.  Though not a big time slugger to this point of his career, scouts believe that will come as well.  MLB.com has him ranked as the #6 prospect in baseball and #1 among those who have already made their MLB debuts.  Robles is just 20 years old, so this is a long-term play for the Naturals.

Finally, the defending champion Mavericks closed out the first round by selecting another young hitter who splashed onto the scene late in the 2017 season, Braves second baseman Ozzie Albies.  Albies hit .286 with six home runs and eight stolen bases in 57 big league games, basically replicating the numbers he posted in AAA as a 20 year old.  So for those of you scoring at home, that’s three first round picks on guys who will enter the ’18 season at age 21 or younger (Albies, Devers, Robles).  The Mavericks don’t really have any holes, but Albies will slot in nicely at 2B.

The first round didn’t feature any trades this year, but there have been three separate deals since the first round ended, involving six different teams.  First, the Mavericks continued a revamp of their bullpen, dealing Aroldis Chapman to the Komodos for their second round pick (11th overall).  That pick was used on a very interesting pitcher, Alex Reyes.  Reyes should return from Tommy John surgery in May.  While his exact role remains a mystery, there are a few intriguing possibilities including closer or spot starter.  The fact that he will be designated as a reliever for this season could make him extremely valuable once he is healthy.  Meanwhile, Chapman gives the Komodos a reliable anchor in their bullpen which had no such commodities on the returning roster.

The next trade saw the Choppers flip their second round pick (14th overall) to the Naturals for outfielder Andrew McCutchen.  Once one of the best players in the league, McCutchen quietly put up pretty strong numbers across the board last year and will now be applying his craft in San Francisco.  As mentioned above, the Choppers needed a boost to their offense, so McCutchen should help to that end.  The Naturals used the acquired pick on the top closer in this draft, Pirates lefty Felipe Rivero, a former teammate of McCutchen’s.  Rivero had a dominant debut as a closer in ’17, saving 21 games with a 1.67 ERA and 0.889 WHIP.

The third deal was a swap of power hitters, in an attempt to clear position log jams on both ends.  The Kings dealt their longtime slugging outfielder Jay Bruce to the Cougars for first baseman Justin Bour.  On the Kings side, this was mostly a move to clear an overcrowded outfield, but also to get younger.  Trading away Bruce allowed them to select rookie outfielder Willie Calhoun with their subsequent pick, in the fifth round.  Of course, hours after they drafted Calhoun, he got sent to the minors.  But this was a future value play anyway.  Meanwhile, the Cougars didn’t have much use for Bour after drafting Justin Smoak and Bruce fills a need for a power hitting outfielder.

With four rounds remaining in the draft, we should easily finish up with time to spare before Opening Day.  Thanks to everyone for keeping things moving.  I hope to start my season preview articles this upcoming weekend.  Until then, keep up the good work!

 

 

Posted in Choppers, Cougars, Darkhorses, Demigods, Draft, Jackalope, Kings, Komodos, Mavericks, Moonshiners, Naturals | No Comments »

2017 Season Preview: Part II

Saturday, April 1st, 2017


Part two of the 2017 DTBL season preview will examine three teams who are projected to finish near the middle of the standings.  This would be a major change from last year for all three squads.  Two of them would view this as a positive move in the right direction while the other would consider this to be a major disappointment after nearly winning the championship a year ago.  I should mention that the projected league standings shows very little separation among these three teams in particular, but really the entire projected top seven finishers.  You can even throw in the Moonshiners and have eight teams who are prognosticated to be within 20 points of first place.  So it wouldn’t take a whole lot of weird stuff to happen for any of these teams to win the league.  Here are the teams projected to finish in fifth through seventh place.

Dom’s Demigods

Category – Projected Rank (2016 Rank)

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

Summary:

In the Darkhorses preview, I said that I thought their projected fall from 5th to 9th was the biggest surprise we’d see.  Well, here we have the Demigods falling even one spot further.  But this one is less surprising, in my opinion.  You simply can’t replace one of the best pitchers in the game, which is the obstacle the Demigods must overcome after the passing of Jose Fernandez.  The weakened pitching prognostication makes sense.  Attempting to replace Fernandez will be Aaron Nola and Matt Shoemaker.  Nice pitchers, but not the same.  Corey Kluber and Johnny Cueto will remain the true aces of the staff.  This is still an above average rotation.  However, it doesn’t appear to be elite.  The bullpen remains one of the league’s worst with a pair of closers who don’t have great job security (Tony Watson and Jeanmar Gomez).  What is more troubling about these projections is the offensive drop-off.  But the Demigods remain a balanced hitting team with solid players in every slot.  Jose Altuve, Freddie Freeman and Francisco Lindor are the stars.  A key newcomer to keep an eye on is Greg Bird.  If he continues his hot spring training into the regular season, there is no reason to think the Demigods couldn’t be near the top of the league in the power categories again this year.  I’m sure the Demigods have much higher expectations for this season than this.  There are plenty of reasons to believe they can make a run at that elusive first championship again this year.

Kelly’s Cougars

Category – Projected Rank (2016 Rank)

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

Summary:

Here we have the most positively surprising projection.  The numbers show potential for major improvement from the Cougars, who finished in last place in 2016.  The improvement is especially impressive on the pitching side.  Madison Bumgarner leads the way, of course, but a major bounce-back season from Chris Archer seems probable.  Three interesting newcomers join the rotation too:  the ageless Rich Hill, who has been one of the best pitchers in baseball when healthy the past couple years, Jameson Taillon and Jerad Eickhoff.  This rotation has a little bit of everything.  The bullpen is respectable as well, with Cody Allen, Alex Colome and David Robertson.  In order to see significant improvement from the Cougars this year, the bats will need to take a huge step forward.  First overall draft pick Trevor Story should help in that regard.  He and Kris Bryant form quite a duo on the left side of the Cougars infield.  Underrated Charlie Blackmon leads the outfield.  I think it is safe to project the Cougars to soar past their league worst home run total from last season.  While it has been painful for the Cougars finishing near the bottom of the standings the past three years, it has allowed them to restock the lineup with high draft picks (Bryant, Story and Jose Abreu). Perhaps this is the year those assets start paying off.

Jay’s Jackalope

Category – Projected Rank (2016 Rank)

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

Summary:

Here we have another projection that shows a massive improvement over last season.  But unlike the Cougars, this one isn’t particularly surprising.  Last season was essentially a write-off for the Jackalope.  The core of the team that won the championship two seasons ago remains, particularly on the batting side where they are still one of the best hitting teams in the league, despite what happened a year ago.  Paul Goldschmidt and Josh Donaldson are still two of the best players in the game.  Goldschmidt had the quietest 20/30 season I think I’ve ever seen.  32 steals out of a first baseman is insane.  New to the lineup is Gary Sanchez, who should give the Jackalope a huge edge over most teams at the catching position.  Perhaps the most important player for this team this year will be Giancarlo Stanton.  If he has a healthy, productive season, the Jackalope will almost certainly be one of the best hitting teams in the league.  The pitching staff does not appear to be top notch, however.  Jake Arrieta returned to being somewhat human a year ago, but still an elite pitcher.  Gerrit Cole figures to be healthier and more productive in ’17.  Tanner Roark and A.J. Happ give the Jackalope two of the more underrated pitchers in the game.  The bullpen features just two closers, but they are among the best in the league:  Wade Davis and Mark Melancon.  An improvement over last season seems like a forgone conclusion for the Jackalope.  But will they be a championship contender?  The talent is there.

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