Naturals pitcher David Price
The World Series is over and the DTBL season wrapped up almost a month ago, so I suppose it is about time I write about the Naturals title winning season. Actually, I may have skipped this altogether, except I suddenly find myself with some unexpected free time thanks to Hurricane Sandy. Hopefully I won’t lose power before I finish this…
Perhaps when it became obvious that we were headed for a chaotic sprint for the finish line, the Naturals should have been the clear favorite to finish first. They have now come out on top of the two best finishes in league history and have never won the title by more than 3 1/2 points. Their 2005 title now looks like a cakewalk as they bested the Moonshiners by 3 1/2. Then in 2010, we had the unforgettable first place tie between the Naturals and Darkhorses, with two other teams within 5 points of first. But the finishes to those seasons were nothing like 2012. As I covered in the last article, five teams had a legitimate chance to win the championship heading into the final day of the season. But in the end, Nick’s Naturals captured the 2012 Dream Team Baseball League Championship.
With their third DTBL title, the Naturals are now tied with the Cougars for the third most titles in league history, just one behind the Darkhorses and Kings. Not bad for the league’s youngest franchise. Since the Darkhorses four-peat, the Naturals have been the league’s most dominating team. They have finished no lower than third place since 2009, including two titles and a second place finish in 2011. Despite finishing a distant second to the Jackalope a year ago, they were absolutely considered one of the favorites headed into 2012. But the manner in which they went about winning the title was not what most predicted. Previously a hitting dominated team, it was the Naturals pitching staff that led them to the title.
In 2011, the Naturals finished 10 1/2 points behind the Jackalope, but it was a shaky pitching staff that kept them from making a serious title run. They led the league with 45 batting points, but only earned a mediocre 25 1/2 pitching points. That put them 23 1/2 pitching points behind the champion Jackalope, obviously too big of a margin to make up on offense. But in 2012, it was almost the opposite situation. The offense slipped to just 29 batting points, ranking fifth in the league. A vastly improved pitching staff earned them 41 1/2 points, just 1/2 point behind the Jackalope for most in the league. When put together, those numbers earned them a one point advantage over the Kings and Mavericks.
Although the offense was largely disappointing, one player in particular kept the team afloat: Miguel Cabrera. Cabrera famously won the first league triple crown since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967. He did not win the same honor in the DTBL though since Melky Cabrera, Buster Posey and Mike Trout bested him in batting average. In case you were wondering about Melky Cabrera and Trout finishing ahead of him, our league uses 400 at bats as the minimum qualifying mark, so Cabrera was able to qualify despite the PED suspension and wound up winning the DTBL batting title. Meanwhile, although he finished behind Miguel Cabrera in the AL batting title race, Trout finished just ahead of him in our league because the Mavericks did not have him active for his first week in the MLB this season. But anyway, that does not take away from the impressive season by Miguel Cabrera. He hit .330 and led the DTBL in home runs (44) and runs batted in (139). Only Trout scored more runs than his 109. Just like in the American League, it should be a fascinating race between him and Trout for the MVP award.
Cabrera was not the only standout offensive performer for the Naturals though. Andrew McCutchen appears to have reached superstar status. He joined the 30-20 club with 31 home runs and 20 stolen bases while hitting for a .327 average. He also figures to garner some MVP consideration. Chase Headley and Chris Davis were the biggest surprises on the roster, coming out of relative obscurity to have big seasons. Both were very shrewd early season free agent signings by the Naturals. Joey Votto was another player who was having a huge season, until a mid-season injury derailed him and he was never quite the same in the second half.
In some ways, the Naturals offense wasn’t really that huge of a disappointment when you consider what they had to overcome. Injuries ruined most/all of the season for some of their key contributors from years past: Troy Tulowitzki, Carl Crawford, Victor Martinez and a late season injury to Nick Markakis. 6th round pick Mat Gamel was lost extremely early in the season as well. So the fact that the Naturals slipped up in batting points this season was not at all surprising. Fortunately for them, they had a pitching staff to pick up the slack.
David Price, Matt Cain, Zack Greinke, Jordan Zimmermann and Jon Lester teamed up to create a starting rotation as good as anybody’s, except possibly the Jackalope. In fact, those five were so steady that Homer Bailey found himself in the minors almost the entire season despite a huge breakout season for him too. Lester’s season was slightly disappointing, but the other four were among the best pitchers in the league this year. Price will probably be the team’s top Cy Young candidate. He finished second in the league in wins (20) and ERA (2.56) and was also among the league leaders in WHIP (1.10) and strike outs (205). Cain threw a perfect game in ’12 and led the Naturals in WHIP (1.04) while winning 16 games. Greinke had another steady season, though he tailed off a bit after the trade to the American League. And Zimmermann had a breakout year, posting an impressive 2.94 ERA.
The Naturals bullpen was a strength as well, finishing second in the league in saves despite finishing the season with just two closers. Jason Motte and Chris Perez finished third and fifth respectively in the league in saves. Jonathan Broxton contributed 27 saves as well, most of the coming before he was traded to Cincinnati. It was a nice showing by a group that lost one of its key pieces in spring training, when Joakim Soria was lost to Tommy John surgery.
The 2012 season will be best remembered for the unbelievable championship race. But when it was all said and done, the Naturals claimed a well deserved DTBL Championship. Next year, they will attempt to tie for the most titles in league history, and there is no reason to think they won’t be one of the favorites to do just that.
Later this week, I will recap the season of the other title contenders and will then wrap things up with the teams that finished in the bottom half of the standings. If I get another day off of work, perhaps that second article will come tomorrow. Also look for the 2012 DTBL awards ballot to be posted later this week. Those award winners will be announced in November.