The DTBL expanded to ten teams in 1998, making 2014 the 17th season with 550 total points distributed among the 10 teams. In those 17 seasons, only three teams have managed to accumulate more than 86 points. So it would stand to reason that those three teams were almost certainly all league champions. That is not the case. The 2014 Demigods finished with the third most points in league history with 86.5, and yet found themselves 2 1/2 points behind the league champion Naturals. It was a painful final result for a franchise who easily had their best season ever, but fell a little short of their first league championship.
Before I go any further, I think it is important to point out that a team’s point total in any given season doesn’t paint the complete picture of how strong that team actually was. Since the total number of league-wide points is the same every year, team totals often say as much about the rest of the league as the team itself. This year, the Naturals and Demigods clearly benefited from being the only two particularly strong teams in the league. There were three other mediocre squads and five teams that were pretty terrible. While a decent case could be made for the Naturals and Demigods as two of the all time great teams, it is also worth mentioning that they didn’t have a lot of competition. But enough raining on the Naturals and Demigods parade. This second season recap article will focus on the Demigods and the three other teams who didn’t win the title, but didn’t completely tank either (Mavericks, Choppers, Jackalope).
The Demigods were definitely a sleeper to make a run at the title this year due to a revamped pitching staff and a solid roster, top to bottom. They did not disappoint in that respect. They made the incredible leap from the league’s worst pitching staff in 2013 (in terms of pitching points earned) to the best in 2014. They led the league in ERA, wins and strikeouts, finished second in WHIP and fifth in saves, earning a spot among the best pitching staffs this league has ever seen. The Demigods broke the single season strikeout record, passing the ’07 Mavericks by 41 whiffs. Their 2.70 ERA is only bested by last year’s Mavericks. And their 1.118 WHIP was the third lowest mark ever behind the ’13 Mavericks and this year’s Naturals. They did all of that despite losing the guy who was supposed to be the staff ace, Jose Fernandez, to Tommy John surgery in early May. Johnny Cueto had the kind of season that would make anyone not named Clayton Kershaw jealous, with 20 wins, 2.25 ERA, 0.96 WHIP and 242 strikeouts, all among the league leaders. Tenth round pick Corey Kluber turned out to be the steal of the draft and a strong Rookie of the Year candidate (16 W, 2.40 ERA, 241 K’s). Yu Darvish fought through injuries, but still had a pretty good year. Cole Hamels and Doug Fister were their usual solid selves. That’s six starting pitchers who you would think would be sure keepers heading into next year, opening up some interesting possibilities for this team moving forward.
The offense wasn’t quite as strong for the Demigods, but still ranked second in the league with 41.5 points. Jose Altuve was the breakout star of the year and a strong MVP candidate. He led the league in batting average (.341) and steals (56). Carlos Gomez was the other offensive star, with his second straight 20/30 season (23 HR, 32 SB). It was a mildly disappointing season for some of their other stars which may have ultimately cost them the title, particularly Evan Longoria and Joe Mauer. But this team really does have all the pieces in place to be a contender again next year.
Although the Demigods were the only team who gave the Naturals a real run for their money, three other teams can look back at 2014 as something other than a complete failure. The Mavericks fell well short of their lofty expectations, but 69.5 points would have put them in the title race most years. The Choppers never were able to make a serious run at the top of the standings, but did have their second straight solid year while finishing fourth. Finally, the Jackalope bounced back from a horrific last place finish in 2013 to return to the top half of the standings this year.
The Mavericks have been one of the league’s best teams for quite some time, but it has now been eight years since their last championship. Expectations were extremely high entering this year, despite knowing they would have to go at it without Matt Harvey. So a distant third place finish is slightly disappointing. However, they are very well positioned to make a more serious run next year. As for 2014, Mike Trout, Edwin Encarnacion and Adam Jones helped lead an offense that actually outperformed their ’13 unit. It was pitching where they took a big step back from their record setting numbers a year ago. Of course, Clayton Kershaw was not to blame in any way, shape or form. He once again compiled one of the best pitching seasons in league history, leading the league in ERA (1.77), WHIP (0.857) and wins (21) despite missing about a month due to injury. His ERA and WHIP ranked as the fourth and third best DTBL single season marks, respectively. Stephen Strasburg had a solid year, but the rest of the rotation was a bit of a disappointment. It will be interesting to see if they are able to bounce back to ’13 form with the return of Harvey next year. They have a large stable of interesting young players along with extra early draft picks in 2015.
The Choppers put together their second solid season in a row, but may have been slightly disappointed in being unable to mount a serious charge for the title down the stretch. In the end, they just didn’t get enough out of their second tier of players to match up with the Naturals and Demigods. The offense was led by Jose Bautista, who had his best season since 2011. He joined Trout as the only two players to record 35/100/100 seasons (35 HR, 103 RBI, 101 R), leading the Choppers in all three categories. Anthony Rizzo had a breakout season as well, recording 32 homers. A few other players had solid years too, like Adrian Beltre, Jayson Werth and Alex Gordon. But in the end, it wasn’t quite enough. The lack of standouts was even more pronounced on the pitching mound. Chris Sale, Jon Lester and Craig Kimbrel were outstanding. Outside of those three though, they lacked the pitching depth of the three teams who finished ahead of them. On the whole though, this was a good year for the Choppers. They easily soared past the pre-season projection of eighth place. With two solid finishes in a row, the Choppers have pushed their lean years well behind them.
It was a weird season for the Jackalope. After last year’s disaster, things almost certainly had to improve for this team that was a serious title contender just two years ago. So a jump from tenth to fifth was a huge step in the right direction. However, it ended on a sour note with several of their stars suffering season ending injuries. The second half losses of Paul Goldschmidt and Giancarlo Stanton sank any hopes of finishing the season on a strong note. But prior to that injury, what a season it was for Stanton. He elevated himself into the conversation of best players in baseball. His 37 home runs were second most in the league. Albert Pujols had a nice bounce-back season. Hunter Pence and Evan Gattis made solid contributions as well. It was an up and down season for first overall draft pick, Yasiel Puig. But he helps bolster a squad with a ton of upside moving forward. The Jackalope have almost always been built around pitching. But the core that led them to the 2011 title has started to dissipate, with one notable exception: Felix Hernandez. King Felix had a 2.14 ERA and 0.915 WHIP, which trailed only Kershaw. His 248 strikeouts were the third most in the league. He will certainly garner Cy Young consideration. Sonny Gray and Jeff Samardzija solidified their spots in the Jackalope’s revamped rotation. Aroldis Chapman put up ridiculous numbers out of the bullpen, despite not pitching until May after a scary spring training injury. He struck out 103 in just 53 innings, while saving 35 games too.
Although they were not particularly close to winning the championship this season, it won’t take major overhauls for the Mavericks, Choppers and Jackalope to be contenders in 2015. Mostly, they just need the Naturals and Demigods not to set a record-breaking pace again next year. These teams are all in very good shape. The same can’t be said for all of the five teams who finished miles behind the leaders. We’ll examine those bottom five in the third and final season recap article, coming soon!
Last week, I updated all of the 2014 PAR numbers for every player who appeared on a DTBL roster this season. As you may recall from my PAR introduction, these values are calculated using five years worth of historical data. Prior to this latest update, the historical data came from the 2009-2013 seasons, just like the 2013 PAR values you currently see on players’ pages. But now that the season is over, I was able to swap out the oldest season (2009) with this year’s numbers. This helps keep PAR more relevant to today’s stats. For the most part, this adjustment caused hitters PAR to go up and pitchers PAR to go down. This makes sense because the “replacement level” offensive numbers all went down when replacing the 2009 stats with the much weaker offensive numbers of 2014. And the opposite for pitchers. On the whole, batters still earned fewer than the expected league-wide batting PAR of 225. But I expected this because 2014 was the worst offensive season in league history. Once I’m able to calculate the historical PAR values all the way back to the league’s origin, the numbers should even out a bit. If I find this not to be the case, I’ll take another look at my formulas. Anyway, expect past season PAR updates to occur sporadically over the winter. I hope to write about the numbers from each season as I release them to the site.
Enjoy the rest of the World Series!