When discussing the greatest teams in DTBL history, a few clubs usually make the short list: 1994 Cougars, 2000 Kings, 2007 or 2008 Darkhorses. What makes those championship squads stick out is the way in which they dominated the competition, winning the league by double digit points in each case. Well, there is a new team to add to the conversation. Prior to this year, the largest margin of victory in league history was 14 points by the ’94 Cougars. In the 10-team era, the record was 13 by the ’00 Kings. In 2015, the Jackalope blew away those marks finishing with 85 points, 19 clear of the next closest team. Jay’s Jackalope are the 2015 Dream Team Baseball League Champions!
On the last day of April, the Jackalope claimed the top spot in the standings for the first time this year. They dropped to second a few times in early May. But then on May 16, they took over first place for good. Before summer officially began, they had built a double digit lead and were never really challenged again. The Mavericks made a nice run in the middle of the summer to briefly cut the lead to single digits, however, it was back to a 20+ margin before you knew it.
It wasn’t just the season-long domination that made the Jackalope the talk of the league the entire year. It started in March when they made several franchise altering trades to completely revamp their roster. At the time, those deals appeared to signal a desire to rebuild. Teams who think they are on the verge of being a title contender don’t usually trade away several of their best players. But the Jackalope did just that. Gone were Felix Hernandez, Aroldis Chapman, Albert Pujols and Yasiel Puig. Other than Puig, those lost pieces were quite productive for their new teams. But the Jackalope survived just fine without them. In came Gerrit Cole, Josh Donaldson, Adam Jones and Anthony Rendon. Even an injury plagued season from Rendon couldn’t turn those deals sour. Donaldson was arguably the best player in the league. Cole elevated his game to become one of the best pitchers around.
In addition to the trades, one other key March move paved the way for what was to come. In a first round dominated by young sluggers, the Jackalope zigged while those ahead of them zagged and selected the first pitcher of the draft with the sixth overall pick. That draft pick: Jake Arrieta. All Arrieta would go on to do is lead the league in wins (22) and pitching PAR (16.32) while compiling one of the best second halves of any pitcher in league history.
The pitching staff, led by Arrieta, Cole and Sonny Gray, wound up accumulating 40 pitching points, just three behind the Mavericks who were expected to have a historically strong pitching staff (and more-or-less did). But the Jackalope were almost as good. The bullpen was stellar as well, with Mark Melancon leading the league with 51 saves, just four shy of the league’s single-season record. Wade Davis had as much of a positive impact as any non-full time closer could.
While their pitching was very good, it was the offense that won the league for the Jackalope. They led the way with 45 batting points (out of a possible 50). They finished in the top four of all five offensive categories and were tops in RBI and runs scored. In addition to having the league’s top finisher in pitching PAR, they also had the top two in batting PAR. Donaldson and Paul Goldschmidt finished essentially tied at the top with 8.45 marks. That should set up a very interesting MVP vote with those two among the leading candidates. Donaldson proved his ’14 campaign was no fluke, beating all of his previous year’s hitting stats by wide margins. He led the league in runs (122), finished second in RBI (123) and fifth in home runs (41). But Goldschmidt may have had even better numbers across the board, with a .322 average, 33 HR, 110 RBI, 100 R and a sneaky 21 stolen bases. The last players to match/exceed those numbers in all five categories were Ryan Braun and Matt Kemp in 2011.
Donaldson and Goldschmidt weren’t the only shining stars for the Jackalope offense. Giancarlo Stanton also looked like a MVP candidate in the first half. But a broken wrist wound up costing him the entire second half of the season. Most teams would not have been able to overcome such a significant injury to a top player. In fact, the Jackalope suffered a bunch of injuries to key players. But they had a whole stable of other solid contributors to keep them going strong: Eric Hosmer, D.J. LeMahieu, Brett Gardner, Adam Jones and a rejuvenated Ryan Braun to name a few.
This is the second DTBL title for the Jackalope. The first came back in 2011. They had been slowly building towards that title, assembling a pitching staff the likes of which the league had not seen before. I would say this 2015 championship was far more surprising. Since the ’11 title, they had finished in the middle of the pack a couple times and came in dead last just two years ago. The only other last to first turnaround that can compare would be the Darkhorses, who made the shocking jump in consecutive years (2006-2007). The Jackalope join the Choppers, Gators and Mavericks as two time champs, leaving no teams with just a single title.
There will be time to review what went wrong for the rest of the league another day. Truthfully, it didn’t matter. The Jackalope were going to win the league this year regardless. I’ll start my reviews of the rest of the league next week. In the meantime, enjoy the start of the MLB post-season. Congrats to Jay on a well earned title and thanks to everyone else for another fun season.
Congrats Jay! What thoroughly dominant season. I’m just happy you were kind enough to share 1st place with me at the beginning of the season; mighty cordial of you.
This was a great season as well. Aside from Jay’s team taking off, and Marc and Dave battling for 2nd and 3rd, there were 7 of us battling for the rest of the standings most of the season. I had a lot of fun watching the standings change almost daily. Already looking forward to next year!
Thanks for the accolades guys, and for a really fun season. It’s always a challenge knowing that literally nobody in this league auto drafts and leaves their team to rot, which makes doing well all the more difficult. Don’t expect a fire sale from me before next year, however…I’m already looking at #3!