It seems like 85% of the content I have written for this site this year has focused on the Jackalope. They were the talk of the league in March with their blockbuster trades. Then came a thoroughly dominating championship season in which they picked up individual player honors in almost every month. And now in awards season, they have already claimed both the Rookie of the Year and Cy Young awards, thanks to Jake Arrieta. Which brings us to the Most Valuable Player award, an honor which the Jackalope figured to have not one, but two top candidates. Sure enough, those two players finished first and second in the vote. The award goes to one of the players they acquired in that pre-season shake-up. Josh Donaldson is the 2015 DTBL Most Valuable Player.
Donaldson and his Jackalope teammate Paul Goldschmidt finished in a virtual tie atop the Batting PAR leaderboard. So it comes as no surprise that those two led the way in the MVP vote as well. The third baseman, Donaldson, had the edge in home runs, RBI and runs while Goldschmidt bested him in average and stolen bases. Donaldson led the league with 122 runs, came in second in RBI with 123 and finished fifth in home runs with 41. He is the only player in the league to finish in the top five of those three power categories. His .297 average wasn’t too shabby either.
A breakout star last year in his DTBL rookie campaign, Donaldson proved that ’14 wasn’t a fluke. In fact, he significantly improved upon all of his numbers except stolen bases. The Moonshiners drafted him in the first round a year ago and he rewarded them with an All-Star season, finishing third in the Rookie of the Year vote. He was the key piece moving to the Jackalope in a deal that sent elite pitcher Felix Hernandez to the Moonshiners. The full deal was Donaldson and a fourth round pick for Hernandez and Ian Kennedy. Despite Hernandez having another terrific season, the first year edge clearly goes to the Jackalope in that swap. Donaldson helped lead the league’s best offense to an easy league championship. He was a key part in the team finishing in the top four of every offensive category.
Goldschmidt had a very strong claim for this award as well, posting great numbers across the board (.321, 33 HR, 110 RBI, 103 R, 21 SB). As mentioned, the two Jackalope stars had virtually identical PAR numbers as well. In the end, it was probably Donaldson’s power edge that garnered him this award. The vote was relatively close, but Donaldson received a majority of the first place votes. He got six first place tallies, two seconds, a third and a fourth for 82 points. Goldschmidt had a pair of first place votes and four each for second and third. He came in second place with 68 points. NL MVP Bryce Harper also received strong consideration. The Darkhorses outfielder received two first place votes as well, but didn’t fair quite as well down ballot, and was left off one ballot completely. He finished with 55 points. Next, Nolan Arenado made sure two of the top four spots would go to third baseman. The Naturals’ slugger came in fourth with 38 points. Those four were head and shoulders above the rest of the pack. The fifth place spot went to a guy who actually didn’t finish higher than fifth on any ballot, but got five votes in that #5 spot. That player is the defending MVP, Mavericks outfielder Mike Trout. Trout has now finished in the top five of the MVP vote in all four of his DTBL seasons.
Click here to view the full MVP voting results.
With that, the Jackalope have swept all three of the major post-season awards. I don’t have complete records of the award winners from the league’s first decade to easily reference, but I believe this is the first time a team has won all three awards in the same season. Fitting, considering the 2015 Jackalope were unquestionably one of the best teams in league history.
So that’s it for a while. I have several plans for the winter, but I’ll keep them to myself for now so that I don’t set any expectations that I will surely fail to live up to. One certainty is that I will continue to retroactively calculate PAR numbers for past seasons. Hopefully, I’ll have numbers going back to at least a decade ago before next season begins.
Happy Thanksgiving!