A year ago, the Naturals had a mediocre pitching staff and wound up finishing 10 1/2 points behind the champions. This year, that staff suddenly turned into one of the league’s best and the Naturals won their third DTBL Championship. They had a roster full of pitchers who had great seasons, but one player clearly led the way: David Price. In a result that turned out to be almost identical to the AL Cy Young race, Price just barely edged out Justin Verlander to win the 2012 DTBL Cy Young award.
In his young career, Price has established himself as one of the most dominating pitchers in the game. Few can match his raw stuff, especially from the left side. He has been able to produce stellar numbers despite pitching in the grueling AL East. 2012 was his best season yet though. He finished just a hair behind Clayton Kerhaw with the league’s second best ERA at 2.56. He was second in wins as well, reaching the 20 win mark for the first time in his career. His 1.10 WHIP was the fourth lowest in the league and he struck out 205. The wins, ERA and WHIP numbers were career bests.
A second round pick of the Naturals in 2009, Price has had four quality seasons with the club in a stretch where they have never finished lower than third place. He has now been a member of two DTBL Championship teams: 2010 and 2012, which also happened to be his personal best seasons to date. Currently 27 years old, I’m sure he has quite a few more good years in him. Along with Zack Greinke and Matt Cain, the Naturals don’t expect to have any trouble remaining near the top of the points table in the near future, particularly on the pitching side.
As mentioned up top, this was an incredibly close vote. Verlander just barely missed winning his second straight Cy Young award. The Kings ace led the league in strike outs and had nearly identical ERA and WHIP numbers to Price (slight edge to Price in ERA and Verlander in WHIP). What probably made the difference though was the three extra wins for Price. Verlander finished with 17 victories. Price received five of the ten first place votes, compared to three for Verlander. However, Verlander almost made up for that difference with his five second place votes to just one for Price. Neither were placed lower than third on any ballot though. In the end, Price eked out the prize with 77 points, two ahead of Verlander.
Those weren’t the only two players who received serious consideration for this award. Another lefty, Clayton Kershaw of the Mavericks also received a pair of first place votes. Kershaw led the league in ERA and WHIP and was second in strike outs. But his downfall was just 14 wins. While baseball people are willing to overlook low win totals in these days of advanced statistics, they can’t really be ignored in fantasy baseball since that category counts just as much as any other. Kershaw was completely left off three ballots, but racked up 35 points to finish third in the vote. Meanwhile, the Cougars Gio Gonzalez rode his league leading 21 wins to 30 points and a fourth place finish. Rounding out the top five is Craig Kimbrel who earned 23 points as the highest finishing relief pitcher. The Choppers closer had one of the most dominating seasons you will ever see from a relief pitcher, but had little chance of winning this award with so many strong starters in the field. Not included in this top five are several other pitchers who had incredible seasons: Matt Cain, Johnny Cueto and R.A. Dickey, to name a few. In the case of Dickey, the NL Cy Young winner probably would have had a good shot at this award in the DTBL too had he been on a roster at the beginning of the season. Cain will console himself with his MLB and DTBL championship rings.
Click here to view the full details of the incredibly close vote. Had any of the ten voters moved Verlander up a spot, or pushed Price down a level, we would have had a different winner.
Check back on Friday evening when the Trout/Cabrera MVP debate will be settled once and for all…. or will Ryan Braun crash the party?
File this one under “Least Surprising News of the Year”: Mike Trout has been unanimously selected as the 2012 DTBL Rookie of the Year. The only question is where does his season rank among the top rookie campaigns of all time? Heck, forget rookie seasons. He put together one of the best seasons of any player in league history. He has some stiff competition for the league MVP award, but he is certainly in that conversation as well.
Although Trout has been considered one of baseball’s top prospects for the last couple years, the Mavericks selection of him with the 12th pick in this year’s draft caught some by surprise. He struggled a bit in his brief MLB stop in 2011 and was not expected to play a significant role for the Angels this year due to a very crowded outfield situation. But sometimes you just have to make room for a “once in a generation” type talent. If the rest of his career plays out anything like his rookie season, Trout will be the biggest steal in the DTBL Draft since the inaugural one in 1993.
Just how good was Trout? Well, he led the league in runs scored (128) and stolen bases (48) by wide margins, despite not making it onto the Mavericks big league roster until May. Only one player in the past five years has scored more runs than that in a single season (Curtis Granderson, 2011). Oh by the way, he also hit .330 (3rd in the league) with 30 home runs. He is already combining power and speed unlike anything this league has seen before. His 48 stolen bases are the most in DTBL history for a player who also hit 30+ home runs. He was just two stolen bases shy of becoming the first 30/50 player in this league. Not bad for a guy who just turned 21 in August.
The Mavericks rebuilding plan got kicked up a notch or five thanks to the acquisition of Trout. He led the team in batting average, runs and stolen bases and was largely responsible for their jump from the third worst offense in 2011 to the second best this year. In fact, he was the main reason the team as a whole improved from eighth place to nearly pulling off a shocking upset, coming in just one point away from a league title. Trout is just one of a stable full of young, exciting Mavericks. They figure to be one of the favorites to win it all next year.
Speaking of young Mavericks, the second place finisher in the Rookie of the Year vote is another Maverick: Stephen Strasburg. Sometimes when a player wins a vote unanimously, it is due to a lack of deserving competition. But that was not the case with this year’s group of rookies. Strasburg easily could have won the award in a different year. The second overall pick in the draft won 15 games with 197 strike outs and a 3.16 ERA in just under 160 innings pitched. Of course, it was that limited innings count that created quit a controversy this fall and may have cost both the Nationals and Mavericks a championship. Strasburg received half of the second place votes and finished with 58 points. Right behind him was a rookie only in the DTBL sense of the word, 37 year old R.A. Dickey. Dickey is a strong NL Cy Young candidate and would have had a shot at that award in this league too, except he remained a free agent until the Moonshiners signed him in late May. So only 13 of his 20 wins counted in this league. But he still had extremely impressive numbers across the board. He received four second place votes and finished just a hair behind Strasburg with 52 points. The final second place vote went to Jackalope first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, who finished fourth in the vote with a tally of 31 points. Finally, Choppers first baseman Mark Trumbo finished in fifth place with 14 points.
With one award to his name already, we will see later this week if Mike Trout is able to win the league’s Most Valuable Player award as well. The Trout/Cabrera debate has been brewing for quite some time now, so I’m sure many are anxiously waiting to see how that shakes out. In the mean time click here to view the full 2012 DTBL Rookie of the Year voting results. Check back tomorrow evening for the Cy Young announcement. Also, I haven’t forgotten about the 3rd and final season recap article, but it will have to wait until all of the awards have been handed out.
When a season ends like this year’s DTBL campaign did, there is always going to be a lot of second guessing. One move here or there. One umpiring or official scorer decision gone bad. One unlucky bounce of the ball could have been the difference between a league championship and also-ran status for four different teams. The Naturals won the DTBL Championship, but four other teams came oh so close. Here’s a look back at 2012 for the Kings, Mavericks, Moonshiners and Jackalope.
While a second place finish is always a little disappointing, it was a step in the right direction for the Kings. This was their highest finish since 2007 and only the second time they were a legitimate title contender since their reign of championships ended in 2003. Like the champion Naturals, the Kings went through a bit of a transformation this season, albeit in the opposite direction. Previously a pitching dominated team, this year they led the league in batting points and failed to win the league primarily due to a disappointing pitching staff. Their starting pitching was a mess most of the season with Justin Verlander being the only consistent performer. A second half surge, led by Max Scherzer, nearly won the league for them though. The offense was solid all season, but faded a bit due to a poor second half by Carlos Beltran and a late season injury to Carlos Gonzalez. Robinson Cano was the steady hand throughout. The Kings are going to have some very difficult roster decisions to make because they may have more keeper-worthy players than any other team. In this year’s draft, we saw a bunch of ex-Demigods picked in the early rounds. That could be the Kings next year.
For my money, the most interesting team in the league in 2012 was the Mavericks. Their youth movement finally paid off in a big way. Although they expected to be at least one more year away from being a serious contender, one move in particular shifted that time table way up. What might some day go down as the biggest coup in league history, the Mavericks were able to steal Mike Trout in the second round of this year’s draft. As I’ve mentioned before, I thought it was a huge reach at that point of the draft, but boy was I wrong. Trout finished third in the league in hitting at .330, easily led the league in runs scored (128) and stolen bases (48) and hit 30 home runs. He did all of this despite not making his DTBL debut until May. He almost won the league for the Mavericks, though he did have some help. Edwin Encarnacion, Adam Jones and Jason Heyward were some of the huge breakout stars for this club. The pitching staff took a hit when Stephen Strasburg was shut down in September and they had no free agent signings remaining to replace him. But Clayton Kershaw had another great season. The Strasburg/Kerhsaw/Trout combination makes this one scary team for the foreseeable future. Following two disappointing seasons, 2012 was just the beginning of the Mavericks resurgence.
The Moonshiners may have been the team that suffered the most disappointment in the final week of the season. Early in the week, they appeared to be well positioned to win their first DTBL title. But they wound up settling for fourth place, albeit just a point and a half out of first. That is actually down a spot from their third place finish in 2011, though 2012 was clearly a better season for them. They were the league’s most balanced team; the only team to finish with 30+ batting and pitching points. They were third in the league in both sub-sets. While they lacked huge seasons from anyone, especially on the offensive side of things, they had incredible depth. Prince Fielder and David Wright led the offense. Jared Weaver was probably their top pitcher over the course of the full season, but the key free agent signing of R.A. Dickey was also one of the biggest moves of the year. Although the fourth place finish was disappointing, it may have been just as well that the Moonshiners finished a half point behind the Kings and Mavericks because they will now have the opportunity to pick before those two clubs in the draft. One of the steadiest teams in the league, it seems like it will only be a matter of time before the Moonshiners break through with their first title.
Finally, we have the defending champions. Dropping from first to fifth is obviously a huge disappointment for the Jackalope, but it wasn’t necessarily all that surprising. Rarely are teams able to catch all the breaks two years in a row. While the ’11 Jackalope cruised to the title thanks to an unbeatable pitching staff and virtually no significant injuries, the ’12 squad wasn’t so lucky. They still managed to lead the league in pitching points, but the rotation led by Roy Halladay, Felix Hernandez, Cliff Lee and Ian Kennedy just wasn’t as dominating as a year ago. Lee was especially unlucky, not winning his first game until June despite pretty decent peripheral numbers. But the real problem was the offense. Ryan Howard missed the first half of the season and wasn’t particularly effective after he returned. Several of their youngsters had disappointing seasons. Albert Pujols wasn’t even close to his usual elite self. The two bright spots were Ryan Braun and Giancarlo Stanton. The rest of the offense is going to need some work in the offseason. But expect the pitching to bounce back next year, which should keep them in the hunt once again.
The rest of the league has some work to do to catch these top five teams. But history has shown that breakthrough seasons are likely again next year. I will recap the disappointing 2012 season for the bottom five teams later this week.
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.
In the two decades this league has existed, we’ve had our fair share of exciting finishes to DTBL seasons, but nothing quite like this year. The final week of the 2012 season featured five teams within at least two points of first place at some point in the week. In fact, if you count incremental progress within each date, most of the five found themselves in first place at some point. For a brief moment on Wednesday night, it looked like we may have been headed to an absurd three way tie for the league championship. However, when the dust settled, only one team came out on top. Congratulations to Nick’s Naturals, the 2012 Dream Team Baseball League Champions!
As usual, I intend to write about the league champion with a full recap of how they earned the title. But that is going to have to wait until next week. Tonight, I want to focus on the absurdity of the title race, describe just how things went down on the final night, and describe just how close we were to the most unlikely result in any fantasy league I have ever been a part of.
As the summer progressed, it seemed quite likely that we were headed towards an exciting finish. At no point in the season had any team run away from the pack; at least not for more than a few days at a time. The lead constantly changed hands. Seven teams looked like legitimate title contenders. The Cougars and Choppers faded a bit in July and August, setting up a five team race to the finish. With exactly one week to go, here is how the top five looked:
Moonshiners, 73.5 points
Kings, 72.5 (-1)
Naturals, 67 (-6.5)
Jackalope, 66.5 (-7)
Mavericks, 65 (-8.5)
It was fairly noteworthy that the top two teams had separated themselves from the others by more than five points, because that was rarely the case in September. But it was clear when analyzing the standings that more change was likely to come. There was also a great deal of uncertainty heading into the final transaction deadline. Would the teams who had already clinched MLB playoff spots rest their starters? Skip spots in the rotation? Or even completely shut down some guys? This was particularly troubling for teams worried about getting as many starts from their starting pitchers as possible. The Moonshiners appeared to be in very good shape, not only because they held the top spot, but they had most of their starting pitchers slated to start twice in the final week. Meanwhile, the Kings were dealing with several nagging injuries to their outfielders and uncertainty about Max Scherzer’s availability in the final week. The other three challengers were just trying to hang on.
Three days later, the Moonshiners lead grew to four points. The four challengers were all within a point of each other, but needed to make up ground quickly. By the next morning (Monday), the lead was down to 1 1/2 points and the sprint to the finish was on. On the second to last day of the season, the Moonshiners lost the lead completely as the Kings and Naturals moved into a tie for first entering the final day. The Moonshiners slipped to 1 1/2 points back. The Jackalope’s dream of a repeat seemed unlikely, 3 1/2 points behind. And finally, the Mavericks looked to be in big trouble, 5 1/2 points off the pace. But the Mavericks had one thing going for them that the other challengers did not: multiple starting pitchers scheduled to take the mound, including their ace, Clayton Kershaw. Actually, that’s not quite true. The Moonshiners were also supposed to get three starts on the final day of the season. However, the Brewers elected to scratch Yovani Gallardo and the Angels pulled Jered Weaver after just one inning. This essentially ended the Moonshiners hopes of gaining a point in strike outs and decreased their movement possibilities in ERA and WHIP.
I won’t rehash all of the events of the final day, as most of them can be found in my live blog from yesterday. But one part of the story must be repeated. During the 10 o’clock hour, I was frantically updating my spreadsheet with all of the stats from the completed 7 p.m. games as well as most of the stats from the last batch of games. At one point, I calculated a three way tie for first place. Had the season ended at that instant, the Kings, Mavericks and Naturals would have shared the title. But some later shifts in RBI and saves moved the Naturals back into the final position they claimed.
The three way tie scenario was actually a lot closer to happening than I realized last night. The WHIP category was the craziest to follow on the last day. Only three of the league’s ten teams ended the day where they started in that category. The margins between most of the teams were miniscule, but especially between the Gators and Naturals. When it was all said and done, the Naturals edged out the Gators for second place in WHIP by two ten-thousandths of a point. To put that in perspective, had any Naturals pitcher finished the season with one more base runner allowed via hit or walk, the Gators would have finished ahead of them and we would be talking about three co-champions. I bet I wouldn’t have to try very hard to find a questionable scoring decision somewhere over the course of the season where a Naturals pitcher benefited from an error rather than a hit. But that’s not to say the Naturals got lucky. In fact, they were well positioned to gain points in a whole host of other categories. They were one offensive hit away from passing the Kings in batting average, for example. I only illustrate this to show you just how ridiculously close this race was.
Of the ten categories, all but two of them saw points change hands during the final day. This is incredibly unusual at the six month mark of the season, especially in high value counting categories like RBI and runs. Based on what we saw yesterday, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that we would have had four or five different leaders if the season had extended a few more days, just as we saw the lead change hands several times over the final weeks. But the season has to end sometime, and the Naturals were fortunate enough to come out on top.
I’m sure all four of the teams who came up just short have been thinking about decisions they made that may have cost them a title. With the way things ended up, it wouldn’t be very hard to point to a single transaction each team made (or could have made, but didn’t), which would have shifted the standings in their favor. But such is life when a season ends as this one did. There is always next year for the rest of us!
What is it with the finishes in Naturals championship seasons? They earned their third DTBL title this year, and the two most recent ones have come in the two craziest finishes in league history. Of course, the other season I speak of was 2010 when they shared the title with the Darkhorses. It certainly makes their 3 1/2 point victory in 2005 look like a cakewalk.
Look for a full review of the Naturals championship season next week, as well as a glimpse at the other contenders who fell just short.
After sending the email to the group list last night, I realized that it can be difficult to fully describe what is going on with just 140 characters at a time, so I’ve decided to start a running blog post to summarize the championship race this evening. I will continue to tweet updates as well, but feel free to keep refreshing this post to see my updates throughout the night.
With one day remaining on the schedule, we have five teams within three points of first place. It doesn’t get any better than this. There are points to be gained or lost in almost every category. I will let you know every change as close to real-time as possible, via Twitter, and with occasional updates here.
Time for me to get caught up on the afternoon games. There were some very interesting developments, but it remains to be seen if there were any changes to the standings. I’ll have an update shortly. Stay tuned!
7:50 pm
Well, I’ve finished updating things through the completed afternoon games. Thanks to a rough outing by Jonathan Papelbon, the Kings dropped a point in ERA, falling behind the Choppers. Meanwhile, the Jackalope also fell one further down as the Choppers passed them in WHIP. Plenty of categories tightened as well. The Kings picked up two home runs (Zimmerman and Morse) and are now just one behind the Mavericks for the league lead. However, the standings are now as follows: Naturals (71 points), Moonshiners (70), Kings and Mavericks tied (69), Jackalope (67). Not looking good for the defending champs. Now I’ll work on updating the games in progress.
8:40 pm
Okay, trying to keep this “live” is virtually impossible, but one thing is starting to become clear. It appears the Naturals will win the 2012 DTBL Championship. They now lead the league with 72 1/2 points. The Mavericks have moved up to 2nd place, but are 3 points back. Moonshiners have dropped to 3rd (69). Kings and Jackalope are 4th and 5th respectively, and are leaking points all over the place. Still way too many close categories to call this thing, but not looking good for anyone other than the Naturals.
9:00 pm
Did they really have to schedule this Presidential Debate on the last night of the MLB season? Don’t they know there are fantasy league titles on the line tonight? May not be many updates from me for a while… Still looking good for the Naturals, though Robinson Cano’s big night has pushed the Kings into the league lead in HR and has them back into 2nd place overall. 2 1/2 point lead for the Naturals though.
10:51 pm
Way too many changes since my last update to list, but we have a major development. I now have the Kings, Mavericks and Naturals in a three way tie for first at 69.5 points, with the Moonshiners 1/2 point back and the Jackalope 2 points behind the leader. The main reasons for the change: great start by Clayton Kershaw gave the Mavericks a boost, especially since another Mavericks pitcher (Ryan Vogelsong) also had a good outing in that same game. Robinson Cano went 4 for 4 with a pair of home runs, boosting the Kings in HR and batting average. Finally, I have the Naturals and Jackalope tied in RBIs now, which also cost the Naturals 1/2 point. Needless to say, it is way too close to call right now.
11:11 pm
Jason Motte’s save puts the Naturals back into the lead. Ironically, it was another Naturals pitcher that helped set up the save opportunity. Jonathan Broxton gave up a run and took the loss. He didn’t cost the Naturals in the WHIP category, yet. They are thousandths of a point ahead of the Gators at the moment, according to my calculations. Kings, Mavericks and Moonshiners are all within a point, so a change in any category could tip the title in a different direction.
11:47 pm
The 2012 season is now over. I have compiled all of today’s results. The gap between teams in almost every category is so small that I do not trust my final results and sort of wish I hadn’t chosen to do this “live” updating because the chances I have it wrong are quite high. Anyway, according to my numbers the 2012 DTBL Champions are Nick’s Naturals!
The Naturals have 70 1/2 points. The Kings and Mavericks tied for second place, just one point behind. The Moonshiners fell to fourth place with 69 points and the Jackalope came in 5th with 67.
I urge you to check in again tomorrow morning around 8:15 a.m. EDT when I will post the official results. This could be a “Dewey Defeats Truman” moment, but if not, congratulations Nick!
For most of the month of September, as many as five teams have been within a couple points of first place, setting up the potential for one of the craziest finishes in league history. I wish I had taken the time to write this article a few days ago when all five of the contenders were within two points of each other. In the last couple days, the gap has widened a bit. But the fluctuation in those couple days just goes to show you how quickly things could change again. With less than a week to go in the 2012 DTBL season, the league title isn’t even close to being decided.
Here is a team-by-team overview of the five contenders, looking at the state of each team and what needs to happen for them to finish on top.
Jackalope
Although at no point this season have the defending champions held a commanding lead, I really felt they were the team to beat in the late summer. They were showing signs of the same form that led them to the title last year. But their offense has been a huge disappointment most of the season, and especially lately. Ryan Braun has been trying to carry the load, but he has had virtually no help. The injury to Giancarlo Stanton couldn’t have come at a worse time, although he is back in the lineup tonight. The Jackalope’s nine point deficit may be too much to make up in such a short period of time, especially since the offense has shown no signs of life. It would seem likely that we will have a new champion in 2012, but don’t count the Jackalope out just yet.
Mavericks
The surprise team of the year appears to be running out of gas. It is a pretty notable accomplishment for them to have remained in the race this long. Due to exhausting all of their free agent signings well over a month ago, they have been unable to field replacements for players who have been injured/shelved in recent weeks. Prior to Clayton Kershaw’s return earlier this week, the Mavericks were stuck with just three healthy/active starting pitchers. The Stephen Strasburg shutdown was expected, but the Johan Santana and Kershaw injuries were not. Perhaps their strategy of burning through their free agent signings could be questioned, but I think the Mavericks figured their rebuilding plan was at least a year ahead of schedule, so they were playing with house money. This will be a tough team to beat in 2013.
Naturals
Many of the things stated in the Jackalope section also apply here. The Naturals have remained in the title chase despite a slightly disappointing offense. Miguel Cabrera and Andrew McCutchen have been doing their part, but the Naturals still find themselves in the middle of the pack in batting points. The good news is they are situated in striking distance of their nearest competitor in a whole bunch of categories. They have a decent shot at picking up as many as three points in home runs alone. In fact, I believe they have the best chance of anyone to catch the Moonshiners. Their pitching staff is the best in the league right now. If the Moonshiners slip up at all, expect the Naturals to be right there on the final day of the season.
Kings
The second half turnaround of the Kings pitching staff has been extremely impressive and season saving. Burried in 9th place in ERA most of the season, their deficit appeared to be too much to make up. But the Tigers’ duo of Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer has propelled them up to a more respectable spot. However, the Kings title hopes may have been dashed when news came out that Scherzer would miss his start this weekend and may not pitch again in the regular season. Kings management learned of this just hours after the final transactions of the year had been processed. So if Anibal Sanchez winds up throwing another gem this weekend, the failure to keep him in the lineup could be the dagger to the Kings. The other problem is that they have pretty much reached their point ceiling. Most likely, the only way they will make up the current 3 1/2 point deficit is if the Moonshiners fall back a bit.
Moonshiners
Usually, a team would feel pretty good about a 3 1/2 point lead with less than a week to go. But considering the Moonshiners weren’t even in first place earlier this week, obviously a lot can happen in just a couple days. Unlike the other four title contenders, the Moonshiners don’t have an obvious weakness. They are the only team in the league with 30+ batting and pitching points. In fact, they are over 35 in both. It’s pretty simple for the Moonshiners. All they need to do is hold serve. No other team is going to reach the mid-70’s point mark. So as long as they don’t start dropping points, they will win their first DTBL title. However, that’s not exactly a sure thing. They are in danger of losing points in home runs, WHIP, wins, strike outs and possibly even batting average. The fat lady hasn’t even started warming up her vocal chords.
During the 2011 regular season, there was not a single trade completed in the DTBL. This year, things were back to normal with a handful of deals going down. This was not a surprising development since, unlike last year, more than half of the teams were still in title contention by the time the trade deadline arrived earlier this week. In total, five trades were completed. Three of them involved the Moonshiners, who are trying to make this the second consecutive season with a first time DTBL champion. Since I have not written about any of the these trades, I will recap them all right now, even the ones that were completed quite a while ago.
Mavericks/Darkhorses (June 6)
Mavericks get: RP Matt Capps, P Matt Harrison
Darkhorses get: P Ricky Romero, RP Daniel Bard
I don’t think it is too early to say this trade his been quite a disaster on both sides. The Mavericks made this deal to try to get themselves another closer, but Matt Capps got hurt very soon after this trade and is yet to record a save for his new team. Meanwhile, the key piece going the opposite direction, Ricky Romero, has continued his dreadful season. The Darkhorses other acquisition, Daniel Bard, is buried in the minors where he can’t throw strikes. It is unclear if he will ever be a viable MLB pitcher again. As it turns out, the only player in this trade who has had any sort of value is Matt Harrison. But he was only included because the Darkhorses needed to clear out a roster spot. The Mavericks immediately released him. The Moonshiners swooped in and signed him later and he has had a very productive season for them.
Mavericks/Gators (July 11)
Mavericks get: 2B Dan Uggla
Gators get: C Salvador Perez
As Greg can confirm, I was not happy when I saw the details of this trade. I thought it was a steal for the Mavericks, primarily because they were able to fill a glaring hole (Dee Gordon had just gone on the DL, leaving them short a middle infielder) without giving up a player that had much value to them. But with hindsight being 20/20, this was actually a pretty solid move for the Gators. Uggla is a batting average killer and isn’t even putting up particularly impressive power numbers anymore. In fact, since this trade was made, Perez has one more home run than Uggla. Perez is obviously a lot younger too, making him a better fit for the Gators future plans. That’s not to say this has become a bad trade for the Mavericks though. They had little use for Perez with Wieters and Santana anchoring their catching staff. Perhaps Uggla will go on one of his patented hot streaks before this season ends.
Moonshiners/Demigods (July 26)
Moonshiners get: RP Joe Nathan, 12th Round Pick
Demigods get: 2nd Round Pick
There was a lot of activity around the trade deadline involving closers, but this was the only deal that actually got done (not counting the Capps trade in June). Out of contention for this season, the Demigods had little use for a 37 year old closer. So they were able to get a second round pick for him. If you are wondering what type of player this could turn out to be for the Demigods, here are two names of players picked in this year’s second round: Mike Trout and Gio Gonzalez. Maybe they won’t get that lucky, but there is too much opportunity there for them to have passed on a deal like this. Meanwhile, this was the first sign that the Moonshiners are truly “all in” for 2012. They are up to 5th in saves with a great opportunity to pick up another point before the year is over.
Moonshiners/Kings (August 15)
Moonshiners get: C Miguel Montero, P Edwin Jackson
Kings get: P Dan Haren, 3B David Freese
This was probably the biggest trade made this season, in part because it was the only one involving two teams in the championship chase. In fact, to see two teams so close to each other in the standings make a trade this big this late in the season is quite rare. The Moonshiners needed to find a catcher after losing both of their regulars (J.P. Arencibia and Mike Napoli) to injuries. Not only were they able to find one, but they got an upper echelon receiver in Montero. The Kings could afford to deal him because they had two other good, young catchers on their roster (Jonathan LuCroy and Wilin Rosario). On the flip side, the Kings have been struggling to find effective starting pitching all season. In many ways, Haren fits right in with the rest of the underachieving staff. However, he probably has more upside than anyone in their rotation not named Verlander. Although this was an attempt to get better now, the bigger upside for the Kings may be in the future. Freese returns to his original DTBL team to fill a need at 3B, which has been a black hole since ARod got hurt. Jackson could wind up being a huge pickup for the Moonshiners too, even though he was probably considered the least valuable player in the deal.
Moonshiners/Darkhorses (August 15)
Moonshiners get: OF Alex Rios, 11th Round Pick
Darkhorses get: C Mike Napoli, 4th Round Pick
The last trade, completed within the last couple hours before the deadline, was what the Moonshiners hope to be the final piece of their puzzle. They acquired the red-hot Rios for an injured catcher and a draft pick swap. Earlier this year, nobody would have guessed that a Napoli/Rios swap would lead to the team acquiring Napoli also receiving the advantage in a draft pick exchange. But it has been a disappointing, and now injury hampered season for Napoli. He could be a key addition for the Darkhorses though as he is capable of supplying big time power from a very weak position. But for this season, Rios is obviously the player with more value. He is having a very productive season, following a truly dreadful 2011. The recent trend points to good seasons in even numbered years and poor seasons in odd years. So we’ll have to see what he provides the Moonshiners next year. But in the mean time, he could be a huge addition for the final month and a half of 2012.
Finally, I want to end with a follow up to my previous blog post, which focused on the Stephen Strasburg situation. I knew this was going to be a big story, but didn’t expect major features coming out from every corner of the sports world the last few weeks. It has been discussed on nearly every sports program and web site. What I find fascinating is that the people who seem to have the most to lose (short term) from a Strasburg shutdown (the Nationals, their fans, and the DC sports media) seem to be the only ones who actually support the shutdown. Meanwhile, the so-called experts outside of DC seem to be unanimously opposed to the shutdown. This is almost exactly the opposite of what I expected. Hearing Rob Dibble and Tim McCarver give dimwitted declarations of opposition to the shutdown actually has me reconsidering my position. Do I really want to be on their side of this argument?
The most common baseball related question being asked here in DC these days is will they or won’t they? As in, will the Nationals actually shut down Stephen Strasburg in the middle of a pennant race with his team trying to reach the playoffs for the first time since they moved to DC and only the second time in franchise history? I gather that it is one of the biggest stories in all of baseball as well. Since I have seen most of Strasburg’s starts this year, either in person or on TV, I have certainly developed my own opinion on the matter. So I figure I should put myself on the record before the story reaches its final chapter. I’ll touch on the fantasy implications as well, but only briefly.
I believe it would be a mistake to shut Strasburg down in September, but with some significant caveats which I will get to in a bit. Shutting him down would seriously jeopardize the team’s chances of post-season success, which should be the ultimate goal of every MLB franchise. If there was hard evidence that limiting a young pitcher coming back from Tommy John surgery is always the right answer, then perhaps I would have delayed the start of Strasburg’s season. But what I would not do is go into the playoffs without my best pitcher, if he is healthy, and if I thought my team had a very good chance of making a World Series run.
First, a little history for those of you who may not follow the Nationals all that closely. Since the Expos moved to Washington in 2005, the franchise has mostly been the laughingstock of the league. They finished in last place in five of their first six seasons, highlighted by MLB worst records in 2008 and 2009, their first two seasons in a new ballpark. They lost 102 and 103 games in those dreadful campaigns. Of course, those seasons also led to them receiving the first overall pick in the draft in consecutive years, which they used to select a couple guys you may have heard of: Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper. They could not have picked two better years to be so terrible. Yet, just having some of the best young prospects on the roster doesn’t make a team a winner. The Nationals still had a lot of improving to do, to erase the stench of losing.
Mid-way through that dreadful 2009 season, one of the Nats promising young pitchers, Jordan Zimmermann, tore a ligament in his elbow and was lost for over a year after undergoing Tommy John surgery. The following summer, Strasburg burst onto the scene dominating Major League hitters right from the start as he struck out 14 batters in his MLB debut. It was a magical summer, but it all came crashing down when Strasburg also succumbed to a torn elbow ligament in late August. Coincidentally, the date in which it was diagnosed that Strasburg would need Tommy John surgery was the date Zimmermann made his first MLB start following the same surgery.
Part of the reason why the Strasburg debate is what it is, is because the Nats have a blueprint to follow with Zimmermann. Right from the start of the 2011 season, Zimmermann was put on a very strict, and very public, 160 innings limit for the season. When he reached that mark in early September, the Nationals shut him down and he did not pitch again until this year’s spring training. His recovery has been a huge success, as he has arguably been the most consistent starter in the Nationals’ MLB-best rotation this year. So why wouldn’t the Nats follow the exact same plan with Strasburg? Well, there is one significant difference. The Nationals entered 2011 with extremely low expectations following another last place finish and had no intention of being a playoff contender, especially with Strasburg set to miss most of the season. Sure enough, they were not a playoff contender, although they did win 80 games for the first time since 2005. But they were essentially out of the race by the time Zimmermann reached his innings limit, so there was absolutely no reason not to stick to the plan.
Strasburg successfully returned to the big leagues for a handful of starts in September of 2011 and was named the Opening Day starter for 2012, a year in which the Nationals hoped to make their first legitimate run at the playoffs since moving to DC. Perhaps even exceeding their own expectations, they have had a remarkable season in which they have been in first place in the NL East most of the year, and even had the best record in baseball as recently as a couple weeks ago. So it is almost certain that the Nationals will either be in a playoff spot, or very close to it, when Strasburg reaches whatever limit the Nationals have prescribed.
It should be noted that, unlike with Zimmermann, the Nationals have never publicly stated what Strasburg’s limit is, just that he will be shut down at some point. General Manager Mike Rizzo has spoken on this topic many times. He has used phrases like “eye test”, which could lead one to believe that there is an outside chance they will not shut Strasburg down at all, but he has also stated very clearly that a shutdown will occur. It is anyone’s guess when this will be though. Some have speculated 170 innings, maybe even 180. These are nothing more than guesses.
As I stated up top, I think it would be a mistake to shut down Strasburg, making him unavailable for a post-season run. My primary reason for this opinion is because I believe the Nationals could be jeopardizing the best opportunity they will ever have to get to the World Series. They have a very young team with up-and-coming stars, and will possibly be a pennant contender for years to come. But nothing is guaranteed in baseball. The Nationals play in a division full of teams that meet at least one of these three criteria: a recent run of success, a big market, a willingness to spend large sums of money. So just because the future looks bright for the Nats doesn’t mean they are any sort of lock to make the post-season for years to come. In fact, I would bet heavily against it. Do you think Phillies, Red Sox and Marlins fans expected their teams to be below .500 right now? With an injury here or there, or a bunch of players failing to live up to expectations, that could very well be the Nationals next year or the year after. Unless you are the Yankees, you just can’t bank on a playoff appearance every single season.
With the additional wild card slot being added this year, I think we are going to find that winning your division is absolutely critical to advancing in the post-season. Those wild card teams are going to have to burn their best pitcher in that one game playoff, giving them a significant disadvantage against the league’s best team in the Division Series. So building on what I just wrote, teams are not going to want to mess around with their opportunities as division champs. If the Nationals played in a weak division, perhaps they should like their chances of several division titles in upcoming years, but that just might not be realistic. I will grant that the post-season can be a bit of a crap-shoot anyway, but I do think the new playoff configuration is going to make it a lot easier for the best teams to advance to the World Series, possibly the only redeeming aspect of adding more teams to the playoffs.
So building upon that, not only should the Nationals not want to weaken their playoff roster for this season, they also need to make sure they actually win the division. That is hardly a foregone conclusion. The Braves are just three games behind them right now and are playing as well as anyone outside Cincinnati. It is quite possible the Nationals are going to need every win they get in September, so trading a handful of Strasburg starts for John Lannan starts could be costly if they fall into one of the dreaded wild card spots.
With Strasburg, Zimmermann, Gio Gonzalez and Edwin Jackson, I believe the Nationals would be the favorites to win the NL pennant this year. Great starting pitching is the best recipe for success in the playoffs, especially in the National League. Without Strasburg, sure the Nats will still have a solid rotation with a chance to advance in the playoffs, but why would you want to reduce your chances?
So far, I have only talked about this from a team perspective, where as the arguments for shutting Strasburg down are about the long term health of the player. This is where I start throwing in some caveats to my opposition of the shutdown. I think the Nationals organization should, and will, closely monitor Strasburg in September. If he shows signs of tiring, or general ineffectiveness for a stretch of starts, then I would be on board with pulling the plug. If he isn’t going to be the dominating pitcher we have seen for most of his career, then there is no reason to risk it, and they might even be better off without him. However, if he continues to be one of the best pitchers in baseball right through the end of the season, I don’t see any reason to end his season prematurely.
I have mixed feelings about the threat of doing long term damage to Strasburg by allowing him to throw 200 or more total innings this year. Of course, the more a pitcher pitches, the more likely he is to get hurt. But isn’t that true of all pitchers? Is the concern because he is coming back from Tommy John surgery, because he is only 24 years old, or some combination of the two? I don’t think there is enough data yet on pitchers returning from Tommy John to make a definitive call on what number of innings/pitches is safe. There have been plenty instances where players have returned and been every bit as good as they were before they got hurt, with no restrictions. Just look at the recent outings by Adam Wainwright, who had his surgery seven months after Strasburg. I don’t think there is any talk of shutting him down this year.
Now, protecting young pitchers is a different story. Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci has written about this on several occasions, demonstrating how detrimental it can be to pitchers’ long term success if they drastically surpass their previous career high in innings pitched. This is a valid argument, and is certainly applicable to Strasburg who has never thrown more than 120 innings in a year. But this applies to several other young pitchers who are likely to be in the heat of pennant races this fall too. Chris Sale of the White Sox and the Cardinals’ Lance Lynn immediately come to mind.
So I accept that there is some risk in letting Strasburg pitch all the way to the end of the Nationals season, whenever that may be. But I believe the potential reward outweighs the risk. And I don’t think I’m being too callous about this either, since the player himself is almost certainly willing to take that risk to have the opportunity to pitch in the post-season for the first time in his career. One thing to keep in mind is that these are professional athletes who are being paid millions of dollars. That doesn’t mean that teams should abuse their pitchers all in the name of winning, but ultimately one would like to think the reason why they are making all of that money is to help their teams win championships. I believe Stephen Strasburg could help the Nationals do that right now.
What do I expect will happen? Well, the Nationals have given themselves some leeway by wisely not publicly stating what the innings limit is, or when exactly Strasburg’s season will end. I think he will continue to pitch well past 160 innings, assuming he is still pitching effectively. Since I am willing to take Mike Rizzo on his word, I will guess that they will pull the plug at some point. Perhaps mid-September as he approaches 170-180 innings. And if that does happen, I will give Rizzo a lot of credit for having the guts to stick to the plan. But it is not the decision I would make.
Finally, this decision could have a major impact on our league as well. The Mavericks are very much alive in the title race, but they cannot afford to lose any of the pitching points they currently have. Strasburg’s numbers will be hard to replace, especially in strike outs. To make matters worse for the Mavericks, they officially lost Neftali Feliz for the remainder of the season as he, too, has now had Tommy John surgery. It’s probably a good thing that these decisions on pitchers’ limits are left to professionals rather than fantasy baseball GMs though.
So there are my two cents. Maybe I’m being a little selfish because I’m hoping to see Strasburg pitch in playoff games at Nationals Park this October. But since the Nationals are not my #1 team, I think I am capable of forming a reasonably objective opinion on this matter. I won’t be one of the irate fans when Strasburg is nailed to the bench in October, but those people will exist. Hopefully, Strasburg will have other opportunities to pitch in the post-season in years to come, but nothing is guaranteed, especially for a franchise that is mostly known for its futility.
Just like the MLB All-Star Game on Tuesday, there was little drama in the DTBL All-Star Game on Thursday evening. In the 19th annual mid-summer game, the American Division cruised to a 12-1 victory over their National Division counterparts. The game even started eerily similar to the MLB game with Justin Verlander getting torched in the top of the first. The National All-Stars didn’t record their first hit until the fifth inning. Gators catcher Carlos Ruiz was named the MVP, going 3 for 3 with a home run and four runs knocked in. The game was played at the Demidome, home of Dom’s Demigods.
The game got off to an ominous start for the National Division with Verlander hitting Andrew McCutchen with the first pitch of the game. McCutchen came around to score on a base hit by Jose Bautista. David Wright followed with another RBI single. Later in the inning, Ruiz got his big night started with a two run single to give the American team a quick 4-0 lead in the first.
The American starting pitcher, Matt Cain, was far more effective. He pitched two scoreless, hitless innings and was followed by David Price who pitched two innings without giving up a hit either. Stephen Strasburg was the second pitcher into the game for the National squad, but he was only slightly more effective than Verlander. He gave up a two run home run to Miguel Cabrera in the top of the second, which increased the American lead to six. They were on cruise control from there, but were definitely not done scoring.
In the top of the fifth, Cole Hamels came in to pitch for the National Division and promptly gave up extra base hits to the first three hitters he faced. Doubles by Mark Trumbo and Ian Kinsler proceeded a two run home run by Ruiz. Half way through the game, it was 9-0 American with the National All-Stars still looking for their first hit. That hit finally came in the bottom of the fifth when Buster Posey hit a solo home run to end the no-hitter and shutout.
The American Division still had more runs in them. They scored three more in the top of the seventh to push the score to 12-1. The big hit of the inning was a bases clearing three run double by Ryan Braun. Neither team scored the rest of the way. Craig Kimbrel finished things off in the ninth with a pair of strike outs, including one of A.J. Pierzynski to end mercifully end the game.
There were plenty of offensive stars for the American Division, but Ruiz was the obvious choice for MVP. Ruiz and Braun both had three hits and at least three RBIs (four for Ruiz). Cabrera, Bautista and Kinsler each had multiple hits as well. All told, the American All-Stars recorded 12 runs on 16 hits. Meanwhile, the National team only recorded four hits, with Posey’s home run being the only hit by a National starter. Jason Kipnis had a pair of hits off the bench.
Cain and Price were the pitching stars of the game. Although the OOTP box score credits Price with the win, that distinction actually belongs to Cain since we don’t have a minimum inning requirement for earning a victory in an All-Star Game. Verlander took the loss. The defensive star of the game was probably McCutchen. He had six putouts in six innings in center field. Interestingly, he made catches to end five of the six innings he played.
As usual, the game was played using the Out of the Park Baseball simulation game. For the second straight year, there was a live webcast of the game on LiveStream. Check out the link below if you would like to watch the archived video. Congrats to Jay for managing his team to an easy win and thanks for taking the time to take part in the game. Here’s to an exciting second half!
