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  • Darkhorses Dash To Title

    Embed from Getty Images 2020 was supposed to be the year of chaos and unpredictability in baseball and this league.  To some degree, the former was true with multiple MLB teams missing week's worth of games due to COVID-19 positive tests and having September schedules filled with 7-inning double headers.  Season ending injuries and opt-outs were more prevalent than ever.  But unpredictability?  Nah, not in this league.  Our pre-season projections saw the Jackalope and Darkhorses as the clear favorites to win the title in an abbreviated 60-game season.  While other teams made some noise at times, ultimately it came down to those two teams in the season's final days.  In the end, it was the Darkhorses exorcising recent demons of close second place finishes.  For the fifth time in franchise history and the first time in exactly a decade, David's Darkhorses are the Dream Team Baseball League Champions. As I wrote about in the mid-season article, one thing I was most definitely not expecting in 2020 was for one team to have a stranglehold on first place.  However, amazingly, the Darkhorses never fell below second place at any point of the season after the Opening Weekend.  And they were in first place following all but two days of the final five weeks.  But it did get a little scary for them as one of the days in which the Jackalope overtook them for the top spot was on the final weekend, with just two days remaining.  With extremely thin margins in almost all categories, the consistent excellence from the Darkhorses was truly remarkable. The Darkhorses are a deep team with very few, if any, obvious weaknesses.  This type of roster is going to be a contender in almost any type of season.  But perhaps they were uniquely built for this particular season even more than one might have realized.  While they did not suffer the same injury and opt-out carnage of some other squads, their depth was certainly challenged.  James Paxton missed most of the season with an arm injury.  Lorenzo Cain opted out after the first week.  Matt Chapman hit the injured list in early September.  Alex Bregman had an injury riddled campaign as well.  What is really impressive is how they were able to overcome very little production from some of the guys who had been their most important players in recent years, most notably reigning MVP Christian Yelich who scuffled to the tune of a .205 average. So who picked up the slack?  A whole bunch of guys.  The Darkhorses easily led the league in batting points for the third straight year.  Despite that, they did not have any player finish in the top 15 in Batting PAR.  It was a total team effort.  Bryce Harper led the way with 2.7 PAR, so yes, he finally gets his ring.  Dansby Swanson had the best season of his career so far.  Brandon Lowe may have been the steal of this year's draft.  The third round pick should receive Rookie of the Year consideration.  Xander Bogaerts and J.T. Realmuto were their usual steady selves.  Mike Yastrzemski was a great early season free agent signing.  Despite the lack of any apparent MVP candidates, the Darkhorses unquestionably had the best offensive depth in the league, with positive contributions from all 14 batting spots. The Darkhorses have had a great offense for quite some time now.  What had previously held them back a bit was their pitching staff.  Technically, they only improved by 1/2 pitching point from last year.  But relative to the rest of the league, that was enough to get the job done.  They tied for the fourth most pitching points.  As usual, Jacob deGrom carried the rotation.  Maybe even more so than usual, actually.  He was their only starting pitcher to earn more than 1.0 PAR (4.5).  Last year's second choice starter Patrick Corbin was actually quite disappointing this year.  Jose Berrios was the only other starter besides deGrom who lived up to expectations.  This wasn't really a championship caliber starting staff.  But boy did the bullpen make up for that.  Liam Hendriks, Brad Hand, Taylor Rogers and Mark Melancon made up what was by far the best bullpen in the league.  Hendriks and Hand were the Darkhorses next two most valuable pitchers after deGrom, and were first and second in the league in PAR among relievers.  Hand led the league in saves with 16.  Hendriks was second with 14.  The Darkhorses absolutely blew away the rest of the league in saves.  They had 48 of them.  The margin between them and the second best Moonshiners (23) was almost as large as the Moonshiners save total (25).  So yes, the Darkhorses had nearly twice as many saves as another other team.  These four relievers were paramount to the Darkhorses success in the other pitching categories as well. This season culminates an impressive three year run for the Darkhorses in which they finished in the top two spots in the standings.  The last time a team had a similar run of excellence was the Naturals in 2010-12.  This is the Darkhorses first championship since 2010, which was the year they actually shared the title with the Naturals, and was the final season of the Darkhorses' four-peat.  Their five titles is second only to the Kings.  If you were to split the DTBL history in half, the Darkhorses would probably earn the distinction of the league's best franchise in the second half having won five of those 14 championships. This has been a trying year for all of us.  But I am extremely grateful that MLB was able to successfully complete this season, and thus so were we.  Let's hope we are able to return to some semblance of normalcy by the time the 2021 baseball season begins.  In the meantime, I intend to enjoy the Postseason, which will get started in a matter of hours.  Congrats to David on a well-deserved championship!  Thanks to everybody else for making this a very enjoyable and competitive season.

  • One Month Down, One to Go

    Embed from Getty Images If it feels like the 2020 baseball season just started, well, that's basically true.  However, we're also more than half way through the abbreviated 60 game slate.  I think we all entered this season ready to expect the unexpected, and that is pretty much what we have gotten.  Critical injuries, particularly to pitchers, have decimated rosters.  Multiple MLB teams have had week's worth of games wiped out due to positive COVID-19 tests.  Seven inning doubleheaders and wacky extra inning rules have become a common occurrence.  The season has also had its good moments though, like the breakout of a new wave of stars, including the ones who will be covered below. One thing I was expecting from this shortened season was chaos at the top of the standings.  But that really hasn't proven to be the case... at least not yet.  The Darkhorses have been in first or second place every day of the season since the opening weekend and have held the top spot for almost two straight weeks now.  So, as has become an annual tradition, the Darkhorses are right in the thick of the race as we head into September.  But that's about the only thing this season has in common with recent years.  No longer are the Kings their chief competition.  In fact, the Kings are one of probably three teams that have little to no shot at winning the title this year.  Their house of cards tumbled quickly when Justin Verlander was lost to an arm injury in the first week of the season.  The wildly underachieving Jackalope offense and Komodos pitching staff have left them as the other two teams with little hope for a championship season.  But everybody else should feel like they still have a shot.  The Cougars, Moonshiners and Demigods are having breakout years.  The Mavericks have overcome some tough pitching losses to remain in the thick of things.  The Beanballers have bounced back from a very slow start to get back into the conversation.  And the Choppers have amazingly had the best pitching staff in the league despite losing Chris Sale for the season this past spring.  The Darkhorses would seem to be the favorites, not only because of their current lead, but also because they are pretty healthy at the moment.  Of course, that could change in a hurry. This will probably be the one and only Players of the Month article this season since I don't usually bother with such things after September.  Usually following the first month of the season in April, the awards are based on stats accumulated in March in addition to April.  But this time, I elected not to include the July stats since there was over a week's worth of games played in that month, compared to typically just a few days in March.  That said, the winners would have been the same even if I had included the July stats.  But the statlines below are August only.  As usual, these are completely based on highest PAR for the week and month. Here are the award winners for July and August of 2020. Batters of the Week: Week 1 (7/23 - 7/26) - Nelson Cruz, Komodos Week 2 (7/27 - 8/2) - Aaron Judge, Mavericks Week 3 (8/3 - 8/9) - Fernando Tatis, Demigods Week 4 (8/10 - 8/16) - Juan Soto, Mavericks Week 5 (8/17 - 8/23) - Jose Abreu, Cougars Week 6 (8/24 - 8/30) - Manny Machado, Mavericks Pitchers of the Week: Week 1 (7/23 - 7/26) - Shane Bieber, Choppers Week 2 (7/27 - 8/2) - Shane Bieber, Choppers Week 3 (8/3 - 8/9) - Frankie Montas, Kings Week 4 (8/10 - 8/16) - Aaron Nola, Demigods Week 5 (8/17 - 8/23) - Yu Darvish, Moonshiners Week 6 (8/24 - 8/30) - Lucas Giolito, Cougars Half of the Batter of the Week honors so far this season have gone to Mavericks hitters, and three different ones at that, displaying the depth of that roster.  While the game may be shifting younger and younger, particularly among position players, a few veterans are still going strong including 40 year old Nelson Cruz and 33 year old Jose Abreu, who is having his best season since his rookie campaign so far.  Due to the way pitching starts are scattered, it is extremely difficult for someone to win Pitcher of the Week two weeks in a row, but that's exactly what Shane Bieber did to start the season.  Two of the three pitchers selected in the first round of the draft in March (Lucas Giolito and Frankie Montas) won weekly honors.  Giolito did so on the strength of the season's first no-hitter.  Two players have really stood head and shoulders above their peers so far this season.  And they happen to be the Batter and Pitcher of the Month for August. Batter of the Month: Fernando Tatis, Demigods .313 AVG, 11 HR, 24 RBI, 31 R, 4 SB, 3.10 PAR Pitcher of the Month: Shane Bieber, Choppers 1.63 ERA, 0.905 WHIP, 4 W, 0 SV, 57 K, 3.80 PAR Fernando Tatis Jr. has almost single-handedly turned the Demigods from a historically weak team a year ago, the worst in franchise history, to a championship contender this season.  The first overall pick in the draft has lived up to the hype and then some.  He currently leads the league in PAR (by more than a full point), home runs, runs batted in and runs scored.  He is also hitting over .300 and has seven steals.  Ronald Acuna's rookie season last year was among the best this league has ever seen, but Tatis is one-upping him this year, albeit he won't come close to Acuna's counting stat numbers due to the abbreviated season.  At the moment, Tatis would almost certainly win not only Rookie of the Year, but Most Valuable Player as well.  The Demigods do have some ground to make up as they remain slightly below average in batting points, but Tatis could certainly continue to push them up the standings.  Tatis won this award going away, but Mookie Betts and Jose Abreu were the closest competition. What is amazing about those Shane Bieber August numbers above is that they don't even include his first two starts of the season, which earned him weekly honors.  As mentioned above, the Choppers lead the league in pitching points despite not having the services of Chris Sale.  Bieber is the reason why.  He already has a two point lead in Pitching PAR with a ridiculous 1.20 ERA and a league leading 84 strikeouts in just 52 2/3 innings pitched.  Bieber is following up an impressive rookie season with an even better sophomore campaign.  The Choppers do have a tall hill to climb to get into the title chase due to a scuffling offense.  If they can improve upon that though, Bieber and the pitching staff are primed to keep them in the hunt.  Because two of Bieber's best starts came in July, this particular award wasn't a runaway.  Pitchers from opposite sides of Chicago, Moonshiners' Yu Darvish and Cougars' Lucas Giolito, came in second and third.

  • 2020 Season Preview: Part IV

    Embed from Getty Images
    It’s Opening Day!  Nearly four months after the originally scheduled start of the 2020 season, we will finally be able to watch live baseball games that count, starting with the World Series Champion Nationals hosting Gerrit Cole and the Yankees.  While I’m disappointed I won’t be able to attend that game, I couldn’t be more excited to have baseball back.  Nobody knows what to expect out of this 60-game mad dash to October.  But I intend to enjoy every minute of it.  Or at least until the White Sox first excruciating loss.

    This final 2020 DTBL preview article will cover the two teams projected to finish in the top two spots in the standings.  While I didn’t do extensive research to verify this, I believe these are the two teams that in recent years the annual projections tend to get the most wrong.  But in opposite directions.  The past two seasons, the Darkhorses were projected to finish in sixth and seventh places.  They actually finished in second both years.  Meanwhile, the Jackalope were picked to finish fourth and tied for first in ’18 and ’19, while ending up in tenth and seventh places those seasons.  So is it a good or bad sign for these teams to top the projections this year?  Time will tell.  The talent on both rosters should give them a leg up on most of the competition though.  Here are the teams projected to finish at the top of the standings.

    David’s Darkhorses

    Category – Projected Rank (2019 Rank)

    • Batting Average – 3rd (1st)
    • Home Runs – 7th (1st)
    • Runs Batted In – 5th (1st)
    • Runs Scored – 1st (1st)
    • Stolen Bases – 6th (3rd)
    • Earned Run Average – 4th (5th)
    • WHIP Ratio – 3rd (7th)
    • Wins – 5th (4th)
    • Saves – 2nd (5th)
    • Strike Outs – 4th (5th)
    • Total Batting Points – 3rd-T (1st)
    • Total Pitching Points – 3rd (5th)
    • Total Points – 2nd (2nd)

    Summary:

    This is the 10 year anniversary of the last of the Darkhorses 4-peat championships.  While the franchise fell off a bit at the beginning of last decade, they have been a consistent title contender in recent years.  Last year, they had the best offense in the league, by a wide margin.  But a middle of the pack pitching staff prevented them from being able to keep up with the Kings.  Interestingly, these projections show their hitters taking a step back, but major improvement from the pitchers.  That league best offense from ’19 remains almost entirely intact.  There are several MVP candidates on this roster, including outfielders Christian Yelich and Bryce Harper, third baseman Alex Bregman, and if you consider positional value, catcher J.T. Realmuto should be on that list as well.  The Astros duo of George Springer and Michael Brantly round out a very solid outfield.  Xander Bogaerts, Josh Bell, Matt Chapman and newcomer Brandon Lowe complete an infield this is also well above average.  Really, there is no noticeable hole on the batting side of this roster.  The pitching staff received most of the attention in the draft, and could be a much improved group in 2020.  First round pick Chris Paddack joins a rotation that already has arguably the best pitcher in baseball in Jacob deGrom.  Jose Berrios and Patrick Corbin are solid mid-rotation pieces as well.  One player who should really benefit from the late start to the season is James Paxton, who would not have been healthy enough to pitch back in April, but should be good for a full season starting now.  The same could be said for reliever Corey Knebel, although his upside is limited in terms of saves.  Liam Hendriks, Brad Hand and Taylor Rogers form a very strong trio of closers that should put the Darkhorses near the top of the saves category.  If you think these projections might be a little light on the Darkhorses power potential, they probably should be viewed as the favorites to win it all this season.  No team enters the season with a more complete, and currently healthy roster.

    Jay’s Jackalope

    Category – Projected Rank (2019 Rank)

    • Batting Average – 6th (10th)
    • Home Runs – 1st (5th)
    • Runs Batted In – 1st (3rd)
    • Runs Scored – 5th (8th)
    • Stolen Bases – 5th (4th)
    • Earned Run Average – 1st (7th)
    • WHIP Ratio – 2nd (5th)
    • Wins – 3rd (5th-T)
    • Saves – 8th (9th)
    • Strike Outs – 1st (7th)
    • Total Batting Points – 2nd (6th)
    • Total Pitching Points – 1st (7th)
    • Total Points – 1st (7th)

    Summary:

    These projections are a little shocking, especially on the pitching side of things.  As mentioned up top, the Jackalope have a recent history of not meeting expectations, at least those established by using this projection system.  So maybe being picked as the favorite for the second consecutive year isn’t a great thing.  The batting projections make some sense because this roster is loaded with good hitters.  Reigning Rookie of the Year and MVP runner-up Ronald Acuna leads the way.  His five category prowess gives the Jackalope a solid base on which to build.  If healthy, Giancarlo Stanton is a nice second piece in the outfield.  Ryan Braun could be one of the top beneficiaries to the full time DH in the National League.  The Jackalope infield is solid all around, led by veterans Anthony Rendon, Josh Donaldson and Paul Goldschmidt.  First round pick Keston Hiura has exciting potential as well.  He could be the best pure hitter taken in the draft this year, despite not having as much acclaim as the players taken ahead of him.  Gary Sanchez remains one of the best offensive catchers in baseball.  There is a lot to like about the Jackalope’s offensive potential.  Where I think they may have a hard time reaching these projections is on the mound.  The methodology used to create these numbers may be inflating the pitching numbers a bit because of the lack of depth in the rotation.  With Luis Severino out for the year, the Jackalope only have five healthy starting pitchers entering the season.  So the gaudy numbers of Gerrit Cole aren’t weighed down by any depth pieces.  If the rotation stays completely healthy, they should be in good shape.  If not… well, things could get ugly.  Luis Castillo and Tyler Glasnow will be Cole’s sidekicks.  Dinelson Lamet was a nice addition to the rotation.  The bullpen is a concern.  Raisel Iglesias is the only closer with pretty good job security.  Sean Doolittle should get the bulk of the save opportunities early on though.  Clearly, the Jackalope have the talent needed to win the title despite four straight seasons in the bottom half of the league.  But I’m not sure I would anoint them as the favorites, as these projections do.

     

    Now that we’ve taken a glance at all ten teams, it is time to post the full projected standings.  First, here are the numbers my spreadsheets spit out for this 60-game schedule:

    And here is what my original 162-game projections looked like when I compiled them after the draft in late March. Keep in mind that these were computed using projections for some players who have since gotten hurt or opted out of the season:

    Baseball is back! I hope you enjoy the start of the season.

  • 2020 Season Preview: Part III

    Embed from Getty Images None of the remaining five teams, projected to finish in the top half of the standings, are huge surprises.  The three teams that will be covered in this installment of the 2020 DTBL season preview all finished in the top half of the standings last year as well.  Perhaps you will be a little surprised to see a couple of the teams below today rather than in tomorrow's article covering the projected top two teams.  Regardless, we are now getting to teams that are a little more balanced than those covered previously, and might have more margin for error if they lose some players for extended periods of time this season.  The projected gap between these three teams is just four points in the standings, so the order in which they appear isn't particularly meaningful.  These are teams that should have championship aspirations.  Here are the teams projected to finish third through fifth this season.

    Mike's Moonshiners

    Category - Projected Rank (2019 Rank)
    • Batting Average - 8th (9th)
    • Home Runs - 4th (6th)
    • Runs Batted In - 4th (6th)
    • Runs Scored - 9th (5th)
    • Stolen Bases - 10th (8th)
    • Earned Run Average - 3rd (4th)
    • WHIP Ratio - 1st (3rd)
    • Wins - 1st (3rd)
    • Saves - 5th (6th)
    • Strike Outs - 6th (2nd)
    • Total Batting Points - 9th (8th)
    • Total Pitching Points - 2nd (4th)
    • Total Points - 5th (5th)
    Summary: No team's 2019 results and 2020 projections are a closer match than the Moonshiners.  Their pitching staff flew somewhat under the radar a year ago as a very solid group and could be even better this year.  Meanwhile, their offense still appears to be below average, but should be a little more powerful than the 2019 edition.  That power surge could come in the form of first round pick Vladimir Guerroro Jr, for whom these projections point towards a big second MLB season.  He joins an infield full of mashers, whose lack of defensive prowess is obviously a non-factor for the Moonshiners:  Miguel Sano, Rafael Devers, Max Muncy and Tim Anderson.  Devers could be a legitimate MVP candidate in a shortened season.  He and Guerrero give the Moonshiners elite potential that they have been lacking offensively in recent years.  The outfield is not so deep though.  Michael Conforto and Khris Davis lead that group.  The Moonshiners pitching staff is full of veterans with surprisingly high upside considering their age and experience.  Charlie Morton has been one of the most underrated pitchers in the league for several years now.  Yu Darvish seemed to return to his old, dominating self down the stretch last year.  Zack Greinke and Kyle Hendricks are steady and reliable as well.  But the huge wild card for the Moonshiners in 2020 is Shohei Ohtani, who will return to the mound for the first time since 2018 and the first time ever in this league.  The fact that he will only pitch once a week shouldn't hurt his value too much as he figures to start just a couple fewer games than other starters who pitch all season.  It is hard to predict what the Moonshiners will get from their bullpen.  Edwin Diaz was brutal a year ago, but was the best reliever in baseball before that.  Roberto Osuna might not be ready to go on Opening Day, but figures to return soon after.  Jesus Luzardo is returning from COVID-19 and is an exciting possibility should he be part of the A's rotation, as expected.  The Moonshiners are still looking for their first DTBL title and haven't really been involved in a pennant race since 2012.  That could definitely change this year.

    Kevin's Kings

    Category - Projected Rank (2019 Rank)
    • Batting Average - 10th (8th)
    • Home Runs - 6th (3rd)
    • Runs Batted In - 8th (2nd)
    • Runs Scored - 3rd (2nd)
    • Stolen Bases - 4th (5th)
    • Earned Run Average - 5th (2nd)
    • WHIP Ratio - 4th (1st)
    • Wins - 2nd (1st)
    • Saves - 6th (1st)
    • Strike Outs - 2nd (1st)
    • Total Batting Points - 7th (3rd)
    • Total Pitching Points - 4th (1st)
    • Total Points - 4th (1st)
    Summary: Perhaps it is a bit surprising to see the two-time defending champions projected to drop down to fourth place.  But there are a number of reasons to expect a decline from the Kings this year, some of which aren't even totally reflected in these numbers.  The Kings have won those recent titles despite not having a very deep roster.  The triumvirate of Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and Mookie Betts have been largely responsible for the Kings recent success.  Scherzer and Verlander aren't getting any younger and it is fair to wonder if their performance might start dropping off soon.  If so, it remains to be seen if they have others capable of picking up the slack.  Besides Betts, Marcus Semien was their next most important hitter a year ago.  He will be out to prove that wasn't a fluke.  Matt Olson, Mike Moustakas, Rhys Hoskins and Jonathan Villar give the Kings a steady, if not exciting infield.  One player who the Kings could really use a big season from is Carlos Correa who has been nagged by injuries for a couple years now.  The outfield also contains some solid players with somewhat limited upside in David Dahl, Max Kepler and Oscar Mercado.  The catching duo of Will Smith and Sean Murphy is inexperienced, but quite interesting.  As usual, the Kings ability to remain a championship contender will depend on their veteran superstar pitchers.  They will hope Frankie Montas steps up to be the heir apparent to either Scherzer or Verlander.  Reacquiring Lance McCullers, who missed last season due to Tommy John surgery, could pay off as well.  And Zack Wheeler is still around, but there are questions regarding his availability this season with his wife due any day now.  The bullpen got quite a makeover despite leading the league in saves last year.  Hector Neris and Archie Bradley are the incumbents, and also the only safe bets to keep their closer jobs.  The Kings have enough pieces here to remain one of the better pitching teams in the league.  Expecting them to repeat last year's 49 pitching point performance is probably unrealistic though.  And they might not have the bats needed to pick up the slack.  Defending a championship is never easy and the Kings will have an especially hard time doing so this year.

    Marc's Mavericks

    Category - Projected Rank (2019 Rank)
    • Batting Average - 1st (3rd)
    • Home Runs - 2nd (4th)
    • Runs Batted In - 3rd (5th)
    • Runs Scored - 2nd (4th)
    • Stolen Bases - 9th (10th)
    • Earned Run Average - 2nd (1st)
    • WHIP Ratio - 5th (2nd)
    • Wins - 8th (5th-T)
    • Saves - 7th (2nd-T)
    • Strike Outs - 8th (6th)
    • Total Batting Points - 1st (4th-T)
    • Total Pitching Points - 6th (3rd)
    • Total Points - 3rd (4th)
    Summary: Even though the Mavericks are projected to finish a spot higher than they did a year ago, this still feels like a fairly pessimistic outlook.  It is hard to imagine a pitching staff that features Jack Flaherty, Stephen Strasburg and Clayton Kershaw finishing in the bottom half of the league in pitching points.  The batting projections should be worrisome to the rest of the league.  An offense that was already loaded with talent might be even better now.  It seems like most of the teams I have covered to this point have had pretty mediocre, or worse, outfield situations.  That could be because the Mavericks have been hoarding all of the superstar outfielders.  No team can match the Mavericks' top three outfielders of Mike Trout, Juan Soto and Aaron Judge.  Nick Castellanos is pretty good too.  And now they are joined by first round pick Eloy Jimenez.  This truly feels like an embarrassment of riches.  The infield isn't too shabby either with Manny Machado, Ozzie Albies and Javy Baez.  Perhaps the only concern the Mavericks have at the moment is a hole at catcher with Buster Posey opting out of the season.  But that should be pretty easy to fill.  As mentioned, their starting pitching is elite.  Flaherty was probably the best pitcher in baseball in the second half of 2019.  Strasburg was untouchable in October.  Kershaw still seems to have plenty in the tank too.  Then there are promising youngsters Mike Soroka and Dustin May, along with Julio Urias who should get a full season's worth of starts for the first time in his career.  Their rotation depth did take a bit of a hit with Michael Kopech opting out.  The Mavericks don't appear to have a great bullpen.  Kenley Jansen and Jose Leclerc are solid though.  And A.J. Puk could be a weapon, if his recent shoulder injury doesn't wind up being too serious.  After a couple slightly disappointing seasons for the Mavericks, it would not be surprising to see these perennial contenders atop the standings again.

  • 2020 Season Preview: Part II

    Embed from Getty Images The first part of the 2020 DTBL season preview covered a pair of teams that were dealt serious blows to their 2020 aspirations many months ago.  But today, we'll preview three teams that should probably feel pretty optimistic about their chances this season, for a variety of reasons.  First, a couple of these teams are projected to finish higher in the standings than they did a year ago.  All three appear to be relatively healthy heading into the season, despite some early COVID-19 scares.  With some exciting new faces on these rosters, gaping holes from a year ago have been filled as well.  While it may be hard to get fired up for a projected finish in the bottom half of the standings, these teams are absolutely championship contenders in a 60 game sprint.  Here are the teams projected to finish in sixth through eight places in the 2020 standings.

    Dom's Demigods

    Category - Projected Rank (2019 Rank)
    • Batting Average - 2nd (6th)
    • Home Runs - 10th (8th)
    • Runs Batted In - 7th (10th)
    • Runs Scored - 7th (10th)
    • Stolen Bases - 3rd (7th)
    • Earned Run Average - 8th (10th)
    • WHIP Ratio - 9th (10th)
    • Wins - 6th (10th)
    • Saves - 10th (10th)
    • Strike Outs - 3rd (10th)
    • Total Batting Points - 6th (9th)
    • Total Pitching Points - 8th (10th)
    • Total Points - 8th (10th)
    Summary: There is really no way to go but up for the Demigods after a disastrous 2019.  It was the worst season in franchise history, finishing dead last with just 19 standings points.  That season was an outlier in almost every respect.  They had finished in the top half of the standings the previous five years.  What had been one of the league's best offenses just one year prior suddenly fell to ninth, and a consistently above average pitching staff managed to finish last in all five pitching categories.  So what will it take to return to their usual form?  Adding Fernando Tatis with the first overall pick in the draft should fix a lot of weaknesses.  He joins Francisco Lindor and Jose Altuve to make up what might be the best middle infield in the league.  So far, Freddie Freeman seems to have been the baseball player who suffered the worst symptoms from COVID-19.  Fortunately, he appears to be fully healthy now and should be ready to go soon.  Ketel Marte and Austin Meadows were among the few bright spots for the Demigods last year and should headline the outfield crew again.  Meadows is currently sidelined with coronavirus, but assuming he returns healthy, this group looks pretty decent too.  The projections show J.D. Martinez continuing to be an offensive force as well.  Pitching is where things get a little dicey.  Again, they can't possibly be any worse than last year.  Aaron Nola is clearly the staff ace and Max Fried has exciting upside.  You just don't know for sure what you are getting from anyone else.  Corey Kluber has been on the decline for a while and is now pitching in Texas.  Zac Gallen is an intriguing young arm though, and it will be interested to see how Kenta Maeda's return to the rotation goes in Minnesota.  The Demigods will look to their bullpen to rack up a lot of strikeouts, but probably not many saves.  Nobody on the roster is a projected closer to start the season.  Josh James could be pretty interesting if he winds up in the Astros rotation.  Expect the Demigods to prove last year was an aberration.  If they get off to a hot start, 2019 will be quickly forgotten.

    Kat's Komodos

    Category - Projected Rank (2019 Rank)
    • Batting Average - 9th (5th)
    • Home Runs - 3rd (10th)
    • Runs Batted In - 2nd (8th)
    • Runs Scored - 6th (7th)
    • Stolen Bases - 2nd (1st)
    • Earned Run Average - 10th (6th)
    • WHIP Ratio - 8th (8th)
    • Wins - 7th (8th)
    • Saves - 3rd (7th)
    • Strike Outs - 9th (9th)
    • Total Batting Points - 3rd-T (7th)
    • Total Pitching Points - 9th (8th)
    • Total Points - 7th (8th)
    Summary: These batting projections for the Komodos are quite interesting.  A team that finished near the bottom of the league in the power categories (HR, RBI) last year is now expected to be among the league's best.  And this is despite the fact that the only seemingly significant power addition to the roster was first round pick Yordan Alvarez.  Alvarez is indeed a major power addition, but this also may point to some underachieving from the roster in this regard last year.  Jose Ramirez definitely underachieved early last season, but returned to form in the second half.  He is one of the best power/speed players in all of baseball.  Cody Bellinger is one of the best players, period.  And then there are Joey Gallo and Nelson Cruz who also figure to be near the top of the leaderboard in the power categories.  So yeah, those projections actually make sense.  Maybe the one player who will be most important for the Komodos to improve upon last year's numbers, by staying healthy, is shortstop Corey Seager.  Rougned Odor was a sneaky good add to the infield as well, according to these projections.  Like the Demigods though, the success of the Komodos this year will depend on what they get from their pitching staff.  It was basically a one man show in their 2019 rotation with Walker Buehler being the only one to accumulate a positive PAR.  While he is a capable ace, he'll need some help this year.  Unfortunately, two of their other top starters, Jose Quintana and Jake Odorizzi, may not be ready to go on Opening Day (definitely not in Quintana's case).  The rest of the rotation will be filled with steady, but not spectacular veterans.  The bullpen looks to be very good though.  Kirby Yates and Aroldis Chapman give the Komodos two of the top closers in the game.  Brandon Workman was a nice addition to provide them with three guys likely to earn a lot of saves this season.  Dating back to their days as the Gators, these two franchises haven't finished higher than eighth place since 2010.  With an exciting offense to lean on, this could be the year that changes.

    Kelly's Cougars

    Category - Projected Rank (2019 Rank)
    • Batting Average - 7th (2nd)
    • Home Runs - 5th (2nd)
    • Runs Batted In - 9th (4th)
    • Runs Scored - 4th (3rd)
    • Stolen Bases - 7th (6th)
    • Earned Run Average - 6th (8th)
    • WHIP Ratio - 6th (9th)
    • Wins - 4th (9th)
    • Saves - 4th (8th)
    • Strike Outs - 5th (8th)
    • Total Batting Points - 8th (2nd)
    • Total Pitching Points - 5th (9th)
    • Total Points - 6th (6th)
    Summary: Now we come to what might be the most interesting set of projections in this entire series.  At first glance, a sixth place finish for a team that finished sixth last year doesn't seem particularly notable.  But look at that category breakdown.  The Cougars surprised many be compiling the second most batting points in the league in 2019.  They were unable to remain competitive though because their pitching staff really let them down.  And now we are seeing the exact opposite in these projections.  The Cougars are the first team covered in this series that appears to have a pretty strong pitching staff.  Yet they are expected to be dragged down by the hitters that carried them a year ago.  Two players who likely won't be responsible for a fall in batting points are middle infielders Gleyber Torres and Trevor Story.  Kris Bryant and Eugenio Suarez complete a pretty strong infield.  Where they may be a bit lacking in star power is in the outfield.  Tommy Pham has the highest PAR projection of that group, but that's at a modest 1.1.  This is a veteran group as well, so there might be limited upside.  The pairing of Yadier Molina and Salvador Perez behind the plate should be pretty good though.  The pitching staff should easily lead the Cougars to more pitching points this year.  Lucas Giolito joins Blake Snell to form a great, and relatively young, top of the rotation.  Sonny Gray experienced a career resurgence last year in Cincinnati.  The Cougars will hope for the same from Madison Bumgarner who will now be pitching in Arizona.  The bullpen is pretty intriguing as well.  Alex Colome is the veteran closer in the group, but Nick Anderson is probably the most exciting member.  The peripheral numbers indicate that he has a chance to become one of the next great relievers in the league.  If Hansel Robles proves last year wasn't a fluke, the Cougars could find themselves near the top of the league in saves.  There is a lot to like about this Cougars roster.  Some combination of last year's offensive output and these healthy projections for the pitching staff would make the Cougars a darkhorse contender in 2020.

  • 2020 Season Preview: Part I

    Embed from Getty Images We are now just days away from the start of the 2020 baseball season.  It has been nearly four long months since the season was originally scheduled to start and a whole lot has changed since.  From a DTBL perspective, we are about to start the most unpredictable season in league history.  For the first time since 1995, the league's third season, the MLB regular season won't be a full 162 games.  The '94-'95 labor stoppage brought the '94 season to a halt just past the 110 game mark for most teams and the '95 season started late and featured 144 games per team.  2020 is going to be a whole different ballgame though, with just 60 regular season games scheduled per team.  I wouldn't rule out any team from winning the league over such a short time frame.  And the margins within the statistical categories will be so small that teams will still be shifting several points on a nearly daily basis as the season draws to a close. Last year, we reached the 60 game mark around June 4.  At that time, the Darkhorses were in first place, with the Kings 1 1/2 points behind.  While those two teams did go on to finish in the top two spots, what is most interesting about the standings from that date is that six teams were within 10 points of first place and still would have been very much alive for the championship if the season had ended at that time.  Expect that to happen this year as well.  A majority of the teams will be very much alive in the closing weeks of the season. Besides the compact schedule, there are a bunch of other reasons why this figures to be the most unpredictable season in league history.  First, there is the very real and scary prospect of players continuing to contract COVID-19.  Hopefully the threat of that will be somewhat mitigated by the rigorous testing regime they are going through, but it would not be surprising to see many key players lose a significant chunk of their season if they test positive.  And then there are the players who have already opted out of playing this season and others could continue to do so as the season progresses.  Finally, with such a short ramp up period leading into the season, it wouldn't be surprising to see injury rates increase this year as well. So how do you go about predicting what is going to happen in such an unpredictable season?  Well, I'm going to stick to my usual method of previewing the season using projected stats and standings based on FanGraph's Depth Charts projections, which combine ZiPS and Steamer projections and adjust for expected playing time.  I initially grabbed these projections back in early March and computed the standings after the draft was completed.  But it didn't make sense to base my season projections on 162 game numbers, so I redid everything last week.  In the final article of this series, I will display the projected standings from both sets of numbers.  They are fairly similar, which makes sense since most players' projections haven't changed other than reducing their counting stat totals to about 37% of the original numbers.  But there are some players who now no longer have projections, including those who have suffered season ending injuries or opted out of the season in the past several months. There are too many grains of salt to count with these projections.  So I'm really just using this as a basis to go over each team and remind you who is on each roster, and perhaps using the projections to form a general impression of each team's strengths and weaknesses.  I stand by my comment above that I believe any of the ten teams could win the league this year.  But somebody has to be last in the projections.  Here are the two teams slated to finish in the bottom spots in the standings, who are both attempting to overcome huge blows to their pitching staffs.

    Ben's Beanballers

    Category - Projected Rank (2019 Rank)
    • Batting Average - 5th (4th)
    • Home Runs - 8th (7th)
    • Runs Batted In - 6th (7th)
    • Runs Scored - 8th (6th)
    • Stolen Bases - 1st (2nd)
    • Earned Run Average - 9th (3rd)
    • WHIP Ratio - 10th (4th)
    • Wins - 10th (2nd)
    • Saves - 9th (2nd-T)
    • Strike Outs - 10th (4th)
    • Total Batting Points - 5th (4th-T)
    • Total Pitching Points - 10th (2nd)
    • Total Points - 10th (3rd)
    Summary: The league newcomers are projected to finish last in their inaugural campaign.  That would be a disappointing result considering the roster they inherited from the Naturals finished in third place last year.  But this is not the same team by any stretch.  No team has been hit harder by roster losses since March than the Beanballers.  First, staff ace Noah Syndergaard was lost for the season due to Tommy John surgery.  And then one of the players who would have been counted on to pick up the slack, David Price, opted out of playing this season.  Price is the most fantasy relevant player to opt out so far.  That's two huge losses to a pitching staff that had the second most points in the league in 2019, but is projected to have the fewest this year.  Without Syndergaard and Price, the Beanballers are going to need huge seasons from their remaining pitchers, most notably Mike Clevinger and Hyun-Jin Ryu.  The back of the rotation could be a problem though.  One wild card could be Carlos Martinez, who is expected to move into the Cardinals rotation and could provide a nice spark from a RP slot.  The bullpen does not figure to rack up many saves though.  Only Josh Hader enters the season as a likely closer.  While the pitching staff will need to significantly overachieve for the Beanballers to compete, the offense is more than capable.  Third baseman Nolan Arenado and shortstop Trea Turner have the best projections, but this is a deep group.  First round draft pick Bo Bichette adds another exciting option to their infield.  The outfield isn't quite as impressive, but if one of last year's biggest surprises, Jorge Soler, has another big year, the Beanballers figure to be in decent shape there too.  The one area where the Naturals are clearly among the league's top teams is speed.  Turner, Bichette and Victor Robles lead a group that should be near the top of the stolen bases category.  For the Beanballers sake, hopefully the early roster casualties won't continue to mount.  There is more than enough talent on this team to make this an exciting maiden voyage for the Beanballers.

    Charlie's Thunder Choppers

    Category - Projected Rank (2019 Rank)
    • Batting Average - 4th (7th)
    • Home Runs - 9th (9th)
    • Runs Batted In - 10th (9th)
    • Runs Scored - 10th (9th)
    • Stolen Bases - 8th (9th)
    • Earned Run Average - 7th (9th)
    • WHIP Ratio - 7th (6th)
    • Wins - 9th (7th)
    • Saves - 1st (4th)
    • Strike Outs - 7th (3rd)
    • Total Batting Points - 10th (10th)
    • Total Pitching Points - 7th (6th)
    • Total Points - 9th (9th)
    Summary: The Choppers offense struggled mightily a year ago, which was largely why they fell all the way to ninth place, their worst finish in over a decade.  In the recently completed DTBL 2020 Sim, the Choppers actually led the league in runs scored.  But here we are with a projection for them to finish last in runs, RBI and total batting points.  Second overall draft pick Pete Alonso might be their best offensive player from day one.  There are a bunch of other guys who remain as question marks due to health entering this season.  Will Andrew McCutchen bounce back from his knee injury last year?  Will Anthony Rizzo's back cause him to miss time?  Willie Calhoun and Lourdes Gurriel are also dealing with injuries at the moment and D.J. LeMahieu just returned from a positive COVID-19 test.  Things don't look great for this offense entering the season, but hopefully this is just a short term blip.  On paper, the pitching staff looks much better.  But like the Beanballers, they are going to have to go through this season without their best pitcher.  Chris Sale succumbed to Tommy John surgery in March and won't be available until sometime in 2021.  They do have some interesting alternatives though.  First, Shane Bieber and Trevor Bauer return to anchor the staff.  Second round draft pick Brandon Woodruff has a chance to be the best of the bunch.  And they took a late flier on intriguing rookie Mitch Keller.  The strength of the entire roster is the bullpen.  They are projected to lead the league in saves, with four guys slated to pick up a bulk of the opportunities for their MLB clubs:  Ken Giles, Craig Kimbrel, Joe Jimenez and Brandon Kintzler.  Despite these fairly bleak projections, I think the Choppers could be one of the teams that benefits the most from the shortened season, assuming the early health issues to their hitters don't linger.  This is largely a veteran squad that could be uniquely qualified to handle whatever is thrown at them this year, more so than a team full of youngsters.  Also, the loss of Chris Sale is less catastrophic in a shortened season than it would have been over six months.

  • DTBL Sim: Mavericks Win Title

    Embed from Getty Images
    The Mavericks were clearly the best team in the DTBL 2020 Sim league, nearly from the start of the season to the finish.  Yes, they trailed the Demigods by a couple games at the mid-season mark, but the underlying numbers pointed to them being the better team.  That certainly manifested itself in the second half when the Mavericks cruised out in front and won the regular season title by seven games.  But in a couple best-of-seven series against solid teams, anything can happen.  Yet the Mavericks continued to exert their strength throughout the Postseason.  They topped the Demigods in six games in the Semi-Finals and then dominated the Choppers in the World Series, finishing them off in five games.  Marc’s Mavericks are the DTBL 2020 Sim Champions.

    While it would have been tough to predict what to expect in such a sim league, the Mavericks winning it all is not a huge surprise.  What was surprising was the overall composition of the playoff field.  The Choppers and Demigods finished in ninth and tenth places in the DTBL in 2019.  They finished second and fourth in this league.  The Choppers numbers indicate that they may be better constructed for a real baseball setup than a fantasy league because they led the league in several areas that play no role in fantasy baseball.  They were #1 in all defensive metrics and in base running efficiency.  That said, they were a strong offensive team as well, leading the league in runs.  The Demigods were probably the league’s most overachieving team.  They rode that hot start to a playoff spot despite being below average in both run scored and runs allowed.  The fourth playoff qualifier, the Kings, were not a surprise postseason participant, but never really displayed any sort of dominance in this league.  They were simply an above average team in almost all aspects.

    Then there were the Mavericks, who were rode a deep lineup and easily the league’s best pitching staff to the regular season and World Series championships.  They finished second in Batting WAR and first in Pitching WAR, by a wide margin.  Their 3.60 team ERA was basically 7/10 of a run better than the next best team.  On the individual player front, the leaderboards were loaded with Mavericks.  Juan Soto and Mike Trout finished second and third in both WAR (7.1/6.4) and OPS (.930/.897).  Jack Flaherty led the league in ERA (2.36), strikeouts (257) and Pitching WAR (5.9).  Stephen Strasburg was top three in those categories as well and won more games than any other pitcher (19).  No team could match the Mavericks lineup and rotation depth.  Aaron Judge and Javy Baez are pretty scary bottom third of the order hitters.  And I don’t think Clayton Kershaw would have been all the way down in the fourth spot of any other team’s rotation.

    The Postseason played out to form with the favored teams winning all three series.  The Demigods did give the Mavericks a bit of a scare, winning Game 1 and forcing the series back to Maui where the Mavericks eventually finished it in an exciting Game 6 that went extra innings before Mike Trout hit a walk-off three run homer to send the Mavericks to the World Series.  The Kings/Choppers series also lasted six games and featured a couple wild ones.  The Choppers stole Game 2 by scoring six runs in the bottom of the 9th to shock the Kings 13-12.  Then they won a critical Game 4 by a score of 8-5 in 10 innings to tie up the series.  The Choppers would go on to win the next two to close out the series.  Bullpens struggled for both teams in this series, especially for the Kings.

    The World Series was pretty one sided on the whole, but did end with a couple exciting games.  The Mavericks cruised to victories in the first three games, each of which featured Mavericks starting pitchers stifling the Choppers offense.  Jack Flaherty, Stephen Strasburg and Mike Soroka were nearly untouchable.  The Choppers showed some life in Game 4, putting up 11 runs which was eight more than they had scored in the previous three games combined.  But it was back to pitching domination in Game 5, this time by both teams with Flaherty and Chris Sale throwing nearly identical seven inning gems.  The game was scoreless until the ninth inning when Eloy Jimenez hit a three run homer.  The Choppers rallied in the bottom half, but only pushed across one run, so the Mavericks won the decisive game 3-1.  Jimenez’s huge Game 5 homer was his fourth of the series.  He was named World Series MVP.

    Not surprisingly, the Mavericks were well represented among the full season award winners as well.  Jack Flaherty was the unanimous choice for the Cy Young award, with teammate Stephen Strasburg finishing second.  Kings outfielder Mookie Betts took the Most Valuable Player honor with the Mavericks trio of Juan Soto, Mike Trout and Flaherty all finishing in the top five as well.  Moonshiners LHP Brendan McKay might have been the most surprising star of the season.  He took home the Rookie of the Year award for his efforts.

    I hope you enjoyed following along with this sim the past four months.  It was no substitute for the real thing, but it was nice to have some baseball to digest during these difficult times.  Fortunately, it appears we will have some real fantasy baseball (how about that oxymoron?) to follow starting later this week.  With that, I will be kicking off my 2020 DTBL season preview articles tomorrow.

     

  • DTBL Sim: Mid-Season Review

    Embed from Getty Images We've reached the exact mid-point of the 2020 DTBL Sim regular season.  81 games down, 81 to go.  I thought I would use this milestone as an opportunity to review what we've seen so far.  Overall, I'm very pleased with the results.  I've enjoyed looking through the box scores each day and even occasionally playing out a game in front of me in OOTP.  It had been my only way of getting my baseball fix, until this week when ESPN starting airing live Korea Baseball Organization games.  Normally, I would have absolutely no interest in the KBO.  But there is nothing normal about our current way of life and I've been grateful to have been able to watch live baseball games.  Anyway, back to the DTBL sim.  I'm going to go over some general league-wide trends and then will do a quick review of each team's performance thus far. First, a little bit about how OOTP sims work, that goes beyond anything I described before the season started.  When a league is created in OOTP, it uses a set of league modifiers to influence the outcomes of the game sim engine.  Basically, this is a set of statistical outcomes that are expected throughout the course of the full season.  The primary set of numbers are:  AB, H, 2B, 3B, HR, BB, HBP, K and BABIP.  From those numbers, an expected triple slash line (AVG/OBP/SLG) is computed.  I used the game's default settings for its MLB universe, which I believe are primarily based on the 2019 season.  The resulting expected triple slash line for this league is .252/.325/.435, which is nearly identical to 2019 MLB's .252/.323/.435.  There are also modifiers for things like groundball rate, pitcher stamina, base-running and defensive rates.  But I'm not totally sure I understand how all of those work, so I'm definitely not going to get into that here.  To sum it all up though, these modifiers are used by the sim engine to influence the results such that over the course of the full season, you should expect to see the league wide results come close to these numbers.  This means that the complete results are based on these modifiers, not the cumulative quality of the players within the game.  So a league filled with nothing but Mike Trout level hitters would produce relatively similar offensive results as a league filled with nothing but slap-hitters.  Thus, it is players' quality relative to their peers within this sim that influences how they perform in this game, not how they actually perform in a real MLB universe.  So it is safe to assume that *most* players will produce worse stat lines in this sim compared to the MLB sim I am concurrently running since there are far more lower quality players in the MLB sim. Getting back to that expected slash line of .252/.323/.435, you may wonder, how is that looking so far?  Well, as of today, the league-wide slash line is .248/.320/.429.  Of course, these numbers change daily and I know the league average was over .250 fairly recently.  So these results are pretty much in line with what I would expect.  But there is one stat that is a bit out of whack right now which is having an effect on other numbers as well:  strike out rate.  The current K% is 25.6%, which is pretty significantly higher than 2019 MLB's record-breaking mark of 23.0%.  I noticed very early on that strikeouts were well above what I expected and it hasn't really come down much since.  So this is something I will continue to monitor.  I expect the rate will eventually drop a bit, but at this point, I'm not certain.  Maybe there is something about the composition of this league full of power pitchers, with plenty of hitters who strike out a ton as well, that is causing the game to succumb to more than expected strikeouts.  But I'm not really sure.  I believe this is the primary culprit for scoring being down a bit from what I expected as well.  Teams are averaging 4.7 runs per game, which is a little lower than MLB's 4.8 in 2019.  Not a huge difference though, so I don't consider this to be a problem.  Nor do I consider the strikeout rate to be a problem either.  More of a curiosity. As for the DTBL teams, it has been quite an unexpected season thus far.  First place is currently held by the Demigods, who of course finished dead last in our league a season ago.  It has been a tight race all season though.  At least half of the teams have held first place at some point.  All ten teams have winning percentages that fall between .400 and .600, so there are no extraordinarily great or terrible teams.  Even the teams at the bottom of the standings could get right back into the playoff mix with a hot streak.  As a reminder, the top four teams will make the playoffs.  Currently, those spots are occupied by the Demigods, Mavericks, Choppers and Kings.  But the other six teams are all within eight games of the Kings.  Let's go team-by-team to see how things are progressing.  I'll go in the order of the current standings. Demigods (48-33, 1st place) - Definitely the surprise of the league so far.  They are currently riding a six game winning streak and are 14-5 in June.  It has been a combination of good hitting and pitching as they rank 3rd and 2nd in runs scored and allowed.  Francisco Lindor is making a strong MVP case, second in the league in WAR at 3.4.  He is hitting .300 with a dozen homers and stolen bases.  The pitching staff has been solid, pretty much from top to bottom.  Corey Kluber leads the league with 11 wins (2 more than any other pitcher), but actually has the highest ERA of the rotation (4.71).  German Marquez and Aaron Nola have been great as well. Mavericks (46-35, 2nd place, 2 GB) - Statistically speaking, the Mavericks have probably been the league's best team to date.  They have the best pythag record, based on run difference.  They are second in runs scored and easily lead the way in fewest runs allowed and an impressive 3.74 staff ERA.  After getting off to a bit of a slow start, Mike Trout has resumed his usual status as the Mavericks best player with a 3.3 WAR.  Javy Baez and Manny Machado have each slugged 17 homers.  Jack Flaherty might be the front-runner for the Cy Young award.  He comfortably leads the league in ERA at 2.18 and is also the leader in strikeouts (137).  One question mark entering the season was how their very young bullpen would hold up.  So far, so good.  A.J. Puk, Dustin May and Michael Kopech have all been outstanding. Choppers (45-36, 3rd place, 3 GB) - After the Demigods, the Choppers have been the next most pleasant surprise.  They have held the top spot in the standings on several occasions.  If you have ever wondered how a team would play in Coors Field if it were located somewhere closer to sea level, this might be your answer.  The Choppers have the league's best offense, using the spacious outfield of their home park to lead the league in batting average and extra base hits despite being in the bottom half in home runs.  They have scored 34 more runs than any other team.  Pete Alonso and Anthony Rizzo have been the offensive stars.  The guy who has really been a surprise is Harrison Bader, who has 15 home runs and a respectable .252 average despite an alarming 124 strikeouts.  The pitching staff has held its own as well.  A healthy Chris Sale and Shane Bieber have anchored the staff. Kings (42-39, 4th place, 6 GB) - The final playoff spot is currently occupied by the two-time defending champs.  It has been a roller coaster season for the Kings who are now trying to steady the ship after a spectacular March and April, followed by a terrible May.  The offense has been a microcosm of the actual Kings results the past couple years:  a whole lot of Mookie Betts and not much else.  Betts leads the league in WAR (4.0), AVG (.337), SLG (.580), OPS (.967), 2B (28), RBI (57) and a couple other categories.  The only other Kings hitter who has been having a notably decent season is Marcus Semien.  The pitching staff has been pretty good, but not great.  Max Scherzer was awesome for the first month or so, but has been struggling a bit of late.  Justin Verlander has been disappointing.  Lance McCullers has probably been the second best Kings pitcher. Beanballers (41-40, 5th place, 7 GB) - The Beanballers have been steadily hovering around .500, keeping themselves in close striking distance of a playoff spot.  Jorge Soler is tied for the league lead in home runs with 20 and Trea Turner leads the way with 17 stolen bases.  Yoan Moncada and Nolan Arenado have been their best overall players, with Moncada moved over to his former position of second base to allow Arenado to man the hot corner.  Hyun-Jin Ryu has led the way on the pitching side, putting up numbers similar to his first half of 2019.  He has a 2.46 ERA and a WHIP below 1.0.  The Beanballers rank in the middle of almost every significant statistical category, both hitting and pitching.  A very average team, you could say, to this point. Cougars (39-42, 6th place, 9 GB) - At one point, it was the Cougars who were the league's biggest surprise.  But they have fallen on hard times of late, having lost eight straight and 17 out of 22.  They do still lead the league in home runs, but that lead has been shrinking as well.  Gleyber Torres has been their best player.  He leads the way among seven players with double digit home runs.  But it has been an all-or-nothing season for many of their hitters, including Kris Bryant who has a disappointing .211 average to go along with 16 bombs.  The pitching staff has been the bigger problem lately.  Blake Snell has been great (7-3, 2.62 ERA), but has gotten little help.  Sonny Gray did win Pitcher of the Month in May though.  Closer Nick Anderson is the only pitcher besides Snell with an ERA under 4. Darkhorses (37-44, 7th place-T, 11 GB) - The Darkhorses, on the other hand, have been trending up.  They got off to a disappointing start and found themselves in last place at times in April and May.  But they have now won six of their last seven series as the offense has sparked the improvement.  Eight of their nine regular starters have reached double digit home runs.  While no player has numbers that pop out, it has been a solid group effort.  Alex Bregman has 17 home runs and Brandon Lowe leads the team in WAR (2.2).  If they can get Christian Yelich back on track (.237, 1.2 WAR), this offense could be very dangerous in the second half.  The pitching staff, particularly the rotation, has been disappointing.  All of the starters, besides Patrick Corbin, have ERAs north of 5.0.  That includes Jacob deGrom, who shockingly has an ERA of 5.05.  Perhaps he has been a tad unlucky though as his FIP sits at 4.23.  The Darkhorses do not appear to be a very good defensive team, which probably isn't helping those pitching numbers. Komodos (37-44, 7th place-T, 11 GB) - It has been a rough season for the Komodos offense.  They rank dead last in almost every offensive category.  They are averaging a half run per game fewer than the next worst team.  Cody Bellinger has pretty much been the lone offensive bright spot, but even he might be considered a slight disappointment with just 11 homers for a player who you might expect to be a MVP candidate.  Fortunately for the Komodos, the pitching staff has been solid, allowing them to stay afloat.  Jose Quintana has been their ace with a 3.31 ERA.  Anibal Sanchez has surprisingly strong numbers too, leading the team with nine wins.  The bullpen has been very good as well. Moonshiners (36-45, 9th place, 12 GB) - The Moonshiners are just now starting to climb out of the hole that their pitching staff put them into early on this season.  The stats don't paint a pretty picture here as the Moonshiners rank ninth in runs scored and last in runs allowed.  But things have been getting a little better.  The 5.05 team ERA is pretty bad, but is better than it was a couple weeks ago.  The rotation has been a big problem.  40% of it consists of pitchers with ERAs over 6.00.  Opening Day starter Charlie Morton had arguably been the worst pitcher in the league until a few weeks ago.  Now he has some competition with a few of his teammates.  On a positive note, Kyle Hendricks has been solid and steady.  This is probably the league's worst defensive team, which also hurts the pitching numbers and the WAR totals for the hitters.  The team leader in WAR among position players is Rafael Devers at 1.6. Jackalope (34-47, 10th place, 14 GB) - Easy to say when referring to the last place team, but the Jackalope have been the biggest disappointment so far.  While maybe not one of the favorites, on paper, this looked like it could be a playoff team.  To be fair, they have been a bit unlucky with their record falling four games below the pythag mark.  But they just haven't been consistent enough on the mound or at the plate.  That's not to say it has all been bad though.  Ronald Acuna has been one of the best players in the league, on pace to challenge the 30/30 mark with 14 home runs and 15 steals.  Giancarlo Stanton is tied for the league lead with 20 home runs.  None of their pitchers have stood out though and Gerrit Cole has been notably disappointing with just five wins and a 4.91 ERA.  It has been a brutal June for the Jackalope as they are currently on a five game skid and have a 3-16 record in the month.  They'll need to get that turned around soon to get back into the playoff hunt. We'll get the second half of the season started tonight.  We're on pace to wrap up right around the time the MLB season could get started, under the most optimistic forecasts as of now, in early July.  But I can easily adjust the pace of the sims as the schedule dictates.  I hope you are all staying safe and healthy.  All the best to you.  And I hope you are enjoying this small distraction.

  • Filling the Baseball Void

    Embed from Getty Images First off, I hope you and your families are all doing well during these difficult times. The COVID-19 pandemic has no doubt affected us all, changing the way we go about our daily lives. While there are far more important things to worry about right now, the cessation of all sports has left a pretty gaping hole in my daily routine. That's exacerbated by the fact that I suddenly have a whole lot of free time on my hands. So I've come up with a plan to try and help fill that void. This Thursday was supposed to be MLB Opening Day and the start of our league's season. Since that has been delayed indefinitely, I have a plan to occupy some of that time before baseball returns. I am going to set up and simulate two separate seasons within the Out of the Park Baseball game. For those of you unfamiliar with OOTP, it is probably the best baseball simulation game ever created. I can't even begin to describe all of the features and customization options available in the game, so I'll recommend checking out their website if you are interested in learning more.  The latest version of the game was just released a few days ago.  I've been playing it practically non-stop since.  While I have bought every version of the game the past 15 years or so, I've been a very casual player the past decade, usually not purchasing the game until it is time to set up the DTBL All-Star Game each summer.  But this year will be much different.  I've already gotten my money's worth, and then some.  Enough of this infomercial for OOTP though.  Let's get to my plan. As I stated above, I am going to simulate two separate seasons within OOTP.  One is going to be a simulation of a real life MLB universe and the second will be configured for the DTBL.  I am inviting all of you to participate in the DTBL sim, if you so desire.  But first, let me describe the MLB sim. I am going to create a full MLB universe in OOTP, including all 30 MLB teams and their full minor league affiliates.  This is one of the default out-of-the-box options in OOTP.  It has a full roster set of real players with ratings that reflect their skills to an incredibly accurate degree.  I will keep pretty much all of the default settings in the game, which mimic MLB rules and regulations.  To give myself a little more to do, I am going to take full control of the White Sox organization while the other 29 teams will be AI controlled.  There will be trades, injuries, suspensions, promotions, demotions... you name it.  I will sim one day at a time, creating results for all of the games that were originally scheduled to occur on the given day.  So that means on Thursday, I will sim the games that were supposed to happen on MLB Opening Day.  I will then upload the results to our website so you can peruse all the reports, check out box scores, game logs, transaction logs, or whatever else might be of interest to you.  Curious how your favorite team and players did on a given day?  It will all be there.  I intend to continue this daily routine up until whenever the real MLB season begins.  At that time, I may continue the league at my own leisure, but will stop publicly reporting the results. The second sim is probably going to be of more interest to you.  I am going to create a DTBL game that is going to have each of our ten teams, more or less with our actual rosters.  The teams will have a full 162 game schedule in which they play the other nine teams 18 times each.  At the conclusion of the regular season, the top four teams will make the playoffs and play best-of-7 Semi-Finals before a best-of-7 World Series.  Normally, I'd prefer to limit the post-season to just two teams in a ten team league.  But since this is just for fun, I might as well keep more teams involved as long as possible.  And there is no actual prize for the simulation champion. I've already done most of the setup for this league.  I created the teams and set up an initial draft to place the players on the correct teams.  As soon as our real draft wraps up, I will complete this process.  Rosters are going to be 32 players:  a 26 man active roster and a six player reserve roster.  The reason why I decided to go beyond the 28 players that each of us will have at the conclusion of the real draft is because most teams are going to need more pitchers to fill a regular staff.  My assumption is that most teams will go with a 13 pitcher staff, which is probably a couple more pitchers than most of you will have at the conclusion of our draft.  Once the 28 players have been assigned to their proper teams, I'm going to turn on auto-draft and let the AI fill out the rest.  I will create a backup before doing this though in case the AI doesn't pick mostly pitchers as I expect.  In that case, I'll come up with some other mechanism to fill the rosters. I will begin simming the games for this league on Thursday as well.  However, I intend to sim two days off the schedule at a time, as opposed to just one in the MLB sim.  Once a firm MLB Opening Day has been set, I'll adjust this schedule so that the season is completed before Opening Day.  There will be a few other differences in the DTBL sim.  Injuries will be disabled.  So yes, Chris Sale and Luis Severino will be good-to-go for this season.  I will disable AI roster moves, including trades, signings, promotions and demotions.  Essentially, the team rosters will remain static throughout the season, unless you decide to make changes to your own roster. Yes, you will have an opportunity to participate, if you so desire.  First of all, if any of you happen to have OOTP or are thinking about purchasing it, please let me know ASAP.  I can configure the game to make this an online league, which would allow you to take full control of your roster, including every minute detail right down to in-game strategy.  I haven't participated in an OOTP online league in a very long time and have never run one myself, so I'll need to research this a bit, which is why I'd appreciate a quick response if you want to participate in this manner.  But you do not need OOTP to be a part of this sim.  At any time throughout the season, you can email me with changes you would like made to your roster:  signing free agents, promoting to/from the reserve roster, changes to lineups/depth charts/pitching staff roles.  The degree to which you wish to participate is completely up to you.  In fact, if you just want to let the AI handle it all, that will be just fine.  To reiterate though, I will be disabling AI roster moves.  So if you choose not to participate, the 26 player roster that you begin the season with will remain in tact for the duration of the season.  No roster moves made throughout this process will have any impact on your real DTBL roster. My current plan is to post the results of both sims to the website around 9 p.m. EDT each evening.  There will be links to the main page for each league on the front page of this website.  Those URLs shouldn't change, so feel free to bookmark them and check them whenever you wish.  I will also be tweeting links (@DTBL_Kevin) when the pages have been updated and perhaps occasionally chiming in with some of the highlights, using hashtag #DTBL2020Sim.  Maybe I'll even write an occasional blog post to recap the action, if I'm really bored. This project has given me something to look forward to.  It is not much of a replacement for real baseball games, but it will suffice for now.  Let's play ball!

  • A Family Affair

    Embed from Getty Images
    Trivia time!  What do Fernando Tatis, Vladimir Guerrero, Dante Bichette and Craig Biggio all have in common?  If you guessed that they all hit at least .290 with 15+ home runs for their respective DTBL teams in 1999, you are correct!  Oh, and they also all have sons who were selected in the first 15 picks of the 2020 DTBL Draft.  This league has been around long enough that we had already seen a few sons of former DTBL players become second generation league members.  But in the previous instances, the fathers only had a cup of coffee in this league at the tail end of their careers.  This four-some is different.  All four compiled multiple strong seasons in the league and all but Tatis were among the league’s best players in its first 10-15 years.

    Interestingly, it is the least accomplished father of those four whose son enters the league with the highest acclaim.  The Demigods selected the do-it-all shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. with the first pick in the draft.  Tatis hit .317 with 22 homers and 16 stolen bases in a MLB rookie campaign that was cut short by injury.  Provided he has a full year of solid health in 2020, it isn’t unreasonable to think he could be the second straight #1 draft pick to post a 30/30 season in his DTBL rookie year.  The Demigods will turn to Tatis to help put their miserable 2019 behind them.  Keep in mind that prior to last year, this is a team that finished in the top half of the standings in five straight seasons.  Tatis has the talent to lift them back up to their recent historic norms.

    While Tatis was spectacular last year, he probably wouldn’t have won the NL Rookie of the Year award even if he had stayed healthy.  Not with Pete Alonso breaking the MLB all-time rookie record for home runs.  Alonso slugged 53 homers, which would have led the DTBL by four had he been in the league a year ago.  His 120 RBIs would have been fourth best in the league.  He was worthy of the second overall pick in the draft on his own merit, but he also happens to be an ideal fit for the Choppers who finished next to last in home runs and RBIs and dead last in total batting points a year ago.  This is the third straight year the Choppers have used their first pick on an infielder.  Alonso figures to have the biggest impact of them all.

    The Komodos made it consecutive 2019 MLB Rookie of the Year winners when they selected Astros outfielder/DH Yordan Alvarez with the third pick.  Alvarez crashed the AL rookie party that was supposed to be all about a couple guys that will be covered below.  He hit .317 with 27 home runs and 78 RBIs despite not making his debut until June.  Had he been in the majors from the jump like Alonso, perhaps he too could have challenged the rookie home run record.  Alvarez is currently sidelined with a knee issue.  But assuming that doesn’t keep him out of action too long, he figures to be one of the league’s top sluggers.  He will join Cody Bellinger, Joey Gallo, Nelson Cruz and Jose Ramirez to form what could be a sneaky great Komodos offense.

    Sneaky great is also an appropriate way of describing Keston Hiura’s young MLB career.  The Jackalope tabbed the Brewers second baseman with the fourth pick.  In 84 games, Hiura managed to hit .303 with 19 homers and nine stolen bases.  Extrapolate those numbers out to a full season and you could have the makings of a stud at a very weak offensive position.  The Jackalope have had one of the league’s best infields for a while now, but Hiura injects it with a needed shot of youth.  The spring is not off to a great start from a health perspective for the Jackalope.  Hiura could help cure much of what ails them, however.

    Only one player selected in the first round won’t be making his DTBL debut this season.  Lucas Giolito was signed as a free agent by the Mavericks late in the 2017 season and was subsequently released prior to 2018, when the Mavericks picked him up again in the seventh round of the draft.  But he was released again by the Mavericks that May and had such a poor season that he got dropped from the league last year.  2019 Giolito was basically a brand new pitcher, making the All-Star team and compiling a Cy Young campaign resume.  The pitcher the Cougars drafted with the fifth pick this year really doesn’t resemble the one who pitched for the Mavericks.  In ’19, Giolito posted a 3.41 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, won 14 games and struck out an impressive 228 batters in 177 innings.  The Cougars pitching staff prevented them from being serious contenders a year ago.  Giolito could help change that.

    A year ago, it seemed like a near certainty that I would be writing about Vladimir Guerrero Jr. being the first player taken in the 2020 draft.  Not that some of these other guys weren’t highly touted prospects, but Guerrero was at a different level.  His MLB debut became a must-see event, unlike any player I can recall since Bryce Harper.  That incredible, and probably unfair, level of hype made his 2019 season seem a little underwhelming.  He hit .272 with “only” 15 homers.  Here’s another number that is equally relevant though:  21.  That’s the age Guerrero will turn next week.  What Ronald Acuna and Juan Soto have done in their teens/very early 20s just isn’t normal.  Struggling to get your footing in the big leagues like Guerrero did *is* normal.  I have it on good authority that the Moonshiners were shocked and thrilled to grab him with the sixth pick in this draft.  If Vladito does in fact reach his potential, we’ll all look back on this pick and wonder how it came to be.

    The Mavericks were also probably quite surprised about the availability of their first round pick.  They selected slugging outfielder Eloy Jimenez with the seventh pick.  Much of what I wrote about Guerrero applies to Jimenez as well, although he is a little older and did wind up posting pretty solid numbers thanks to a strong finish to the 2019 season.  31 home runs and 79 RBIs are impressive totals for a rookie and could be viewed as the floor of what to expect from here on out.  He seems a good bet to improve on the .267 average too.  Assuming good health, the Mavericks outfield is absolutely ridiculous.  Mike Trout, Juan Soto, Aaron Judge, Nick Castellanos and now Jimenez.  The rest of the roster ain’t too shabby either.

    The Beanballers first official selection as a member of the DTBL was another flashy young shortstop who is the son of a former DTBL player, Bo Bichette.  Bichette has the fewest big league games under his belt of this first round group, but he made his short stint in the big leagues count.  In just 46 games, he hit .311 with 11 homers.  While not directly fantasy relevant, he also had 18 doubles.  So the extra base power appears to be legit.  With a new league member, it is hard to predict what the draft strategy might be.  In this case, it looks like the Beanballers went with the best young talent available, because shortstop was not a position of need with Trea Turner and Amed Rosario already on the roster.  You can’t go wrong with a middle infielder with huge upside though.  Bichette joins a roster with plenty of talent, so it will be interesting to see how the Beanballers do on their maiden voyage.

    Seven of the first eight selections were hitters.  We finally saw a rookie pitcher go off the board when the Darkhorses selected Chris Paddack at #9.  While still at the very beginning of his career, Paddack already has an advanced repertoire, which he used to compile some gaudy numbers in 2019.  His sub 1.00 WHIP and 3.33 ERA were pretty incredible for a first season in the majors.  This selection made all the sense in the world for the Darkhorses, who have fallen a little short of the champion Kings the past two seasons because they didn’t have quite enough pitching.  Paddack will join Jacob deGrom, Patrick Corbin and Jose Berrios in a rotation that seems quite capable of closing that gap and claiming their first DTBL title in 10 years.

    The Kings probably would have drafted any of the nine players selected ahead of them if they had fallen to the last slot in the first round.  Instead, they settled for a pitcher with very intriguing stuff, but also one who missed half of the 2019 campaign with a PED suspension.  Athletics hurler Frankie Montas was the final pick of the first round of the 2020 DTBL Draft.  Before the suspension, Montas was electric.  He struck out more than a batter per inning with a 2.63 ERA and 1.12 WHIP.  While starting pitching has been the Kings strength in their recent championship runs, Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer aren’t getting any younger.  So they will turn to Montas as a potential ace in waiting.  In the meantime, he will join those guys in a rather formidable rotation.

    A quick note on one second round selection referenced up top:  the Cougars selected second baseman Cavan Biggio with the 15th overall pick.  This connection is intriguing since Cavan’s father Craig was also a second baseman on the first two Cougars championship squads and was an all-time great for both the Cougars and Choppers.

    After a bit of a slow start, we’ve hit our stride the past few days and are now on a great pace.  We should have plenty of time between the conclusion of the draft and Opening Day.  Keep up the good work!