{"id":1092,"date":"2017-08-06T09:40:35","date_gmt":"2017-08-06T16:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1092"},"modified":"2017-08-06T09:54:37","modified_gmt":"2017-08-06T16:54:37","slug":"still-a-two-team-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1092","title":{"rendered":"Still a Two Team Race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a id=\"LcwbeQYfQNZEZiUyEOuu1w\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/824646358\" target=\"_blank\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>\/\/ <![CDATA[\nwindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'LcwbeQYfQNZEZiUyEOuu1w',sig:'G7HoXwicyoA-_x9NfxSIHYVclz_GBVrBYZQr-C4CXH0=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'824646358',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><script src=\"\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nIt&#8217;s been a two team race for the DTBL Championship for several months now. \u00a0Despite the fact that the Mavericks and Naturals have been dealing with injuries to several of their most important players and neither team has truly put it all together yet, no other team besides these two has come close to sniffing first place in recent months. \u00a0At the end of July, the Mavericks and Naturals were tied for first place, but the Mavericks have moved into a 1 1\/2 point lead at the time of writing. \u00a0It is still very much possible for other teams to get back into the race since the gap between the top two and the rest of the pack is just over ten points. \u00a0But we just haven&#8217;t seen any other team make a run yet.<\/p>\n<p>Two teams looking to make such a run struck a deal a couple weeks ago. \u00a0The Moonshiners and Kings completed a trade that was intended to solve roster problems created by injuries. \u00a0But as it has turned out so far, this trade has only created further problems as both teams seemingly received damaged goods. \u00a0The Moonshiners traded shortstop Zack Cozart and pitcher Jon Gray to the Kings in exchange for outfielder Avisail Garcia and pitcher Jeff Samardzija. \u00a0At the time, the Kings were in desparate need of a shortstop to replace the injured Carlos Correa while the Moonshiners were looking for an outfielder to fill in for Gregory Polanco and Keon Broxton. \u00a0Of course, within a week of the trade, both Cozart and Garcia hit the disabled list. \u00a0This marks the second trade between these teams that appears to have been a bit of a bust for both sides. \u00a0The March swap of Polanco for Kyle Seager hasn&#8217;t been terribly productive for either team.<\/p>\n<p>This seems like a good time to remind you that the DTBL trade deadline is coming up on August 15. \u00a0That is a Tuesday, meaning any trades must be confirmed by both sides before midnight on the 15th even though they will not be processed until the following Monday. \u00a0Now, onto the award winners for July 2017.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Batters of the Week:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Week 14 (7\/3 &#8211; 7\/9) &#8211; Jose Altuve, Demigods<br \/>\nWeek 15 (7\/14 &#8211; 7\/16) &#8211; Anthony Rendon, Jackalope<br \/>\nWeek 16 (7\/17 &#8211; 7\/23) &#8211; Nolan Arenado,\u00a0Naturals<br \/>\nWeek 17 (7\/24 &#8211; 7\/30) &#8211; J.D. Martinez,\u00a0Demigods<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pitchers of the Week:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Week 14 (7\/3 &#8211; 7\/9) &#8211; Clayton Kershaw, Mavericks<br \/>\nWeek 15 (7\/14 &#8211; 7\/16) &#8211; Jose Quintana, Gators<br \/>\nWeek 16 (7\/17 &#8211; 7\/23) &#8211; Jon Lester,\u00a0Choppers<br \/>\nWeek 17 (7\/24 &#8211; 7\/30) &#8211; James Paxton,\u00a0Naturals<\/p>\n<p>The way these weekly honors usually work is that my weekly transaction processing program will create a database record for the players with the highest batting and pitching PAR for the week at the time of processing. \u00a0But because of the All-Star break, I wasn&#8217;t able the capture who had the highest PAR for Week 14 (7\/3 through 7\/9). \u00a0So instead, I used the FanGraphs&#8217; splits leaderboard to eyeball the stats for that week and decided Altuve and Kershaw were the likely PAR leaders for the week. \u00a0It could be wrong though, particularly in the case of Altuve who had stiff competition from his Astros teammate George Springer. \u00a0There wasn&#8217;t particularly stiff competition for the monthly awards though. \u00a0Here are the winners.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Batter of the Month:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Jose Altuve, Demigods<br \/>\n.485 AVG, 4 HR, 21 RBI, 22 R, 8 SB, 3.38 PAR<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pitcher of the Month:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>James Paxton, Naturals<br \/>\n1.37 ERA, 0.788 WHIP, 6 W, 0 SV, 46 K, 4.08 PAR<\/p>\n<p>Jose Altuve nearly hit .500 in July! \u00a0He went 48 for 99, which penciled out to a .485 average for the month. \u00a0It is the highest monthly batting average since recently inducted Hall-of-Famer Ivan Rodriguez hit .500 in June of 2004 and the fourth highest total in league history: \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/tiny\/i0mzo\">https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/tiny\/i0mzo<\/a>. \u00a0It wasn&#8217;t just the average though. \u00a0He also hit four homers, scored and drove in over 20 runs and stole eight bases. \u00a0Altuve&#8217;s hot month has inserted the Demigods second baseman right into the thick of the MVP conversation. \u00a0He won this award easily. \u00a0Following him were a bunch of closely packed players, with Bryce Harper leading the way.<\/p>\n<p>On the pitching side, another pretty rare feat was achieved by the Naturals&#8217; James Paxton. \u00a0He won six games in the month, becoming the first DTBL player to do that in a single month this season. \u00a0Along with all those wins came a very impressive 1.37 ERA and 0.788 WHIP. \u00a0The Canadian left-hander has become the de facto ace for the Naturals in their championship hunt, replacing the injured Noah Syndergaard. \u00a0It was a comfortable win for Paxton, but the Choppers&#8217; Chris Sale was the runner-up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images It&#8217;s been a two team race for the DTBL Championship for several months now. \u00a0Despite the fact that the Mavericks and Naturals have been dealing with injuries to several of their most important players and neither team has truly put it all together yet, no other team besides these two has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,12,9,10,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-awards","category-demigods","category-kings","category-moonshiners","category-naturals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1092"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1097,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1092\/revisions\/1097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}