{"id":1319,"date":"2020-05-08T12:47:11","date_gmt":"2020-05-08T19:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1319"},"modified":"2020-05-08T12:47:11","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T19:47:11","slug":"dtbl-sim-mid-season-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1319","title":{"rendered":"DTBL Sim:  Mid-Season Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a id=\"mcDQX28WSsFcBmu1IAOdxA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/482885998\" 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:'mcDQX28WSsFcBmu1IAOdxA',sig:'jl_O2SVzgHCT58LWqCmbGVq7K8KOc_w6q17-kDnCSBU=',w:'594px',h:'418px',items:'482885998',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><script src=\"\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nWe&#8217;ve reached the exact mid-point of the 2020 DTBL Sim regular season.\u00a0 81 games down, 81 to go.\u00a0 I thought I would use this milestone as an opportunity to review what we&#8217;ve seen so far.\u00a0 Overall, I&#8217;m very pleased with the results.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve enjoyed looking through the box scores each day and even occasionally playing out a game in front of me in OOTP.\u00a0 It had been my only way of getting my baseball fix, until this week when ESPN starting airing live Korea Baseball Organization games.\u00a0 Normally, I would have absolutely no interest in the KBO.\u00a0 But there is nothing normal about our current way of life and I&#8217;ve been grateful to have been able to watch live baseball games.\u00a0 Anyway, back to the DTBL sim.\u00a0 I&#8217;m going to go over some general league-wide trends and then will do a quick review of each team&#8217;s performance thus far.<\/p>\n<p>First, a little bit about how OOTP sims work, that goes beyond anything I described before the season started.\u00a0 When a league is created in OOTP, it uses a set of league modifiers to influence the outcomes of the game sim engine.\u00a0 Basically, this is a set of statistical outcomes that are expected throughout the course of the full season.\u00a0 The primary set of numbers are:\u00a0 AB, H, 2B, 3B, HR, BB, HBP, K and BABIP.\u00a0 From those numbers, an expected triple slash line (AVG\/OBP\/SLG) is computed.\u00a0 I used the game&#8217;s default settings for its MLB universe, which I believe are primarily based on the 2019 season.\u00a0 The resulting expected triple slash line for this league is .252\/.325\/.435, which is nearly identical to 2019 MLB&#8217;s .252\/.323\/.435.\u00a0 There are also modifiers for things like groundball rate, pitcher stamina, base-running and defensive rates.\u00a0 But I&#8217;m not totally sure I understand how all of those work, so I&#8217;m definitely not going to get into that here.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 This means that the complete results are based on these modifiers, not the cumulative quality of the players within the game.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Thus, it is players&#8217; 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n<p>Getting back to that expected slash line of .252\/.323\/.435, you may wonder, how is that looking so far?\u00a0 Well, as of today, the league-wide slash line is .248\/.320\/.429.\u00a0 Of course, these numbers change daily and I know the league average was over .250 fairly recently.\u00a0 So these results are pretty much in line with what I would expect.\u00a0 But there is one stat that is a bit out of whack right now which is having an effect on other numbers as well:\u00a0 strike out rate.\u00a0 The current K% is 25.6%, which is pretty significantly higher than 2019 MLB&#8217;s record-breaking mark of 23.0%.\u00a0 I noticed very early on that strikeouts were well above what I expected and it hasn&#8217;t really come down much since.\u00a0 So this is something I will continue to monitor.\u00a0 I expect the rate will eventually drop a bit, but at this point, I&#8217;m not certain.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 But I&#8217;m not really sure.\u00a0 I believe this is the primary culprit for scoring being down a bit from what I expected as well.\u00a0 Teams are averaging 4.7 runs per game, which is a little lower than MLB&#8217;s 4.8 in 2019.\u00a0 Not a huge difference though, so I don&#8217;t consider this to be a problem.\u00a0 Nor do I consider the strikeout rate to be a problem either.\u00a0 More of a curiosity.<\/p>\n<p>As for the DTBL teams, it has been quite an unexpected season thus far.\u00a0 First place is currently held by the Demigods, who of course finished dead last in our league a season ago.\u00a0 It has been a tight race all season though.\u00a0 At least half of the teams have held first place at some point.\u00a0 All ten teams have winning percentages that fall between .400 and .600, so there are no extraordinarily great or terrible teams.\u00a0 Even the teams at the bottom of the standings could get right back into the playoff mix with a hot streak.\u00a0 As a reminder, the top four teams will make the playoffs.\u00a0 Currently, those spots are occupied by the Demigods, Mavericks, Choppers and Kings.\u00a0 But the other six teams are all within eight games of the Kings.\u00a0 Let&#8217;s go team-by-team to see how things are progressing.\u00a0 I&#8217;ll go in the order of the current standings.<\/p>\n<p>Demigods (48-33, 1st place) &#8211; Definitely the surprise of the league so far.\u00a0 They are currently riding a six game winning streak and are 14-5 in June.\u00a0 It has been a combination of good hitting and pitching as they rank 3rd and 2nd in runs scored and allowed.\u00a0 Francisco Lindor is making a strong MVP case, second in the league in WAR at 3.4.\u00a0 He is hitting .300 with a dozen homers and stolen bases.\u00a0 The pitching staff has been solid, pretty much from top to bottom.\u00a0 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).\u00a0 German Marquez and Aaron Nola have been great as well.<\/p>\n<p>Mavericks (46-35, 2nd place, 2 GB) &#8211; Statistically speaking, the Mavericks have probably been the league&#8217;s best team to date.\u00a0 They have the best pythag record, based on run difference.\u00a0 They are second in runs scored and easily lead the way in fewest runs allowed and an impressive 3.74 staff ERA.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Javy Baez and Manny Machado have each slugged 17 homers.\u00a0 Jack Flaherty might be the front-runner for the Cy Young award.\u00a0 He comfortably leads the league in ERA at 2.18 and is also the leader in strikeouts (137).\u00a0 One question mark entering the season was how their very young bullpen would hold up.\u00a0 So far, so good.\u00a0 A.J. Puk, Dustin May and Michael Kopech have all been outstanding.<\/p>\n<p>Choppers (45-36, 3rd place, 3 GB) &#8211; After the Demigods, the Choppers have been the next most pleasant surprise.\u00a0 They have held the top spot in the standings on several occasions.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The Choppers have the league&#8217;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.\u00a0 They have scored 34 more runs than any other team.\u00a0 Pete Alonso and Anthony Rizzo have been the offensive stars.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The pitching staff has held its own as well.\u00a0 A healthy Chris Sale and Shane Bieber have anchored the staff.<\/p>\n<p>Kings (42-39, 4th place, 6 GB) &#8211; The final playoff spot is currently occupied by the two-time defending champs.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The offense has been a microcosm of the actual Kings results the past couple years:\u00a0 a whole lot of Mookie Betts and not much else.\u00a0 Betts leads the league in WAR (4.0), AVG (.337), SLG (.580), OPS (.967), 2B (28), RBI (57) and a couple other categories.\u00a0 The only other Kings hitter who has been having a notably decent season is Marcus Semien.\u00a0 The pitching staff has been pretty good, but not great.\u00a0 Max Scherzer was awesome for the first month or so, but has been struggling a bit of late.\u00a0 Justin Verlander has been disappointing.\u00a0 Lance McCullers has probably been the second best Kings pitcher.<\/p>\n<p>Beanballers (41-40, 5th place, 7 GB) &#8211; The Beanballers have been steadily hovering around .500, keeping themselves in close striking distance of a playoff spot.\u00a0 Jorge Soler is tied for the league lead in home runs with 20 and Trea Turner leads the way with 17 stolen bases.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Hyun-Jin Ryu has led the way on the pitching side, putting up numbers similar to his first half of 2019.\u00a0 He has a 2.46 ERA and a WHIP below 1.0.\u00a0 The Beanballers rank in the middle of almost every significant statistical category, both hitting and pitching.\u00a0 A very average team, you could say, to this point.<\/p>\n<p>Cougars (39-42, 6th place, 9 GB) &#8211; At one point, it was the Cougars who were the league&#8217;s biggest surprise.\u00a0 But they have fallen on hard times of late, having lost eight straight and 17 out of 22.\u00a0 They do still lead the league in home runs, but that lead has been shrinking as well.\u00a0 Gleyber Torres has been their best player.\u00a0 He leads the way among seven players with double digit home runs.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The pitching staff has been the bigger problem lately.\u00a0 Blake Snell has been great (7-3, 2.62 ERA), but has gotten little help.\u00a0 Sonny Gray did win Pitcher of the Month in May though.\u00a0 Closer Nick Anderson is the only pitcher besides Snell with an ERA under 4.<\/p>\n<p>Darkhorses (37-44, 7th place-T, 11 GB) &#8211; The Darkhorses, on the other hand, have been trending up.\u00a0 They got off to a disappointing start and found themselves in last place at times in April and May.\u00a0 But they have now won six of their last seven series as the offense has sparked the improvement.\u00a0 Eight of their nine regular starters have reached double digit home runs.\u00a0 While no player has numbers that pop out, it has been a solid group effort.\u00a0 Alex Bregman has 17 home runs and Brandon Lowe leads the team in WAR (2.2).\u00a0 If they can get Christian Yelich back on track (.237, 1.2 WAR), this offense could be very dangerous in the second half.\u00a0 The pitching staff, particularly the rotation, has been disappointing.\u00a0 All of the starters, besides Patrick Corbin, have ERAs north of 5.0.\u00a0 That includes Jacob deGrom, who shockingly has an ERA of 5.05.\u00a0 Perhaps he has been a tad unlucky though as his FIP sits at 4.23.\u00a0 The Darkhorses do not appear to be a very good defensive team, which probably isn&#8217;t helping those pitching numbers.<\/p>\n<p>Komodos (37-44, 7th place-T, 11 GB) &#8211; It has been a rough season for the Komodos offense.\u00a0 They rank dead last in almost every offensive category.\u00a0 They are averaging a half run per game fewer than the next worst team.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Fortunately for the Komodos, the pitching staff has been solid, allowing them to stay afloat.\u00a0 Jose Quintana has been their ace with a 3.31 ERA.\u00a0 Anibal Sanchez has surprisingly strong numbers too, leading the team with nine wins.\u00a0 The bullpen has been very good as well.<\/p>\n<p>Moonshiners (36-45, 9th place, 12 GB) &#8211; The Moonshiners are just now starting to climb out of the hole that their pitching staff put them into early on this season.\u00a0 The stats don&#8217;t paint a pretty picture here as the Moonshiners rank ninth in runs scored and last in runs allowed.\u00a0 But things have been getting a little better.\u00a0 The 5.05 team ERA is pretty bad, but is better than it was a couple weeks ago.\u00a0 The rotation has been a big problem.\u00a0 40% of it consists of pitchers with ERAs over 6.00.\u00a0 Opening Day starter Charlie Morton had arguably been the worst pitcher in the league until a few weeks ago.\u00a0 Now he has some competition with a few of his teammates.\u00a0 On a positive note, Kyle Hendricks has been solid and steady.\u00a0 This is probably the league&#8217;s worst defensive team, which also hurts the pitching numbers and the WAR totals for the hitters.\u00a0 The team leader in WAR among position players is Rafael Devers at 1.6.<\/p>\n<p>Jackalope (34-47, 10th place, 14 GB) &#8211; Easy to say when referring to the last place team, but the Jackalope have been the biggest disappointment so far.\u00a0 While maybe not one of the favorites, on paper, this looked like it could be a playoff team.\u00a0 To be fair, they have been a bit unlucky with their record falling four games below the pythag mark.\u00a0 But they just haven&#8217;t been consistent enough on the mound or at the plate.\u00a0 That&#8217;s not to say it has all been bad though.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Giancarlo Stanton is tied for the league lead with 20 home runs.\u00a0 None of their pitchers have stood out though and Gerrit Cole has been notably disappointing with just five wins and a 4.91 ERA.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 They&#8217;ll need to get that turned around soon to get back into the playoff hunt.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ll get the second half of the season started tonight.\u00a0 We&#8217;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.\u00a0 But I can easily adjust the pace of the sims as the schedule dictates.\u00a0 I hope you are all staying safe and healthy.\u00a0 All the best to you.\u00a0 And I hope you are enjoying this small distraction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images We&#8217;ve reached the exact mid-point of the 2020 DTBL Sim regular season.\u00a0 81 games down, 81 to go.\u00a0 I thought I would use this milestone as an opportunity to review what we&#8217;ve seen so far.\u00a0 Overall, I&#8217;m very pleased with the results.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve enjoyed looking through the box scores each day [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dtbl-2020-sim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319","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=1319"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1323,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319\/revisions\/1323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}