{"id":1362,"date":"2020-11-20T17:23:48","date_gmt":"2020-11-21T00:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1362"},"modified":"2020-11-20T17:23:48","modified_gmt":"2020-11-21T00:23:48","slug":"bieber-bests-choppers-teammate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1362","title":{"rendered":"Bieber Bests Choppers Teammate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a id=\"YwyzpFimRTdrseVW0OOhaw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1271011880\" 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:'YwyzpFimRTdrseVW0OOhaw',sig:'XuGfDyKiqIHH3Q7rzAKKnNoWJ7E4HwpTQRZRM_0nTac=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1271011880',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><script src=\"\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nWhen it came to elite pitchers, the Choppers had the market cornered in 2020.\u00a0 This was an unexpected development, particularly after they lost their long time ace Chris Sale to Tommy John surgery back in the spring.\u00a0 However, Shane Bieber and Trevor Bauer more than picked up the slack.\u00a0 They were the two most dominant pitchers in the league this season, which earned them the American League and National League Cy Young awards, which were announced last week.\u00a0 While both pitchers had remarkable seasons, Bieber was the clear standout pitcher of 2020.\u00a0 And because of that, he is the 2020 DTBL Cy Young award winner.<\/p>\n<p>This race was basically a runaway right from the start.\u00a0 Bieber put the league on notice with a scoreless, 14 strikeout performance on Opening Day.\u00a0 In his second start, the strikeout total fell all they way to 13, but he pitched another eight scoreless innings.\u00a0 He pitched a dozen times this season, never striking out fewer than eight hitters and without ever allowing more than three runs.\u00a0 There was not one single dud in his entire season.\u00a0 The end result was an absurd 1.63 ERA, 0.87 WHIP, eight wins and 122 strikeouts.\u00a0 He led all qualified pitchers in ERA, wins and strikeouts.\u00a0 The ERA is the third lowest single season total among qualified pitchers in league history.\u00a0 Of course, that requires several caveats due to the shortened season, but it is noteworthy nonetheless.\u00a0 His 7.7 PAR was nearly a point and a half higher than Bauer, the next closest pitcher.\u00a0 That put him on pace to top Justin Verlander&#8217;s record 17.5 PAR last year over the course of a full season.\u00a0 But again, caveats apply.\u00a0 No matter how you slice it, Bieber was clearly the best pitcher in baseball in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>This ends a lengthy streak of well established stars winning this award.\u00a0 Bieber is just 25 years old and figures to be at the very beginning of his prime.\u00a0 The Choppers selected him in the third round of the 2019 Draft.\u00a0 His rookie season was quite impressive.\u00a0 He led the Choppers in most pitching categories last year too.\u00a0 He won 15 games with a 3.28 ERA and 259 strikeouts.\u00a0 That earned him third place in a loaded Rookie of the Year race.\u00a0 Bieber also finished in sixth place for the Cy Young a year ago.\u00a0 This year, he took his game to a new level, and in doing so, helped the Choppers improve their pitching output by a dozen points.\u00a0 Bieber didn&#8217;t do it alone though.\u00a0 Trevor Bauer finished second in the league in PAR and Brandon Woodruff had an impressive rookie campaign as well.\u00a0 If Sale is able to come back healthy next year, the Choppers will have an envious rotation anchoring their squad.\u00a0 My records only contain complete award data since 2005, so I&#8217;m not 100% certain about this, but I believe Bieber is the first Choppers pitcher to win the Cy Young award in at least 20 years.\u00a0 Greg Maddux and Mike Mussina are the only other Choppers who may have won this award previously (I&#8217;m almost certain Maddux did at least once).\u00a0 The Bieber\/Bauer duo does bring back memories of the Choppers dominant staffs of the &#8217;90s that featured Maddux and Mussina.\u00a0 Perhaps they can help lead the team to their first championship since that era sometime soon.<\/p>\n<p>Believe it or not, Bieber wasn&#8217;t a unanimous selection for this award.\u00a0 He received top billing on nine of the ten ballots, but was placed second on the other.\u00a0 Still, that&#8217;s a pretty impressive 97 total points, well clear of his Choppers teammate.\u00a0 Bauer was overshadowed by Bieber, but he had fairly similar numbers across the board.\u00a0 His WHIP was a league best 0.80 and he recorded exactly 100 strikeouts, one of only three pitchers to do so this year.\u00a0 Bauer was a pretty clear second choice, finishing with seven second place votes and 64 total points.\u00a0 There was actually a third pitcher who had ridiculous numbers that would have put him in line to win this award in a normal season, and that is Moonshiners veteran Yu Darvish.\u00a0 Darvish was just slightly behind Bieber and Bauer in every category.\u00a0 It was his best season since his DTBL Rookie of the Year campaign in 2013.\u00a0 After falling on some tough times, he is now fully healthy and among the game&#8217;s best pitchers again.\u00a0 Darvish had one second place vote and seven thirds to finish with 45 points.\u00a0 His Japanese countrymate Kenta Maeda finished fourth.\u00a0 Maeda had his best DTBL season, highlighted by his 2.70 ERA and a miniscule 0.75 WHIP.\u00a0 He was probably the most surprising name among the Cy Young contenders this year after spending several years flipping between the rotation and bullpen for the Dodgers.\u00a0 He proved himself to be an elite starter for the Twins.\u00a0 Maeda received 20 total points.\u00a0 Finishing fifth was the consensus favorite for this award heading into the season, Jackalope ace Gerrit Cole.\u00a0 Cole&#8217;s first season in the Bronx was a little bumpy.\u00a0 But when it was all said and done, he still had a pretty impressive campaign.\u00a0 It is hard to feel disappointed with a 2.84 ERA and sub 1.0 WHIP.\u00a0 But the bar has been set awfully high for Cole after signing that massive deal with the Yankees last winter.\u00a0 Cole received a second place vote and 17 total points.\u00a0 Normally I stop the rundown after the top five, but I feel like I have to mention the guy who finished sixth since he was the only person to receive a first place vote besides Bieber.\u00a0 Mavericks star lefty Clayton Kershaw had a nice bounce-back season in 2020, and apparently it impressed someone enough to give him a first place tally.\u00a0 It was the only vote he received, however.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/CY20.txt\">Click here<\/a> to view the full voting results.<\/p>\n<p>Fernando Tatis and Shane Bieber were unsurprising recipients of the year&#8217;s first two awards.\u00a0 The final award, Most Valuable Player, figures to be a much more competitive vote.\u00a0 In fact, I&#8217;ll go so far as to guarantee it.\u00a0 I have tentatively planned on announcing that winner next Monday, November 23.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images When it came to elite pitchers, the Choppers had the market cornered in 2020.\u00a0 This was an unexpected development, particularly after they lost their long time ace Chris Sale to Tommy John surgery back in the spring.\u00a0 However, Shane Bieber and Trevor Bauer more than picked up the slack.\u00a0 They were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-awards","category-choppers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362","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=1362"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1364,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362\/revisions\/1364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}