{"id":1491,"date":"2023-04-03T19:56:47","date_gmt":"2023-04-04T02:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1491"},"modified":"2023-04-03T19:56:47","modified_gmt":"2023-04-04T02:56:47","slug":"2023-season-preview-part-iv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1491","title":{"rendered":"2023 Season Preview:  Part IV"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a id=\"x8wXJE8kQDtdCHTCtgb5yQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1425353467\" 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:'x8wXJE8kQDtdCHTCtgb5yQ',sig:'oqZAqbfKudUs9WCLwArRussOlEF8E3EWNT4McLzpFkE=',w:'594px',h:'334px',items:'1425353467',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><script src=\"\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nIt is now time for the final installment of the 2023 DTBL season preview series.\u00a0 If you thought we&#8217;d seen the last of projected ties after the last section where three teams were slotted to finish tied for fourth place, you&#8217;d be wrong.\u00a0 There are two more teams with exactly four more projected standings points than that trio, which puts them in a tie for second place in these standings.\u00a0 Then, in a bit of a departure from the norm, the projected champion has a fairly decent lead over all challengers according to these numbers.\u00a0 That is particularly surprising since that team is expected to have a below average offense.<\/p>\n<p>Based strictly on 2022 results, the presense of two of these teams in the final preview section is quite surprising.\u00a0 But then if you look at the rosters and examine the reasons for the disappointing seasons a year ago, it starts to make sense.\u00a0 All three of these squads have the goods to win the DTBL in 2023.\u00a0 Here are the projected top three teams in the league heading into the 2023 season.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Jay&#8217;s Jackalope<\/h2>\n<p>Category &#8211; Projected Rank (2022 Rank)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Batting Average &#8211; 8th (10th)<\/li>\n<li>Home Runs &#8211; 3rd (5th)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Batted In &#8211; 5th (5th)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Scored &#8211; 7th (9th)<\/li>\n<li>Stolen Bases &#8211;\u00a02nd (4th)<\/li>\n<li>Earned Run Average &#8211;\u00a04th (6th)<\/li>\n<li>WHIP Ratio &#8211;\u00a01st (1st)<\/li>\n<li>Wins &#8211; 9th (8th-T)<\/li>\n<li>Saves &#8211; 8th (9th)<\/li>\n<li>Strike Outs &#8211;\u00a03rd (5th)<\/li>\n<li>Total Batting Points &#8211; 4th (7th-T)<\/li>\n<li>Total Pitching Points &#8211;\u00a03rd (5th)<\/li>\n<li>Total Points &#8211;\u00a02nd-T (7th)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Summary:<\/p>\n<p>Impressively, the Jackalope are expected to finish at or above their point total from last year in all 10 categories.\u00a0 That&#8217;s how you go about turning a disappointing finish one season into championship contention the next, by improving across the board.\u00a0 While I mentioned the Kings being one of the most balanced teams in the league, the Jackalope probably deserve the title in that regard.\u00a0 They are projected to finish in the top four in both batting and pitching points.\u00a0 No other team can claim that.\u00a0 Having said that, the pitching projections mainly expected full healthy seasons from the Jackalope hurlers, and the season is off to a bad start in that regard.\u00a0 With Tyler Glasnow, Luis Severino and Triston McKenzie all starting the season on the I.L., they are down three projected rotation pieces.\u00a0 That still leaves them with two of the best pitchers in the game though in Gerrit Cole and Luis Castillo.\u00a0 They also have Lance Lynn returning to anchor a spot.\u00a0 The newcomers who will need to pick up the slack early are Brady Singer and Andrew Heaney.\u00a0 The bullpen is also banged up heading into the season, most notably without top closer Raisel Iglesias.\u00a0 Alex Lange, Giovanny Gallegos and Jason Adam give them some other interesting options in relief.\u00a0 The good news is, they should get all of those ailing pitchers back at some point.\u00a0 Perhaps the offense will need to carry the load early on though.\u00a0 Fortunately, they are equipped to do just that.\u00a0 Ronald Acuna is back to full health and could be a legit 40\/40 candidate this year.\u00a0 His Braves teammate Michael Harris joins him in the Jackalope outfield as well.\u00a0 Like Acuna, the first round pick Harris figures to be an elite power and speed guy.\u00a0 And then there is Adolis Garcia, giving the Jackalope three outfielders with at least 20\/20 HR\/SB projections.\u00a0 If Giancarlo Stanton can stay healthy, this should be the best outfield in the league outside of the Mavericks.\u00a0 On the infield, Paul Goldschmidt is the main returning cog.\u00a0 There are several new additions here, including Jeremy Pena and Josh Jung, with Cal Raleigh behind the plate.\u00a0 The infield is unproven compared to the outfield, but there are a bunch of young guys with breakout potential.\u00a0 It has been a couple disappointing seasons in a row for the Jackalope.\u00a0 These numbers point to a big turnaround in 2023 though.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Mike&#8217;s Moonshiners<\/h2>\n<p>Category &#8211; Projected Rank (2022 Rank)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Batting Average &#8211; 1st (2nd)<\/li>\n<li>Home Runs &#8211; 5th (4th)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Batted In &#8211; 4th (3rd)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Scored &#8211; 3rd (4th)<\/li>\n<li>Stolen Bases &#8211; 5th (1st)<\/li>\n<li>Earned Run Average &#8211; 8th (4th)<\/li>\n<li>WHIP Ratio &#8211; 3rd (5th)<\/li>\n<li>Wins &#8211; 8th (1st)<\/li>\n<li>Saves &#8211; 7th (7th-T)<\/li>\n<li>Strike Outs &#8211; 6th (4th)<\/li>\n<li>Total Batting Points &#8211; 2nd (2nd)<\/li>\n<li>Total Pitching Points &#8211; 7th (4th)<\/li>\n<li>Total Points &#8211; 2nd-T (1st)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Summary:<\/p>\n<p>The Moonshiners finally won their first DTBL championship in 2022 thanks to solid contributions throughout the roster.\u00a0 On the offensive side of things, they didn&#8217;t have any single player with eye-popping numbers.\u00a0 Kyle Tucker was the only Moonshiner in the top 15 of Batting PAR.\u00a0 But they got very good seasons out of pretty much everybody.\u00a0 So they will attempt to defend the title with another strong, deep roster that actually has room for improvement on offense.\u00a0 The infield is particularly deep with Vladimir Guerrero Jr, Rafael Devers and Tim Anderson leading the way.\u00a0 Amed Rosario and Ryan Mountcastle return after being two key breakout performers from a year ago.\u00a0 They lost the benefit of Daulton Varsho occupying a catching slot while spending most of his time in the outfield, but replaced him in that spot with MJ Melendez who will likely do the same thing:\u00a0 play most days in the outfield while holding down a catching spot.\u00a0 Varsho will still be a valuable contributor for the Moonshiners as well, but will have to do it as an outfielder.\u00a0 He&#8217;s joining an outfield that already has two of the most dynamic players in the game in Shohei Ohtani and Kyle Tucker.\u00a0 After a couple straight seasons of excellent work as both a hitter and a pitcher, the Moonshiners had a more complicated decision to make this winter on Ohtani&#8217;s position status for &#8217;23.\u00a0 Ultimately, they opted to leave him in the outfield where he&#8217;s been excellent the past three years.\u00a0 Meanwhile, Tucker is one of only three players (Acuna, Judge) with a 7+ Batting PAR projection for this season.\u00a0 Part of the reason why the Moonshiners elected to keep Ohtani in the outfield is because they already have arguably the best starting rotation in the league.\u00a0 Justin Verlander, Alek Manoah and Yu Darvish were three of the top five finishers in Pitching PAR last year, with Verlander taking home the Cy Young award.\u00a0 Unfortunately, he&#8217;ll start this season on the I.L.\u00a0 Dustin May, Reid Detmers and Jeffrey Springs were all added to the roster in the draft, giving the Moonshiners incredible depth in the rotation.\u00a0 The bullpen suffered a crushing blow with Edwin Diaz tearing his ACL during a WBC postgame celebration.\u00a0 This seventh place saves projection was pre-Diaz injury, so they will be hard pressed to not finish near the bottom of the league in saves.\u00a0 Clay Holmes is probably their best bet to rack up saves.\u00a0 But Diaz is irreplaceable across all of his numbers.\u00a0 The Moonshiners certainly have the talent to defend their title.\u00a0 It just might come in a different manner this time around.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>David&#8217;s Darkhorses<\/h2>\n<p>Category &#8211; Projected Rank (2022 Rank)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Batting Average &#8211; 9th (3rd)<\/li>\n<li>Home Runs &#8211; 8th (9th)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Batted In &#8211; 8th (9th)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Scored &#8211; 6th (5th)<\/li>\n<li>Stolen Bases &#8211;\u00a03rd (2nd)<\/li>\n<li>Earned Run Average &#8211; 1st (10th)<\/li>\n<li>WHIP Ratio &#8211; 2nd (10th)<\/li>\n<li>Wins &#8211; 2nd (7th)<\/li>\n<li>Saves &#8211; 2nd (1st)<\/li>\n<li>Strike Outs &#8211; 1st (8th)<\/li>\n<li>Total Batting Points &#8211; 8th (4th)<\/li>\n<li>Total Pitching Points &#8211; 1st (8th)<\/li>\n<li>Total Points &#8211; 1st (8th)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Summary:<\/p>\n<p>When I first saw these projections, I thought maybe I made a mistake.\u00a0 How could a team that was among the worst in the league in pitching points last year be far and away the best pitching staff on paper heading into this season?\u00a0 Well, there are actually a couple credible explanations for this.\u00a0 First, Jacob deGrom is projected to throw 175 innings this season according to FanGraphs Depth Charts.\u00a0 That would be 175 more innings than the Darkhorses got from him a year ago.\u00a0 And on a per inning basis, there is no better starting pitcher in baseball than deGrom.\u00a0 Of course, you could argue that 175 innings from him is pretty unrealistic since he hasn&#8217;t reached that number since 2019.\u00a0 The other big change is the addition of Spencer Strider to the rotation.\u00a0 Strider was far and away the best pitcher available in this year&#8217;s draft.\u00a0 So with those two guys in the fold, it is close to a lock the Darkhorses will have a much improved staff.\u00a0 47 pitching points may be a tad optimistic though.\u00a0 Strider isn&#8217;t the only fireballer joining the rotation.\u00a0 Hunter Greene was added to the mix as well.\u00a0 Logan Webb is the key returning rotation piece.\u00a0 The bullpen being projected to finish second in saves is a product of a lot of unsettled closer situations across the league.\u00a0 The Darkhorses only have two sure things for saves themselves in Kenley Jansen and Felix Bautista.\u00a0 Andres Munoz should be a positive contributor out of the pen regardless of how many save opportunities he gets.\u00a0 Four of the Darkhorses first five draft picks were pitchers.\u00a0 Combine that with the return of deGrom and the optimistic outlook for the pitching staff starts to make sense.\u00a0 It is also interesting that a team expected to take a big step back in batting points would still come out on top of the projected standings, but here we are.\u00a0 Part of that is because of Bryce Harper&#8217;s elbow injury recovery, which is baked into these numbers perhaps more pessimistically than recent news would suggest is warranted.\u00a0 He could be back sooner than later.\u00a0 And they could use him because no individual hitter has a Batting PAR projection over 4.\u00a0 Believe it or not, Tommy Edman is the top guy on that list.\u00a0 He along with Xander Bogaerts, Andres Gimenez and Brandon Lowe make up a solid middle infield.\u00a0 The Darkhorses could use a return to old form from at least one of their third base pair of Alex Bregman and Matt Chapman.\u00a0 J.T. Realmuto remains one of the best catchers in the game.\u00a0 Christian Yelich is another guy from whom they could use a bounce back season.\u00a0 George Springer is the most reliable producer in the outfield.\u00a0 All in all, this is a very talented roster and a championship would not be terribly surprising.\u00a0 I would not blame you if you question them being the preseason favorites though.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So there you have it.\u00a0 We&#8217;ve previewed the 2023 season for all 10 teams.\u00a0 Here are the full projected standings and team point totals for the ten categories:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/e\/2PACX-1vTiJ4-C5G-aX-59UxfJ7QSN677HWbeaKxpxuKJsib8ccnIOAzA1L37vmKfo2Y2dxW77ZNT37UroYdQr\/pubhtml?gid=13&amp;single=true&amp;widget=true&amp;headers=false\" width=\"440\" height=\"510\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>With all the rule changes, it is hard to know exactly what to expect during this 2023 baseball season.\u00a0 I do expect it to be a lot of fun though.\u00a0 Good luck to all!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images It is now time for the final installment of the 2023 DTBL season preview series.\u00a0 If you thought we&#8217;d seen the last of projected ties after the last section where three teams were slotted to finish tied for fourth place, you&#8217;d be wrong.\u00a0 There are two more teams with exactly four [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,6,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-darkhorses","category-jackalope","category-moonshiners"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491","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=1491"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1495,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491\/revisions\/1495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}