{"id":1551,"date":"2024-11-20T19:15:21","date_gmt":"2024-11-21T02:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1551"},"modified":"2024-11-21T10:33:54","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T17:33:54","slug":"de-la-cruz-cruises-to-roy-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1551","title":{"rendered":"De La Cruz Cruises To ROY Win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a id='isstRsHrTN5HlrYVN_3bxw' class='gie-single' href='http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2147659439' target='_blank' style='color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;'>Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'isstRsHrTN5HlrYVN_3bxw',sig:'d6NBiX265ox3ZNRt-o8YWXJq-240AVDTZyiCzRVazOg=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2147659439',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The 2024 DTBL Draft class did not have the same hype as the group from the year prior.\u00a0 Nor did it prove to have as many immediate impact players taken in the first round as there were in the 2023 Draft.\u00a0 But that wasn&#8217;t because of the player picked first.\u00a0 The Diamond Dogs owned that first pick for the third straight year.\u00a0\u00a0They had a fairly straightforward choice to make, with the only problem being that they were already loaded at the shortstop position.\u00a0 After making a pre draft trade to open up a spot, the no brainer decision to select Elly De La Cruz was made.\u00a0 And for the second straight year, it seems they may have gotten themselves a franchise building player in the process.\u00a0 Elly De La Cruz is the unanimous selection for the 2024 DTBL Rookie of the Year award.<\/p>\n<p>De La Cruz smashed onto the big league scene in 2023 and immediately became a fantasy stud, hitting 13 home runs with 35 stolen bases in 98 games.\u00a0 Just a modest improvement over those numbers would have made him an exceptionally valuable fantasy player.\u00a0 Instead, he nearly doubled both of those figures.\u00a0 He hit 25 homers with a gaudy 67 stolen bases.\u00a0 He also scored 101 runs and improved his batting average to a respectable .259 figure.\u00a0 His league leading 67 steals were the eighth most in league history and second most among rookies, trailing only Scott Podsednik&#8217;s 70 steals for the Moonshiners in 2004.\u00a0 Kenny Lofton also stole 70 in 1993, but every player was technically a DTBL rookie in the league&#8217;s inaugural season.\u00a0 The only DTBL player to ever top both De La Cruz&#8217;s HR and SB figures in a single season was Ronald Acuna Jr just last season.\u00a0 His 9.7 Batting PAR (which was actually 11.0 before last week&#8217;s adjustment) topped all rookie hitters by almost three points.\u00a0 In a normal year, with the numbers he accumulated, he&#8217;d be a likely pick for the Most Valuable Player award as well.\u00a0 But he&#8217;ll have some stiff competition for that honor this year.<\/p>\n<p>De La Cruz is\u00a0the kind of player who pretty much guarantees that the Diamond Dogs will always be competitive in the steals category no matter what, allowing them to focus on other categories for future acquisitions.\u00a0 In year one, he lifted them from dead last in stolen bases in 2023 to fourth place this season.\u00a0 Overall, he was\u00a0the driving force behind them improving from 22.5 batting points to 33.5 and an extremely respectable fifth place finish in the final standings.\u00a0 Largely because of him, the Diamond Dogs streak of first overall picks will end in 2025, unless they were to trade for the top spot.\u00a0 Their shortstop trio of De La Cruz, Oneil Cruz and Trea Turner combined for an incredible 18 Batting PAR.\u00a0 Oneil Cruz switched to the outfield too late in the season to be making a DTBL position switch in &#8217;25, so the Dogs figure to run it back with the same trio in the infield again next year.\u00a0 De La Cruz is the first Diamond Dogs player to win any of the three major DTBL individual player awards.<\/p>\n<p>Before I get to the vote results, a quick thanks to Mike for immediately brining to my attention that I completely botched the initial Rookie of the Year ballot.\u00a0 Somehow, De La Cruz wasn&#8217;t on it!\u00a0 In my initial compilation of the list, I had picked out the top candidate from each team and then worked down from there.\u00a0 For reasons I can&#8217;t explain, I actually overlooked De La Cruz at first and had Jake Burger as the Dogs&#8217; top candidate.\u00a0 Fortunately, Mike pointed this out before anyone had submitted a ballot so I didn&#8217;t need to issue a re-vote.\u00a0 De La Cruz was indeed the unanimous selection, topping all ten ballots.\u00a0 Second place was extremely tight.\u00a0 Mavericks&#8217; outfielder Jarren Duran edged out Kings&#8217; starting pitcher Bryce Miller by one point.\u00a0 Duran and Miller were two of the biggest steals of the draft, selected in the fourth and fifth rounds respectively.\u00a0 Duran was a major cog in the Mavericks all time great offense and championship winning roster.\u00a0 He was quite the power\/speed force in his own right with 21 homers and 34 steals.\u00a0 Miller was part of a rejuvenated Kings rotation, leading all rookies in the Pitching PAR at 8.9.\u00a0 Miller actually received a majority of the second place votes (6), but was bested in the overall tally by Duran who got three seconds and six thirds to finish with 54 points.\u00a0 Following Miller is another Kings starting pitcher, Cole Ragans.\u00a0 The southpaw was a second round selection, but the first pick made by the Kings in this year&#8217;s draft.\u00a0 He didn&#8217;t receive any votes higher than third place, but joined De La Cruz and Duran as the three players who were on all ten ballots.\u00a0 Ragans finished with 30 points.\u00a0 Rounding out the top five is perhaps this year&#8217;s most surprising breakout star, Cougars outfielder Brent Rooker.\u00a0 Rooker not only went undrafted, but remained a free agent until mid-May when the Cougars finally snatched him up.\u00a0 He still managed to hit 29 homers in 3\/4 of a season.\u00a0 Rooker picked up a second place vote which accounted for a bulk of his 12 points to place fifth.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/ROY24.txt\">Click here<\/a> to view the full voting results.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to everybody for getting your ballots in.\u00a0 I&#8217;ll be announcing the Cy Young award winner later this week, with the Most Valuable Player announcement mostly likely coming sometime next week.\u00a0 There are certainly a ton of deserving players for each of those awards, but with clear favorites as well.\u00a0 Will either of them be unanimous too?\u00a0 Find out soon!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images The 2024 DTBL Draft class did not have the same hype as the group from the year prior.\u00a0 Nor did it prove to have as many immediate impact players taken in the first round as there were in the 2023 Draft.\u00a0 But that wasn&#8217;t because of the player picked first.\u00a0 The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-awards","category-diamond-dogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551","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=1551"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1554,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551\/revisions\/1554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}