{"id":235,"date":"2011-11-22T20:53:12","date_gmt":"2011-11-23T03:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=235"},"modified":"2011-11-22T20:53:12","modified_gmt":"2011-11-23T03:53:12","slug":"kemp-named-dtbl-mvp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=235","title":{"rendered":"Kemp Named DTBL MVP"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Demigods outfielder Matt Kemp<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Earlier today, the Baseball Writers Association of America did what they normally do and awarded the National League MVP to the best player from one of the best teams rather than giving it to a player on a mediocre team with possibly the better overall statistics.\u00a0 Meanwhile, DTBL members did what they normally do and voted stats over team placement.\u00a0 Champion Jackalope outfielder Ryan Braun won the NL MVP, but Demigods outfielder Matt Kemp is the 2011 DTBL Most Valuable Player.<\/p>\n

In 2011, Matt Kemp was the textbook definition of a five category star.\u00a0 He was among the league leaders in all five categories.\u00a0 He led the league with 126 runs batted in.\u00a0 His .324 batting average ranked seventh, 39 home runs was third, fourth in runs scored with 115 and was third in stolen bases with 40.\u00a0 He was only one home run shy of reaching the esteemed 40\/40 Club (home runs and stolen bases).<\/p>\n

Probably the most under-reported story line of the ’11 season was Kemp’s attempt to become the first MLB triple crown winner in 44 years.\u00a0 I’m not sure exactly why that was the case.\u00a0 It was probably a combination of the Dodgers irrelevance, the thrilling late season playoff races, and my own personal theory:\u00a0 the advancement of sabermetrics in baseball.\u00a0 The three triple crown categories just don’t hold the same significance they once did, especially batting average.\u00a0 Whatever the reason, Kemp wound up falling a little short as Braun edged him out for the NL batting title.\u00a0 He was not particularly close to winning the DTBL triple crown though with several AL batters, in addition to Braun, having higher averages.<\/p>\n

The Demigods were one of the league’s pleasant surprises this year, jumping from last place in 2010 to a fifth place finish.\u00a0 In particular, their offense was light years better than last year’s squad.\u00a0 They finished with 43 batting points, which was second behind only the Naturals.\u00a0 Kemp was clearly the main reason for that.\u00a0 He led the team in all five categories (tied with Ichiro in stolen bases).\u00a0 A first round pick back in 2008, Kemp has been a significant fixture in the Demigods’ lineup the last four seasons.\u00a0 But he easily exceeded career highs in every category this year.<\/p>\n

The MVP voting was very interesting.\u00a0 Even though there were a lot of compelling candidates, Kemp won the award fairly easily.\u00a0 He received eight first place votes, one second and one fourth, for a total of 90 points.\u00a0 NL MVP Braun came in second with a single first place vote and 63 points.\u00a0 Kemp and Braun were the only two players to appear on all ten ballots.\u00a0 Finishing third was Darkhorses outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury with 47 points.\u00a0 Then there was a bit of a gap.\u00a0 Choppers outfielder Curtis Granderson came in fourth.\u00a0 He received the final first place vote, but only appeared on half the ballots and accumulated 20 points.\u00a0 Naturals first baseman Miguel Cabrera came in fifth, and finally, Rookie of the Year winner and Choppers outfielder Jose Bautista finished sixth.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to view the full voting results.<\/p>\n

As alluded to earlier, DTBL MVP usually seems to take on a different meaning than AL and NL MVP.\u00a0 The baseball writers clearly put a premium on the success (or lack there of) of a player’s team.\u00a0 However, team success rarely seems to matter in the DTBL vote.\u00a0 This is very apparent by the opposite results of the NL MVP and DTBL MVP votes, despite the fact that Braun played for the DTBL Champions.\u00a0 Personally, I think it makes sense for the DTBL award to be all about the stats.\u00a0 After all, that’s what fantasy baseball is all about.\u00a0 Meanwhile, another MLB MVP debate popped up with Justin Verlander winning the AL MVP.\u00a0 Obviously, that debate doesn’t occur in this league since we don’t make pitchers eligible for the MVP award.\u00a0 It’s actually kind of interesting because pitchers are really more valuable in fantasy baseball than they are in the real game since they account for exactly half of the league’s points, despite fewer pitchers than batters appearing on active rosters at any given time.\u00a0 An argument could be made that the DTBL Cy Young winner is really more valuable than the DTBL MVP in most seasons.\u00a0 But the main reason why I don’t make pitchers eligible for the MVP is because they have their own award.\u00a0 Perhaps the MVP should be called something else to stop this debate (the Babe Ruth Award?).\u00a0 Anyway, I digress…. I just found these MVP discussions to be especially interesting this year.<\/p>\n

Roster cuts will be due very soon, so you might want to start figuring out who you are going to keep.\u00a0 In the mean time, have a Happy Thanksgiving!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier today, the Baseball Writers Association of America did what they normally do and awarded the National League MVP to the best player from one of the best teams rather than giving it to a player on a mediocre team with possibly the better overall statistics.\u00a0 Meanwhile, DTBL members did what they normally do and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-awards","category-demigods"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions\/239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}