{"id":477,"date":"2013-04-02T20:48:36","date_gmt":"2013-04-03T03:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=477"},"modified":"2013-04-02T20:48:36","modified_gmt":"2013-04-03T03:48:36","slug":"2013-season-preview-part-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=477","title":{"rendered":"2013 Season Preview: Part III"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Jackalope outfielder Giancarlo Stanton<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Every MLB team has a game in the books now.\u00a0 I don’t think we have learned anything we didn’t already know.\u00a0 Good pitching tends to beat good hitting.\u00a0 Pitchers usually have the edge early in the season, especially on the first couple days when the aces are on the hill.\u00a0 Also, Clayton Kershaw and Bryce Harper are pretty good.\u00a0 And as I’m writing this, some guy name Marwin Gonzalez just ended Yu Darvish’s perfect game bid with two outs in the bottom of the 9th.\u00a0 Still, a decent Demigods debut for Mr. Darvish.<\/p>\n

Now we’re getting to the heart of these 2013 season projections.\u00a0 The top four contains the defending champions and three other teams that came within an eyelash of winning it all last year.\u00a0 All four of these teams are likely to be in the hunt again this season.\u00a0 Tonight, we’ll take a look at the teams projected to finish fourth and third place.\u00a0 They happen to be the league’s last two champions.<\/p>\n

Nick’s Naturals
\n<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Category – Projected Rank (2012 Rank)<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  • Batting Average – 1st (4th)<\/li>\n
  • Home Runs – 8th (4th)<\/li>\n
  • Runs Batted In – 6th (5th)<\/li>\n
  • Runs Scored – 3rd (4th)<\/li>\n
  • Stolen Bases – 9th (9th)<\/li>\n
  • Earned Run Average – 2nd (1st)<\/li>\n
  • WHIP Ratio – 1st (2nd)<\/li>\n
  • Wins – 10th (3rd)<\/li>\n
  • Saves – 5th (2nd-T)<\/li>\n
  • Strike Outs – 7th (5th)<\/li>\n
  • Total Batting Points – 4th-T (5th)
    \n<\/em><\/li>\n
  • Total Pitching Points – 4th (2nd)
    \n<\/em><\/li>\n
  • Total Points – 4th (1st)<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Summary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    I hate to beat a dead horse, but here is yet another example of a team that should easily beat their projections in at least a couple categories, particularly the nearly impossible category to predict:\u00a0 wins.\u00a0 I would be shocked if David Price winds up as the only Naturals pitcher with more than 13 wins, which is the case in these ZiPS projections.\u00a0 Matt Cain, Jordan Zimmerman, Zack Greinke and Price are going to team up for the third fewest wins in the league?\u00a0 I don’t think so.\u00a0 Their staff led them to the championship last year and are a decent bet to do the same this year.\u00a0 What will be more interesting to follow is the progress of their offense.\u00a0 With the obvious exception of Miguel Cabrera, several of the Naturals other top hitters underachieved a year ago.\u00a0 Joey Votto, Troy Tulowitzki and Justin Upton should cruise past their ’12 numbers.\u00a0 Andrew McCutchen, a healthy Victor Martinez… this is a very impressive roster.\u00a0 The Naturals hitting was the best in the league in 2011.\u00a0 If they can combine their ’11 offense with their ’12 pitching, they will really be on to something.\u00a0 And they certainly have the talent to do it.\u00a0 Three teams better than this one?\u00a0 We’ll see about that.<\/p>\n

    Jay’s Jackalope
    \n<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    Category – Projected Rank (2012 Rank)<\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    • Batting Average – 9th (9th)<\/li>\n
    • Home Runs – 2nd (6th)<\/li>\n
    • Runs Batted In – 2nd (6th)<\/li>\n
    • Runs Scored – 2nd (7th)<\/li>\n
    • Stolen Bases – 3rd-T (2nd)<\/li>\n
    • Earned Run Average – 4th (3rd)<\/li>\n
    • WHIP Ratio – 3rd (1st)<\/li>\n
    • Wins – 8th (7th)<\/li>\n
    • Saves – 8th (1st)<\/li>\n
    • Strike Outs – 5th (1st)<\/li>\n
    • Total Batting Points – 2nd (7th)
      \n<\/em><\/li>\n
    • Total Pitching Points – 6th (1st)
      \n<\/em><\/li>\n
    • Total Points – 3rd (5th)<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      Summary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

      The Jackalope were unable to defend their title last year mostly because their offense was a huge disappointment.\u00a0 These projections are encouraging for them in that it appears they should expect to bounce back near the top of the league in most hitting categories.\u00a0 Only by Albert Pujols’ lofty standards would his ’12 season be considered a disappointment, but that it was.\u00a0 Expect him to return to being one of the top fantasy players in the league.\u00a0 Maybe not THE top player though.\u00a0 That honor might belong to Jackalope teammate Ryan Braun.\u00a0 Giancarlo Stanton is vying to join that discussion too, although it will be interesting to see how much he gets to hit with Placido Polanco hitting behind him for the Marlins.\u00a0 The Jackalope have been carried by a nearly unbeatable rotation the last few years.\u00a0 But they may not be quite as strong this year.\u00a0 There are serious concerns about Roy Halladay’s rapidly decreasing velocity.\u00a0 Felix Hernandez and Cliff Lee remain two of the most dependable pitchers in the game though.\u00a0 One note on the Jackalope pitching projections.\u00a0 They assumed Aroldis Chapman would be a starter this year.\u00a0 It is debatable whether his return to the bullpen will be a net positive or negative for the Jackalope, but it certainly puts these rankings into question.\u00a0 Regardless, the Jackalope have the hitting and pitching to compete for another title this year.<\/p>\n

      That leaves two.\u00a0 You know who they are now.\u00a0 But you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see who are the projected 2013 DTBL champions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Every MLB team has a game in the books now.\u00a0 I don’t think we have learned anything we didn’t already know.\u00a0 Good pitching tends to beat good hitting.\u00a0 Pitchers usually have the edge early in the season, especially on the first couple days when the aces are on the hill.\u00a0 Also, Clayton Kershaw and Bryce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jackalope","category-naturals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477","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=477"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":480,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477\/revisions\/480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}