{"id":745,"date":"2014-07-16T18:25:32","date_gmt":"2014-07-17T01:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=745"},"modified":"2014-07-16T18:25:32","modified_gmt":"2014-07-17T01:25:32","slug":"all-star-break-grab-bag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=745","title":{"rendered":"All-Star Break Grab Bag"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display:inline-block;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/450289996?et=6AiXmKt4SvRpRpPI8V10yQ&amp;sig=UEHed4_7JfJc8KKCrejV2psxD6zQh0cCWmmaWQWVvXU=\" width=\"330\" height=\"300\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nI hope you are having a great Worst Sports Day of the Year. \u00a0The day after the MLB All-Star Game is so barren of sporting events that scoreboard tickers are featuring WNBA and cricket scores. \u00a0This is frequently the day in which we play the DTBL All-Star Game. \u00a0But as previously mentioned, that will not occur until next week on a date that is still TBD. \u00a0In the meantime, this is the perfect opportunity for me to get caught up on a few items I neglected to write about during the first half of the season.<\/p>\n<p>First, there were a pair of trades during the last two months that deserve mentioning. \u00a0Although neither were what you would call blockbusters, both were intriguing nonetheless. \u00a0At the end of May, the Demigods acquired closer Addison Reed and outfielder Melky Cabrera from the Mavericks in exchange for relief pitcher Danny Farquhar and outfielder Shane Victorino. \u00a0Draft picks were also a prominent part of this deal. \u00a0The Mavs picked up 2nd and 5th round picks in 2015 while the Demigods acquired extra picks in the 8th and 12th rounds. \u00a0At the time of the deal, the Demigods were in a solid second place, just a handful of points behind the Naturals, while the Mavericks were toiling near the bottom of the standings. \u00a0So this deal was clearly an attempt by the Demigods to boost their title hopes for this season, while the Mavericks had an eye towards 2015. \u00a0Despite that, the Mavericks have actually been the stronger of these two teams since the deal. \u00a0However, that&#8217;s not because of the trade since the Mavs didn&#8217;t acquire anyone who has helped with their resurgence. \u00a0Reed has given the Demigods a boost in saves, recording seven of them for his new team so far. \u00a0However, they will need a lot more from him and the rest of the team to run down the Naturals in the second half. \u00a0Meanwhile, after one year of not being able to acquire any additional early round draft picks, the Mavericks have already ensured they will head into &#8217;15 with extra early picks. \u00a0Although this season is far from over for the Mavericks, at worst, they figure to be right back in the title hunt next year.<\/p>\n<p>The second trade really flew under the radar as the Kings and Moonshiners swapped spare parts last month. \u00a0In need of a catcher due to Wilson Ramos&#8217; second DL stint of the year, the Moonshiners picked up Carlos Ruiz from the Kings for outfielder, and Ruiz&#8217;s Phillies teammate, Marlon Byrd. \u00a0The \u00a0main reason for this trade was so the Moonshiners could temporarily replace Ramos without wasting another free agent signing on a catcher. \u00a0But as it turns out, Byrd has been a key piece in the Kings recent offensive resurgence. \u00a0He already has eight home runs for the Kings, continuing to defy Father Time. \u00a0Long term though, this trade doesn&#8217;t figure to have much of a lasting impact on either team. \u00a0This was simply a short-term stop-gap deal for both sides. \u00a0The Kings and Moonshiners continue to toil through very disappointing seasons.<\/p>\n<p>Most of my first half writing focused on the negative, from\u00a0the incredibly high number of injuries to the expected title contenders who were suffering through miserable early results. \u00a0So I have almost completely ignored the team that has been dominating this league right from Day 1. \u00a0The Naturals have held first place basically the entire year. \u00a0In April and early May, that lead was small but consistent. \u00a0However, in the past month or so, they have seen that lead balloon into double digits. \u00a0At the All-Star break, they find themselves with a 13 point lead over the second place Demigods. \u00a0The Naturals being in first place isn&#8217;t a huge surprise, considering they won the league just two years ago and are almost always in the title hunt. \u00a0But I&#8217;m not sure anyone saw them dominating the league in this fashion. \u00a0Until very recently, they had been leading the league in both batting and pitching points, the latter being a pretty big surprise.<\/p>\n<p>The Naturals offense has been simply the best in the league, by a comfortable margin. \u00a0They lead the league with 45 batting points, not far from a maximum total of 50. \u00a0Troy Tulowitzki has been one of the best players in baseball. \u00a0Andrew McCutchen is in the MVP discussion as well. \u00a0Billy Hamilton and Anthony Rendon are two of the top DTBL rookies. \u00a0I have no idea where Victor Martinez&#8217;s sudden power surge came from. \u00a0Miguel Cabrera hasn&#8217;t been quite the same player he was in his two previous MVP seasons, but even so, his numbers are very good. \u00a0The scary thing here is that there is actually room for improvement from some of the offensive roster. \u00a0Cabrera could easily increase his productivity in the second half. \u00a0Joey Votto and Allen Craig have been mostly\u00a0MIA this year. \u00a0If they bounce back the next few months, look out!<\/p>\n<p>As several teams learned in the first half, one thing that can quickly derail a title run is a sudden surge of injuries. \u00a0To this point, the Naturals have been relatively fortunate on that front. \u00a0But they are currently dealing with a few issues on the mound. \u00a0Homer Bailey and Jordan Zimmermann are dealing with ailments that hopefully won&#8217;t knock them out for too long, if at all. \u00a0The Naturals only have one free agent signing remaining, so there are only so many holes that can be filled that way. \u00a0But they are pretty well stacked with depth at the moment. \u00a0By no means is this thing over, but the Naturals are sitting in great shape with two and a half months left to go.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, a quick update on site related things I&#8217;ve been working on. \u00a0When I introduced PAR last month, I mentioned slowly rolling out the numbers from previous seasons. \u00a0Unfortunately, I haven&#8217;t made any further progress on that as we still have just 2013 and 2014 PAR numbers on the site. \u00a0I intend to get back to this soon after the break. \u00a0But before then, I have some updates to make to individual player pages and the All-Star and Awards pages (the latter doesn&#8217;t actually exist yet). \u00a0I&#8217;m going to be adding a column to the players&#8217; stats tables to list individual All-Star appearances and awards won. \u00a0Like PAR, this will be a work in progress as I accumulate the necessary historical data. \u00a0But recent All-Star appearances should be displayed on player pages very soon (maybe by the end of the week). \u00a0I will keep you posted on this in the site update thread on the DTBL Forum.<\/p>\n<p>More DTBL All-Star coverage will be coming soon. \u00a0Now let&#8217;s get to Friday already so we can enjoy some real baseball again!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I hope you are having a great Worst Sports Day of the Year. \u00a0The day after the MLB All-Star Game is so barren of sporting events that scoreboard tickers are featuring WNBA and cricket scores. \u00a0This is frequently the day in which we play the DTBL All-Star Game. \u00a0But as previously mentioned, that will not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,9,3,10,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-demigods","category-kings","category-mavericks","category-moonshiners","category-naturals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745","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=745"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":750,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745\/revisions\/750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}