{"id":802,"date":"2014-11-12T19:33:24","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T02:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=802"},"modified":"2014-11-12T19:33:24","modified_gmt":"2014-11-13T02:33:24","slug":"kluber-nabs-rookie-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=802","title":{"rendered":"Kluber Nabs Rookie of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/455875368?et=g9HsAaBvTYpxy8T5EobgGw&#038;sig=VL16AbAszAopcuLetXriLZ5XR13RO3tIXcaIkzaiaIQ=\" width=\"330\" height=\"300\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"display:inline-block;\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nJust a couple hours after winning the AL Cy Young award in a bit of an upset, Corey Kluber has his name attached to another honor. \u00a0The first year DTBL pitcher was, hands-down, the steal of this year&#8217;s draft. \u00a0Picked in the tenth round to provide some depth to a very strong Demigods rotation, Kluber wound up playing a leading role for a staff that put up some of the best numbers in league history. \u00a0His performance propelled him to the top of a very deep rookie class. \u00a0Corey Kluber is the 2014 DTBL Rookie of the Year.<\/p>\n<p>On a team with Yu Darvish, Johnny Cueto, Cole Hamels, Doug Fister and first round draft pick Jose Fernandez, Kluber had to wait his turn to become a fixture in the Demigods&#8217; rotation. \u00a0He spent most of April in a minor league slot. \u00a0But after being activated in late April, he never looked back. \u00a0Despite not having the opportunity to put up a full season of stats, his numbers were still quite impressive. \u00a0He won 16 games with a 2.40 ERA, 1.089 WHIP and 241 strikeouts for the Demigods. \u00a0On most teams, those stats would have made him the obvious staff ace. \u00a0But he was slightly bested by Cueto in all four categories. \u00a0However, he easily led all DTBL rookies in wins, ERA and strikeouts and was second in WHIP. \u00a0His 11.5 pitching PAR was best among rookies as well and fourth among all pitchers. \u00a0His brief stint in the minors will probably keep him from being a serious contender for the DTBL Cy Young award, but he should receive plenty of consideration there as well. \u00a0Not bad for a tenth round pick.<\/p>\n<p>The Demigods seemed to have their rotation set well before Kluber was drafted. \u00a0Jose Fernandez was chosen with the third pick in the draft and was supposed to be the final piece in their loaded rotation. \u00a0But once Fernandez succumbed to Tommy John surgery in May, Kluber&#8217;s presence became absolutely essential. \u00a0Even without the young phenom Fernandez, the Demigods put together one of the best pitching seasons in league history. \u00a0Unfortunately for them, it wasn&#8217;t quite enough to beat out the Naturals for their first league title. \u00a0But Kluber played a key role in their best season ever and now appears to be an important piece of the puzzle moving forward as well.<\/p>\n<p>As mentioned, this was a pretty strong rookie class overall, especially among later round picks. \u00a0There were actually quite a few first round busts, at least for the 2014 season. \u00a0But some of the guys picked much later picked up the slack. \u00a0The Rookie of the Year voting was competitive, but Kluber won by a fairly comfortable margin. \u00a0He received seven first place and three second place votes for a total of 91 points. \u00a0His main competition for this award wound up being another draft steal, Naturals second baseman Anthony Rendon. \u00a0Rendon was a sixth round pick and rewarded the Naturals with a rookie leading 5.2 batting PAR. \u00a0He received the other three first place votes and was the only player besides Kluber to appear on all ten ballots. \u00a0He accumulated 75 points in finishing second. \u00a0In third place was Moonshiners third baseman Josh Donaldson. \u00a0Considered the favorite for this award through much of the season, Donaldson was clearly the most productive of this year&#8217;s first round picks. \u00a0He received 34 points. \u00a0Finishing fourth was the only other rookie pitcher who came anywhere near Kluber&#8217;s numbers, Darkhorses pitcher Julio Teheran, who received 30 points. \u00a0There was a sizable gap between those four and the rest of the pack. \u00a0But rounding out the top five were a pair of Athletics pitchers who tied for that spot with 10 points. \u00a0Jackalope youngster Sonny Gray and Kings closer Sean Doolittle were key contributors to their respective squads.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/ROY14.txt\">Click here<\/a> to view the full Rookie of the Year voting results.<\/p>\n<p>My plan is to announce the Cy Young award winner tomorrow (Thursday) evening with the MVP announcement coming early next week. \u00a0So be sure to check back soon for those results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just a couple hours after winning the AL Cy Young award in a bit of an upset, Corey Kluber has his name attached to another honor. \u00a0The first year DTBL pitcher was, hands-down, the steal of this year&#8217;s draft. \u00a0Picked in the tenth round to provide some depth to a very strong Demigods rotation, Kluber [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-802","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\/802","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=802"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":804,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802\/revisions\/804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}