{"id":856,"date":"2015-04-08T21:31:35","date_gmt":"2015-04-09T04:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=856"},"modified":"2015-04-08T21:51:43","modified_gmt":"2015-04-09T04:51:43","slug":"2015-season-preview-part-iv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=856","title":{"rendered":"2015 Season Preview:  Part IV"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/466526474?et=IFL6eWx6QQRRggu6yBeYnw&#038;sig=9a5NOUaVqAGqxeqJZ6LRY2wv0SInVNDQQAC6lf5aJ_I=&#038;caption=true\" width=\"445\" height=\"296\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"display:inline-block;\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nLast year, the 2014 season previews predicted two teams would stand out above the rest. \u00a0That&#8217;s exactly what happened, but not the two that had been projected to do so (Kings and Mavericks). \u00a0It was the Naturals and Demigods who blew away the rest of the league en route to record setting finishes, with the Naturals squeaking out the title by 2 1\/2 points. \u00a0This year figures to be much different with a lot more teams projected to be in the championship mix. \u00a0In part, that is because no one team looks overwhelmingly strong on paper. \u00a0Even the two teams who will be covered in this final part of the 2015 season preview have a few noticeable weaknesses. \u00a0But what makes these teams appear to be the top title contenders is that even those weaknesses still put them above average in both hitting and pitching, the only two teams that can say that. \u00a0These were two of the top three finishers a year ago, so it is not surprising to see them among the favorites again in 2015. \u00a0Here are the projected top two title contenders.<\/p>\n<h2>Dom&#8217;s Demigods<\/h2>\n<p>Category &#8211; Projected Rank (2014 Rank)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Batting Average &#8211; 2nd (2nd)<\/li>\n<li>Home Runs &#8211; 5th (4th-T)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Batted In &#8211; 2nd (1st)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Scored &#8211; 3rd (3rd)<\/li>\n<li>Stolen Bases &#8211; 4th-T (3rd)<\/li>\n<li>Earned Run Average &#8211; 6th (1st)<\/li>\n<li>WHIP Ratio &#8211; 6th (2nd)<\/li>\n<li>Wins &#8211; 3rd (1st)<\/li>\n<li>Saves &#8211; 6th (5th)<\/li>\n<li>Strike Outs &#8211; 4th\u00a0(1st)<\/li>\n<li>Total Batting Points &#8211; 3rd (2nd)<\/li>\n<li>Total Pitching Points &#8211; 4th\u00a0(1st)<\/li>\n<li>Total Points &#8211; 2nd\u00a0(2nd)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Summary:<\/p>\n<p>The Demigods were a surprise title contender a year ago, just barely missing out on their first league championship. \u00a0But this year, they won&#8217;t catch anyone by surprise. \u00a0This is the most complete team in the league. \u00a0The only thing keeping them from being the overall favorite is\u00a0that their strength from a year ago, their rotation, does not appear to be nearly as strong this year. \u00a0Losing Yu Darvish to a torn UCL in spring training was a terrible blow to what was the best pitching staff in the league a year ago. \u00a0Also, Jose Fernandez doesn&#8217;t figure to return to action until mid-season either. \u00a0That still leaves them with an impressive trio of Corey Kluber, Johnny Cueto and Cole Hamels. \u00a0But they are going to need some great performances from other hurlers to keep up with the team below. \u00a0The bullpen is only average, but shouldn&#8217;t kill them. \u00a0The good news is the offense looks very strong again this year. \u00a0All of the pieces seem to fit and they do not have an obvious weakness among their everyday players. \u00a0Jose Altuve and Carlos Gomez were two of the best players in the league last year. \u00a0If Dustin Pedroia and Evan Longoria can bounce back from disappointing &#8217;14 campaigns, they could challenge for the best offense in the league. \u00a0It is the overall strength of both the hitting and pitching that makes the Demigods one of the clear favorites this year. \u00a0They came oh so close to their first championship last year. \u00a0Perhaps this will be the year instead.<\/p>\n<h2>Marc&#8217;s Mavericks<\/h2>\n<p>Category &#8211; Projected Rank (2014 Rank)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Batting Average &#8211; 9th (4th)<\/li>\n<li>Home Runs &#8211; 1st\u00a0(1st)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Batted In &#8211; 4th\u00a0(3rd)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Scored &#8211; 8th\u00a0(4th)<\/li>\n<li>Stolen Bases &#8211; 7th\u00a0(8th)<\/li>\n<li>Earned Run Average &#8211; 1st\u00a0(4th)<\/li>\n<li>WHIP Ratio &#8211; 1st\u00a0(4th)<\/li>\n<li>Wins &#8211; 5th (4th)<\/li>\n<li>Saves &#8211; 1st\u00a0(6th-T)<\/li>\n<li>Strike Outs &#8211; 1st\u00a0(2nd)<\/li>\n<li>Total Batting Points &#8211; 5th (3rd)<\/li>\n<li>Total Pitching Points &#8211; 1st\u00a0(3rd)<\/li>\n<li>Total Points &#8211; 1st\u00a0(3rd)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Summary:<\/p>\n<p>It is hard to know what to make of the Mavericks&#8217; 2014 season. \u00a0On one hand, they were projected to finish near the top of the league after just barely missing out on a title in &#8217;13 with a historically great pitching staff. \u00a0But on the other, it seemed they weren&#8217;t likely to duplicate that kind of season without their phenom pitcher Matt Harvey. \u00a0So their third place finish was pretty good, but it was the first time they weren&#8217;t in the title hunt until the final days of the season since 2011. \u00a0Now Harvey is back and they appear to once again have one of the strongest pitching staffs this league has ever seen. \u00a0Harvey, Clayton Kershaw and Stephen Strasburg on the same team seems unfair. \u00a0These projections have them winning the league in four of the five pitching categories, and nobody else is close in any of the four. \u00a0In addition to the ridiculously loaded rotation, they have the scariest collection of bullpen arms in the league too. \u00a0They traded for Aroldis Chapman and drafted Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller to join Cody Allen and Kenley Jansen. \u00a0Those guys all strike out hitters at such high rates that their strikeout totals look like those of starting pitchers. \u00a0If they stay even semi healthy, it would be hard to envision any other team coming close to them in strikeouts. \u00a0ERA and WHIP are less predictable, but they are heavy favorites there too. \u00a0Now for the bad news. \u00a0Their offense doesn&#8217;t appear to be elite. \u00a0Mike Trout is though, and he is on their roster. \u00a0So if he can get some help from the supporting cast, they ought to be good enough in the hitting categories to compliment their insane pitching staff on their way to the top of the standings. \u00a0Hard to believe it has been nine years since their last title, but there have been a bunch of close calls since then. \u00a0This looks like it could be the year the Mavericks win their third league title.<\/p>\n<p>Here are the full projected standings and team stat totals. \u00a0As I have hinted at throughout these previews, these projections show a very tight race from top to bottom. \u00a0Only the Demigods are projected for 30+ points in both batting and pitching, while every team but the Gators has 25+ points in one or the other. \u00a0So the Mavericks and Demigods appear to be a little bit better than the next six teams. \u00a0But it wouldn&#8217;t take much for almost any team to get into the mix. \u00a0As we saw last year, these projections are not to be trusted. \u00a0It should be a great season.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/1YKm9a3VgjEWgt6qVyngFV0zJ1GloCBHuix_c8ZSRafk\/pubhtml?gid=13&amp;single=true&amp;widget=true&amp;headers=false\" width=\"450\" height=\"300\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last year, the 2014 season previews predicted two teams would stand out above the rest. \u00a0That&#8217;s exactly what happened, but not the two that had been projected to do so (Kings and Mavericks). \u00a0It was the Naturals and Demigods who blew away the rest of the league en route to record setting finishes, with 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":[12,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-demigods","category-mavericks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856","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=856"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":860,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856\/revisions\/860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}