2000 Astrology Awards Recap
View the 2000 FABL Lineups Here!
The 2000 MLB season was monumental for several reasons. It was the last year of a Yankees dynasty (although we wouldn’t know it at the time). A record number of home runs were hit across the league (which would stand until 2017). It was the first year where the American League and National League stopped operating as separate entities, consolidating under the banner of Major League Baseball. But the start of the new millennium has a special significance for me, because stats from the 2000 season were the first full-season numbers that I ever put into database form. It was truly the start of a nerdy new era.
In terms of the Fantasy Astrology Baseball League, 2000 was all about Scorpio. They scored the most overall fantasy points, in part thanks to an otherworldly season by Negative Polarity Cy Young Award winner Pedro Martinez (3,337 / 115.1 – you read that right, an AVERAGE of 115 points per game). The Red Sox ace led the league in ERA, strikeouts, WHIP, and K/BB rate for two consecutive years, winning the AL Cy Young Award each year. The Scorpions also had the best reliever in the NP, Mets closer Armando Benitez (2,143 / 28.2), and also the MVP runner up in Sammy Sosa (2,879 / 18.5), who had just completed a five-year stretch (1996-2000) where he hit just one fewer home run than Babe Ruth’s best five homer hitting years (1926-1930).
Starting in 2001, Leo would win four of the next five FABL point total crowns (with Scorpio the lone outlier in 2004), after finishing a close second in 2000. In fact, Lions first baseman Todd Helton (3,369 / 21.1) took home the Positive Polarity MVP award with a major league leading .372 batting average and 1.162 OPS. I’m sure Coors Field helped a little in the power department, but he also had an OPS over 1.000 on the road as well that year. Another first baseman won the MVP in the Negative Polarity: Toronto Blue Jay Carlos Delgado (3,037 / 18.7), the last Cancer Crab to win the award until Charlie Blackmon in 2017.
Moving to the other awards, Pedro’s Positive Polarity Cy Young counterpart was the professor of pitching Greg Maddux (2,580 / 73.7), a huge part of the Braves’ run of 14 out of 15 consecutive division titles. At that time, the Aries ace’s 180 wins over the last ten years were the most over the last decade (according to the back of his 2001 Topps card). The 2000 PP Reliable Relief trophy went to Sagittarius closer Robb Nen (2,181 / 32.1). His legendary teammate Mariano Rivera (1,884 / 28.5) had an off year, with what was the highest ERA of his career at the time, since he moved into full-time relief pitching: 2.85.
The winners of the 2000 Rookie of the Year awards (judging strictly by fantasy points) didn’t have great staying power in the Major Leagues. A’s outfielder Terrence Long (1,926 / 14.0) probably should have won the real-life American League version of the award over fellow Pisces Kazuhiro Sasaki (1,684 / 26.7), the Mariners closer who made the jump from the Japanese league. Gemini outfielder Mark Quinn (1,691 / 12.5) has the edge in terms of overall points, but when looking at both points-per-game average and career excellence, Aquarian Lance Berkman (1,602 / 14.1) should probably get the nod.
Next time, rather than doing a customary ten-year recap, I’m going to delve into a new database I’ve been building, which looks at fantasy point totals over a player’s entire career, rather than going season-by-season. So get ready to zoom up to the proverbial 35,000 feet and get a big picture view of MLB over the last decade!