2013 Astrology Awards Recap
View the 2013 FABL Lineups Here!
2013 saw the Houston Astros switch divisions, from the National League Central to the American League West. This change gave MLB 15 teams in each league, which necessitated at least one interleague matchup on each day where every team was scheduled to play a game. As someone who appreciates symmetry, I appreciate each league having the same number of teams, although if MLB wanted to make things REALLY symmetrical (not to mention more exciting), they’d implement the universal DH. But that probably won’t happen until the current collective bargaining agreement expires in 2021.
Speaking of league changes, there is technically the possibility for the Fantasy Astrology Baseball League to have different configurations than the four-division format I’ve been presenting. Since each sign can be categorized by the three Essences (as well as four Elements), we could have six divisions instead of four. This would give us a Cardinal, Fixed, and Mutable division in both of the Polarities, each with two teams. Actually, if you’re linking astrology signs to real world teams (to run a simulation based on a video game, for example), this is the best way to do it with MLB’s current divisional structure. But for now, I’m going to stick with the Elemental divisions, since that’s how I’ve organized the points on my ongoing year-by-year graph: squares for Fire, triangles for Earth, diamond for Air, circle for Water.
On the individual side, only one player reached the coveted 3,000-point threshold: Negative Polarity Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw (3,021 points / 91.5 points-per-game), who would go on to repeat his honors in the following year. The Pisces pitcher won his third straight ERA title in 2013, making him only the third pitcher to win three straight, joining Capricorn Sandy Koufax and Aries Greg Maddux. The top pitcher in the Positive Polarity was Leo’s Max Scherzer (2,790 / 87.2), making this the third time that the FABL CYA winners mirror the real-life recipients in MLB (counting 2020). Mad Max scored just 30 more points than his sign-mate Mike Trout (2,760 / 17.6), who would be the runner-up for the PP MVP.
The only position player with more fantasy points than Trout was Miguel Cabrera (2,809 / 19.0), who won the real life American League MVP award in 2013 as well. This was the second of two years in which Miggy moved across the diamond to third base to make room in Detroit’s lineup for lumbering slugger Prince Fielder, although I have him back at his customary position on this astrology lineup. The Negative Polarity MVP award goes to an astrology teammate of the CYA winner, Pisces first baseman Chris Davis (2,690 / 16.8), whose 53 home runs in 2013 handily led the league. Davis narrowly eclipsed fellow first sacker Paul Goldschmidt (2,647 / 16.5), meaning that Virgo had the runners up to both the NP MVP and Cy Young awards, the latter being starter Adam Wainwright (2,637 / 77.6).
Could Pence have played center field to get this team some more points from Cuddyer in right field? Doesn’t matter, Aries finished in first place anyway.
Directly after Wainwright in descending order of fantasy points, you’ll find Gemini closer Craig Kimbrel (2,489 / 36.6), winner of the Relieable Reliever (formerly Rolaids Reliever) award. Both Kimbrel and the winner of the Negative Polarity’s version of the award, Scorpio Greg Holland (2,389 / 35.1), would go on to repeat their RR wins in 2014. (Interesting note: next in line after Holland in fantasy point totals, you’ll find Libra center fielder Andrew McCutchen (2,340 / 14.9), who took home the real life National League MVP by helping the Pirates reach a Wild Card berth.)
Note who just missed the cut from the 2013 Gemini rotation. It’ll be very important in the next post…
The top rookie in baseball in 2013, Jose Fernandez (2,156 / 77.0), fell victim to a tragedy just three years after winning the real-life NL Rookie of the Year award for the Marlins. The Leo pitcher was killed along with two others in a boating accident off the coast of Miami Beach. Baseball truly lost one of its brightest rising stars that day. After Fernandez’s stellar season, you have to go through a whopping nine additional positive rookies - including former KBO star Hyun-Jin Ryu (1,847 / 61.6) for Aries, and Colombian hurler Julio Teheran (1,845 / 61.5) for Aquarius - before you get to one from the Negative Polarity. It’s possible I missed something, but by my calculations, the best candidate for NP RoY is Virgo starting pitcher Gerrit Cole (1,150 / 60.5), who actually had 15 fewer fantasy points than Cancer pitcher Tony Cingrani (1,165 / 50.7), who would settle in as a left-handed relief specialist later in his career.
In the next post, I’m going to stray a bit from the pure Astrology nature of this site, and examine the players throughout MLB history who share one of my all-time favorite first names.