FABL 2023 Awards Recap
The Fantasy Astrology playoffs have come and gone, with Cancer narrowly edging out Libra for the crown. The World Series has come and gone, with the Texas Rangers defeating the Arizona Diamondbacks to win their first ever championship. The Winter Meetings have come and gone, with MLB owners voting unanimously to allow the Oakland Athletics to jet off to Las Vegas. And I’ve been too busy to blog about any of it.
But now the Thanksgiving holiday has given me some time to calculate the yearly Fantasy Astrology award winners. Since I already looked at the final four at the end of the regular season, the focus of this post will be exclusively the top players of each league, and how they compared with the field.
Most discussions of greatness in MLB start with Shohei Ohtani and his two-way greatness. But Sagittarius slugger Ronald Acuna Jr. (3,580 / 22.5) also had an unprecedented season in 2023, hitting 40 home runs and stealing 70 bases. Sure they changed the rules (and the base sizes) to encourage more running this year, but it’s one thing to have the circumstances in your favor, and another to take advantage of them to this degree. Acuna even outscored Aaron Judge’s 2022 fantasy point total (3,185), when he broke Roger Maris’s AL home run record.
Of course, when you count Ohtani’s combined batting and pitching fantasy points, he eclipses any other player by a wide margin. Adding his 2,564 points as a DH to his 1,546 points on the mound comes to a whopping total of 4,110 points on the year. So it’s no surprise that the Cancer Crab superstar won his second AL MVP, this year in unanimous fashion. Ohtani’s trip through free agency will be THE biggest story of the offseason, even if he will spend next season exclusively hitting while recovering from elbow surgery.
If you don’t think it’s fair to count his points from both sides of the ball, then the Negative MVP would be Virgo first baseman Freddie Freeman (2,864 / 17.8). As far as the Positive runners up, Aries first baseman Matt Olson (2,884 / 17.8) finished second overall in points among dedicated batters – giving the real-life Atlanta Braves the best 1-2 punch in the league. Freeman’s real-life teammate Mookie Betts (2,756 / 18.1) – a Libra – showed excellence all over the diamond, adding middle infield to his usual outfield repertoire.
For the second straight season a Virgo starting pitcher was tops in the league in fantasy points. While Gerrit Cole’s 2023 season (2,556 / 77.5) didn’t quite reach the same heights as Sandy Alcantara’s 2022 (2,636 / 82.4), Cole proved himself a workhorse in a time in which starting pitchers rarely pass five innings per start. In the Positive League, Leo ace Zac Gallen (2,200 / 64.7) led his real-life team to the World Series, while the Lions finishd in the bottom half of the FABL standings.
Gallen was actually third overall in terms of pitchers, with Scorpio ace Spencer Strider (2,348 / 73.4) finishing behind Cole for second place overall. In a fun coincidence, Scorpio pitchers finished second and third among Negative pitchers, with Logan Webb (2,017 / 61.1) next in line. The same was true among Positive signs, as a pair of Sagittarians took home second and third place: real-life NL Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell (2,167 / 67.7) of the Padres, and Luis Castillo (2,087 / 63.2) of the Mariners.
Speaking of fun coincidences, the real-life AL and NL Rookies of the Year were the same as their Fantasy Astrology counterparts. Leo outfielder Corbin Carroll (2,547 / 16.4) finished fourth overall in fantasy points among dedicated batters, while reaching the real-life World Series along with his teammate/signmate Zac Gallen. And Cancer Crabs infielder Gunnar Henderson (1,957 / 13.0) helped propel the real-life Orioles to a first place finish in the AL standings, firmly signaling the emergence from their rebuild.
We’ve already seen Cancer and Leo win two awards each, and the trend will continue as we look at relief pitching. Virgo closer Devin Williams (2,046 / 33.5) helped get the real-life Brewers to an NL Central title, while also playing for the highest-scoring sign in 2023. Williams was one of only two relievers to break 2,000 points on the season, the other being Gemini closer Felix Bautista (2,065 / 36.9), who unfortunately was not able to help the real-life Orioles in the playoffs due to injury.