As we dove deep into the Roger Dorn Baseball League Archives and refreshed the League's Record Book this month, some legendary performances over the first 10 season of play certainly stood out. While some Records have already stood the test of time, like Clayton Kershaw's dominance in our inaugural 2013 Season, more recent performances are just as impressive.
17 RDBL Records were broken in a historic 2023 Season, led by the Spokane Fightin' Fish who continue to take Franchise numbers to new heights as they broke seven marks themselves. As we dove deeper into the numbers, we came up with the top five most untouchable records in Roger Dorn Baseball League History in an exploration that showed just how much the game has changed since 2013.
Full Season Points by RDBL Team
Record: 9,388.0, Mt. Diablo Devils
Season: 2015
The 2015 Roger Dorn Baseball League season quickly became a showdown of two East Bay Division foes as the Cloverdale Clovers and Mt. Diablo Devils battled throughout the summer for the League Title. The season saw a flurry of trade activity as 2015 marked the third season since the league inception, resulting in the majority of the star power facing expiring contracts for the first time, leading to a summer arms race.
While the Danville Aristocrats and San Mateo Short Stacks attempted to keep pace, by mid-July the Devils and Clovers had distanced themselves in the final 10 weeks as the clubs took turns making monster deals.
For every Clovers upgrade, the Devils had another bigger and more impactful deal to follow. The two clubs traded blows until the Devils planted the knockout punch. Just days after the Clovers announcing the addition of Buster Posey, Jake Arrieta and Brandon Belt, the Devils countered with Todd Frazier, Anthony Rizzo and starter Matt Harvey from the Lunatic Fringe while also adding Manny Machado, Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, Troy Tulowitzki and Victor Martinez from the Danville Aristocrats in what felt like overkill to the competition.
With pre-season acquisition Bryce Harper leading the way and receiving the RDBL Hitter of the Year honors, the Devils pulled away in the final weeks en route to a RDBL Record 9,388 points and their first RDBL Championship in Franchise History.
With the change to the Playoff format in 2016 which keeps 6-8 teams in contention annually as buyers, we are unlikely to see a market allow a team overwhelm the competition like we did in 2015. Additionally, a continued decline in team pitching points has prevented any RDBL team from getting close in the last five seasons with only the 2019 Asti Grape Stompers, a historic team in its own right, coming with 241.0 points since 2016.
Individual Pitching Points for a Full Season
Record: 841.0 Points by Clayton Kershaw (Adler’s Man Crush)
Season: 2013
800 point seasons appeared to be the norm for top-end RDBL Pitching from 2013, the league’s inaugural season, through 2015 with six aces reaching the mark over that three season span. In the seven seasons to follow, no pitcher has eclipsed that mark in a trend that is only likely to continue with pitcher usage continuing to force a decline in innings per start across the league.
In the RDBL's Inaugural Season, Adler’s Man Crush left-hander Clayton Kershaw was untouchable as the future Hall of Famer averaged 25.5 points per start with a 1.83 ERA and 0.92 WHIP for Adler's Man Crush. His 236.0 innings pitched and eye-popping 27 quality starts in 33 chances stand out as elite numbers that aren’t soon to be matched.
The underlying story behind Kershaw’s historic inaugural season is that he was originally drafted by the Asti Grape Stompers who traded the future Hall of Famer to AMC for Mike Trout and pitching prospect Gerrit Cole. Trout himself would go on to post 625.5 points in 2013, a league record that stood until 2022 when Aaron Judge eclipsed the mark followed by Ronald Acuna in 2023.
Most Team Home Runs in RDBL Regular Season
Record: 350 Home Runs by Asti Grape Stompers
Season: 2019
It doesn’t take a Data Scientist to figure out that the ball was juiced in 2019, leading to an onslaught of home runs that likely won’t be matched any time soon. A MLB-Record 6,776 home runs were hit that season, 671 more than any other season with 14 MLB Franchises setting their own record marks. Of course, those ridiculous numbers carried over the RDBL as the top five Team Home Run totals in RDBL Regular Season History came in 2019, led by the Asti Grape Stompers who hit 350.
For reference, the next highest RDBL Regular Season Total outside of that 2019 season is 283 by the 2017 Spokane Fightin’ Fish who finished with the most hitting points in League History. So if RDBL’s best offense ever finished 67 home runs short of the Grapes 2019 mark, it’s a solid bet that the record is safe for quite awhile.
Most Individual Hitting Points in RDBL Playoffs
Record: 177.5 Points by Aaron Judge (Mission Viejo Maulers)
Season: 2022
Judge finished 2022 on an absolute tear in a record-breaking season that saw him capture both the RDBL Hitter of the Year and Playoff MVP Award. Over the final five periods, Judge slashed .385/.540/.817 with 13 home runs and eight doubles, totaling 177.5 points, breaking the previous record by 29.0 set by Jose Ramirez in 2017.
Judge averaged 35.5 points over the final five Periods, a mark that is going to be extremely difficult to match. 2023 Hitter of the Year and Playoff MVP Ronald Acuna, Jr. did his best, but still came up 22.0 points short of Judge’s mark this past season.
Most Individual Pitching Points in RDBL Playoffs
Record: 222.0 Points by Jack Flaherty (Cloverdale Clovers)
Season: 2019
The 2019 Season produced the top two pitching performances in RDBL Playoff History, but no hurler has come close to matching Jack Flaherty’s dominance that season for the Cloverdale Clovers. The right-hander was a workhorse, averaging over seven innings per start for a RDBL-Record 50.0 Playoff innings pitched, logging a 1.08 ERA and miniscule 0.62 WHIP as he allowed just 22 hits and nine walks. Flaherty went a perfect seven for seven in Quality Start opportunities, posting 222.0 points, 27.0 more than any other pitcher in RDBL History.
Much like Judge, the consistency of averaging 31.7 points per start over the final stretch of the season makes Flaherty’s performance legendary and a very difficult mark to break.
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