In honor of one of the best pitching matchups in NLCS history between the Phillies and Giants starting Saturday night, here are 10 matchups that had the same amount of hype that Halladay-Lincecum, Oswalt-Cain and Hamels-Sanchez provide.
In the past 20 years, many matchups have gotten hype. The most memorable hype for a series had to have been in 2001 when the Diamondbacks and Braves battled it out with five future Hall of Famers,
This list focuses only on individual game pitching matchups.
At the time of year when all the talk is of MVP hitters and Cy Young pitchers, many important players are often not even considered. Although MVP does include the term valuable, that award is usually given to the player who has produced the most offense, and the Cy Young to the pitcher with the lowest Earned Run Average.
But there are so many more players—25 per team and 200 in the postseason total—all of them designated to a certain role. But the production of some players is more important to their team than others. So which players will be the most heavily relied on in this year’s playoffs?
As the regular season wraps up, many teams and their fans are looking to October and, they hope, a World Series win. For other teams and their fans, they are looking to the offseason, hoping to make a few trades or free agent acquisitions to bounce them back into contention.
In some situations, these trades end up paying huge dividends, and not always for the party that was looking to get the major piece. At the same time, once in a while there’s a great free agent pickup at a bargain that launches a team into the playoffs and a World Series ring.
Starting with the 1999-2000 offseason through this past one, this slideshow notes the 20 best steals of the past decade. Some may have slipped by me, as there’s nowhere to easily find these unless one has an institutional memory of these things.
The years listed in the slides is the offseason that it took place in. i.e. a trade from November 2000 to March 2001 will be listed as 2000.
The final week of the 2010 regular season has arrived and the Rangers and Twins have already popped the champagne.
The Rangers success can be attributed to finally having solid starting pitching. Nolan Ryan really does make whatever he touches turn into gold.
The Phillies have clinched at least a Wild Card position, while the Yanks and Rays are battling for the AL East crown. The loser gets the Wild Card.
Thinking back to April most experts wouldn’t expect the upstart Reds to be one game away from clinching their first playoff birth since 1995.
The Braves, Giants and Padres are fighting for two spots. The Giants effectively ended the Rockies’ season by winning two-of-three against the Rox over the weekend.
How big is the Giants and Padres season ending series now?
Buckle up, it’s crunch time.
The advent of sabermetrics has changed the way we look at “clutch.”
“Situational hitting” is luck. “Inducing weak contact” is luck. “Performing under pressure” is luck. It’s all been proven with math and logic and regression analysis.
But screw that, because it’s a pennant race, and even the most logical stathead has subjective ideas about who he’d most want to see step to the plate with his favorite team’s season on the line.
Here is my 2010 All-Clutch team, comprised of the players who have demonstrated the best ability to perform when it counts. I tried to limit my list to players from contending teams, since they’re the only ones who really matter at this point.
Here’s to hoping we get to see one of these guys come up with a big hit this October.
Over the many years of player comparison and analysis, our understanding of what it means to be a great baseball player has continually evolved.
Along with that, we have also formed a better comprehension of the concept of a “bad” player.
There was a time when we would assess shortstops, catchers, and center fielders based merely on their offensive contributions, a practice we now understand to be shockingly limited. If ballplayers are to be judged, they must be judged for all of their contributions, both their hitting and their defense.
With this in mind, we take a look at the 20 worst players of the 2010 baseball season, guys who just kill their team in all facets of the game.
Every year we wind up hearing about a group of MLB stars that are reaching for the stars, so to speak, when it comes to playing for either a new gig in another town or an extension in their current digs.
This year there are plenty of players out there who are swinging for new deals, and I thought I would highlight a few of them for you today.
Interestingly enough, it will be where these players land and for how much that will inevitably take over the headlines, but for now, it’s what they are doing to shop themselves in an otherwise volatile FA market.
Let’s begin.
While some division races are winding down, others are just starting to heat up.
The Rockies, dead in the water two weeks ago, have ripped off 10 wins in a row and are now in the mix for both the Wild Card and NL West title.
Carlos Gonzalez continues to remind voters why he should be in the MVP conversation.
Troy Tulowitzki has jut finished a incredibly hot stretch as well. How hot? Well how does eight home-runs and 17 RBI in nine games sound?
The tandem are the reason the Rox find themselves within striking distance.
The Giants have been able to capitalize on the Padres’ massive slump and have tied them for first in the NL West. How will the Padres and their dismal offense respond?
The Reds, losers of seven out of ten, are allowing the Cardinals a chance to get back in the NL Central race. Yet St. Louis hasn’t been able to capitalize a whole lot, going 3-4 in the past week.
The Phillies have taken first place away from the Braves in the NL East. But with six games remaining between the two teams, that race is far from over.
The AL is lacking excitement at this point. The Rangers are in a very comfortable position in the AL West.
The Yanks and Rays have the AL East and Wild Card well in hand. And the Twins have opened up a six-game cushion on the White Sox.
As the season hits the final weeks, all of the questions about who will make the playoffs lie in the NL.
Over the course of what has been dubbed both “the Year of the Pitcher” and “the Year of the Rookie,” the baseball viewing world has ridden quite the figurative roller coaster.
At the beginning of the 2010 season, the world was abuzz with expectation and prediction regarding Washington Nationals phenom Stephen Strasburg, and he didn’t fail to impress, striking out 14 batters in six innings in his major league debut. Unfortunately, the excitement was short-lived, and we won’t be hearing from Strasburg until some time in 2012.
Never fear, though: there is a new phenom of the month, and his name is Aroldis Chapman. Like Strasburg, Chapman has the ability to kick the radar gun up over 100 mph. His 103 has been the talk of baseball.
But are we just setting ourselves up for another fall? Is Chapman simply destined to suffer the same fate as Strasburg?
Here’s ten reasons to think maybe he is.
All the talk about 2010 being the “Year of the Pitcher” in Major League Baseball is true.
It has been an excellent year for pitchers.
For whatever reason, there’s been more no-hitters and perfect games than usual, and that’s without counting Jim Joyce’s rob job of Armando Galarraga.
But this year doesn’t only belong to the hurlers, it belongs to the young guns.
At a time when some people argue the fading relevancy of baseball, there has been more great young talent in the game than we can remember.
The amount of quality ballplayers age 26 or younger currently in baseball is staggering.
No, when it comes to TV ratings and big advertising dollars, baseball does not reign supreme. Football is America’s game now, and that’s just the way it is.
But for baseball fans, that’s OK.
As they say, more for you and me.
As the season ticks along in its final month and pennant races take shape, let’s look at some of the most impressive rookies from this year in baseball.
One last note before the show, don’t feel discouraged if your favorite rookie didn’t make the list.
We are keeping it to 10 names for this space, but there certainly have been more than 10 impressive youngsters who merit consideration.