Decade Of Sport: MLB

Anderson Searl

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I mentioned I was going to do this, and although it's a bit delayed from when I said I was going to, over the next few weeks i'll be posting and sharing the highs and lows of sport over the last 10 years, and projecting the next 10 years based on some silly predictions and such.

Banter, debate, and opinion is obviously welcomed.

Credit to ESPN, SI and MLB for the reminders.

The All Decade team

C - Joe Mauer
1B - Albert Pujols
2B - Chase Utley
SS - Derek Jeter
3B - Alex Rodriguez
LF - Manny Ramirez
CF - Carlos Beltran
RF - Vladimir Guerrero
DH - David Ortiz
SP - Pedro Martinez
SP - Johan Santana
SP - Roy Halladay
SP - Curt Schilling
SP - Randy Johnson
SU - Scot Shields
CL - Mariano Rivera

Awards

Decade MVP - Albert Pujols
Manager - Joe Torre
GM - Theo Epstein
Team - 2009 Yankees
Cinderella - 2008 Rays
Play of the Decade - Albert Pujols' homer off Brad Lidge in Game 5 of the 2005 NLCS

Defining Moments

- Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa, all "lying", crying, waving fingers, forgetting English... and then, the honesty of Jose Canseco.
- The Steal of the century: David Roberts steals second in game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, sparks biggest comeback in sport history.
- Bartman: 2003 ALCS, Game 6.
- Aug. 7, 2007, The chase ended, leaving more questions than answers.
- Luis Gonzalez wins the 2001 World Series for the D-Backs in Game 7
- The 2002 All-Star Game... Tie-game.
- A-Rod: 252
- The Piazza homer, 9/21/01

Trades

- Alex Rodriguez to the Yankees from the Rangers for Alfonso Soriano and Joaquin Arias; Feb. 16, 2004
- Josh Beckett, Mike Lowell and Guillermo Mota to the Red Sox from the Marlins for Hanley Ramirez, Anibal Sanchez, Jesus Delgado and Harvey Garcia; Nov. 24, 2005
- Curt Schilling to the Red Sox from the Diamondbacks for Brandon Lyon and Casey Fossum; Nov. 28, 2003
- Manny Ramirez to the Dodgers, Jason Bay to the Red Sox, prospects Andy LaRoche, Bryan Morris, Brandon Moss and Craig Hansen to the Pirates; July 31, 2008
- Bartolo Colon and Tim Drew to the Expos from the Indians for Cliff Lee, Grady Sizemore, Brandon Phillips and Lee Stevens; June 27, 2002

FA Signings

- David Ortiz, Red Sox; Jan. 22, 2003
- Manny Ramirez, Red Sox; Dec. 19, 2000
- Ichiro, Mariners; Nov. 30, 2000
- CC Sabathia, Yankees; Dec. 20, 2008
- Chris Carpenter, Cardinals; Dec. 13, 2002

Best Games

- Yankees 1, A's 0 | Game 3, 2001 ALDS (The Jeter "flick")
- Marlins 8, Cubs 3 | Game 6, 2003 NLCS (Bartman)
- Rockies 9, Padres 8 (13 innings) | 2007 NL wild card tiebreaker
- Twins 6, Tigers 5 (12 innings) | 2009 AL Central tiebreaker
- Cardinals 3, Mets 1 | Game 7, 2006 NLCS (Molina 9th Inning HR, Beltran K)
- Angels 6, Giants 5 | Game 6, 2002 World Series (The comeback)
- Red Sox 5, Yankees 4 (14 innings) | Game 5, 2004 ALCS ("See you tonight")
- Yankees 4, Diamonbacks 3 | Game 4, 2001 World Series (Blown-Hyun Kim)
- Yankees 3, Diamondbacks 2 | Game 5, 2001 World Series (B-HK Pt. 2)
- Yankees 6, Red Sox 5 (11 innings) | Game 7, 2003 ALCS (Aaron F$&#*%@ Boone)
- Diamondbacks 3, Yankees 2 | Game 7, 2001 World Series

Best Individual Performances

- Randy Johnson's Perfect Game | May 18, 2004
- Mark Buehrle's Perfect Game & No Hitter | July 23, 2009; April 18, 2007
- Roger Clemens "98", The best pitching performance in post-season history | Game 4, 2000 ALCS
- Jonathan Sanchez' Near-perfect No Hitter | July 10, 2009
- Shawn Green & 19 bases | May 23, 2002
- Randy Johnson's 20K run | May 8, 2001
- Mike Cameron and Carlos Delgado's | Four-homer games
- Adam Kennedy's 3 HR's | Game 5, 2002 ALCS
- Erik Bedard's 27 hitters, not allowing a man past 1st | July 7, 2007
- Jon Lieber's 27 in 1 hour, 48 minutes | May 24, 2001
- Curt Schilling's triple digit game | April 7, 2002
- Garret Anderson and Alex Rodriguez | 10-RBI games
- Bill Mueller and Josh Willingham | Two grand slams, same game
- Texas Rangers 30 runs vs the Orioles | Aug. 22, 2007

2010-2019

- A new Commish comes in and changes the game
- Will be a pitching dominated era
- Cubs will win a World Series
- Yankees will once again be a dynasty, potentially winning their 30th title before the decade is out
- Prospects will get younger, rookie's of the year will be teenagers more often
- Division series will be extended to 7 games, playoff format could potentially change from 4 to 8 teams per league.
- Instant replay will become a focus of the game
- Games will speed up
- Steroid scandal will slowly diminish, drug testing become
- Albert Pujols' career will be coming to an end, and is titled the greatest player in baseball history.

Take it away folks
 
Bonds should be in most teams of the decade.

Decade Lines: BA / OBP / SLG / OPS / PA

Bonds 322 / .517 / .724 / 1.241 / 4,072
 
Nearco said:
Ahead of Manny? Not a chance.
Click to expand...

It was a difficult decision, as well as in RF with Vladdy and Ichiro, but at the end of it the difference to me, was post-season impact:

Bonds = 1 WS appearence, not much
Manny = 2 Championships, tons of playoffs

Vladdy = Multiple playoff appearences
Ichiro = 1 appearence.

The only differences for me... Both sets of players impacted in different ways...
 
Manny's numbers would have been better than Barry's if he'd had the softer NL pitchers to feast on all decade.
 
Surely there is someone better at CF than Beltran
 
Alex said:
Surely there is someone better at CF than Beltran
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The shortlist for the CF position was the shortest to be honest:

Beltran was partnered with Torii Hunter, Vernon Wells, Jim Edmonds, and Mike Cameron as the only legit contenders.

Beltran was the only consistant player (Other than last year of course) over the decade, have a look if you want, it's a shocking suprise that there wasn't many people.
 
Pujuls better than Mays, Ruth and Williams?

Also think both Bonds and ARod have solid cases for said title, regardless of steriod usage or not. One must consider this is the steroid era when a rather hefty percentage "juiced," including pitchers, so to dismiss one but include another is hypocritical. Especially when it's not known if a player used, just like many didn't think ARod had and most still believe neither Griffey Jr nor Pujols used, but it would not surprise me to someday find out they did. In the case for Bonds, he was never suspended for usage. Granted he was an asshole but that never stopped many from calling Cobb one of the greatest and that guy would intentionally hurt others, was a racist and many other things.

1990-2010 is the steroid era.

Since this is the steroid era, we can't pick and choose which records to uphold and which to deny. It's deny all or uphold all. To deny Bonds or ARods numbers one then has to go back and adjust win/loss records, etc. It completely alters everything in the sport.
 
MrMarcello said:
Pujuls better than Mays, Ruth and Williams?

Also think both Bonds and ARod have solid cases for said title, regardless of steriod usage or not. One must consider this is the steroid era when a rather hefty percentage "juiced," including pitchers, so to dismiss one but include another is hypocritical. Especially when it's not known if a player used, just like many didn't think ARod had and most still believe neither Griffey Jr nor Pujols used, but it would not surprise me to someday find out they did. In the case for Bonds, he was never suspended for usage. Granted he was an asshole but that never stopped many from calling Cobb one of the greatest and that guy would intentionally hurt others, was a racist and many other things.

1990-2010 is the steroid era.

Since this is the steroid era, we can't pick and choose which records to uphold and which to deny. It's deny all or uphold all. To deny Bonds or ARods numbers one then has to go back and adjust win/loss records, etc. It completely alters everything in the sport.
Click to expand...

Excellent points, especially about the pitchers juicing. Who's to say that we won't see these records broken later because now the hitters don't have to go up against juiced pitchers? We have to accept this era for what it is and hope that over time the books will be cleaned through fantastic play on the field. We don't know who did what at what times and we've seen MVPs and World Series winners caught and who knows who hasn't been. It's terrible for the players who have been clean this whole time and are now living under a cloud of speculation, but that's the grave that their fellow players dug for them by juicing and the league by not addressing it sooner (although credit to them for actually making some attempt early on, no matter how feeble).
 
MrMarcello said:
Pujuls better than Mays, Ruth and Williams?

Also think both Bonds and ARod have solid cases for said title, regardless of steriod usage or not. One must consider this is the steroid era when a rather hefty percentage "juiced," including pitchers, so to dismiss one but include another is hypocritical. Especially when it's not known if a player used, just like many didn't think ARod had and most still believe neither Griffey Jr nor Pujols used, but it would not surprise me to someday find out they did. In the case for Bonds, he was never suspended for usage. Granted he was an asshole but that never stopped many from calling Cobb one of the greatest and that guy would intentionally hurt others, was a racist and many other things.

1990-2010 is the steroid era.

Since this is the steroid era, we can't pick and choose which records to uphold and which to deny. It's deny all or uphold all. To deny Bonds or ARods numbers one then has to go back and adjust win/loss records, etc. It completely alters everything in the sport.
Click to expand...

Good points and worth of discussion.

Bonds isn't up there, at all, and A-Rod still has time.

I think, Albert will just blow the competition out of the water and we'll define him as one of the GOAT
 
Rooney1987 said:
I'd put Ichiro in RF and Barry Bonds in LF but agree with pretty much all of it really.
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Agreed. Bonds didn't have the teammates that Ramirez had, so to argue that Manny deserves cause of that is silly. This coming from someone who really likes Manny. Bonds should be in the team of the decade without a doubt.

Also off the top of my head, Jenks retiring 42 straight batters probably deserves a mention in the best individual performances. But I guess you're going for single game performances?

I think Pujols will definitely go up there with the legends, but will never be considered the best that ever played the game.
 
Anderson Searl said:
Good points and worth of discussion.

Bonds isn't up there, at all, and A-Rod still has time.

I think, Albert will just blow the competition out of the water and we'll define him as one of the GOAT
Click to expand...

I suspect Pujols juiced
 
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