NL East Divisional All-Stars

Now that these lists are quickly becoming a yearly tradition, I won't repeat last year's full-blown introduction. Suffice it to say, I compile a starting lineup for each division consisting of the best players at each position in that division. Players who were traded or acquired get credited with their full season's worth of statistics, but they count towards the particular division in which they spent the majority of their times (measured in games, plate appearances, or innings pitched).

Now that we've got all the particulars out of the way, let's dive right in with the NL East's Divisional All-Stars.

POS	Name	__SWP__	SWP/G	TM
SS	Hanley Ramirez	2,111	14.9	FLA
CF	Shane Victorino	1,988	13.5	PHI
3B	David Wright	2,156	13.7	NYM
RF	Jayson Werth	2,252	14.4	PHI
2B	Dan Uggla	2,221	13.9	FLA
1B	Adam Dunn	2,061	13.0	WAS
DH	Ryan Howard	1,998	14.0	PHI	1B
C	Brian McCann	1,608	11.2	ATL
LF	Raul Ibanez	1,724	11.1	PHI
SP1	Roy Halladay	2,882	87.3	PHI
SP2	Tim Hudson	2,142	63.0	ATL
SP3	Josh Johnson	2,043	73.0	FLA
SP4	Cole Hamels	1,978	59.9	PHI
SP5	Johan Santana	1,772	61.1	NYM
CL	Billy Wagner	2,217	31.2	ATL
RP1	Tyler Clippard	1,071	13.7	WAS
RP2	Clay Hensley	981	14.4	FLA
RP3	Jonny Venters	894	11.3	ATL
RP4	Ryan Madson	842	15.3	PHI
RP5	Jose Contreras	686	10.2	PHI
P	Hisanori Takahashi	1,337	25.2	NYM

As far as catchers go in the National League, there's really only one name to know: Brian McCann. He's played in the last five All-Star games and picked up four of the last five Silver Slugger awards at his position. Throw in his 2010 All-Star Game MVP award and .429 Division Series average, and he's proving he can perform on the sport's biggest stages.

There was a logjam at first base seeing as Adam Dunn shifted there full time in '10 and thanks to Ryan Howard's ankle sprain, which cost him about half of August. Neither are good defensive first basemen but both hit for massive power, both stand about 6 1/2 feet tall, and both make more than $10,000,000 annually.

Dan Uggla's career year at the plate earned him some minor MVP support, a Silver Slugger award... and a trade to the Braves. He still boots plenty of balls (he led the league in errors as 2B with 28), but the power numbers he puts up at a historically weak position should not be overlooked when determining value. 

David Wright is back! After inexplicably losing his power last year, his home run total is climbing back to his career norm. His OBP is his lowest since becoming a regular, but I guess all those big swings for the fences have an adverse impact on one's ability to reach base consistently. He's apparently not great in the field though - each of our divisional all-star infielders sported negative defensive WAR in 2010 (wins above replacement, possibly more on that in the future).

Hanley Ramirez was the only one of the usual big three East shortstops to show up in '10. Jose Reyes had a slow return from a hamstring tear in '09. Jimmy Rollins missed time with a calf injury. Han Ram's power has been declining a bit and his defense is certainly not improving, but he put up some solid numbers and he's signed through 2015, so he should be making pretty regular appearances on this list.

As it happens, the entire NL East Divisional All-Star Outfield comes from the Philadelphia Phillies. Ibanez, Victorino, Werth. The left field spot likely would have been a lock for the Mets new acquisition Jason Bay had he not lost most of the season to a concussion. Werth continued a trend of awesome seasons, putting him in the position of the year's most prized free agents. Victorino sacrificed some average for power, but with his Gold Glove in '10, he's the only one on this squad who shined in the field.

There's not much  more to say about Roy Halladay. Everyone predicted that he would tear it up upon leaving the sport's toughest division for the weaker league, and he did not disappoint, winning 21 games, completing 9 of them (including one perfecto), and leading the league in strikeout-walk ratio. He was rewarded with his second Cy Young award.

After two injury-abbreviated seasons, Tim Hudson is back with a vengeance at age 34. He kept his ERA down and won a bunch of games using his regular strategy of inducing ground balls and letting his defense do the work. Josh Johnson would have garnered more Cy Young support than he did were his season not ended a month early due to a back strain. He still managed to lead the league with a 2.30 ERA.

A pair of lefties rounds out our rotation: Cole Hamels and Johan Santana. Hamels dispelled doubts following a subpar 2009 season and acted as a very solid number two to Halladay. Word leaked that Santana had been pitching with a torn capsule in his left shoulder for perhaps many years, much to the chagrin of irresponsible Mets management. The fact that he was still able to put up impressive numbers cements his place as one of the greats.

At the end of the bullpen is another injury comeback story, Billy Wagner. An elite closer since 1997 for the Astros, Phillies, and Mets, he missed most of 2009 except for a brief "audition" with the Red Sox. He performed well enough to get a one-year deal with the Braves, and he showed that age 38 was little different from age 28 (well, 27 or 29: Wagner was injured for pretty much his entire age 28 season).

As far as the middle relievers go - the unsung heroes of any baseball team - I don't want to shove them down here at the end of this article. Rather, I'm planning to do some digging into what makes them great and why they represent some of the most volatile positions with one of the highest turnover rates in the sport.

Before then, however, you can expect seven more of these divisional all-star teams. PLEASE ENJOY!

Databases and Withdrawals

Boy, there sure is a wealth of information and emotion that accompanies the end of a baseball season, isn't there? The information: full season statistics for 1,000+ Major League players, just waiting to be studied and organized and analyzed. The emotion: the winners of various prestigious awards, the trades and signings of star players and journeymen alike, the revolutionary discussion to alter MLB's playoff structure after the worst-rated World Series in history. And of course, just the general feeling of letdown and instant nostalgia that seems to instantly hit as soon as the new World Champions wrap up their victory parade.

At the moment, I've been mostly concerning myself with statistics, specifically their study and organization. You might remember my detailed list projects from last year, but for the 2010-11 offseason, I've started another undertaking: a Baseball Database, that includes searchable information in all types of various categories, meaningful and trivial. It's arduous and time consuming, but for me, all sorts of fun. And I hope we can all have some fun with the results, also.

As those projects are underway, I plan for periodic updates in the form of Divisional All-Stars. Then I'll turn my attention to elected All-Stars, award winners. Upon their completion, I additionally have planned a treatise on middle relievers, and a treatise on cleanup hitters.

Then, when I'm clear-headed enough to turn to emotion, I'll do some thinking about the proposed new format for MLB playoffs, which would include an additional Wild Card team per league.

This should put us right in the middle of hot-stove season, but any extensive analysis of trades and new acquisitions will probably be left for the 2011 Season Preview. To this slate, I'd like to add something regarding Top Prospects, but the format remains to be determined.

Oh, the things we do to stave off Baseball-Withdrawal in the Offseason...

The World Series

Wow, it's been nearly a week since the World Series! It all happened so fast, I hardly even noticed. In keeping with my yearlong tradition of not posting a single article on this site during the duration of the actual World Series, I've been keeping quiet this week.

I'll admit, I was pulling for the Rangers. I think they're a cooler team and I generally like the AL over the NL. Plus, go Dodgers, thus boo Giants.

But as I go through the listing process that I do after each season, I'm starting to like the Giants' makeup more and more. I'm happy Lincecum has a ring: he deserves it. The supporting cast around him, maybe not so much... like the Aubrey Huffs, the Juan Uribes, the Nate Schierholtz's. And Buster Posey hasn't even proven his worth in the majors yet, so he's jumped the gun a little. 

Both teams were under-the-radar types, which resulted in the lowest rated world series ever. I was just thankful it wasn't the same two teams from last year. It's always good to see parity in the major leagues. It shows that big budgets can't always buy championships. (By the way, we saw a similar result in the California Gubernatorial race this year.)

Which brings me to another cool part about the off-season: Rewards Season. Soon we'll (probably) see Jason Heyward upset Posey for the Rookie of the Year and other voting results that will prompt all sorts of analysis and pounding-on-tables behavior from our preeminent sports journalists.

Did I say "cool" part of the off-season? I meant "ultimately useless."

Although, I do think All-Star selections and MVP-type awards voting are useful tools for beginners to get involved with the sport. Once you have a good handle on the best players, it's easier to get into the supporting casts around them. In addition to my 2010 baseball list, I'm going to try and use an All-Star approach to learn more about basketball this off-season. It's not technically the subject matter for this blog, but maybe I'll even talk a little about some of my findings.

That's pretty much it. It's been such an emotional letdown after the season ended that I haven't really been able to concentrate on much, at least not analytically. List-season will change all that though. You just get ready for some numbers and some crunching of said numbers...