Article of the Day - League

With football season coming to a close, many sports fans now turn their attention to the sunny beacon of hope that is spring training.

Even at this early stage of the season, it is always fun to pick who will win the major awards and which teams will be playing in October, but the following goes one further, not only picking those things, but also making some more player-specific predictions for all 30 teams.

So here are my 50 bold predictions for the 2011 season, because when you predict 50 things, you're bound to be correct on at least a few of them, right?

This new decade of ours is only one baseball season old, but baseball fans have already seen the future in some respects. Buster Posey, Jason Heyward, Starlin Castro, Mike Stanton and Stephen Strasburg each had huge rookie seasons, and they are not alone. Meanwhile, Albert Pujols shows no signs of slowing down as he enters his second decade of dominance over the league. Nor are CC Sabathia or Joe Mauer done building their Cooperstown cases.

When you think about the most important positions on a baseball field, what comes to mind? The starting pitcher is the one who gets his name in the paper before the game. The catcher calls the shots, a corner infielder anchors the lineup and the closer pumps his fist when the game is won.

Outfielders don't get much glory. Patrolling the big green is a thankless effort.

In an attempt to help shine some light on these deserving players, I humbly present my power rankings of the 30 Major League Baseball teams' outfields.

The 2010 World Series is upon us. In the next week or two we have the chance to see baseball history, to see two teams competing at the highest level for the crowning achievement in all of baseball. Along the way, perhaps we'll share in a collective moment that will last a lifetime.

As we prepare to watch the Texas Rangers face off against the San Francisco Giants in this year's Fall Classic, let's have a look back at some of the greatest moments in World Series history.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.