Preview/Prediction

Who are the best players in the league?

It’s a debate that will persist for as long as there is professional baseball.

But it’s one thing to argue it during the season—predicting who the best players will be is a horse of an entirely different color that eats oranges instead of apples.

In this slideshow are my picks for the best players in the American League for 2011—one for each position, plus a DH, five starting pitchers and three relievers—along with explanations for why I snubbed the closest competitors.

Last night, Tuesday January 25, 2011, the MLB Network Special analyzing the 2011 “Top 50 Prospects” aired, and just three New York Yankee minor leaguers made the cut.
 
Making the list...

Billy Butler recently signed a contract extension worth at least $30 million with the Kansas City Royals.

Butler could be with Kansas City for at least the next four years, one more if the Royals pick up the $12.5 million option for the fifth year.

Apparently, he thinks the Royals will become contenders within that time frame.

In a deal that sent shock waves through the baseball community last weekend, the Toronto Blue Jays sent Vernon Wells and his monstrous contract to the Los Angeles Angels in exchange for Mike Napoli and Juan Rivera.

Revert back to July 10, 2009. After struggling earlier in that season, Jonathan Sanchez, after being banished to the bullpen, spot started for the injured Randy Johnson.

The result on that fateful night was a dazzling performance against the San Diego Padres, as he no-hit them in an 8-0 rout. Not a single walk tainted Sanchez's line.

Fast forward to Oct. 23, 2010. The Giants are battling the Phillies in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series in Philadelphia, needing a big start from their left-handed hurler.

Our 2011 fantasy baseball projections will be released one-by-one until the top 100 players have been revealed. These rankings consider past achievements, current performance and expected future results based on standard 5×5 H2H settings.

The Toronto Blue Jays have been going in the right direction ever since Alex Anthopolous took over as General Manager.  Alex Anthopolous has put great emphasis on developing young talent and has invested time and money into ensuring that the future is bright.  At the same time, AA has managed to put a fantastic product on the field that has remained competitive even in the toughest division in baseball.  

Pressure does the strangest things to baseball players. Alex Rodriguez might end up hitting more home runs than anyone else in history, but he has struggled in October. Zack Greinke won the Cy Young in 2009 but would never pitch for a big-market team.

As we look forward to 2011, we can start to pinpoint those who will be under the most pressure. Players struggling to live up to big contracts, coming back from injury, playing for their reputation all make this list, and it only serves to remind us just how many good stories the upcoming season could have.

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?

It's that time of the year when baseball publications and blogs far and wide weigh in with their opinions as to which players deserve mentioning on their respective teams' Top 10 prospects lists, and for the Los Angeles Dodgers, those number of listings are seemingly endless.

Periodicals such as Baseball America, Fangraphs, The Hardball Times, and a number of blogs from SB Nation are among only a few who have published prospect lists in the past week alone.