Rankings/List

With just a few weeks left in the 2010 baseball season, teams will begin to rest players down the stretch, unless their division won't be decided until the last few days.

For those that have their division well in hand, days off will help their most productive players get ready for another month of baseball.

It won't be a easy stretch and not having those players could be detrimental to any World Series chances.

Here are 10 players that need to be healthy for their teams to make a legitimate October run.

The baseball season is a lengthy one, and can often be a roller coaster ride for players, coaches, and fan bases alike.

Things can go from good to bad, and bad to worse in the blink of an eye, and there have been a number of huge collapses through the years leading up to the pennant race.

However, for the following 10 teams, their collapses took things to an epic level, as they all but had a playoff appearance in the bag before, for one reason or another, the wheels fell off and the teams spent their October watching from home.

Look, when ranking the top players in any sport it is primarily a subjective process. I mean, you can use statistics, but those numbers do not factor in the importance of the position they play, nor the heart and desire of an athlete.

But let me tell you this: From a purely objective analysis, at least to me, Troy Tulowitzki meets all those criteria and may just be qualified to be considered the best player in baseball.

The Major League Baseball season is coming to an end, with only two weeks left. With that, it's time to take a look at who the best players in the game have been in 2010.

This slideshow will focus on the top players at each position in the National League for this season. Stay updated for other slideshows concerning the American League, including the top pitchers of the year.

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Last Monday, the Yankees visited the Rays in St. Petersburg, Fla. for one of the most anticipated series in the 2010 season.

The race has been tightly packed all season, with no team leading by more 2 1/2 games since July 26.

In the last five days, there have been three flip-flops for the division lead. With another four game set about to happen between these two teams in Yankee Stadium, you can expect the seesaw to keep on tilting.

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Joe Torre surprised the baseball world with the announcement on Friday that he will step down from his position following the season, named Don Mattingly his successor.

Meanwhile, we don't yet know what Torre's future plans include. Will he manage again or is this the end of his career?

If this is the last stop for Torre the manager, it has certainly been an interesting one. Torre, of course, is best known for the four titles he won with the New York Yankees. But is he a great manager? Is he a Hall of Famer?

Joe Torre has made it official: he will be stepping down as the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers at the end of the 2010 season, and thus comes to a close one of the great managerial careers in baseball history.

It is a bitter-sweet end, though, as after 12 brilliant season with the New York Yankees, Torre leaves the Dodgers without having brought a championship to L.A. in his three seasons there.

To make matters all the more wrenching, Torre's Dodgers reached the NLCS in each of his first two years at Chavez Ravine, but could never get over the hump.

Joe Torre is undoubtedly one of the most successful managers in sports history. Starting as a manager for the Yankees in 1996, Torre went on to manage the team for 12 straight years, bringing them to the playoffs in each year. Also add in four championships.

At the end of the 2007 season, Joe Girardi took over as the Yankees manager, and Torre went on to manage the Dodgers. Three years later, he has announced that he will be stepping down as manager of the Dodgers in 2011, and will hand over the job to Don Mattingly.

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.

Baseball general managers throw their millions around as if they were candy.

Sometimes the money is well spent and a team's front office is handsomely rewarded by a great season at a low cost.

More often, though, general managers quickly realize how much they overpaid for declining stars or uninspiring role players just to keep them away from rivals.

Then they try to compensate for their mistake by spending millions on reclamation projects.