Filed under: Phillies, MLB Video
It may seem like just weeks ago that the baseball season ended, but, believe it or not, Spring Training is here.
If you’re like the rest of us at FanHouse, you can’t wait for the season to begin, but we’ve got you covered until opening day arrives.
It’s the FanHouse 15, a countdown of the 15 most talked about, blogged about, tweeted about, sensational stars of America’s pastime. Who will be number one?
The list continues with number 4, Phillies ace Roy Halladay.
All this week, the FanHouse staff will look back at the most significant baseball storylines of 2010.
In China, 2010 was the Year of the Tiger.
In Major League Baseball, it was the Year of the Pitcher.
Finally.
After nearly 20 years of an offensive boom, hurlers took back the game in 2010. The Giants won the World Series with great starters and a rag-tag lineup. There were two perfect games, one near-perfecto and four other no-hitters, including the second-ever in the postseason.
We should have known it was coming when the defensive play of the year came on Opening Day — and it, too, was by a pitcher.
Filed under: Braves, Dodgers, Giants, Mets, NL East
Anyone remember the San Francisco Giants?
You know, the guys in orange and black loaded with pitching and personality. They beat the Phillies only two months ago in the National League Championship Series. They beat up on Cliff Lee in the World Series.
Our West Coast dudes are reigning World Series champions. No matter how many millions of dollars the Phillies or the Red Sox spend on ballplayers this offseason, nothing is decided in December.
True, when the Phillies and ace Cliff Lee reached terms Monday, the phrase embarrassment of riches applied.
“Best pitching staff in the game!” Diamondbacks general manager Kevin Towers texted in reply to FanHouse after Lee, a bona fide ace, joined a rotation that already boasted Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels and Roy Oswalt.
When asked about Lee later on Tuesday, an NL East scout pondered the next few Octobers, and sounded resigned to the prospect of seeing a shade of red too familiar. “You would have to think the Phillies would get close to the World Series for two or three more years,” he said.
Filed under: Phillies, MLB Fans, MLB Milestones, MLB Hot Stove, MLB Free Agency
The Phillies‘ shock agreement to a five-year, $120 million deal with Cliff Lee late Monday night gave them what appears to be not just the best starting rotation in baseball heading into next season, but one of the greatest in the history of the sport.
Lee joins Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels and Roy Oswalt in the City of Brotherly Love to form a fearsome foursome that has won a collective three Cy Young Awards, World Series MVP and made 13 All-Star Game appearances.
That quartet should make life awfully difficult for National League hitters over at least the next two seasons — Hamels can become a free agent after 2012, while the Phillies possess a ’12 club option on Oswalt — but what kind of competition will they have to match up with to make history as one of the greatest rotations ever?
Let’s start with the modern canon:
Filed under: MLB Video
The awards season continued on Tuesday as Roy Halladay won the NL Cy Young Award. That outcome was not surprising, but the battle for Wednesday’s awards is wide open. FanHouse TV’s Steve Phillips looks ahead to the Manager of the Year selection in both leagues.
Click to watch:
Filed under: Phillies, MLB Awards
This was the easy one.
Of all the awards handed out by the BBWAA this fall, perhaps none will be as anticlimactic as the NL Cy Young Award. Not only was this a pretty easy pick when the season ended, but it was the pick that many folks came up with before the season even started.
Phillies ace Roy Halladay won his second Cy Young Award on Tuesday, and it wasn’t close. In his first run through the National League, Halladay led the league in innings, complete games, shutouts and strikeouts per walk. He was second in the league in ERA and WAR (on Baseball-Reference.com).
And, oh yeah, he also led the league in victories, for whatever that’s worth.
Filed under: Phillies, MLB Awards
Phillies ace Roy Halladay capped a magical 2010 season by winning the NL Cy Young Award, the Baseball Writers’ Association of America announced Tuesday. He was a unanimous choice — just the 13th in the history of the NL Cy Young Award — taking home all 32 first-place votes.
“It was definitely special for me … given the quality of the competition,” Halladay said during a conference call with the media, referencing the so-called “Year of the Pitcher.”
“The whole season was a dream come true for me, and to finish it in this way is a thrill.”
Halladay’s Cy Young triumph marks the second of his career, making him the 16th pitcher in major league history to win the award multiple times. He also won the 2003 AL Cy Young Award as a member of the Blue Jays, making him the fifth pitcher ever to take home Cy Young honors in both leagues. Gaylord Perry, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson and Rogers Clemens also won Cy Young Awards in both the AL and NL.
The right-hander, considered by many to be the best pitcher in baseball, went 21-10 with a 2.44 ERA this year, his first with Philadelphia after an offseason blockbuster that sent him from Toronto to the Phillies.
As Steve Phillips predicted on Sunday night, Buster Posey and Neftali Feliz won the Rookie of the Year Awards in their respective leagues on Monday. While the result may have been as expected, a deeper look at the voting may raise some eyebrows.
On Tuesday the National League Cy Young Award will be announced, and Phillips thinks it comes down to Roy Halladay vs. Adam Wainwright.
So, who will win?
Click to Watch:
Filed under: Giants, Mariners, Phillies, Rangers, Yankees, MLB Playoffs, World Series
SAN FRANCISCO — Perhaps more than any other player in the postseason, Cliff Lee was torn by conflicting emotions.
He wasn’t happy when the Phillies, who got four postseason wins in five starts from Lee last year, dumped him on the Seattle Mariners when they got a chance to get Roy Halladay at the top end of their rotation.
The Mariners did him a huge favor — and did the Rangers a huge favor, too — by failing miserably in their effort to contend, ultimately trading him to Texas midseason, a move that has him all smiles now.
Lee is elated that the Rangers made it to the World Series against the Giants by dispatching with the Yankees, but he wasn’t happy along the way when fans in the upper deck at Yankee Stadium spit in the direction of the Rangers’ family section, where his wife, Kristen, and his two kids were sitting.
And Lee being Lee, he doesn’t mask his emotions.
Filed under: Giants, Phillies, Rangers, Yankees, MLB Playoffs
Heading into the 2010 MLB Playoffs, many experts were predicting a rematch of the 2009 World Series between the Yankees and the Phillies. After both teams won their Game 5′s, the rematch is still possible.
FanHouse TV’s Steve Phillips takes a look at how it happened, and what each team has to do to force a decisive Game 7 in Friday’s edition of the “Playoff Pulse”.
Click to Watch:
