Classic Set Previews: SECOND BASEMEN

For a long time, second basemen were all about speed and defense, without the power or high averages we've seen from players like Jose Altuve, Jeff Kent, and more. Thus, the second base position is extremely top-heavy and undoubtedly will be targeted very early by smart managers. Joe Morgan is far and away the best available option, with Rod Carew and Roberto Alomar also providing great cards. After that, it's pretty thin outside of an intriguing Ryne Sandberg card. The most disappointing card (for us, anyway) was Bill Mazeroski. Sadly, the World Series hero's OBP struggles made his card a bottom of the lineup dweller, especially against all the great pitchers in the set.

Classic Set Previews: FIRST BASEMEN

Definitely one of the deepest positions in the set, with 9 of the 25 players being over 400 points and 18/25 over 300 points. There's power galore, especially from legendary players like Dick Allen, Orlando Cepeda, Tony Perez, and Gil Hodges. John Olerud snagged one of the elusive OB 11s, with Jack Clark being close behind (so close he got an OB 10, on at 2!). This is really a can't miss position and every team should be able to plug a first basemen into the heart of their order easily.

2015 Kansas City Royals

The 2014 Royals shocked the baseball universe by sneaking into the AL playoffs, then overcoming a huge deficit against "July's World Series lock," the Oakland A's. KC cruised through a 100 win Angels team before handily defeating Buck's boys in the ALCS. In the end, Mad Bum proved to be too much and the Royals went down in 7 to San Francisco, and essentially everyone assumed the Royals would fade to the middle of the pack in 2015. Instead, they came out blazing, winning the AL Central and also taking the top seed in the AL. Despite their claim to the best record in the AL, they were huge underdogs to the 2015 Blue Jays, who KC dispatched by using their great bullpen to neutralize one of the decade's best lineups.

In the World Series, the Royals took on the fearsome Mets rotation, and didn't pause at all. Winning in five games, Kansas City brought home their first World Series title since 1985, this time without any controversy! Enjoy one of the best surprises in recent memory, the 2015 Royals!

Classic Set Previews: CATCHERS

The Catcher position is filled with Hall of Famers and amazing defensive arms. Unlike most sets, you can find cheap defense easily here, with the weakest one can basically go being a +6 arm. Surprisingly, Darrell Porter is nearly the highest point value player after long deliberation on whether he was a Royal or Cardinal. Johnny Bench is one player that suffered from comparative on-base calculations, but his CHEAP OB7, HR at 14 with +10 arm is sure to draw lots of managers in early.

1998 Houston Astros

While the 2004-2005 seasons may stand out as the most successful in Astros history because of the late playoff runs those teams made, the 1998 Astros stands out as the best overall team. In the midst of prime Bagwell-Biggio seasons, with Moises Alou, Carl Everett, and Derek Bell forming a lethal outfield, the Astros offense was potent. And in 1998, after trading for eventual Hall of Famer Randy Johnson, the Astros starting rotation was incredibly lethal as well. Johnson would go 10-1 with a 1.28 ERA in his 11 starts for Houston, leading a Houston pitching staff that had a remarkable 3.50 team ERA while playing in the same division as HR titans Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa!

Houston won a franchise record 102 games and the NL Central by 12 games. Unfortunately, they were unceremoniously bounced by an inferior (and soon coming) Padres team in the NLDS. They would lose Randy Johnson to the upstart Diamondbacks during the offseason and (despite making the '99 playoffs) would never be quite as lethal as that 98 team again.

MLB Showdown: YEAR ONE OF THE GREATEST SHOWDOWN LEAGUE

Another form of Showdown related content that this site will be bringing you is the results of our Greatest MLB Showdown league! After all, what fun is merely seeing various cards get rolled out, MLB Showdown players get the cards to play the game!

The league is made of a full 30 teams and collects the best players from the 00-01 Showdown sets, mixed with players from 09-14 seasons. We predominantly utilize sets (or individual cards) from the fantastic http://mlbshowdowncards.blogspot.com/, who all of you should check out if you aren't familiar with their excellent work! We haven't really printed out these current cards we made, but that'll get worked in next season I'm sure. The season will be 36 games long, feature "home and home" 3 game series between division foes, as well as one "home and home" six game series b/w interleague rivals and, to start the year, inter-divisional play where each team will play a three game series at home and on the road. In the end, 36 competitive games that will lead into a normal MLB playoff system.

So with each team being composed of its best players (that we have in printed card form), the competition should be extremely fierce! There was no salary cap on teams, as the depth of all-stars across all these years made teams (seemingly) balanced enough to not stress about it. After all, sometimes you just want an excuse to use every holo card you have in a season! Injuries will be in play, including the chance for them before the season begins, and we think that could add an interesting wrinkle. We expect every division race to be tight and outside of a few weak teams, should have a plethora of playoff contenders down the stretch.

Below we've listed staffer's season predictions and team rosters to get everyone ready for what should be a fantastic season! Feel free to leave your own predictions after looking at the Team Rosters, found in a separate post... It'll be fun watching the season shake out!

The League can be followed HERE: http://greatestmlbshowdown.atomicleagues.com/

SHOWDOWN HALL OF FAME: Ken Griffey Jr

The third entry into the Showdown Hall of Fame is the one, the only, "The Kid!" Son of a key cog in the Big Red Machine, Griffey Jr burst onto the scene in 1989 as a nineteen year old. Griffey was famous for his smile, backwards hat, and the smoothest left-handed swing baseball has ever seen. Over the next eleven years, Griffey would go to every All Star games and led the majors in HR four different times. More impressively, The Kid actually made baseball fun and relevant in Seattle. Teamed with fellow young star Alex Rodriguez, Griffey led the Mariners to the franchise's first three playoff berths, including two trips to the ALCS.

In 2000, Griffey went home to Cincinnati. Sadly, his Reds career was ridden with injuries. He made three All Star teams in nearly a decade with the Reds, but never put up the consistent power numbers he did in Cincinnati. With his career coming to a close, The Kid came back to Seattle as a man and still contributed for a season. Now, Griffey is in the real Hall of Fame, after 22 seasons and 630 HRs.

So without further ado, one of the greatest power hitters of all time: Ken Griffey Jr!

Classic Set Previews: TIER FOUR PITCHERS

The final tier to the Classic Set pitchers (plus one player who qualified for tier 5!), the Tier Fours. Normally a foundational part of any team, these bargain bin guys will be filling a starting slot and rotation role on at least one drafted team. Notable players here include eventual Cubs stud Fergie Jenkins and the famous Tommy John in his Angels days. Current Rockies manager Bud Black also checks in, pitching for the Royals. The worst pitcher in the set? None other than the hilariously named "Dick Pole," whose efforts as spot starter and bullpen guy (with an honestly decent 4.33 ERA and less decent 1.483 WHIP) for the 1976 Red Sox earned him a tier 5 card that does get a solid IP 3, making him a sneaky value to any 'pen.

2005 Chicago White Sox

The first Chicago baseball team to win a title in nearly a century, the White Sox broke their "Black Sox" curse through Ozzie Guillen's "Win or Die Trying" squad. Adding critical pieces like Scott Podsednik and Tadahito Iguchi to the front of their lineup, fiery catcher AJ Pierzynski to impassion the locker room, and the veteran arms of Freddy Garcia, Jose Contreras, and Dustin Hermanson to shore up the team's pitching. The White Sox would improve by 16 wins from 2004, winning 99 games and the AL Central.

Looking at this Showdown team, it's incredible the job that Ozzie Guillen did. Clearly, he took advantage of the team's excellent charts on offense and rolled solidly with their far above average pitching. Against other "Greatest MLB Showdown" teams, this White Sox squad looks like it'd be toward the bottom, but the risk-reward nature of the lineup could provide some really impressive scores if a manager happens to be rolling well!

Classic Set Previews: TIER THREE PITCHERS

Now we're into the (hopefully) building blocks for the bottom of your rotation and bullpen: the tier 3 starters and relievers. Honestly, there are enough decent starters here to form an entire rotation out of and still be fine. Only the more forgiving point values (i.e. a 5 on at 16 starter like 00 David Cone is only 400 rather than 450 points) make better, Tier 2 aces a cost-effective enough option to make even the most hitter heavy managers pause at that idea.

Classic Set Previews: TIER TWO PITCHERS

Tier Two starters are still aces. For the classic set, there are far more tier 2 pitchers than there would normally be, but that's the joy/curse of putting together a collection filled to the brim with former superstars. Hall of Famers like Juan Marichal, Nolan Ryan, Don Drysdale, Jim Palmer and more are in this tier. For RPs, there are studs like Rich Goosage, Mudcat Grant, and Dan Quisenberry. We were also pleased to see former-elementary-school-classmate's-father Dan Plesac make the cut for the Brewers in this Tier!

This is the Tier that most people will heavily invest in, as there are aces and deals to be made, especially for the bullpen. Enjoy sifting through memory lane with these great players!

Classic Set Chart Previews: TIER ONE PITCHERS

We're just beginning the card making process for the set right now, but we thought you fine readers would enjoy some charts to tide you over to card releases. To start off, we've got the *STAR* pitchers, both starters and relievers. To be a tier one pitcher is not easy: only the SP with an ERA and WHIP combine for only 10 points or less (aka 3rd in ERA, 6th in WHIP would be 9 points), comparatively to their classic peers (otherwise we'd have many, many more Tier One SPs on these rosters) were qualified. For RPs, only guys with ERAs and WHIPs that added together to be under 2 were qualified. One of the most interesting cards in the bunch was Doyle Alexander. He was infamously dealt to the Tigers in 1987 in exchange for future Hall of Famer John Smoltz, but Alexander actually was an ACE for the playoff-bound Tigers, going 9-0 with a 1.53 ERA in his 11 starts for the team. Rather than give them another mediocre starter, we gave them a bullpen sparkplug, who COULD maybe start if a desperate manager wanted him to! Enjoy the charts, we'll end up releasing all the league's charts, so don't worry, there's more content coming!

Also, we've come to understand that many Showdown players ONLY use charts. So, these people like to have charts open in excel and then use a random number generator for rolling. Honestly, that seems efficient and a great way to play, so we're going to try to get more raw charts posted too!

Starters:

2001 Arizona Diamondbacks

We're back, and hoping you're enjoying another entertaining season of March Madness! In the spirit of the crazy upsets of March, let's take a look back at one of the great World Series Cinderella teams: the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks! Sure, this team won only three fewer games than the Yankee team they faced in the World Series, but New York was coming off three straight titles. The Yankees were a dynasty, a seemingly unstoppable juggernaut that would cruise through another postseason. Arizona was still a fledgling franchise, only in its fourth season. In fact, the Yankees had won a World Series in literally every season Arizona had participated in.

However, Arizona took home the title in seven games. The dramatic walk-off single by superstar Luis Gonzalez in the ninth inning of Game 7 is consistently placed in "Greatest Moments" countdowns. The strength of this team was its starting pitching, behind two Cy Young candidates: Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling. In the heart of the steroid era, it was these two hurlers that got the DBacks through the NL. In the end, clutch hitting and workmanlike starts from these two, along with gutsy pitching from their only viable reliever, Kim, was enough to squeak by the mighty Yankees and finally break the hold New York had on baseball. Enjoy this look back!

Exciting New Content!!!

The Greatest MLB Showdown Project is proud to announce our LATEST content: the Classic Set. Thus far, we have been posting the individual teams from their own seasons (i.e. the Cubs players from the 2016 set of charts we calculated, the 2001 Mariners from all the 2001 players, etc.) or posting individual cards from specific seasons in the Hall of Fame collection. Now, there's a chance for readers to enjoy a NEW COMPLETE SET of classic cards to play with. We will be releasing a 360 card set of classic cards, with twenty teams of 18 players each (very convenient for binders ;)).

SHOWDOWN HALL OF FAME: Pedro Martinez

The first pitcher inducted into the Showdown Hall of Fame was at his peak when the glorious card game this site celebrated was introduced. Producing the most valuable card (by points value) in both the 00 and 01 sets, Pedro led the majors in ERA, WHIP, and K while garnering over 40 wins. Over the course of his 18 major league seasons, Pedro led the majors in ERA five times, WHIP six times, and K three times. He took home three Cy Youngs and famously helped the Boston Red Sox break their curse in 2004.

Enjoy looking back at some of Pedro's most memorable seasons, from his rise to stardom in Montreal, to his incredibly dominate years in Boston at the turn of the century, to a final Cy Young-level season as a New York Met. We're happy to present an extremely deserving Showdown Hall of Famer, Pedro Martinez!

2001 Seattle Mariners

After posting the 1998 Yankees, we had to follow them up with the 2001 Mariners. Seattle's 2001 squad had the greatest regular season (purely from a "racking up the wins" perspective), setting a still-standing record with 116 victories. However, their dominate regular season did not end in a title, as the Mariners were knocked off by the dynastic Yankees in the ALCS.

This team is very good, although they lack any superstar cards. Sure, Ichiro won the MVP this season (and Freddy Garcia should have won the AL Cy Young), but they have pretty lackluster cards. Rather than stars, this team benefits from solid depth at every level. Perhaps not so coincidentally, this is the strength of the 1998 Yankees and, to an extent, the 2016 Cubs. Top heavy rotations and lineups can carry a team in a series or two, but serious depth and consistency wins out over the grinding 162 game MLB season. Enjoy this team, one of the most memorable "how did they not win it all" teams in recent memory.

1998 Yankees

The 1998 New York Yankees won 114 games, setting a (now eclipsed) record for wins in a single season. Unsurprisingly, the amount of wins in a season usually translates to a team's Showdown strength, so I was extremely excited to see what kind of firepower the 1998 Yanks brought to the game. The answer: not as much as expected. Oh sure, each component of this team is at least GOOD, but there is no unit that screams "wow!" like the 2004 Red Sox lineup or the 2016 Cubs rotation. The Big Four are still in their relative infancy (with Bernie Williams and Mariano Rivera putting up prime seasons), and Roger Clemens has not yet joined the rotation.

On closer inspection, this team still looks like an all-timer, although it is not as instantly sexy on paper as, say the 2003 Yankees. However, the rotation is extremely solid (which was so important in the year of the HR), the bullpen is steadfast, and the lineup is incredibly deep. Trading HRs for consistency, speed, and enough OB to steal some charts from even the best aces, the Yankees will score runs while limiting opposing offenses. It will be fun to put this team up against other recent greats, especially the 2016 Cubs!

2016 Cleveland Indians

Spring Training has begun, marking the start to the 2017 baseball season. The new season comes on the heels of one of the best World Series ever, with an instant classic Game 7 that saw this scrappy, bullpen reliant Indians team nearly come back in the ninth inning again All Star closer Aroldis Chapman. Sadly, despite overcoming massive injuries to the rotation, the Indians will be remembered as that team that blew a 3-1 lead to the Cubs. In reality, Cleveland put together an amazing run, neutering high-powered Boston and Toronto offenses with savvy bullpen moves and clutch hitting.

The 2016 Cubs and Indians both have complete squads uploaded on the site, so feel free to use these teams to replay the World Series! Hopefully, your showdown simulation will be as epic as the real thing!

SHOWDOWN HALL OF FAME: Barry Bonds

Barry Bonds is the greatest hitter of all-time, at least by Showdown standards. In fact, it was Bonds' ridiculous 2001 campaign that caused the original Showdown cards to adjust their formula, as his extreme OBP and 73 HRs broke the formulas. Luckily, here at Greatest MLB Showdown, we are unwilling to bend our methods! So, get ready for the greatest of Barry's seasons in the original card format. For you Pirates fans, no worries-- we've got his early 90s MVP seasons included here as well (including the season that Terry Pendleton robbed him). Yes, I realize there's a real possibility Bonds used steroids to enhance his game, which clearly takes a big leap from his early 90s MVP days to his early 00s MVP season. Here at The Greatest MLB Showdown Project though, we aren't in the business of judging or excluding players, just recording respective Showdown cards of historical legends. So, feel free to ban him from your leagues or let him play and watch some fireworks unfold from his (metaphorical) bat!

Without further ado, an ode to a player who's still waiting for his Hall of Fame induction, but is the FIRST player inducted to the MLB Showdown Hall of Fame.