AL All-Star Pitchers

The final post in our 2017 All-Star Set: the AL pitching staff! Unsurprisingly, it's another staff loaded with great cards. Also unsurprisingly, most of the starting pitchers could not keep up the production and their season end cards dropped a tier or so by the end of the year. Still, the amazing first half of Dallas Keuchel gives him the best AL starter card. Chris Sale and eventual Cy Young winner Corey Kluber are not far behind, giving them a devastating 1-2-3 punch to the top of the rotation. They get a fourth and fifth Tier 2 starting pitcher in Ervin Santana and Jason Vargas. The Astros also sent Lance McCullers (who definitely fell off) and he provides a decent Tier 3 arm. Michael Fulmer, Chris Archer, Yu Darvis, and Luis Severino (who was a tier 2 by years end) also provide depth as Tier 3 starters. The bullpen is the true jewel in the AL's crown, featuring several amazing arms. The best are Andrew Miller and Craig Kimbrel, giving Tier 1 cards with huge strikeout ranges and no doubles. Osuna, Kintzler, and a fun IP 2 Chris Devenski give them a plethora of Tier 2 guys to help out even more. Finally, there's one of the most fun cards -- a Tier 3, yet Control 1 Delin Betances, who has an absolutely monster all-or-nothing card.

I hope you enjoy these cards and the whole set, let us know if you ever play a game with them!

Starters:

NL All-Star Pitchers

We continue rolling out the 2017 All-Star set with the pitchers from the National League. A reminder: these cards were constructed using only pre-All Star game statistics, so they're inevitably a bit overpowered due to the small sample size. Unsurprisingly, many of these pitchers were unable to maintain their incredible first half stats throughout 2017. However, Stephen Strasburg actually finished the season with a better card and Kershaw, Scherzer, and Ray maintained their excellent tier 2 status. Meanwhile, Alex Wood dropped down a tier and Greg Holland basically had his arm fall off in Coors Field, going from a sub-2 to a 3.61 ERA between the break and end of the season.