2018 MLB SHOWDOW SET - CLEVELAND INDIANS

Hello everyone I'mmmmmm backkkkk. I know you must have thought I disappeared or retired. But I was just busy with work and family and creating the 2018 cards for everyone along with Peter and Matt. Over the next few months we hope to release all the 2018 card sets team by team with a little podcast as well. Hopefully all goes well, fingers crossed. We are hoping to release these week  by week to everyone so stay tuned for more teams and feel free to comment below. Haters are welcome.

Here is the link to the Podcast below. A little something to listen to as you look at the cards. (feel free to leave feedback)

PODCAST ITUNES
podcast-2018-cleveland-indians

Since I got a head start I get to start things off. I am working on the AL teams so I jumped on the chance to make my Cleveland Indians first. They had a decent looking year finishing with 91 wins and a 3 guys over 30 Hrs. But those stats can be deceiving. They were in an incredibly weak division and did very poor against over .500 ball clubs. The AL is a very drastic league, featuring multiple 100 win and 100 loss teams. The Indians are lucky right now to be in a weak division and can coast to the playoffs, but as we dive deeper into their cards, you will see they have a very drastic high and low line up, a very amazing starting rotation, and a very crappy bullpen. Typical Indians showdown cards have been red, we decided this year to go with the Navy. Let us know what you think.

Lets start things out with the starting lineup.

2013 Detroit Tigers

The 2013 Detroit Tigers won their third straight American League Central Division Championship with a record of 93-69. The defeated the Oakland Athletics in 5 games and then fell to the Boston Red Sox, whom are already posted on this site, in their third straight ALCS. The regular season team took home plenty of hardware as well. Miguel Cabrera won his second consecutive AL MVP Award, and Max Scherzer won the AL Cy Young, with rookie Jose Iglesias finishing runner up to Wil Myers for AL Rookie of the Year.

2018 MLB Hall Of Fame

I made a few of the guys that were inducted into the hall of fame this past summer into a subset type of card. I made this back in August and never got it typed up and ready to post and i figured a little late is better than never. Lets enjoy there 4 players and some of the great seasons they had with each team they had played for. 

Inaugural Showdown Cup Tournament In Review

Well that sure made for a fun end to my summer playing out the first Showdown Cup and crowning the first Champion the 2016 Chicago Cubs whom just dominated the tournament. To me the biggest disappointment in the tournament was the 1995 Atlanta Braves, I felt the pitching staff set them up to be competitive but other than Fred McGriff the offense was not able to get anyone across the plate. I have a feeling if I replayed the tournament with the exact teams all over again there would be a different playoff out look and who knows maybe a different match up presents a different problem for the Cubs. All I know is that I am ready for the second one to come along, but I will get more into that later, first I have some awards to give out.

Picking the Winners: When I sent out the poll prior to the tournament starting two people selected the Cubs to win it all, Myself and Raeyrd69@yahoo.com

Tournament MVP & NL Best Pitcher

COMING SOON: 2018 Set!!!!!

As the Showdown Cup has finally come to a close, with the 2016 Cubs proving their Showdown superiority, it's time to look to the future -- the 2018 Set!

That's right, we're going to be making and releasing an entire set for the 2018 season! As always, we are not doing this for profit -- we're just making these because we love Showdown and want to keep the game alive! So we'll be posting each 2018 team one by one, absolutely free and without strings attached! If you're so inclined, feel free to print them out and play with them.

2007 Cleveland Indians

The 2007 season saw the Cleveland Indians win the Central Division for the first time since 2001. This team lost to the Boston Red Sox in the ALCS blowing a 3-1 lead and falling just short of a World Series match-up with the Colorado Rockies. A great all star season from Grady Sizemore although it wasn't as good as the previous season, a Cy Young season from CC Sabathia and a surprising season from up and coming starter Fausto Carmona both winning 19 games. Here is the 2007 Cleveland Indians with their line up from game 1 of the ALCS vs Boston lineup.


Lineup: A great lead off hitter in Sizemore who had 24 homers, 34 doubles and 33 stolen bases, getting him on base is nice but hitting off this chart is always a plus. Next is Asdrubal Cabrera who can plenty of pop with 13 and up being extra bases. "Pronk" hits third  and this is more of the Travis Hafner card as he started losing his power with the two prior seasons being 33 & 42 home run seasons. Hes followed by all star Victor Martinez. The rest of the lineup leaves a lot to be desired, while Ryan Garko and Kenny Lofton also have 8 on bases the rest of the line up is going to struggle to produce runs against some of the teams that we have seen posted on this site over the past year.

Showdown Cup Finals Game 5

Game 5 of the series has wrapped up and we have crowned our very first Showdown Cup champion. The Chicago Cubs of 2016 won the game and the series by a score of 4-1.  The Cubs struck first in the second inning with a RBI double from Jorge Soler and the very next batter Addison Russell belted a 3 run home run giving them their 4-0 lead. The Royal would be shut down until the 9th inning when Lorenzo Cain ripped a triple scoring Ben Zobrist but the Cubs would remove their starter from the game and bring in Aroldis Chapman who would strike out the next two batters and end the series. The bottom half of the Cubs order strikes again and with help from their undefeated pitcher and tournament save leading closer it was too much for the Royals to handle. This was such a fun tournament and I already can't wait to get started on the qualifying with some new teams that should be showing up on the site soon. I hope all of you enjoyed following along as well.