MLB All-Decade Team

[scottysprings]

Well I pretty much can't sleep and over the past hour or so I've conjured up a lineup of who I think were the best baseball players of this past decade. It's a bit overkill I suppose but I made second and third teams as well just because there were too many players I didn't feel like snubbing. I'm sure there will be many points of disagreement so everyone post their teams and let's debate!

All-Decade Team

C - Iván Rodríguez

1B - Albert Pujols

2B - Jeff Kent

3B - Alex Rodriguez

SS - Derek Jeter

LF - Barry Bonds

CF - Carlos Beltrán

RF - Ichiro Suzuki

SP - Randy Johnson

RP - Mariano Rivera

All-Decade Second Team

C - Jorge Posada

1B - Todd Helton

2B - Chase Utley

3B - Chipper Jones

SS - Miguel Tejada

LF - Manny Ramirez

CF - Andruw Jones

RF - Vladimir Guerrero

SP - Johan Santana

RP - Francisco Rodríguez

All-Decade Third Team

C - Joe Mauer

1B - Jason Giambi

2B - Craig Biggio

3B - Scott Rolen

SS - Jimmy Rollins

LF - Gary Sheffield

CF - Torii Hunter (Honorable Mention - Jim Edmonds)

RF - Bobby Abreu

SP - Roy Halladay

RP - Trevor Hoffman

[ESTONES6]

man that's a pretty stacked list. you can make cases for all those guys to interchange between the 3 teams. Every time i think i think of a player that isn't on the list, i read it again, and you already have him.

I kinda wouldn't mind seeing Omar Vizquel just for his number of Gold Gloves. his stick wasn't amazing, but he could still shake it. Have you thought about putting a DH slot in there? It IS a part of the game, ya know? Not necessarily a player who ONLY played DH, but one of those great hitters that we've seen over the years.

[NJTank]

Its a good list but I would make a few slight changes

All-Decade Team

C - Mike Piazza

1B - Albert Pujols

2B - Jeff Kent

3B - Alex Rodriguez

SS - Derek Jeter

LF - Barry Bonds

CF - Carlos Beltrán

RF - Ichiro Suzuki

SP - Randy Johnson

RP - Mariano Rivera

All-Decade Second Team

C - Joe Mauer

1B - Justin Morneau

2B - Chase Utley

3B - Chipper Jones

SS - Jimmy Rollins

LF - Manny Ramirez

CF - Andruw Jones

RF - Vladimir Guerrero

SP - Johan Santana

RP - Francisco Rodríguez

All-Decade Third Team

C - Ivan Rodriguez

1B - Ryan Howard

2B - Dustn Perdroia

3B - Scott Rolen

SS - Miguel Tejada

LF - Gary Sheffield

CF - Bernie Williams

RF - Sammy Sosa

SP - Roy Halladay

RP - Trevor Hoffman

[ESTONES6]

The catching position is tough. Neither Pudge nor Piazza finished the decade strong by any means. And Mauer just recently became the best catcher in the game the last half of the decade.

[scottysprings]

Well here's the way I looked at the catchers. Posada was statistically the best hitting catcher of the decade with a .283 BA, 208 home runs, and 819 RBI, and also had 5 all-star selections and 5 Silver Sluggers in addition to 2 World Series rings. In 6 seasons Mauer batted an amazing .327 and posted a .404 OBP with 72 HR and 397 RBI all on top of 3 all-star appearances, 2 gold gloves, 3 AL batting titles, and an AL MVP award. In 8 seasons Piazza batted .285 with 187 HR and 567 RBI with 5 all-star appearances and 3 Silver Sluggers. From 2000-2009 Pudge posted a .292 batting average, 178 HR, 725 RBI, a silver slugger, 5 all-star selections, and a World Series ring which isn't too far off from Jorge but what put him above the rest was his defense with 4 gold gloves and the fact he's still a solid defensive catcher after all these years. These 4 are obviously the top 4 catchers of the decade and they could easily be switched around based on preference (or being a homer ).