new york yankees Tag

In late March 30 teams started their journey towards earning a playoff spot and ultimately winning the World Series.  After a total of 4,860 games, all the stats have been recorded and the tale of the regular season comes to a end.  This season was full of milestones, wild finishes, and lots of really good pitching.  The last few weeks of the season provided fans with a great preview of what is to come this October.  At the end of the day we are left looking at 8 teams who could possibly win the fall classic.*

Tomorrow we will all flip the calendar over to September, and with it comes 40 man rosters and do or die situations for teams across MLB.  Teams that find themselves in a hunt for the playoffs will try to put everything together in the last month of the season to earn a playoff spot.  At this point in the season there are several teams with comfortable divisional leads and several others find that they are underachieving and might be looking at spending October on the couch.

In baseball the phrase "sure thing" is reserved for a select few.  Many baseball players are drafted out of high school and are often praised for their skills from a very young age.  The translation is not easy for scouts to be able to accurately predict MLB superstars.  Occasionally we run across "can't miss" players like Joe Mauer or Derek Jeter.  As a high school athlete Derek was a highly touted prospect whose accolades were only matched by his skills on the baseball field.  In 1992 Derek Jeter received many national high school awards that included Gatorade's Best Male Athlete.