2011: Baseball's Greatest Season

With spring training just around the corner, I thought it might be a good time to recap last season. 2011 was arguably the greatest season in league history. Between several great individual performances, two nail-biting pennant races, and the best postseason in years, here is my argument for why no other can top it:

Regular Season:

• The Cleveland Indians, a team that hasn't won the World Series since 1954 and has just one playoff appearance since 2001, was 30-15 with a 7 game division lead and the best record in baseball on May 23.
• The Pittsburgh Pirates, a team that has not had a winning season since 1992, was tied for first place in the NL Central as late as July 25.
• The Arizona Diamondbacks, a last place team in 2010, won their division.
• The Texas Rangers, Philadelphia Phillies and Milwaukee Brewers all set franchise records for wins.
• The Houston Astros (56-106) had their first ever 100-loss season.
• The Boston Red Sox blew a nine-game September wild card lead; the Atlanta Braves blew one of 8 and a half games. These two collapses rank 3rd and 5th all-time, respectively, according to coolstandings.com.
• The Tampa Bay Rays overcame a 9-game September wild card deficit; the St. Louis Cardinals were 11 games back in late August. These two comebacks rank 6th and 19th all-time, respectively.
• Neither wild-card race was decided until late on the final day of the season. That night, the Rays overcame a 7-0 8th inning deficit at home, fueled by a game-tying Dan Johnson home run and a walk-off shot by Evan Longoria. The Braves and Red Sox both blew leads in the bottom of the ninth of their games.
• Clayton Kershaw and Justin Verlander were the first pair of players to win pitching Triple Crowns since 1924. Verlander was also the first pitcher since 1992 to win the MVP, and the first starter to win since 1986.
• Matt Kemp fell 1 home run short of becoming just the 5th player ever to post a 40 HR/40 SB, and mounted perhaps the most serious challenge to a batting Triple Crown since Dick Allen in 1972.
• Craig Kimbrel shattered the rookie saves record, the second straight year a closer had done so (Neftali Feliz, 2010).
• Jim Thome hit his 600th home run, Derek Jeter got his 3000th hit in dramatic fashion, and Mariano Rivera set the saves record.

Postseason:

• More LDS games were played this season than any other.
• The Brewers won their series on a tenth-inning walk-off hit by Nyjer Morgan.
• Chris Carpenter pitched an absolute gem in Game 5 of the NLDS for the Cardinals, an upset of the 102-win Phillies.
• Adrian Beltre had a three home run game against Tampa Bay in Texas's ALDS.
• Nelson Cruz set a record in the ALCS against the Tigers for the most home runs in a single postseason series (6). He also had the first *official* postseason walk-off grand slam.
• In game 3 of the World Series, Albert Pujols had one of the greatest individual performances in baseball history, a line of 5 H / 3 HR / 6 RBI / 4 R / 14 TB, leading a 16-7 rout of the Rangers.
• Game 6 of the World Series is already considered one of the greatest baseball games ever, a contest in which the Cardinals were down to their final strike in both the 9th and 10th innings, tied the game both times (first on a 2-RBI David Freese triple, then on an RBI single by Lance Berkman), and then forced  a game 7 (that they would win) on a walk-off home run by NLCS and WS MVP Freese.