Adam Wainwright

Albert Pujols did everything he could possibly do and then some to try to get the St. Louis Cardinals to the playoffs.  But, with the Cincinnati Reds preparing for October, something clearly went wrong.  The Cardinals came into the 2010 season with World Series aspirations, but now they will have to settle for watching it on TV.

Pujols did have some help this year.  Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, and Matt Holiday all deserve credit for having excellent years.

As the regular season wraps up, many teams and their fans are looking to October and, they hope, a World Series win. For other teams and their fans, they are looking to the offseason, hoping to make a few trades or free agent acquisitions to bounce them back into contention.

In some situations, these trades end up paying huge dividends, and not always for the party that was looking to get the major piece. At the same time, once in a while there's a great free agent pickup at a bargain that launches a team into the playoffs and a World Series ring.

Not many pitchers with a 12-12 record would ever make a compelling case to win a Cy Young Award. But Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners not only has a legitimate case, he is the most deserving to win in the American League.

Can we really look through the historical legacy of Major League Baseball and say that out of all of the great arms that have stymied hitters for the past century that Cy Young was the greatest of them all? I, personally, don't think so. That is completely up to debate, as is almost all things baseball, and especially the Cy Young award and how it has evolved into the most prestigious pitching award given away in the Major Leagues.

As the 2010 Major League Baseball regular season begins to wind down, it is time to start to think about candidates for the annual awards.

After years of hitters dominating the league, this season has been all about the resurgence of the pitcher.  That is why this year's NL Cy Young race is filled with a lot of pitchers who have had great individual seasons.

Here are the top five candidates for the 2010 NL Cy Young award.

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With the 2010 baseball season nearly coming to a close, it's time to take a look at the National League Cy Young candidates.

If the season ended today, the St. Louis Cardinals would fall short of a playoff berth.  This failure could be epic, it could be historic, and it could be something we never witness again.

There are many arguments as to why a pitcher deserves to win both the Cy Young award and the MVP award, but perhaps the most important issue revolves around what a pitcher brings to a ball club.

What I mean by that is if you had to put a franchise tag on one individual on a baseball team, a majority of the time (if not all the time), that nods goes towards a starting pitcher.

There’s a reason for that, but we'll get to that later.

With the playoff races heating up, and everything starting to take shape, I am here to put in my opinion on who will win each MLB division, who will win each pennant, and who will win the Fall Classic.

The only division in the MLB right now with possibly a clear outlook is the AL West, but anything can happen.

I'll keep it short and sweet, so here we go.

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In the pre-season it was Roy Halladay.  For the first three months of the year it was Ubaldo Jimenez.  Josh Johnson took over for a little while, but as of now there can be no doubt.

The St. Louis Cardinals' Adam Wainwright is now your front-runner for the National League Cy Young Award.

Remember just under two months ago, when Jimenez won his 14th start of the season to run his record to 13-1 with a 1.15 ERA?