Rankings/List

Chase Utley has been out of the Philadelphia Phillies lineup since June 28th with a thumb ligament injury, and Utley will likely be out until the middle of August.

The speed of Utley's return and how he plays once he's back will be crucial to determining whether the Philadelphia Phillies will be making their third straight World Series appearance in 2010.

Utley is just one of the Top 25 Players Who Will Be the Key to Their Team's Playoff Hopes.

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In a Major League season full of surprises, 2010 has brought on a handful of unexpected producers during the first half of the season.

Whether it has been the utter dominance of young pitchers, or the outburst of power from the big bats, there are veterans bouncing back, and many potential stars in the making.

Between some of baseball's younger generation and some of the old, a wide variety of players have stood out on an unexpected level.

On the other hand, some of the early surprises of 2010 could be just a brief flash of stardom rather than more permanent dominance.

For this slideshow, I'm going to try and take the meaning of MVP (Most Valuable Player) as literally as possible.

Yes, some guys may have better stats that the top ones on this list, but I have ordered my top 10 based on how much the player's team would be hurt if he was taken off of it.

Let's get the discussion started.

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With the second half of the Major league baseball season under way, here are some predictions as to what could end up happening when the regular season is all said and done. There will also be two bold predictions at the end, those of which would shock the sports world, and could happen if events fall a certain way.

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With the All-Star break concluding yesterday, I thought it would be a good time to look at the best players in baseball through the first three months of the season.

I decided the best way to do this objectively was to use the Wins Above Replacement (WAR) stat that is used on many sites, including the one I used (Fangraphs.com).

WAR is a stat that measures how many wins a player is worth over a replacement level player, or a player that any team can plug into a hole whenever is needed (think a AAA player filling in for an injured player).

This stat is calculated in a complicated way, but it

With the best record in baseball through the 1st half of the season, the defending champion New York Yankees look to be in prime position to make a run at their 2nd World Series Championship in as many years.

On the streets there are rumblings of the return of the, "Dynasty."

Years 1996 - 2000 hold a special place for every Yankee fan. To this day, I can remember the entire starting line up of the '96 Yankees, but I can't do multiplication to save my life.

I am sure many Yankee fans are the same way. To fans like us, baseball is more important than math.

These rankings are based on a 300 point system, 150 for offensive production, and 150 for pitching production. 30 points (1 point for each team) are the most points any team can receive in a given category. For instance, if the Rays lead the league in HR's they will get 30 points for that category.

The 5 offensive categories used:

HR's, RBI, Runs, Average, and SB's           

The 5 pitching categories used:

The St. Louis Cardinals know a mid-season drought should only be temporary—injuries, slumps, and the like are issues every ballclub encounters.

Although they boast a strong lineup on paper, the Cardinals are in trouble at the 2010 season midpoint: Two starting pitchers and an All-Star outfielder are injured, and the Redbirds' big bats have yet to live up to their potentials.

An obvious cure for injury and lack of performance is to go to the bench, but sometimes the bench simply cannot get the job done. So, franchises make larger adjustments—they make trades.

Part of being the team with the worst record in all of baseball is that you become a huge seller right before baseball's trade deadline.

As the team who fits that role, it is no surprise that the Orioles have been talked about these past weeks as being potential sellers for teams that are in the playoff race.

In return for these veterans that the Orioles currently own, team management will look for prospects who can possibly help the team in the future.

Andy MacPhail has always said that he won't make trades just to make them, but with several older veterans on a team that has already looke

Sometimes star players get injured, like when Dustin Pedroia and Andre Ethier got injured, and you need to get someone to replace that star player.

In this list I will tell you what good players you could get at each position for the start of the second half of the season.

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