Gifts under $20, $10, and even $5. It\u2019s Wish, the catch-all shop for all of the above. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nIs Madison Bumgarner going to be enshrined in Cooperstown after he retires? Not at his current pace. If he were to reach the World Series next year and surrender 23 consecutive runs without recording an out, he\u2019d still have a better World Series ERA than Justin Verlander, but how many of you would take prime Bumgarner over prime Verlander when building their teams? If any of you aren\u2019t Giants fans and chose Bumgarner, I would heavily suggest getting your brain checked out. There isn\u2019t any universe where prime Bumgarner is the better option over the course of multiple seasons. Hell, even after his incredible 2014 World Series MVP performance, when Bumgarner hype was skyrocketing faster than Elon Musk\u2019s ego, MLB general managers still claimed that they would\u2019ve rather had Kershaw than MadBum, and at that point in his career, Kershaw had a 5.12 postseason ERA and had never appeared in a World Series.<\/p>\n
The same goes for others in similar boats. Cole Hamels was never seriously thought of as a better pitcher than CC Sabathia. Pablo Sandoval was never considered a better hitter than Robinson Can\u00f3 (OK maybe immediately following the 2009 season). And Lord knows David Freese was never on the same level as David Wright. Despite all the latter players having struggled mightily in their postseason careers, most of them are held in rather high regard in fan circles, while the earlier players might be looked back upon fondly, but never given a second thought when it comes to Hall of Fame credentials.<\/p>\n
It goes both ways though. While postseason excellence certainly doesn\u2019t hurt a player\u2019s legacy, most of the time, that success becomes a footnote rather than the forefront of the player\u2019s greatness. Unless said player had a legendarily good stretch spanning multiple postseason runs like Reggie Jackson or Derek Jeter, the postseason gets forgotten about in most players\u2019 careers. Everybody knows Willie Mays was on-deck when Bobby Thomson hit the \u201cShot Heard \u2018Round the World\u201d and went on to be a world champion that same year, but do we ever talk about how Mays then went on to record pretty mediocre numbers the rest of his postseason career? No. We remember 660 regular-season home runs. We remember 12 top-six MVP finishes in 13 seasons between 1954 and 1966.<\/p>\n
When discussing Barry Bonds\u2019 Hall of Fame credentials, do we talk about how he never won a World Series and hit .245 across 48 career postseason games? No. The discussion usually revolves around PEDs and\/or him being the all-time MLB home run leader and the only member of the 500-500 club. <\/p>\n
Justin Verlander might not have what it takes to be an elite postseason pitcher, but that doesn\u2019t take away from anything else he\u2019s done. Are we forgetting that he was undoubtedly the best pitcher in the American League this year? Are we forgetting that he\u2019s a 39-year-old, soon-to-be three-time Cy Young winner who\u2019ll likely command $25-$30 million if he hits the open market next year? No, and no amount of poor World Series starts will take away from his Hall of Fame candidacy. If we\u2019re being real, he\u2019d have to have a 20.00 ERA in the World Series for him to not be a first-ballot entry at this point.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
[ad_2]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[ad_1] The seemingly AL Cy Young winner didn\u2019t look nice in Game 1 of the World SeriesImage: Getty Images Justin Verlander has an ideal shot at profitable the American League Cy Young award this 12 months. He pieced collectively a dominant season \u2014 at age 39 \u2014 after recovering from Tommy John surgical procedure and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"The](\"https:\/\/i.kinja-img.com\/gawker-media\/image\/upload\/c_fill,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_center,h_80,pg_1,q_80,w_80\/d4ecd946a6c86487407b84e2b3e31fd6.jpg)
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"10%](\"https:\/\/i.kinja-img.com\/gawker-media\/image\/upload\/c_fill,fl_progressive,g_center,h_180,q_80,w_320\/e1dd92443bcd157c338b719271683a74.png\")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n