2010 ended up being a year full of surprises both good and bad. Over the next two non story days we will ask you what you felt were the best of these. In honor of Tripon and Humma we will first take a look at the bad surprises.
1. Manny getting traded for nothing. Basically Manny not finishing the year with the Dodgers even though he had a .915 OPS at the time we traded him.
2. Broxton unraveling to the point that your stomach got queasy when he came in.
3. Matt Kemp hitting .233/.299/.423 from July 16 till the end of the year in 281 plate appearances.
4. James Loney hitting .211/.285./331 from July 16th till the end of the year. That would be 271 plate appearances of Mark Belanger, the worst hitting SS I can think of.
5. Andre Ethier hitting .256/.348./.426 from July 16th till the end of the year after being a Triple Crown Candidate on May 14th with a line of .392 / .457 / .744.
There were more but based on the comments when I put forth the question this seemed to be the top five to me. I'll a sixth (other) but if you pick it, please tell us what you would have picked.
I didn't expect Manny to finish the season with the Dodgers so I can't vote for number one but many of you were adamant that he would so maybe that is your vote.
I was however very much on the Loney bandwagaon and after a decent 1st half I really thought he'd get it going in the 2nd half, so for me, that putrid performance of his in the 2nd half was the biggest surprise to me.
Andre has always been hot and cold so maybe the cold streak was not so surprising.
I think Kemps season would not have been such a surprise if we had not watched him hit opposite field home runs with regularity at the beginning of the year. Who knew you could realize that you had great power to RC field, then simply decide not to take advantage of it for most of the year. Many of us hoped that Kemp was going to build on 2009 and become a MVP candidate in 2011. He did after all win the Golden Glove and Silver Slugger awards. He was the guy we thought was our elite player. He was the Bison we expected to trample on his opponents not get brought down by a simple arrow down and away.
Then again after being as good as you can be, our boy Broxton was just about as bad as you can be. Given how much effort was put forth supporting Broxton, maybe his suckitude was the biggest baddest surprise in tow for us in 2010.