All-Decade Team: Relief Pitcher

Talk to 10 Frontier League managers and you'll likely to get 10 different opinions on the importance of left-handed relief pitchers and how to use them at this level of baseball.

Some managers don't care if a reliever is a lefty or righty. In 2004, the Wild Things didn't have a left-handed relief pitcher and won the East Division title with their All-Right Bullpen. Other managers find lefty relievers to be a necessity and love playing the lefty-righty percentages late in games.

In Major League Baseball, there have been studies done that link a team's success to the number of left-handers they have in the bullpen. In the Frontier League, some managers simply want three reliable relievers to use late in games and it doesn't matter from which side they throw.

The Wild Things have had only a few reliable left-handers over their first 10 seasons, and the most effective was Kevin Hammons, who spent the last two summers in Washington.

Hammons, a former Florida Marlins minor leaguer, simply dominated left-handed hitters. The numbers show just how valuable Hammons was when former manager Darin Everson played the percentages late in games. Left-handed batters were a measly 6-for-54 (.115) against Hammons in 2010. Last year, lefties were 8-for-37 (.216) against Hammons, who did not walk a left-handed hitter all year.

For the two seasons, lefties batted only .154 against Hammons.

Of course, lefties weren't the only batters Hammons could retire. He had a 9-6 record, three saves and 2.62 ERA with the Wild Things. Those numbers, along with being the franchise's best lefty reliver, land him a spot on the all-decade team

All-Decade Relief Pitcher: Kevin Hammons (2010-11)