With the 2011 season in the record books, it's time to look back at some of the unique stories of the year of the Dodgers.

The Texas Rangers, with a potent lineup anchored by Justin Smoak, Julio Borbon and Jarrod Saltalamacchia and a shutdown rotation featuring 21 game-winner Derek Holland and 15 game-winners Neftali Feliz and Matt Harrison, set the record for regular season wins by an iMLB team. They won 117 games, and won their division by an unbelievable 43 games. They could've stopped winning games at the end of July and still made the playoffs. Their consistency was also a thing of beauty, as the Texas squad never lost more than 10 games in a month. Their worst winning percentage in a full month was their .654 in July when they went 17-9.

The Los Angeles Dodgers overcame some late-season swoons to run away with the Wild Card win by 10 games, and after dispatching the NL's best regular season team in the Pittsburgh Pirates, they topped division rival San Diego -- who took the West crown from them by one game -- in the LCS. In the World Series, the Dodgers met the Rangers, who were were 7-0 at the time in the postseason. With two dominating pitching performances from ace David Price, the Dodgers handily took care of the Rangers, winning the series in five in a huge upset. En route to their World Series crown, the Dodgers became the first iMLB Wild Card team to go on and win the World Series.

The Pittsburgh Pirates featured the most dominant one-two pitching punch in the league, but couldn't get it done in the playoffs. After Ben Roethlisberger and Jonathon Sanchez combined for a 35-9 record with a 2.32 ERA and a 1.02 WHIP in the regular season, the Pirates bullpen eroded behind them in the playoffs, and it cost them against the surging Dodgers. Their trio of big hitters, Logan Morrison, Nate McLouth and Brandon Moss -- who all hit at least .305 and 24 homeruns in the regular season -- disappeared in the playoffs, combining to hit just over .200 with zero homeruns in two RBI's in four games.

Jose Reyes put together the most impressive single season in the three year history of the iMLB. The eighth-year pro flirted with .400 most of the year and ended the season with a .376 batting average. He also hit 45 doubles, 23 homeruns and had 101 RBI's. He only struck out 30 times on the season. What put Reyes' stats over the top, however, was his Gold Glove-caliber defense -- he only made 11 errors in 142 games -- at shortstop and his blazing speed. He led the majors with 53 base swipes.

2011 also seemed to be the year of the bust for big-name free agents. Kansas City signed starting pitchers Cliff Lee and Javier Vazquez to big contracts in hopes of breaking a 26-year drought from the playoffs. In spite of Vazquez going down for the season after just nine starts, the tandem combined for a pedestrian 18-11 record and an ERA just over 5.  Not what the fans of Kansas City expected when the two are being paid just over $40 million a season. 

The other marquee pitcher on the free agent market, Josh Beckett, had a rough go-around in '11. He signed with the Blue Jays for $13.5 million, and he was almost worth his weight in losses. The former ace, who is only 31, was 6-16 in 34 starts for the Jays, compiling a 5.36 ERA in almost 200 innings pitched.  That leaves his most recent two-year total at 16-27 with a 5.80 ERA and many fans wondering if Beckett can ever return to his old form.

Catcher Victor Martinez hit the jackpot with a $27.7 million per year contract in Detroit, but he didn't do much to turn around the fortunes of a franchise in trouble. The Tigers won a few more games than last year, but nowhere near enough to contend for the playoffs. In his first season as a Tiger, Martinez hit 22 homeruns and collected 83 RBI's while hitting .277, a far cry from his ..320, 39 homerun and 100 RBI campaign that got him the monster deal.

In the National League, Jayson Werth, who signed on for over $25 million per last year with the San Francisco Giants, ended up hitting .294 with 19 homeruns and 78 RBIs. Not a terrible stat line, but not what you're expecting from the third highest paid player in the iMLB, and especially not what the Giants were expecting from a guy with 73 homeruns and 201 RBIs in the two years prior to coming to SF.