Two days ago I introduced the first-and-only-ever NotGraphantasy Draft. Yesterday, Bradley Woodrum unveiled his team, the Woodrum Whiteys, and then Jeremy Blachman presented his team, and then today, Mike “The Common Man” Bates gave us the Bates-o-Matic Fun Machine.

Here is the roster for my team, Baumann’s Earnest Best (draft rounds in parentheses):

C – Gary Carter (3)
1B – Joey Votto (5)
2B – Joe Morgan (7)
3B – John “Bad Dude” Stearns (11)
SS – Henry Skrimshander (9)
OF – The Greatest (1)
OF – Glen Gorbous (10)
OF – Reggie Jackson (8)

P – Mark “Bird” Fidrych (2)
P – Pedro Martinez (4)
P – Bill “Spaceman” Lee (6)

Manager – Ron Washington (S3)
Executive – Billy Fucking Beane (S1)
Home Park – The Sandlot (S2)

Before I offer brief commentary on each of my selections, I want to say something about Baumann’s Earnest Best as a team, and the philosophy behind its construction. As the name suggests, Baumann’s Earnest Best is a team full of pathos and sincerity; the players/personalities live(d) life and participate(d) in the game in a way that only they could/can. Some met every game and every day with a youthful exuberance (here’s looking at you, Kid), some see every plate appearance as a chance to destroy personal demons. All of these men provide their own examples of intense sincerity, an awareness of self that, for better or worse, sets them apart from the world at large in a way that allows their public-baseball-being to be intensified.

That, I believe, was the guiding principle in the construction of this team.
 
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The Wall Street Journal has a fun piece about the disaster that is the New York Mets. Every AAA affiliate hates them, so they’re stuck with the worst, a Las Vegas team a million miles away from New York, with a lousy stadium, dry air, and no grounds crew.

“They’re undesirable,” said Dave Rosenfield, a longtime Norfolk (Va.) Tides executive. “Nobody wants them.”

The Las Vegas agreement ends after 2014. After moving from Norfolk to New Orleans to Buffalo and now to Las Vegas, there seems to be nowhere worse to go.

Which means the 2015 Mets AAA affiliate is likely going to end up somewhere even more inconvenient…

Like Kandahar. Or Mars. Or nowhere. Go Mets.

Did we get him? Fuck yeah, we got him.

When I was asked to join the NotGraphantasy Draft, I was at once honored and horrified at being included in any project that Carson Cistulli would actively try to ruin by being himself. But I soldiered on because I’m a hero. Speaking of heroes, let’s talk about my team, which I chose strategically and with malice of forethought. The goal was to put together a team that would be as much fun to follow as possible, that was the most loveable. Fuck “poetry” and all that. Give me some guys I can root for. That said, I did make a couple of picks I’d take back if I could, to which mistakes I’ll uncharacteristically own up and explain what I should have done differently. So without further ado, I present:

The Bates-o-Matic Fun Machine

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Celebrated Dodgers prospect Yasiel Puig has, like 15 minutes ago, officially hit his first official major-league home run. Because many of his previous home runs have been accompanied by what late New Yorker editor William Shakespeare would have described as “dramatic flourish,” the prospect of Puig’s first major-league home run has served as a matter of some interest.

Indeed, there’s little drama here. So far as the author can detect, there’s a suggestion of flip — much in the way that there’s a suggestion of red fruit in this delicious Malbec right here — although it’s also the case that Puig’s swing generally possesses recoil like this.

Are we disappointed? Perhaps. But not nearly as much as we’ll one day be in our children. Or in our children’s children. Or (especially) in our children’s children’s children.

Click here for other enlightening installments of NotGraphs Video Scouting.

uekersheen
(This is courtesy of WTMJ, from the Sunday game v. the Phillies)

I fancy myself fairly competent at various things. I can play a decent tuba. I’m an OK curler. I can fix your computer. I can … do whatever it is I do here. You may be good at things too — very good, even. I’m sure you worked long and hard at that thing, and you’re very proud of yourself. All of that being said, it pains me to bring up the fact that no matter what you’re good at, you will not be as good at that thing as Bob Uecker is at calling baseball games. Sorry.

The story isn’t the best one he’s ever told, but it’s a perfect example of how he can weave play-by-play with a narrative. You know where the game ends and the story begins (and vice versa), but it’s almost like the words don’t know. They just keep coming, playing off each other. Bob Uecker is all five parts in a jazz quintet. He’s everyone in the improv troupe, and he’s “yes, and”-ing the shit out of himself.

Did Charlie Sheen really say all those things? Probably not. I don’t care. Because Bob Uecker could read the User’s Manual for Adobe CS4, and I’d still listen. This is art. This is science. This is perfection.

Here at Notgraphs Headquarters — at intimate moments before our shared mirror — we like to regard ourselves as Tricksters: rocking the boat, keeping society on its toes, therapeutically inverting the natural order of things. Hence our dedication to exposing the greatnesses of the weak and the weaknesses of the mighty. Given that dedication, I find it incomprehensible that we have not yet paid proper tribute to one such phenomenon: namely, the single most flagrant weakness of the single mightiest baseball player of all time.

This weakness is often described euphemistically, as in, “Babe Ruth was an aggressive, if not particularly efficient, base stealer,” or, “Ruth had deceptive speed on the basepaths, as evidenced by the 123 steals he racked up during his career.” No. Babe Ruth was the worst base stealer of all time. I want this point to be absolutely clear. Because there seems to be some ambivalence about ascribing such a glaring flaw to such a heroic figure, I will proceed to support my assertion with Evidence.

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I approached the NotGraphantasy Draft much the way I approach all of my fantasy drafting. I tried to pick the smartest, grittiest team I could, filled with players I would want to hang out with, regardless of their statistics. Measured against that benchmark, I think I did pretty well, although I did make some picks I now regret, driven mostly by the need to fill the mustache, sex scandal, and obese catcher quotas.

ROUND 1: Joe McEwing, 2B

I picked Super Joe with my first selection because if I owned a baseball team, and I didn’t care whether or not we won any games, I would want him on the field. McEwing may have had a 71 OPS+ for his career, but my unscientific study has him leading the league in grit, hustle, and unbelievably positive press. Super Joe had an amazing 2001 season with the Mets, a .283/.342/.449 line that bought him five more seasons in uniform. He was Tony LaRussa’s favorite player. He could play seven positions capably. He’s in the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame, whatever that is, and, from all of that crazy press he gets, even as a third-base coach, it seems like he must be a pretty awesome guy.

ROUND 2: David Wright, 3B

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Robert Bauman introduced it, I’ma start it. A NotGraphs crew including myself, Carson Cistulli, Robert J. Baumann, Jeremy Blachman, David G. Temple, Mike Bates, Patrick Dubuque, Navin Vaswani, and Eno Sarris drafted teams we considered to embody the NotGraphs spirit (and then also possibly win an a no-holds-barred, not-previously-delineated-rules-wise fantasy season).

Without further ado, I present the Woodrum Whiteys!

Follow the jump to see my notes from the draft.
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Very exciting Dodger prospect Yasiel Puig ended his first ever major-league game with the good kind of double play, catching a fly ball off the bat of Kyle Blanks with one out in the top of the ninth, and then doubling up otherwise totally blameless Italian-American Chris Denorfia at first base — and creating SEO Magic in the process.