Best Tools 2011: NotGraphs Edition

As I noted last week in a FanGraphs post aimed both at the heart and the head, Baseball America recently released its Best Tools issue. For those who possess an unhealthy fascination with the hairless youths that populate minor-league baseball, the Best Tools issue represents an opportunity to learn which of those youths precisely owns the best power or best defense or best fastball in each respective league — and in the major leagues, too.

The problem, of course, is that the majority of BA’s readership is concerned with things like “facts” — which (i.e. facts), while interesting for a period, eventually begin to pall.

We at NotGraphs are concerned not with facts — what legendary filmmaker and frightening dinner companion Werner Herzog refers to as the “accountant’s truth” — but rather ecstatic truth. That is, the truth that ought to be true.

Thus, we thusly present the following: a hastily assembled, and totally unsupported, list of the “tools” most relevant to the ordinary fan, just sitting at home on his couch, thinking unkempt thoughts about Sofia Vergara and liniment.

Note that all dissent will fall on deaf ears — or, at least, the one deaf ear that the author sustained during a swimming accident as a 7-year-old. The same author will gladly accept any and all notes, however — especially if it allows him (read: me) to squeeze another short post out of this thinnest of pretenses.

To the truth, in no order whatsoever:

Best Mustache/Beard Situation: Travis Snider

Filthiest Whiffmaker: Daniel Bard’s Filthy Whiffmaker

Man Among Men: Josh Collmenter

Cat Among the Pigeons: Nyjer Morgan

Rooster in the Henhouse: Jim Palmer’s Tan

Voice of Our Lives: Bob Uecker

Magicalest Pitch: Kenley Jansen’s Cutter

Dick Allen Lifetime Achievement Award: Dick Allen

Greatest Ejector: Joe West

Whimsicalest Statement-Maker: Peter Gammons on the Twitters