NotGraphs OOTP Fantasy: Year 5! Full Pandæmonium!

December 9, 2013

Seriously?

Our crop of 17 prospects has withered into a near nothingness, a throbbing blight of the minor leagues! We have a combined 0.3 WAR in the majors — over five seasons. Basically, Jerry “Juice” Loose reached the majors in 2015, pitched 29.0 innings, got injured, and never returned to the majors. That’s our combined career MLB experience.

Here’s a look at our miserable scouting report:

And the miserable statistical outlay of our players across all levels:

But before you say to yourself, “Well, hey, there’s some solid numbers in here,” just know: None of these players are in Triple-A. Perrywinkle, Wiggin and Osborn spent most of the season in Double-A, and everyone else was lower.

Go ahead and set the mood near your computing device — put on a vinyl of eerie Baroque music, light some candles and dab a light pale white foundation on your sallow cheeks and eye sockets — because here comes our most depressing, emo Top Five:

Top 5 NotGraphs Prospects

1. Andrew “Ender” Wiggin (27 potential)

He’s 25 now. He should be much higher if he were a legit prospect. But there are still signs he could make it in the majors, if the right opportunity presents itself.

2. Alexander “The Great” of Macedon (24 potential)

Yup. He’s being used at first and second base. The best defensive catcher of his generation and the Royals think they should try him at the cold corner.

Maybe he’ll end up in an org that knows what to do with an elite defensive catcher: Put him on your highest possible bench.

3. Dayn “Soupbones” Perry (23 potential)

WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO!?

4. Andrew “Swede” Osborn (70 potential)

I don’t buy the hype. He’s an okay defensive second baseman with: (a) injury issues, (b) age working against him already and (b) a long history of no offense.

Seriously, Swede couldn’t hit the water on his way out of a boat. Expect the 70 rating to have almost no bearing on the success of his career.

5. Eiji “The Rifleman” Sawamura (20 potential)

He’s still young, and there’s an outside chance he’ll become a low-leverage middle reliever. Yeah, that’s the depth to which this prospect list has devolved. Considering Yuniesky Betancourt almost made the cut, I think we can say this basket of prospects is nearly kaput.

Free Agents

Here’s a tragedy: The joke submission, Mr. Yuniesky Betancourt, led the prospects in WAR in 2017. He did so in a league (Single-A) far beneath his age (27), but all the same, he’s likely to find another gig during the offseason:

Say what you will about my boss, Carson Cistulli, and lord knows we say much, much worse things on a daily basis and often to his face than you, dear reader, could concoct even with God’s thesaurus, but at least the real Cistulli has steady employ.