NotGraphs Free Agent Predictions
Tim Dierkes at MLB Trade Rumors was the first major source to rank and make predictions about this off-season’s free agents, and many experts have since followed suit. (You have two days left to make your own predictions at MLBTR.)
At NotGraphs, it’s not our place to care about which teams these free agents end up with, or how much money they will make, or what the going rate for a open-market marginal win is, or how new leagues and ballparks will affect relocated players — that’s for a different kind of nerdlinger.
At this weblog, where we’re more concerned about player-celebrity dopplegangers, we’ll concern ourselves with prognostications of a different order: for whom the top free agents will vote on this fine Super Tuesday!**
Zack Greinke – Abstain (via Absentee Ballot)
Greinke sure as hell isn’t going to go to the polls and sit around in a dumb crowd for hours — he has a very sensitive sense of smell! Plus, he’s catching up on video game time. Also, he doesn’t want to vote for anyone — why would he do that? — but we heard that he did send a blank absentee ballot to Missouri, where he may or may not be registered.
Josh Hamilton – Jack Fellure, Prohibition Party
Thanks to the federal court that blocked a possible voter ID requirement in Texas, Hamilton shouldn’t have any trouble at the polls today. He’ll cast a vote for Jack Fellure of the Prohibition Party; given his pending status as a hundred-millionaire and his binder full of women with whom he’s exchanged body shots, he and GOP candidate Mitt Romney have some things in common, maybe, but we’re giving Hamilton the benefit of the doubt that he’ll make the safe choice for his own future and vote Prohibition Party.
Joakim Soria – Peta Lindsay, Party of Socialism & Liberation
Soria takes things seriously: he nixed his former nickname “The Mexicutioner” due to violence in his home country. He also identifies with various socialist groups in Mexico, and would like to see those ideals set into action in the USA — which Soria calls “the country with the greatest potential in the world” — though peaceably and democratically so.
Dan Haren – Roseanne Barr, Peace & Freedom Party
It might not be a popular vote for a man who seems bound for San Diego, a city with a strong military population. Still, Haren always loved watching Roseanne when he was growing up, and he’s a peaceful creature. We’re betting those two things get to him at the polls.
Brandon McCarthy – Jill Stein, Green Party
Brandon. McCarthy. Is. Awesome. Thus.
Edwin Jackson – Rocky Anderson, Justice Party
We figure that Edwin figures that if something like Rocky’s campaign finance reforms would have been in place in MLB last year, that he would have had a better shot at securing a multi-year deal; he just didn’t have the clout to compete with some of the “better-funded” higher profile free agent candidates.
Nick Swisher – Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party
Living in New York City for four years has done a lot to open Swisher’s mind about alternative lifestyles and even foreign policy, but he’s about to gain riches, bitches, and you better not touch his money.
Mike Napoli – Merlin Miller, American Third Position Party
Napoli seems like a fuzzy, fun dude, but our gut tells us that his intentions might be misplaced, much like Merlin Miller’s take on environmental issues: “The American Third Position is committed to a beautiful, clean and healthy nation…. Overpopulation, fueled by massive Third World immigration, is a major cause of the destruction to our environment.”
Shaun Marcum – Mitt Romney, Republican
We just have a hunch.
Luke Scott.