If you’re a free-agent baseball player, there’s only one thing on earth that’s scarier than being teamless on New Year's Day.
And that’s still being teamless on Super Bowl Sunday.
Well, Super Bowl Sunday is approaching. And the baseball unemployment lines are still way too long. So either that means Congress is going to have to pass a baseball-jobs bill (ho ho ho) or we’re going to have to take action here -- by churning out the latest, annotated edition of our All-Unemployed Team:
The infield
- 1B – Russell Branyan
2B – Mark Ellis
SS – Everth Cabrera
3B – Gordon Beckham
Hey, pickings are slim. It’s not a great time to go infielder-shopping, OK? At first base, my options basically came down to Branyan, who spent most of last season playing for los Toros de Tijuana, or Lyle Overbay, who was last seen (or heard) leaning toward retirement. Or there’s Greg Dobbs, who went 7-for-41, with one extra-base hit and a .381 OPS, last year. So what the heck. Always fun to have Russell Branyan on your team, even if he hasn’t had a big league hit since 2011.
Second base ought to be Yoan Moncada's spot. But since he still hasn’t been cleared to go team-shopping, the State Department tells me I’m down to Ellis, Rickie Weeks, Rafael Furcal or Pick A Utility Dude from a list that includes Robert Andino, Tony Abreu, Mike Fontenot, Brandon Hicks, Jayson Nix, Elliot Johnson and Brent Lillibridge. I took Weeks in my Twitter version of this team last week, so I’ll mix it up and go with Ellis this week.
But wait. Why not Beckham, you ask? Because I need him to play third. Somebody has to do it on this team, even if we shift a lot.
And at short? How could we not trot Cabrera out there? The alternatives are Ronny Cedeno, Omar Quintanilla, Ray Olmedo and Mike McCoy. Any debate here? Great. Let’s move on.
The outfield
- LF – Ryan Ludwick
CF – Reed Johnson
RF – Nate Schierholtz
Once Ichiro Suzuki, Jonny Gomes and Colby Rasmus signed, I no longer needed to consult any advanced metrics to pick the outfield on this team. The alternatives: Ryan Doumit, Eric Young Jr., Scott Hairston and a bunch of six-year free agents you don’t need to hear. Anybody want to lobby for EY Jr. or, say, Mike Baxter? Feel free. But our All-Unemployed Team front office was pretty much unanimous on this one.
The rest of the lineup
- DH – Jason Giambi
C – Jose Molina
My DH selection came down to Giambi, who still wants to play, or Manny Ramirez, who is still Manny, or somebody like Weeks, who got squeezed out at another spot. I don’t know if Giambi could stay healthy enough to play more than, like, 35 games, but whatever. He’s got “All-Unemployed DH” written all over him.
At catcher, hey, take your pick: Molina, Geovany Soto, Gerald Laird, Wil Nieves, Humberto Quintero, Kelly Shoppach. But here’s the deal: I’m in favor of keeping all the Molina brothers on the planet playing until they’re at least 52. So Jose, go frame some borderline strikes.
The rotation
I’m not sure what Shields is doing hanging out with the rest of this rotation, but I’ve already covered that. And I really can’t understand why nobody will give Young a big league deal, either. Heck, the Mariners won as many games when he started last year (17) as they did when Hisashi Iwakuma started.
But after those two, I’m basically throwing darts. If I could jump in a time machine, I’d run Johan Santana, Barry Zito, Randy Wolf and Bruce Chen out there. But since that isn’t an option, I’ll take Correia, Kendrick and Saunders. You can have Roberto (Don’t Call Me Fausto) Hernandez, Paul Maholm and Brandon Beachy. Or Eric Stults, Freddy Garcia and Scott Baker, for that matter. I’ll take my chances.
The bullpen
I’m not sure how often the rest of my team will allow my bullpen to take a lead into the seventh inning. But I like my chances if that ever happens. This is actually a respectable bullpen, which is more than I can say for most of this roster. And if you don’t like this group, it’s insane how many other options there are out there to choose from.
Ready for just a partial list of other relievers left on the buffet line? Brian Wilson, John Axford, Joba Chamberlain, Mike Adams, Carlos Villanueva, Dustin McGowan, Matt Lindstrom, Chris Perez, Kevin Gregg, Carlos Marmol, Matt Capps, Jared Burton, Joe Beimel, Ronald Belisario and Jose Veras.
Granted, your reaction might well be: “Those guys weren't any good last year.” To which I’d say: Maybe, but given the year-to-year dependability coin flip with modern relief pitchers, you’d have a better shot signing a bunch of guys who had lousy years than guys who had breakthrough years. I’d argue the law of averages would actually be with you on that. Then again, there’s an excellent reason that the only team I’m allowed to be the general manager of is the All-Unemployed Team.
The rest of the roster
Finally, any team like this needs extra-special attention to detail. I think I’ve got that covered:
- Facial Hair Coach – Brian Wilson
Dreadlock Coach – Manny Ramirez
Shirt Tuck Fashion Coach – Rafael Soriano
Guitar Picking Coach – Barry Zito
Poetry Coach – Will Rhymes