Additionally, I have an exciting group venture proposal to make. It involves unlimited hot dogs and our (collective) name in lights. Details forthcoming.
In the meantime, here is the much delayed summary of my pre-season attractiveness rankings. There are tons of statistical categories by which traditional baseball analysts assess and compare different teams and players, but Sam and I have really blazed a trail with our aesthete-metrics (or Grady-metrics, if you'd rather). Here's a quick overview of my methodology: each week, I focused on a specific division and rated each individual player's MLB Fantasy mugshot on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 denoting extreme optical offensiveness and 10 being the opposite of that. Each team was given a ranking based on the average score of their mugshot ratings.
As in real baseball, the American League did better than the National League. But not by much:
In the above graph (crappy Excel screenshot...sorry), division leaders are highlighted in blue for the American League and in red for the National League. Interestingly, while the three NL division leaders are clustered together at the top of their league, there's a bit of distance between the best teams from the AL East, West and Central. Good lord, what's happening out in the grain belt? Grady Sizemore must tower over his fellow Midwesterners like a gigantic, radiant king amongst trolls. Here's the list again, with divisional averages (winners in blue and peach):
The NL actually fares better than the AL, here. Although the AL East leads all of the other divisions by a strong margin, the NL West and the NL Central rank higher than their AL counterparts by about 0.3 points each. Here's how the playoffs would look:AL Divisional Series: Indians v. Mariners; Yankees v. Orioles (WC)
It's pretty funny to note that, true to life, the wild card goes to the second place team in the AL East.
NL Divisional Series: Brewers v. Mets; Dodgers v. Giants (WC)
AL Championship Series: Yankees v. Mariners
NL Championship Series: Dodgers v. Mets
WORLD SERIES: Yankees v. Dodgers
(I'm not going to be obnoxious, so I'll let the Dodgers win one game instead of predicting a full-blown NYY sweep).
Ladies and gentlemen, as if there were ever any doubts, your 2009 World Series champions (not to be confused with your 2009 World Baseball Classic champions) are the NEW YORK YANKEES. [cue confetti, champagne, Jock Jams]
Here's how all of the teams stacked up:
Apparently, there hasn't been a Jock Jams or related-spinoff CD since 2000. Perhaps we should make our own Third Base or Bust Jock Jams compilation? Reeeeeeeee-mix!!!!!!!!!!!!!
