The Trophy Wife and Miss Congeniality

[DOUGHBOYS]

I might be totally wrong. It happens a lot.
Just ask my wife.
But, I am on my umpteenth draft already and I started to wonder why all these drafts seem to have a sameness about them.
If Shawn Childs, I might say, 'The player pool is being similarly valued by most drafters.'
If Greg Ambrosius, I might say, ' Enter another, they're all different'.
If my wife, I might say, 'Maybe you've been in so many that they're running together!'

They'd all be wrong. Even though most (sorry, wife) have best intentions.
We have five categories for offense, five for pitching. This is where the parallel ends.
We treat pitching like the 15th best looking girl in a bar.
Why is that?
Just as many categories, but backburnered.

My reasoning is because of numbers.
We only need to start nine pitchers. And usually, two of those are Closers. That means seven Starters to worry about out of 30 roster spots. And to boot, we don't have to categorize lefties, righties, flame throwers, soft tossers, or even crafty.
All we need is pitchers.
Offense is a different story. 14 poitions to fill.
Not just offense.
But 7 different types of offensive players have to be used.

The numbers are pressuring us to get that offense filled.
The pitcher isn't the 15th best looking girl. She becomes the girl in waiting. While hormones are raging and we go through our blondes, brunettes, redheads, and other girls with, shall we say, less than offensive statistics, that girl waits.
She waits because she knows she's the keeper.
She knows that the others picked before her will be long forgotten if she performs up to standards.

During drafts, it seems time is running out on those offensive categories. We are soothed by the fact that there are over 150 starting pitchers to choose from. At the same time, we know that every starting catcher will be taken in most every draft.
Offensive categories put us under the gun. We have to get 14....14!
We only need 9 pitchers!
How easy is that?

So we cheat. We cheat on the girl that will take us home.
Sometimes three, four, or five rounds pass.
We only need nine. Even after five rounds, we only need nine out of 25 rounds.
Oh yeah, we're going to need three on the bench too.
Still, 12 of 25. That's not even half!
If I pick right, I can make this work!
Lester, Haren, Kuroda, they're still there. They can regain the magic can't they?
They may not be aces on their own teams, but now, they've become our ace.

We go through this angst every year. How many pitchers early? When should I pull the trigger?
One ace or two? One lump or two?
Or wait?
And that's the sameness.
If were not suffering through those decisions, we can see other drafters that are.
Some of us will go home with Strasburg on our arm.
Others with Jon Lester.
While Strasburg was the 15th choice at that bar, Lester was the 120th.
Lester's looks have faded, but we heard he has a good personality.

The Strasburg team will give the Lester team the finger for being so offensive.
The Lester team will belittle the Strasburg team for over compensating with his 'trophy wife'.

There is hope for both drafters.
Last year, the Strasburg faction could have been saved with the offensive prowess of a late Mike Trout pick.
The same could be said for the Lester team, by taking a librarian type who turned into a Victorious Secret's model in RA Dickey.
Yes, these drafts look the same. But seasons never are.
And that's what gets me through the drafting season.
A team with either Stasburg the trophy wife or Jon Lester as Miss Congeiality, both have a chance to bring us to the Promised Land.....
Now pardon me....I have to find next years Mike Trout and RA Dickey.

[Captain Hook]

Good thoughts Dan but you left off one common traits between women and pitchers ..... some would say fickle, I will take it a different direction and say predictably (mostly bad) unpredictable behavior.
There is little consistency in the majority of starting pitchers - another reason the "pretty" ones are the ones that give consistently good performances from week to week and more importantly from year to year.
Another reason we discount some of the shiny new ones that others find desirable
But just like in the real world - you may not be able to live with some of your choices but you can't live (play) without them either.