Season Preview: The Little Green One

Next up is our commish's team, and we're taking a different tact in previewing his team. As long-time league members know, Andy is the kiss of death. Literally. In our inaugural draft, he was ridiculed by all for taking Daryl Kile in the 4th round, and we were all proven right by Kile dropping dead 3 months later. Fast forward to 2009, and the Curse of Andy hits again, as his top prospect, Nick Adenhart, is felled by a drunk driver just before the season starts. In the years between these passings, pitcher Josh Hancock also loses his life to drunk driving, this time at his own hand. We only include this because Hancock played for the Cardinals, the Commish's favorite team. For those of you counting, that's two players on his fantasy team and two players on his real team (Kile counts for both) that have croaked since we've started this league. The rest of the league combined has lost zero, unless you subscribed to the theory that all Mets are in the Lost time-vortex. Uncoincidentally, this team has never finished in the money, much like Wu Tang Financial and pastywhite tyrone.

Clearly, the key thing that's keeping the Commish from landing in the money is keeping his team healthy. And by healthy we don't even mean off the disabled list, we mean off the coroner's table. But this franchise and owner appear to be cursed. So to really know how well the Miniature Kermits are going to fare in 2010, let's look at the opening day roster as 27 candidates for an Uber-Dead Pool, where we calculate which players have the best odds of winning this year's Who's Gonna Die On Andy's Team contest. When applicable, we'll note whether or not the guy can actually play baseball.

Only By Random Chance

Elvis Andrus, Ted Lilly, Aaron Harang, Gavin Floyd, James Shields, Brett Gardner, Chris Tillman: 100-1. Young and healthy enough by all accounts. Also about as innocuous as you can get for baseball players.

Matt Holliday, Mark Texieria, Evan Longoria, John Lackey: 80-1. More famous than the above entry, but still no reason to think they'd be felled any time soon.

Mark Buerhle: 75-1. This guy's a workhorse and may actually be invincible.

Chris Carter, Logan Morrison: 70-1. Prospects two years in a row? Highly unlikely.

Environmental Factors

Conor Jackson, Ian Kennedy: 50-1. Slightly better odds because they play near a retirement community, and you never know when an old fart will mix up the brake and accelerator pedals while they're drinking on the sidewalk in Paradise Valley.

Denard Span, Matt Guerrier: 40-1. The Twins now play outdoor baseball in April and October, and possibly November. Frostbite and hypothermia are in play.

Chase Utley: 30-1. Always a chance a deranged Met fan goes postal.

Mariano Rivera: 25-1. Be careful around his pool.

Ryan Rowland-Smith: 20-1. Aussies are cantankerous, fun-loving and risk takers. This guy, in addition to being a middling starting pitcher, is an avid surfer and his sister Rhiannon is a professional surfer. Good sleeper pick to drown tragically.

Geovany Soto: 18-1. Puerto Rican with an Italian name. In the 50's, that would have gotten you killed, or at least been the subject of an overproduced musical.

Uh-Oh

Bobby Jenks: 8-1. Fat and trying to get thinner. Ephedra?

Brett Myers: 5-1. Already a noted brawler, has the potential to die in a fist fight at a bar or at the hands of a scorned lover.

Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz: 4-1. The amount of drugs, alcohol and other ilicit substances these two have injected into themselves either means that they're preserved like a corpse or about to keel over with one more shot.

Daisuke Matsuzaka: 5-2. Half of Boston already wishes he were dead, and let's not put it past Murphy O'Sullivan to make it happen. I assume that Bill Simmons represents the average Boston fan, and his vitriol is such that you assume the drunken guys would stop at nothing to give Clay Buchholz a clear shot at the rotation. At let's not rule out Tim Wakefield taking a potshot at him when he least expects it. Here's the morning line favorite.

Conclusion

The squad is due for some luck, which we take to mean that nobody will croak between now and October 1st. We predict another bottom of the league finish and no funerals before Columbus Day.