Swing Time with Swish

March 28, 2010

Hellllllloooooooo. Swish is here to work my thang and make you walk a little lighter in your loafers with my shake, rattle and roll. That old curmudgeon is really bumming me out with his negativity and hate for the Diamondbacks and Thunder Chickens, so let me get my butch on and tell you how it will all shake out in CRABS in 2010.

The draft is now over and Arizona is likely to complete a few dozen trades in the next 6 months, but we have a blueprint to each team's 2010 season and let's see who has what and what they are likely to do with it. Here is Swish's Top Ten list for the draft:

With the surprising selection of Stephen Strasburg, the Carolina Sand Gnats made a quick impact on the CRABS league. By drafting a young fireballer with a herky-jerky motion, they showed that they know what they like when they see it and I'll be on his doorstep late tonight to show him a real herky-jerky motion. The Leo Nunez pickup will be nice trade bait come mid-season, but the rest is roster filler.

The Chicago Cubbies grabbed a young shortstop with a lot of promise and a lot of mediocre guys who fell a few rounds past where they should have been taken. This draft won't make them a World Series contender, but they do have the quality backups necessary to fall one game short of the wild card for the 24th year in a row.

Atlanta added two very young and virile trainees in Dustin Ackley and Jeremy Hellickson. These two are keepers, but the rest aren't even worth a drunken one night stand.

Bellmore successfully avoided being present for another draft and in the process added quite a number of quality players who seemed to slip to later rounds. John Maine, Garret Jones and Ryan Rowland-Smith were nice finds as his surrogate drafter should get paid extra.

Las Vegas selected a number of good but not great players. After blowing a lot of picks on pre-draft trades, there wasn't a lot left to draft with. Kyle Drabek, Brad Penny, and Kyle Lohse could all be packaged to Arkansas as part of a package to get leverage some high 2011 draft picks. The real finds were in the middle rounds where the lumberjack Ty Flowers (I'd like to see his flannel shirt on my floor) and the versatile (and you know what I mean) Todd Frazier much later than expected.

Arkansas loaded up on young talent to make a run at the 2014 championship. Dan Hudson, Shelby Miller, Eric Young, Alex Liddi, and Phillippe Aumont – YOWZA that's some Grade A meat! They will likely take a step backward in their quest to repeat as division champs, but that doesn't matter when loading up on strapping young lads is your quest. It's kinda like paying four years of taxes before getting any benefits.

The Chicago White Sox loaded up on a lot of talented players who could turn into manly ballplayers. Aroldis Chapman looks like a can't miss Latino Lover and Luke Scott already knows how to turn me on by flexing his muscles. If only two of Alex Avila, Ryan Freese, Michael Saunders and Matt Moore turn out to be quality players, this draft could be as special as what Ramone and I had last night.

If the health care reform were really meant to simply make health care available and affordable for all citizens and nothing more, the Maine draft would be the blueprint. Instead, we all got a Lancaster: a few good things, but a hell of a lot of bloated picks that aren't going to help anyone at any time. The once wild Mainesters did more with less than anyone else in the draft. With only six picks and none in the first round, the Bull Moose nabbed two quality relievers, three starting pitchers and a backup at catcher. I'll be waiting for this guy at the finish line to show him my appreciation for his draft preparedness.

The Scottsdale Hawkeyes shed Jason Heyward in a draft day deal to acquire Desmond Jennings sleek and slender body and what could have been another building block of the Texas franchise. Ian Desmond and Rafael Soriano were also added into the fold. Youngsters could blossom into a whole bountiful valley of goodness in Martin Perez, Chris Carter and Casey Kelly. The rich keep getting richer no matter how much wealth we want to spread around to those not smart enough to know what to do with it.

If this draft were an American business, the government would have to come in and take over the Oakland franchise. Since they are CRABS, they are too big to fail and must be controlled for the good of the league. So who else would we put at the top of our list than the three-peaters (it's so fun to say as you're getting the three-peat from the very Athletic one). His haul included Roy Halladay (who was later flipped to the Cubs for Jon Lester), Desmond Jennings (flipped to Scottsdale for Jason Heyward), Julio Borbon, and Billy Wagner. The most underrated player in the whole draft , Miggy Tejada, ended up in Oakland as well to back up both SS and 3B. He purged a few of his better ballplayers to move up in the draft, but it is likely worth it to see this ~~dominatrix~~, I mean, dominating team get better. I can't wait to say “Four-Peat”. That ought to be a LOT of fun!