Subscribe“You and me against the world.”
Joshua Neuman, publisher of the entertaining and edgy HEEB Magazine, sent a nice email yesterday, leading me to his piece on the publication’s website.
Earlier this year, the national pastime celebrated its international popularity by holding the World Baseball Classic (which you can blame, in part, for the World Series getting its latest start ever). A sort of baseball Olympics (which is fine since there no longer is any baseball in the real Olympics), it divides major league players into their countries of origin along with members of the national teams for a face-off during spring training. Japan was the overall winner this year.
As usual, the Jews have been dissed.
Neuman believes we should have our own team: the Hebrew Nation. Here’s his lineup (with my comments):
P: Scott Feldman (It was either him or Jason Marquis.)
C: Brad Ausmus (Oy, a 40-year-old starting catcher? He barely played ocne a week!)
1B: Joshua Whitesell (Maybe the comfort of playing with landsmen will get him back on track. His major league stats were way off his minor league accomplishments.)
2B: Ian Kinsler (Who else?)
SS: Jason Kipnis (Let’s see what the kid can do.)
3B: Kevin Youklis (See Kinsler.)
OF: Ryan Braun (See Youkilis.)
OF: Gabe Kapler (Still has some pop in his bat and is a good team leader.)
OF: Isaac Davis (See Kipnis.)
Kipnis
Isaac Davis
Neuman does it right. You can’t stick reliever John Grabow at short just to fill out a Jewish starting nine. For those unfamiliar with the choices for shortstop and the third outfielder: Kipnis, 22, signed with the Cleveland Indians as the #63 overall draft pick in 2009. Davis, also 22, is in the NY Mets system. Both played for Arizona State University.
So, according to his “us vs. them” breakdowns, Neuman concludes the Jewish squad would have the edge over Venezuela and Puerto Rico, fall even with Korea, and come up short against Japan, the Dominican Republic, and Team USA.
Neuman concludes his entry
Of course, the Hebrew Nation, a loose and informal confederacy of individuals who share only a heritage and a loose feeling of nationhood will never get to compete as a team in international play (unless they move to Israel, I guess). But it’s sort of fun to think about, because if they did, they could certainly compete with the all-star team of any other nation on the planet.
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My roster would be a little different than his.
Two guys are severely out of position. Kipnis is a nice looking young player, but he’s not a SS. He’s an outfielder, although the Indians are now trying to convert him into a 2B.
I would have Jake Wald starting at SS. He’d be a black hole in the lineup, but he’s really our only option until Ben Orloff develops.
Davis is also a nice looking young player, but he’s not an OF; he’s a 1B. I would have Sam Fuld starting in CF and leading off.
Ideally, I would platoon Kapler in RF with someone who can hit righties. I’d probably use Kipnis.
I would also platoon Ausmus with Ryan Lavarnway.
I’d have Davis be the DH.
After Feldman and Marquis, the rotation gets a little dicey. The best options are probably Poreda, Brett Lorin, Eric Berger, Jason Hirsh, Ari Ronick, Ryan Sadowski, and Scot Drucker.
Any idea where Sadowski is these days?
According to the Giants’ Triple-A affiliate’s site, he’s still on Fresno’s roster, along with Brian Horwitz and Jake Wald.