The Depths of Human Misery, or why Jo Adell is likely to become a Wolverine

The Wolverine nightmare continues unabated, their winning percentage holding yesterday at .165.  The 10th place team — the defending champion Rosebuds today — got a little better yesterday and are again more than twice as good as the W’s. 

Royal Rosebudarians are understandably horrified their team is on pace to win only 56.1 games in a 162-game season. They probably can’t imagine anything worse.  But that’s only because the projected 26.7-win Wolverines are inconceivably bad, more than twice as bad, so far behind they’ve disappeared from view.  

This is one reason why I’ve decided to be a noisy cellar-dweller.  I don’t want to be forgotten!  I don’t want people to forget to invite me to monthly league meetings, or neglect to assign me a slot in next season’s drafts.  I don’t want them to look at the trophy, around on the back side, and go “Old Detroit Wolverines?  Who were they?”  I don’t want to go the way of the Victoria Roses, the Wasatch Willies, or the Nebraska Bugeaters. 

The other reason I’m going to be noisy is to give meaning to my fandom’s sufferings.  We are exploring depths no fans of any major league team has explored in at least 120 years.  If I record my observations, all of humanity, plus you 10 EFL owners, will gain invaluable insight into the human condition.  It will change your scholarship, for those of you still scholaring, or your practice of your professions — even for those of you professing retirement. 

Three examples, all on the theme of “What connection could Wolverines possibly have with the Athletic.”

• Yesterday the Athletic ran an essay by Jim Bowden on the “Six Players Whose Slow Starts Might be Red Flags.”  Two of them are current Wolverines — Josh Bell and Robbie Ray, guys who were supposed to be stalwarts on the 2020 EFL Champion Old Detroit squad. Some comments: 
  • A random EFL team would have 1/5 th of a player on this list.  Old Detroit has 10 times its share.   
  • The W’s have at least four other hitters doing worse than Bell, and two other pitchers doing worse than Ray. And these include such formidable names as Rafael Devers, Josh James, Daniel Vogelbach, and Eric Lauer.
  • Two other players on the list are former Wolverines: Madison Bumgarner and Mike Minor.
  • Only one other EFL team has a player on the list: the Kangaroos’  Yoshi Tsutsugo.  Poor Ryan can’t help where his genes came from.
  • That leaves only Eugenio Suarez without an EFL connection… so far. Perhaps the W’s should pick him up. 
    
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• Today the Athletic’s Jayson Stark celebrated Jo Adell’s four-base error that transformed Rosebud Nick Solak’s trip around the bases from a home run to an AB and an out.  This no doubt added to Royal Rosebudarian suffering, but at least eased the pain of most of the rest of the league.  Except for the Wolverines.
  • All of the coverage I read this week seems to think assisting the ball out of the park before Adell’s play had only been done by Jose Canseco by way of his head.  But that’s not true! Mallex Smith did it on April 23  last year when he was a Wolverine.  Fellow Wolverine Austin Hedges hit a fly to deep center, Mallex made a fine athletic play to race back and leap for the ball — which popped up out of his glove and over the fence. The scorer called it a homer, and it provided a fleeting bit of joy tinged with horror for Wolverine fans. 
  • Adell will be in the next monthly draft.  This is your fair warning: he’s already been marked as a Wolverine. Not only by the Mallexian play, but also by his Wolverine-class .182, .182, .182 batting line. 
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• Today the Athletic also ran a story by Ken Rosenthal about how the 2020 trade deadline will be strange this year.  His main theme: this season is so uncertain, and access to the post-season so widespread, and the value of a championship in a shortened season so questionable, that there may not be much action at the MLB trade deadline at the end of this month. 
  • I think there will be action in the EFL, however, since the league champion will go on the trophy just like any other year — and without an asterisk (as far as I know). 
  • I am beginning to doubt the Wolverines will be buyers this year.  As sellers, we have some top-quality goods. I can’t imagine a scenario in which we trade Jimenez or Buehler, and some others will be hard to pry away (even though most of them are underperforming at the moment).  But I do have some big names — or if not big names, at least big bodies — on contracts expiring this year who might capture your interest.  
    • Keuchel
    • Minter
    • Pineda
    • Schwarber
    • Trea Turner
    • Akiyama
    • Vogelbach
    • White
    • Maybe even some 2021 contracts, like Bell, Willson Contreras, or David Phelps. 

Weep for the Wolverines as they travel this vale of tears.