Yesterday's post on my 2007 fantasy baseball strategy included the promise of some thoughts on potential draft picks. The list of every player eligible for my team is below.

(Geography scholars who slog through all 55 names might note the inclusion of John Hattig, who hails from Guam, and say, "Hey, Guam is a U.S. territory - Hattig should be ineligible." Under the strictest of circumstances, I would have to leave him out, but it was just too difficult to ignore a guy from Guam. Come on - it's GUAM.)

It's still early, but one problem has already cropped up: apparently, every single shortstop currently on a 40-man roster was born in the United States or Latin America. There's a good chance the issue will work itself out by the time the season actually starts, but just in case it doesn't, I have two possible remedies. In order:

1) Check for shortstops or utility players from New Hampshire and New England, my base of operation. Gary DiSarcina is still active, right?
2) Two words: David Eckstein.

In all honesty, there are more good players than I expected in this group. If I head into the draft with a decent strategy and manage to pick off a few of the best, it should be easy enough to back them up with solid players. The 2007 fantasy season might not be so bad after all.

Catcher
Kenji Johjima (Japan) - Seattle Mariners
Russell Martin (Canada) - Los Angeles Dodgers
George Kottaras (Canada) - Boston Red Sox

First Base
Justin Morneau (Canada) - Minnesota Twins
Joey Votto (Canada) - Cincinnati Reds
Justin Huber (Australia) - Kansas City Royals

Second Base
Tadahito Iguchi (Japan) - Chicago White Sox
Kazuo Matsui (Japan) - Colorado Rockies

Third Base
Corey Koskie (Canada) - Milwaukee Brewers
Akinori Iwamura (Japan) - Tampa Bay Devil Rays
John Hattig (Guam) - Toronto Blue Jays

Utility
Pete Orr (Canada) - Atlanta Braves - 2B/3B
Scott Thorman (Canada) - Atlanta Braves - LF/1B
Jeff Baker (West Germany) - Colorado Rockies - RF/3B

Outfield
Jason Bay (Canada) - Pittsburgh Pirates
Andruw Jones (Curacao) - Atlanta Braves
Hideki Matsui (Japan) - New York Yankees
Ichiro Suzuki (Japan) - Seattle Mariners
So Taguchi (Japan) - St. Louis Cardinals
Adam Stern (Canada) - Baltimore Orioles
Dave Roberts (Japan) - San Francisco
Shin-Soo Choo (South Korea) - Cleveland Indians

Starting Pitcher
Daisuke Matsuzaka (Japan) - Boston Red Sox
Erik Bedard (Canada) - Baltimore Orioles
Rich Harden (Canada) - Oakland A's
Kei Igawa (Japan) - New York Yankees
Chan Ho Park (South Korea) - New York Mets
Jae Seo (South Korea) - Tampa Bay Devil Rays
Adam Loewen (Canada) - Baltimore Orioles
Tomo Ohka (Japan) - Toronto Blue Jays
Byung-Hyun Kim (South Korea) - Colorado Rockies
Chien-Ming Wang (Taiwan) - New York Yankees
Scott Mathieson (Canada) - Philadelphia Phillies
Shawn Hill (Canada) - Washington Nationals
Edwin Jackson (West Germany) - Tampa Bay Devil Rays
Cha Seung Baek (South Korea) - Seattle Mariners
Travis Blackley (Australia) - Seattle Mariners
Jeff Francis (Canada) - Colorado Rockies

Relief Pitcher
Peter Moylan (Australia) - Atlanta Braves
Phil Stockman (England) - Atlanta Braves
Eric Gagne (Canada) - Texas Rangers
Hideki Okajima (Japan) - Boston Red Sox
Jae Kuk Ryu (South Korea) - Tampa Bay Devil Rays
Ryan Dempster (Canada) - Chicago Cubs
Will Ohman (West Germany) - Chicago Cubs
Rheal Cormier (Canada) - Cincinnati Reds
Tom Mastny (Indonesia) - Cleveland Indians
Ryan Braun (Canada) - Kansas City Royals
Hong-Chih Kuo (Taiwan) - Los Angeles Dodgers
Takashi Saito (Japan) - Los Angeles Dodgers
Chin-Hui Tsao (Taiwan) - Los Angeles Dodgers
Grant Balfour (Australia) - Milwaukee Brewers
Ryan Rowland-Smith (Australia) - Seattle Mariners
Jesse Crain (Canada) - Minnesota Twins
Akinori Otsuka (Japan) - Texas Rangers

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players
http://www.japaneseballplayers.com/en/
http://www.sportsline.com/mlb/players
http://www.baseball-reference.com/bio/

In 12 days, 16 hours, and 22 minutes, the live draft begins for "Show & Tell w/Sean Salisbury", the fantasy baseball league run by Eric over at Seal Clubbers. Past experience has taught me that having more than one entry in any fantasy sport only means that one or more of the teams will wind up being neglected, so this is my only planned foray into the world of pretend baseball for the 2007 season. Sorry, Yahoo! Sports Public Leagues - you'll have to find another whipping boy this time around.

The past has also proven beyond a reasonable doubt that I suck at running fantasy baseball teams. I took a look at my fantasy profile tonight, specifically at my baseball performance, and the reality would have been sobering if it was in any way important in the grand scheme of things: in six years with a team, my best finish was last year's second place, and even that was due mostly to the fact that I lucked out in the draft and landed Ryan Howard, Albert Pujols and Alfonso Soriano, then followed Bill Simmons' advice and grabbed Jonathan Papelbon early in free agency (the same logic led me to draft Rajon Rondo in my fantasy basketball league this season. I'm near the bottom of that league).

With all that in mind, I have three clear options in this draft:

1) Sit back and hope to hit the jackpot two years in a row. (Really, who knew the three hitters mentioned above would essentially play video-game baseball for the entire season? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?)

2) Bust my ass researching players and try to project the valuable sleepers. (That way, I really have to WORK for that fifth place finish.)

3) Mix things up a little and have some fun. (Fantasy sports are SUPPOSED to be fun...right?)

After careful consideration and some inspiration from other hot spots around the web, I devised a draft strategy that will require some of the work required by point two but should pay off with a team that can hold my interest for the full season. The idea?

Field a team comprised completely of players who were born outside the United States and Latin America, two regions generally considered to be the home of the game's finest athletes. If all goes as planned, the primary focus will lie in Asia, with fill-ins from Canada, Australia and various European nations.

Goodbye, Albert. Hello, Daisuke.

If nothing else, this should make it easier to decide whether or not to pick up a particular player during the season - instead of considering silly statistics such as OPS or Holds, all I have to do is check whether a guy was born in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, England, Australia, West Germany or Canada (the seven countries aside from the United States and Latin America that have a player currently listed on a forty man roster). The only tough part will be filling all the necessary positions with a somewhat limited player pool, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Now that my master strategy has been revealed nearly two weeks before the big day (I feel like the villain in a James Bond movie right now), all that's left is to figure out who exactly I want to pursue and when. I can probably land a couple of good players, depending on draft position, but will also have to decide what to do in the later rounds and which lesser known players might make an impact this season.

Look for a few thoughts on potential draft picks in the next day or two. I'm working on the list right now - might as well let everyone know whom I'm thinking about well in advance, right?

As part of an ongoing project, One More Dying Quail will be profiling the 182 current members of the Bizarro Hall of Fame, an organization that currently exists only in my mind. It was created in the wake of Major League Baseball's infamous Steroid Era as a way of honoring those players whose careers were perfectly mediocre: the only requirement is that a candidate be listed on the official Baseball Hall of Fame ballot and receive zero votes.

Class of 1992

John Denny - Take the 1983 season out of John Denny's career and you have a pitcher with a career record of 104-102 in twelve major league seasons. That 1983 campaign was a memorable one, however, as the 30-year-old veteran posted a 19-6 record and 2.37 ERA to win the National League Cy Young award and lead the Phillies to the World Series. He earned the team's only victory in the Fall Classic, outdueling Scott McGregor in the first game.

Ken Forsch - Forsch spent the first nine years of his career working primarily out of the bullpen for the Houston Astros, appearing in 70 games in 1974 and earning a trip to the All-Star Game as a reliever in 1976. His younger brother Bob was also a successful major leaguer pitcher, with twenty wins in 1977 and a no-hitter in 1978; when Ken tossed a no-no of his own in 1979, they became the first two brothers to accomplish the feat.

Garry Maddox - One of the greatest defensive players ever to patrol centerfield in the major leagues (Mets broadcaster Ralph Kiner once stated of the eight-time Gold Glove winner, "Two-thirds of the earth is covered by water, the rest is covered by Garry Maddox."), Maddox was a key member of the great Phillies teams in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His uncharacteristic error late in the seventh game of the 1978 NLCS cost Philadelphia a trip to the World Series, but he made up for it two years later, driving in the NLCS-winning run with a tenth inning double.

Ben Oglivie - After spending most of the 1970s riding the pine for the Red Sox and Tigers, Oglivie was dealt to the Brewers and emerged as an offensive threat. He hit twenty or more homeruns in three of his first five seasons in Milwaukee, including a league-leading 41 in 1980. He played in his only World Series in 1982 for the "Harvey's Wallbangers" team that included four real Hall of Famers (Rollie Fingers, Robin Yount, Don Sutton and Paul Molitor) and four Bizarro Hall of Famers (Oglivie, Gorman Thomas, Pete Vuckovich and Cecil Cooper).

Gorman Thomas - A free swinger who finished in the top five in strikeouts six times, Thomas was also a huge homerun threat, leading the league with 45 in 1979 and 39 three years later. Originally drafted by the Seattle Pilots in 1969 (the Pilots moved to Milwaukee and became the Brewers in 1970), he finally ended up out west with the Mariners in the mid-1980s, hitting 32 homeruns in the next-to-last season of his career.

Pete Vuckovich - Vuckovich was employed by three teams in six seasons before landing with a talented Milwaukee team in 1981. He spent the final five years of his career with the Brewers, finishing fourth in the Cy Young award voting with 14 wins in 1981 and taking home the honor the following season.

(Coming soon: the Bizarro Hall of Fame Class of 1991.)

(All Hall of Fame voting results were obtained from the official web site of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Statistical information included in postings for the Bizarro Hall of Fame was, unless otherwise noted, originally compiled by Baseball-Reference.com.)

Semifinal Results

Louisville (5) 45, Notre Dame (21) 30
Louisville's Brian Brohm and Notre Dame's Brady Quinn staged a quarterback shootout, with each passing for over 300 yards and four touchdowns. The difference between the two performances? Brohm's scoring passes came in the first three quarters and helped the Cardinals build a 42-10 lead, while three of Quinn's six-pointers were thrown in the fourth quarter and did little except make the final score more respectable.

Auburn (10) 24, LSU (11) 17
Auburn got 90 yards and 2 touchdowns from Kenny Irons and the deciding touchdown pass from Brandon Cox, but the reason the Tigers are advancing to the championship game is their defense: LSU managed only three net rushing guards for the game and had no red zone scoring attempts.

National Championship Game

Louisville (5) vs. Auburn (10)

In the coming weeks, One More Dying Quail will be profiling the 182 current members of the Bizarro Hall of Fame, an organization that currently exists only in my mind. It was created in the wake of Major League Baseball's infamous Steroid Era as a way of honoring those players whose careers were perfectly mediocre: the only requirement is that a candidate be listed on the official Baseball Hall of Fame ballot and receive zero votes.

Class of 1993

Rick Burleson - A four-time All-Star with the Red Sox and Angels, Burleson played on the losing side in two of the most memorable series in recent postseason history: he was the starting shortstop for the Red Sox in the classic 1975 World Series and an extra infielder/designated hitter for the Angels team that folded in staggering fashion in the 1986 ALCS.

Cecil Cooper - Another member of the 1975 Boston Red Sox team that came within a game of winning the World Series, Cooper blossomed after being traded to Milwaukee in the winter of 1976. He earned five All-Star nods, three Silver Sluggers, two Gold Gloves and the 1983 Roberto Clemente Award in eleven seasons with the Brewers. Those were his only two major league teams, but he easily could have been a Cardinal: St. Louis took him from Boston in the 1970 Rule V draft, but returned him before the start of the 1971 season.

Gary Matthews - Most young fans know him in passing as Gary Jr.'s dad, but "Sarge" was a successful major leaguer in his own right, racking up over 200 homeruns and 2,000 hits in a sixteen-year major league career. The National League Rookie of the Year for San Francisco in 1973, he won the NLCS Most Valuable Player award ten years later with a .429 average and three homeruns in Philadelphia's four game sweep of Los Angeles.

Hal McRae - McRae played the last fifteen of his nineteen-year career in Kansas City, then managed the team for another four years in the early 1990s. He played in three All-Star games and thirteen postseason series, finally winning a World Series with the Royals in 1985, but he will be forever known in the baseball world for this classic 1993 rant.

Darrell Porter - The fourth overall pick in the 1970 amateur draft, Porter won the NLCS and World Series MVP awards in 1982, one of only four players to take home both in the same postseason. The Cardinals win in the Fall Classic that year earned Porter his only championship ring in three tries.

(Coming soon: the Bizarro Hall of Fame Class of 1992.)

(All Hall of Fame voting results were obtained from the official web site of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Statistical information included in postings for the Bizarro Hall of Fame was, unless otherwise noted, originally compiled by Baseball-Reference.com.)