MLB: Most Interesting Man in Baseball – Part I

Open up a tab on your browser and type in “Best Player in MLB.” Go ahead, I’ll wait. You’ll get page after page of results. Some from this season, some from seasons past. Some from Bleacher Report, some from CBS Sports, some from our very own FanSided.

No two lists are the same, but no two lists are totally different. You’ll have Mike Trout at the top, a few buzzy young studs (Manny Machado! Nolan Arenado!! Kris Bryant!!!) just below, and somewhere around #45 a Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder. These lists are great. They make for excellent debate fodder and allow the authors to put their spin on just how great Mike Trout truly is.

This list is different. This list will have some of the same names, but it will also have a few names from off the typical “best player” radar. This list (or more accurately, a bracket, as we will make these eight men face off in a series of one-on-one battles) is bound and determined to find the most interesting player in baseball. What will make this bracket (and hopefully the debate to follow in the comments section) so fun is that interesting can have so many different interpretations to so many different people.

Arguing over an objective superlative like best can only have so many different angles. No matter how you slice it, Mike Trout is going to be, at worst, in your top three (and most people would look at you like you had four heads if you said Trout was the third-best player in baseball right now). Some writers (not this one) might not even have Trout in the top 25 most interesting players in baseball. I mean the man’s main hobby outside of baseball is meteorology for chrissakes.

When it comes to determining the most interesting man in baseball, there are several useful categories. In fact, when looking back at the history of the greatest characters in baseball, there are essentially eight different types of “interesting.” Think of it like the next Quentin Tarantino film. You’ve got the Cagey Veteran, the On-Field Quirk, the Exception to the Rule, the Straight-Up Weirdo, the Next Big Thing (?), the Just So Damn Good, the He’s One of Us and Yoenis Cespedes. There used to be the Alcoholic (Pete Alexander), the Racist (Cap Anson), and the Brawler (Sherry Magee), but those personalities have left the modern game for better or for worse (usually for better).

In Part I of this two-part series, we will name our modern representative for each of the characters above and look at a few of the players who just missed the cut in each category. In Part II, we’ll play out the actual bracket with quarterfinals, semifinals and a final matchup to determine our winner. Without further ado, let’s set up a few ground rules:

1. This list is dealing with current players. As much as Rabbit Maranville might slaughter Bryce Harper in a historical interesting showdown, we’re capping this at active big leaguers. This also eliminates more recent Interesting Hall of Fame legends, i.e. Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez.
2. This list is dealing strictly with players, not managers or front office folks. Sorry, Joe Maddon and Theo Epstein.
3. The final eight (we’re getting there, I promise) will be given their seed based on number of Twitter followers. I’m borrowing this idea from Rembert Browne who uses the same method during his annual (and amazing) “Who Won the Year” bracket. Using this method makes it so I don’t have to use a random number generator, and gives a slight edge to the more well-known players. But it prevents simply knowing who is going to win the bracket before it even begins because the players are ranked one through eight.
4. Finally, yes, I did intentionally leave off your favorite player from your favorite team because I hate you personally.

Let’s get down to business.