Basic Lands of Los Angeles

When building a Magic: The Gathering deck, the number one consideration is which creatures and spells to include in order to give you the best chance of winning the game. The next thing to consider is mana base: what colors of mana do you need to cast said creatures and spells, how much of it should you put in your deck, and in what ratio? After the completion of these two steps (which can consist of nearly innumerable substeps), the rest of the deckbuilding process is mostly mechanical. You grab the desired creatures/spells/nonbasic lands from your collection (or acquire them from your local card shop or the Internet) and populate the remaining slots with whatever basic lands you happen to have lying around.

It's in this last part that I personally differ from most of the Magic players I know. As I've written before, I put a lot of thought into basic lands, especially the art. In fact, I make it a point of pride not to include more than one basic land type with the same art from the same set in my decks (unless it's a limited event and I'm under a time crunch to finish my decklist, but even then I'll still take some time for aesthetic tinkering). Maybe it's this obsession with aspects of the game that have nothing to do with the actual gameplay that make me a less effective Magic player than most people I play with. But then again, that only makes me a MORE effective Magic aficionado.

Another thing I appreciate about basic lands is that since they describe common geographical features, their art could come from pretty much anywhere. Which Magic player among you hasn't come across a particularly breathtaking vista, looked through your thumbs and forefingers at right angles, and thought, "That sure would go great on a Plains/Island/Swamp/Mountain/Forest card!" I know Magic artists must have those thoughts, or else it's the world's biggest coincidence that Theros Island #237 looks exactly like an iconic beach in Baja, Mexico (see above).

I've certainly had those thoughts, especially as I travel throughout my hometown of Los Angeles, CA (hence the Hometown tag on this post, which was previously reserved for a baseball related project). Thanks to the magic of smartphones (pun most definitely intended), I was able to capture five images that I think epitomize the five basic land types in Magic, as they are found in LA. And thanks to the magic of MTG Cardsmith, I was able to plug those images into a realistic Magic card frame to see what an LA-based set might actually look like. Here are the five cards:

This is a picture of Janice's Green Valley, a section of the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area (notice how it's very clearly not referred to as a "Park"). There's a bit of a disconnect here, since there is a lot of green in this card - both in the name of the location and the color scheme of the image itself - while Plains tap for white mana. But it is also very clearly a picture of a plains, and it wouldn't be the first card of its type to be dominated by a grassy field.

I took this picture while standing on a cliff somewhere in Malibu, in the northwestern part of Los Angeles County. It was surprisingly difficult to find a stretch of coastline in LA that wasn't dominated by tourists on the beach, oceanfront property, or the Pacific Coast Highway. You can still see some of these elements in the background, but the focus is clearly on the crashing waves and the majestic cliffs. That's not to say that I feel architecture should be wholly absent from basic land art, but I wanted to focus on the geography in this first set of images.

I stumbled upon this marshy tract of land in Franklin Canyon, a hidden hiking oasis in the heart of Beverly Hills, and I have yet to come across anywhere else in the LA area that looks quite as likely to produce black mana. California is in a drought of epic proportions, after all, and without water, a swamp is really just a patch of dirt. I'm pretty sure this area also has some green mana, since soon after taking this picture, I was chased from the scene by the unmistakable sounds of a nearby Hornet Nest.

This was actually the hardest clean image for me to find. While LA is a decidedly mountainous environment, most of the ones you see are of the shrub-covered, rolling hills variety, rather than the stark jagged peaks preferred by Magic artists. And even if you find one that is appropriately majestic, there's usually a freeway or a bunch of power lines or an upscale neighborhood in the way. This particular outcropping can be found on the Solstice Canyon trail, just miles from the ruins of an abandoned mansion that would make a pretty sweet nonbasic land in its own right... but that's a project for another time.

Unlike my search for an adequate mountain, it was pretty easy to find a grouping of trees that could pass for a forest. This wealth of options allowed me to get picky about such aspects as lighting, and it was the mint lens flare that put this image over the top for me. These trees are also in the Kenneth Hahn Area, right before the main entrance. (If you look really hard at the bottom right corner, you can see the chain link fence that marks the border of the not-park.)


Maybe these examples will get you thinking about how normal everyday sights can form the basis of a fantasy setting. Or maybe they just gave you an increased appreciation for the existing art on basic lands. Or maybe not on both counts. Either way, I hope you enjoyed this tour around my hometown, seen through the lens of Magic's most common card type.

Hometown Teams 2014 All-Star Break, Final Recap

Remember my Hometown Teams project that I started at the All-Star Break? It's been a while, so I don't blame you if you don't, but thankfully the previous four posts are available on the Internet! The rest of the tournament was pretty wild, so I'll go through them in an equally wild fashion: with words and images! The results of the first two rounds of the winner's bracket set up the first two rounds of the loser's bracket (matchups 7 thru 10 on the handy PrintYourBrackets.com sheet I downloaded to help me with the seeding), so we'll go through those first and say goodbye to the first four teams to be eliminated. But first, here's how the bracket looked as of the last post:

Based on what I wrote about California's first matchup, you might be able to guess what happened in this one. First of all, I changed the lineup back to how it probably should have been before the computer players' attributes prompted me to do some tinkering that went against the real-life statistics. I put Coco Crisp in CF batting leadoff, which pushed Chase Utley back to 2B (he responded by hitting two home runs in the contest) and Ryan Braun to DH. I also brought in John Jaso instead of Jason Castro, who actually also airmailed a throw to second on a stolen base attempt, but the results weren't as catastrophic as the last game. The catastrophe was Stephen Strasburg's pitching, as he gave up the go-ahead run to Florida on a bases loaded walk, and the boys from the Sunshine State never looked back. In retrospect, I probably should have respected the 2014 stats and given Garrett Richards a chance to pitch, but it's hard to ignore the super high overall ratings of the starters who screwed things up for my home state. Either way, it's goodbye to my beloved Californians until the next tournament.

In the first matchup so far where a favored team actually won the game, the Central US eliminated Scott Kazmir's Texas club behind Corey Kluber's complete game masterpiece and an offensive charge led by Alex Gordon. Interestingly enough, the game suggested starting Mark Buehrle over Kluber, but I went with the stats and it proved beneficial to the team, which only leads me to further believe that the CA games might have gone differently if I chose Richards and Kyle Lohse over the higher profile star starters. Either way, in matchup 9, Florida continued its winning ways against the Southeast US by beating a pitcher who unquestionably SHOULD have been pitching for their opposition: David Price. But FL's starter Gio Gonzalez was just effective enough and Andrew McCutchen out-powered Mark Teixeira, and just like that the #4 ranked team was out of the running. A similar fate followed for the #3 ranked Central US when they faced the Dominican Republic behind breakout All-Star Alfredo Simon. I gave Mark Buehrle his shot here, but the veteran left hander couldn't keep up with an offense led by Carlos Gomez (who had a HR), Carlos Santana (bases-clearing 2B) and Robinson Cano (2-run 1B).

Back to the winner's bracket for matchups 11 and 12, the International team had a clear advantage against Venezuela in the pitching matchup, since it was only INT's second game, whereas VEN had to play two by virtue of being ranked in the bottom four. But honestly, any of Team World's top four starters could be a number 1 or 2 on a major league club, and Braves ace Julio Teheran proved just that by pitching a complete game to beat Henderson Alvarez of the  NL East rival Marlins. He got plenty of support from the Cubans on offense, enjoying home runs by Yasiel Puig (giving him three in the two games so far) and Jose Abreu, with two more RBI's from Alexei Ramirez. In a matchup that heavily favored the Northeast US (breakout star Rick Porcello) over the West US (journeyman innings eater Scott Feldman), you can guess who ended up winning. Chase Headley provided a home run to keep the West in it, but it was Kole Calhoun's 9th inning grand slam off Jason Grilli (brought in after closer Joe Smith imploded) that sealed the deal and kept the lowest ranked team undefeated through this juncture. Let's take another look at the updated bracket, with eliminated teams crossed off:

Jumping right back to the loser's bracket, the Northeast US had a chance to redeem themselves as they trotted out Cardinals playoff mainstay Lance Lynn against Mets rookie Jacob deGrom. But since MLB 14: The Show apparently LOVES the underdog, deGrom ended up pitching the full 9 and Florida enjoyed home runs from some typically power-light hitters (Dee Gordon and Denard Span), plus one from an expected source (C Jonathan Lucroy). That's three significantly higher-ranked teams eliminated by Florida, for those of you keeping track at home. Meanwhile, in a shocking turn of events, the Dominican Republic actually won a game against an inferior team! Granted, Venezuela's pitching depth just about ran out, as they were forced to basically split the game's innings between long relievers (or at least they were at the time) Carlos Carrasco and Yusmeiro Petit, while the D.R. was able to trot out prized last minute free agent acquisition Ervin Santana. It also helped that Carlos Gomez (the player of the game) and Jose Bautista both went deep and that Santiago Casilla was able to pitch two innings for the save.

Back to the winner's bracket, if there's a game featuring the Western US, you can basically already deduce who's going to win. Baltimore rookie Kevin Gausman (from Colorado) out dueled Hyun-Jin Ryu (from Korea) as the top of the order (Kinsler, Brantley [who later added a HR], and Calhoun) chained together a couple of good rallies, pushing Team World into the loser's bracket to face whoever won the Flordia/Dominican Republic matchup... which we will move onto right now! It helped that FL had made it all the way around to the top of their (four-man) rotation, so Chris Sale went against Bartolo Colon of the D.R. Josh Donaldson and Anthony Rizzo proved the offensive heroes with a HR and a HR shy of the cycle, respectively, as the West US and Florida continued the set-em-up, knock-em-down pattern.

The previous victory set up Florida's #2 (Zack Greinke) against the International's #4 (Hisashi Iwakuma) in the semi-final round. The whole favoring the underdog thing is honestly getting kind of old for me, so I'll just tell you that Florida ended up winning, eliminating their fifth team in the process, behind home runs from Denard Span and Daniel Murphy. So what we're now looking forward to in the finals is a rematch of what happened in our very first matchup of the tournament (although it's listed as #2 on the bracket). Even though the West had ace Jon Lester on the hill and an undefeated record, Gio Gonzalez ended up the winner behind a 3-run HR from Ian Desmond (although Michael Brantley tried his best to answer with a 2-run 2B). Also of note is that I saw the first injury substitution of the tournament, as Chase Headley had to exit the game with a bout of forearm tightness.

So that should be it, right? WRONG! This is double elimination, so if the team that had previously ran the table to make it to the finals takes their first loss IN the finals, there's an automatic rematch to get every eliminated team to two losses. I made an executive decision to pitch FL ace Chris Sale on "three days rest" - or whatever the equivalent would be, cuz I can't for the life of me figure out how long a tournament like this would take - against the West's SP2 Tim Lincecum, but as you can guess, it didn't matter. Jed Lowrie didn't do much subbing in for the injured Headley at 3B, but Brantley and Kinsler combined for home runs and that was enough to give the VERY LOWEST RANKED TEAM the victory in this whole competition. Here's how the final round shaped up:

So there you have it, a completed tournament style lineup creation project using MLB 14: The Show (for the PS3, mind you) as a simulation engine. I'm somewhat of a rankings nerd, so I was mortified when all the best teams consistently got eliminated, but I guess that's the nature of one game coin flip style of play. Either that or The Show's AI gives an unfair advantage to the underdogs, which I'm not ruling out at all. But even funnier than that particular programming quirk was the crowd animation at Tropicana Field, home of the Rays, who I used to portray the Florida team. Despite all the exciting final round baseball going on, the only thing I noticed was the people walking in an endless loop down and up the stairs in the background. I hope they made some improvements for the PS4 version...

Thanks for reading!

Hometown Teams 2014 All-Star Break: Round 1 Results

It's taken me a little more time than expected to plug all the rosters into my copy of MLB 14: The Show and simulate the first round of matchups. But I finally found some time between prepping for my fantasy football draft, familiarizing myself with Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, tinkering with my Magic: The Gathering EDH decks, and other random stuff like my job and family, to take this project one step further. Here's a new color-coded bracket for the start of the second round, followed by a summary of the results, and finally a breakdown of the final two teams.


As could be expected, neither of the two favored teams in the preliminary round came away with the victory. Game 1 delivered the pitcher's duel that we all expected with both Clayton Kershaw (Texas) and Felix Hernandez (Venezuela) each managing a quality start, but then leaving with the game still tied. Victor Martinez proved the hero with a late home run and Francisco Rodriguez nailed down the save easily. Game 2 also featured a solid pitching matchup where neither Jon Lester (West US) nor Chris Sale (Florida) figured into the decision. It was Wade Davis who faltered, giving up a late home run to Jacoby Ellsbury, whose Western counterparts never looked back.

In Game 3, we get the first example of where I let the video game's rankings take precedence over actual 2014 statistics, which may have proved fatal for one of my favorite teams (more on that later). Health permitting, Masahiro Tanaka would have started for the International team, but in his absence, the raw stats would favor Colombian right hander Julio Teheran to take his place. However, the game put forth Yu Darvish as the team's #1 starter, and I can't say that I disagree, given the Japan native's track record and truly electric stuff. On the other side, the game suggested David Price, but I gave the nod to Adam Wainwright based on his 2014 performance (he averaged 95 points per game through the All-Star break against Price's 77.6 ppg). In any case, it was the offensive prowess of Cuba's own Yasiel Puig - who hit two home runs in the contest - that continued the upset trend.

Based on how things are going, I'll bet you can guess who won the matchup between the intimidating Dominican Republic and the powerful Northeast US. It was pitching that spelled the D.R.'s doom with Johnny Cueto just not able to get going against the likes of Mike Trout and Nick Markakis, who managed a grand slam in the slugfest. Jeff Samardzija pitched the North to victory in another case of the game suggesting a starter without the statistical edge. Although neither of the above cases represents the favorite team I mentioned earlier.

As a native of California, I may have put too much stock in the games played by the Californian team. This bias led to an inordinate amount of last minute tinkering to the lineup before the simulation. Below is how the team arguably should look on paper based on 2014 stats, and in the summary I'll tell you what changes I was compelled to make by the computer players' attributes:

As an Oakland A's fan, I really like Coco Crisp. He plays a good defense, sparks the team with his winning personality, and is the best true leadoff hitter among this group. The game, however, doesn't think too highly of his lack of power, and instead opted for Dustin Pedroia in the leadoff spot - a guy who is big on reputation but small on 2014 production (10.1 ppg thru the ASB) - shifting Utley to DH and Braun to LF. They also preferred power hitting catcher Jason Castro (8.0 ppg) to on base machine John Jaso, which proved problematic when Castro air mailed an attempt to throw out a base stealer, leading to a decisive Venezuela run.

In the pitching rotation, I can't say I blame the game for slotting "Big Game" James Shields and erstwhile phenom Stephen Strasburg above Garrett Richards, because who even knew who Garrett Richards was before this year? (And honestly, who knows who he is even now?) The pitching on both sides was great, but it was Venezuela's creative use of their bench that led them past CA: pinch runner Alexi Amarista came in after a Pablo Sandoval single, then stole second and scored on a Martin Prado hit. Since it's double elimination, we'll see California take on Zack Greinke's Florida in the loser's bracket.

With the Wild West's completely unexpected victory over the much higher ranked Central US, every game in the first round was officially an upset. In this case, the lowest-ranked team in the tournament prevailed behind a strong pitching performance by Tim Lincecum, who outdueled Max Scherzer and quieted a very potent lineup. I don't know what this trend means for the accuracy of The Show's programming, the nature of double elimination tournaments, or both, but take a look at the Central's lineup for what is very likely to be the second-to last time, if the current patterns hold...

Hometown Teams 2014 All-Star Break, Seeds 3-6

I'll admit, I haven't had time to simulate the first round games on my PS3 yet, but since the first two games in round two can technically be going on at the same time, I'll jump right into talking about those matchups. For those of you who need a refresher, these include the 3rd seed Dominican Republic taking on the 6th seed Northeast US, and the 4th ranked Southeast US taking on the 5th place International/Team World/All the Other Countries.

As was the case in the most recent World Baseball Classic, the Dominican Republic is the team to beat, in my opinion. Not only is the lineup stacked from top to bottom (I won't go position by position because most of the names on the below list should be recognizable enough), but they have amazing depth. If Edwin Encarnacion looks like he's going to miss significant time, David Ortiz can fill the DH slot better than most. Need left-handed power off the bench? They've got Pedro Alvarez and switch hitter Melky Cabrera. What if Hanley Ramirez needs a late-inning defensive replacement? Call on Jose Reyes, Starlin Castro, or Erick Aybar. Don't think Carlos Santana can handle a full workload behind the plate? Wilin Rosario's not a wizard with the glove by any means, but he is a full-time backstop. Even the starting pitching, which has traditionally been a weakness for this country, has developed into a strength, mostly thanks to the emergence of Alfredo Simon to slot in behind bona fide ace Johnny Cueto. But there is depth here too, with Edinson Volquez and Yordano Ventura waiting in the wings if anything happens to their top 5. I also didn't place any left handed relievers on the roster, preferring to focus on the working closers (two of whom are among the best in the game), but Antonio Bastardo and Fernando Abad are available for those tough lefty batters.

Looking at both the teams in the Eastern time zone (as you will have done if you read to the end of this post), you'll see a clear divide between offense and pitching. I won't tell you which is which here, but I'll give you a hint: any team that can trot out Mike Trout, Paul Goldschmidt and Todd Frazier 2-3-4 in the lineup is going to vex many an opposing pitcher. Following that trifecta is legitimate future star candidate George Springer and breakout catcher Devin Mesoraco, plus since this isn't just a fantasy team, Jason Heyward's plus defense actually means something, as does Derek Jeter's clubhouse presence (although depending on your opinion of him, that could be a positive or a negative). It's not that this team doesn't have good pitchers, but their top guys are middle of the rotation types on their actual teams (although Rick Porcello could potentially be an ace on a non-historically-great rotation and Jeff Samardzija was once the ace of the almost-historically-bad Cubs earlier this year). What this team lacks, compared to the Dominicans, is depth of star power, and I honestly don't see them advancing to the next round.

This next matchup is where things get interesting, mostly because of a slightly controversial decision I made with regards to dividing the territories. If you look at a map of the Eastern US, you'll see that while Kentucky and Tennessee are both clearly in the south, they're also divided halfway between the Central and Eastern time zones. To make a long story short, I gave both of those states (totaling 35 players between them) to the Southeast team, which gave them access to two of the best pitchers in the game right now: David Price and Sonny Gray. The main reason I made this tough decision was to even out the number of players available to each territory: without the 35 guys from TN/KY, the Central team would have 140 players to choose from while the Southeast would have just 97. Plus, even without Price and Gray, the Central is still the second seed team, so they clearly don't need any help. And it's not like any player would supplant Adam Wainwright from the SP1 role anyway, so we're really just talking about the middle of the rotation here... plus a useful bullpen piece and another shortstop option in case Chris Owings stays injured for any amount of time. We'll see how things go in the simulation, but I think this team's offense is weak enough that it might not matter one way or another.

This should come as no surprise based on the influx of Cuban stars, but no country dominates this international team more than the land famous for Castro and cigars. Jose Abreu might win Rookie of the Year (despite his long track record of playing professional baseball) and we've all seen the impressive talents of Yasiel Puig and Yoenis Cespedes (although I predict a significant downturn for the latter following his trade to the Red Sox, and not just because I'm an A's fan... or rather exactly because I'm an A's fan). Then there are All-Stars Alexei Ramirez (who I moved to 2B for the first time since his rookie year in 2008 to make room for a better defensive shortstop) and closer Aroldis Chapman who has returned admirably after taking a line drive to the face in Spring Training. And the Cuban contingent would be even stronger if Jose Fernandez didn't succumb to the Tommy John bug early in the season (he was averaging 86.3 points per game at the time of his injury). Japan has a very strong presence on the pitching side, even without Masahiro Tanaka, who is very likely done for the year as well (which is why I included a sixth pitcher on the depth chart, who is no slouch himself). I put Yan Gomes behind the plate over Yadier Molina not only because Yadi is injured and having a worse season offensively, but also because I wanted to give a shout out to the first ever Brazilian born player in MLB history. Speaking of injuries, if Brett Lawrie isn't healthy enough to play, future star Xander Bogaerts can fill in just fine.

I'll run the simulations on these matchups before analyzing the final two teams, so get ready for some fake recaps, coming up next time!

Hometown Teams Tournament, Round 1, Part 2

After all this Trade Deadline business with players changing teams left and right, it's nice to find comfort in some things that can't change, such as where players were born. That's why when you're done manically refreshing MLB Trade Rumors and you've had a chance to digest all the analysis from Fan Graphs, you should settle in and read about the lineups from the next matchup in my Hometown Teams 2014 All-Star Break Tournament feature! This game features all the best players born in the US state of Texas (ranked 8 out of 10) against the best players born in the country of Venezuela (ranked 9 out of 10).

I was surprised that the Venezuelans clocked in so low in the rankings despite a roster featuring arguably the game's best pure hitter (Miguel Cabrera) and right handed pitcher (Felix Hernandez). Not to mention a red-hot leadoff hitter (Jose Altuve), top 5 closer (Francisco Rodriguez), and a current and former All-Star catchers (Salvador Perez and Victor Martinez, respectively). But a weak outfield and lack of pitching depth kept this World Baseball Classic participant from the top 6 teams who get a bye in the first round of this 10-team double elimination format. Carlos Gonzalez is a powerhouse when healthy, but he's rarely ever been that for a long stretch of his career, and after him the outfield is so thin that Martin Prado had to move from his regular position of 3B (much like how he moved from his previous team earlier today). Likewise, the final two spots in this rotation are filled with primarily long relievers, neither of whom had started more than 4 games by the break. Anibal Sanchez has bounced back in the second quarter of 2014 and Henderson Alvarez has had a surprising season, but you want a little more stability and consistency in tournament style play such as this.

Speaking of consistency, you don't get much better in that department than Texas's best starting pitcher, who also happens to be the best starting pitcher in all of baseball, Clayton Kershaw. If this thought experiment ever became a reality, his game 1 matchup against King Felix would be one of the greatest pitching battles of our generation. Scott Kazmir has been a great story these last couple of seasons, rocketing himself back into relevance after several years on the shelf, and both Josh Beckett and John Lackey are veterans with solid postseason track records. Even though I'm assuming this tournament is taking place during the 2014 All-Star Break (since that's where the stats are from, which is why they're in italics and underlined) I left the two injured members of this team on the roster, because while Beckett has a couple of viable replacement candidates in the rotation (Nate Eovaldi and Homer Bailey come to mind), the best backup option for Gattis is Detroit second stringer Bryan Holaday, and that just didn't seem fair. Speaking of not fair, rookie super utility man Brock Holt slots into the shortstop position, even though he's only played 4 games there all year, because the next viable options were injured Cliff Pennington or minor leaguers Ryan Goins and Omar Quintanilla.

I'm really not sure who would win a matchup between these two teams, as each has a very different array of talents. Perhaps what I'll need to do is plug the rosters into my copy of MLB 14: The Show and see who comes out on top. Until then, I'll continue posting my analysis for the remaining teams, so stay tuned!

Hometown Teams 2014, All-Star Break Edition

Now that I've completed the majority of my midseason baseball research and compiled the results into a  sortable database, it's time to start organizing those stats into some virtual rosters. I've spent a lot of time talking about astrology teams these past two seasons and I did a feature on developed teams a few years ago, so the next logical step is to arrange players based on their hometowns. Well, to be fair, it's really based on their places of birth, because that's what's listed on MLB.com, but I'm sure a player's bond to the mystic portal through which he entered the world is strong enough to create some meaningful pattern to these rosters.

Through extensive research and numbers-crunching, I've identified 10 geographical areas that have produced enough players from which to pick a decent roster. First, the major breakdown: of the 1,152 major leaguers that have played before the break (there are actually a few more, but my database is admittedly not all-inclusive), 843 came from the US and 309 came from other countries (including Puerto Rico). The largest contingent from any single territory (to borrow a term from Risk) were the whopping 174 players from California. Must be something about the beaches, the sunshine, and the MLB leading five baseball teams that makes Californians flock to the diamond. The next highest is that baseball-lovin' island of the Dominican Republic with 121. Pretty impressive that those totals are so close given that the D.R.'s population is about 25% of CA's (as of the 2010 census the numbers were 9.4 million to 37.2 million, respectively).

The only other single territories to field full teams were Texas (95), Venezuela (81) and Florida (79). Four of the other five come from cleverly dividing the rest of the US into time zones: one team for combined Pacific and Mountain (and Hawaii, just 64 players total), one team for Central (140), and two teams for Eastern, divided by the Mason-Dixon line (North: 139, South: 132). The tenth and final team comes from grouping all the non-USA, non-Dominican, non-Venezuelan players together in a truly international milieu made up of 107 players from 18 countries, led by Cuba, Puerto Rico, Canada, Japan and Mexico.

Rather than just blasting all the lineups randomly over time, I've decided to set up a 10-team, double elimination bracket of sorts. And while I have no way to cheaply and easily simulate any results, the organization will make it easier to give some context to my upcoming analysis. I determined ranks by taking the fantasy point totals (as of the All-Star Break) of the top 40 scorers in each team (cuz, you know, 40-man roster), regardless of position. Since 10 team double elimination is kind of weird (but shout out to PrintYourBrackets.com for helping me make sense of it all), only the bottom four teams play in the first round. Below is the full bracket as it appears in round one, followed by the starting lineups for the very first matchup:

Starting from the bottom (now we here - sorry, I couldn't resist a line from a Canadian rapper in a post about hometowns) it makes sense that the team with the fewest players in its pool is ranked lowest. But that doesn't mean that the USA's West Coast team is full of scrubs by any means. The offense is led by Michael Brantley (WA), who is having a career year in Cleveland, Ian Kinsler (AZ), who is making Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski look like a genius for trading naked Prince Fielder for him in the off-season, and Jacoby Ellsbury (OR), who can lend stability to the top of any batting order. And don't forget that Hawaiian Kurt Suzuki was an All-Star this year. Taking the mound for game 1 is one of the most talked-about pitchers this trade deadline, Jon Lester (WA). He's followed by another headline maker in 2014, no-hitter author Tim Lincecum (also from WA). The starting pitching depth falls off a little after that, though, with only Baltimore rookie Kevin Gausman (CO) averaging higher than 30-something points per game. The bullpen is fronted by two pitchers who are kind of on the bubble between excellent setup men and proven closers in Mark Melancon (CO), currently closing for the Pirates, and Tom Wilhelmsen (AZ), who formerly closed for the Mariners. But the most interesting aspect of this lineup might be the wealth of impending free agents: in addition to Lester and Suzuki, four more of their west coast teammates are set to file for free agency after this season. Oh, and the surprising decline of Bryce Harper (NV).

The West will take on the best-of-the-worst Florida, a state known more for retirees than athletes, but that still has some star players on their roster. In fact, the first five players in their projected lineup were 2014 All-Stars, plus the first two starting pitchers in their rotation. Andrew McCutchen is obviously the cream of the crop (his performance is making me regret passing him over for Paul Goldschmidt with pick #3 of my fantasy draft this year), but Josh Donaldson, Dee Gordon, and Anthony Rizzo are all rising stars who have just begun to hit their strides. I did end up drafting ace pitcher Chris Sale for my fantasy team and did not regret it, despite a stay on the DL earlier this season, as he has the third-highest point-per-game average in the game (among pitchers with more than two starts *cough* James Paxton). I will actually be at Dodger Stadium tonight watching Florida's number two starter, as Zack Greinke takes on the Braves. If this team had one weakness it would be the bullpen, and I only say that because it lacks a "proven closer" who has been closing games for more than half a season. And in contrast to the West team, not one player on their roster is slated to become a free agent this year (pending options being declined).

Who will win? Tune in next time to find out. AND for analysis the second game in Round 1 as Texas takes on Venezuela! If only we could have seen matchups like that in the World Cup...