Coming off of an 8th place finish – his team’s second-highest since 2002 –
M*A*S*H* owner Neil Arceneaux was feeling confident that his franchise would be able to build on his 2009 run at the money and avoid a return to the bottom of the standings. But unfortunately for him, the entire season would represent a huge step backward – nearly culminating with what would have been a record sixth-plunger.
M*A*S*H* had few players under contract leading into the draft, and while Rajah Davis ($12) would excel on the base paths all season and Wandy Rodriguez ($15) would be solid, if unspectacular, on the mound, expected ace Dan Haren ($35) would underwhelm and leadoff man Nyjer Morgan ($6) would be out of a job by the end of the year. Meanwhile,
M*A*S*H*’s draft was hit-and-miss – mostly miss. Paul Konerko ($27) would put up a career year for Arceneaux’s squad, but other high-dollar investments on offense – like Jose Lopez ($20) and Aramis Ramirez ($35) – would be bitter disappointments. Arceneaux would work the trading lines during the year in an attempt to improve his team’s fortunes, but his two big deals – a resurgent Juan Pierre ($25) to the
Ball Hogs for Russell Branyan and Wade LeBlanc and Ramirez to the
Tee Timers for Jake Peavy – would be unmitigated failures, leaving his team worse off than ever before. Unlike his up-and-down season the year before, the 2010 race for
M*A*S*H* would be over as soon as it started. Arceneaux’s team would be remarkably consistent – but unfortunately, that would be consistently awful, as
M*A*S*H* would not spend a single period higher in the standings than 15th place, and only the presence of a truly-terrible
AQP team would keep the franchise out of another finish in the basement.
The only solid wood that M*A*S*H* got for their draft day investment at their corner infield position in 2010 was the bench that Angels third baseman Brandon Wood found himself sitting on for much of the second half of the season. Arceneaux had bought into the one-time prospect’s chances of finally living up to his power-hitting potential, but Wood – who’d be given the Anaheim starting job coming out of the spring -- would be an absolute failure at the plate for the entire season. In 160 at-bats for the M*A*S*H* squad, Wood would hit an unbelievably bad .150, and his “power” contributions would be non-existent, as he would hit only 3 HR and drive in only 11 RBI in his active time on the club.