ML: The Mike Logans

Infield: Mark Loretta (1995-2009) was a career .295 hitter who drew a few walks, hit some doubles and could be counted from one year to the next for solid but unspectacular production. He played all over the infield, but we’re stretching him here to fill the need at shortstop (he played 405 game3s there in his career). Second baseman Mike Lansing (1993-2001) had more speed and a bit more pop than Loretta, but his average was lower (.271) and he didn’t get on base as much. Third baseman Mike Lowell (1998-2010) was better than either of them. Given a full season, he would hit 35-45 doubles, 25-30 home runs and drive in 100. He won World Series titles in Florida and Boston. First baseman Mike Lamb (2000-10) is a .277 hitter with home run power in the low double-digits. Not a major star in the group here, but in a good year this infield will produce some runs.

Outfield: Center fielder Matt Lawton (1995-2006) had eight seasons with 13-21 home runs. He had four seasons with 20 or more steals. Three times he was between 85-91 walks. He hit as many as 44 doubles. Add these things up, and they make a .267 hitter pretty productive. More suitable to a corner spot, but he’s in center field here. Left fielder Matt LaPorta (2009- ) is the young slugger the Indians received from Milwaukee in the C.C. Sabathia trade. He has yet to live up to the hype. Right fielder Mike Lum (1967-81) shared the Atlanta outfield with Hank Aaron and was later a reserve on The Big Red Machine. He was a .247 hitter who honestly didn’t do much, and you can’t like the 13 career stolen bases in 42 attempts. He hit 90 career home runs. That counts for something, right?

Catcher: Mike Lieberthal (1994-2007) finished his career with a .274 batting average and 150 home runs. He was good for 30 doubles per year and 15-20 home runs. A pretty solid career for the Phillies.

Rotation: Mickey Lolich (1963-79) won three games in the 1968 World Series, all complete games. No pitcher since then has started and won three games in a single World Series (though Randy Johnson in 2001 won two starts and one relief appearance). Lolich was a chubby lefty who didn’t look like an athlete, but he was a good, durable pitcher who finished with 217 wins and 2,832 strikeouts, mostly for the Tigers. Lefty Mark Langston (1984-99) won 179 games, struck out 2.464, and for good measure won a half-dozen Gold Gloves and had an absolutely wicked pickoff move. He never won 20 games, but he was between 15-19 wins seven times. Came up with Seattle and was eventually traded to Montreal in a deal that included a big tall pitching prospect named Randy Johnson, who subsequently broke the various Mariners franchise records that Langston had set. Max Lanier (1938-53) gives the team a third strong lefty. He went 108-82, mostly for the Cardinals, and led the NL in ERA in 1943. He had an ERA of 1.71 in three World Series, which is pretty impressive even against wartime competition. Youngsters Mike Leake (2010- ) and Mat Latos (2009- ) are the rotation's two righties. Leake, drafted by the Reds out of Arizona State with the eighth pick in the 2009 draft, skipped the minors and moved right into the Cincinnati rotation. He has acquitted himself well to this point, though he rather embarrassed himself when he was caught shoplifting cheap t-shirts early in the 2011 season. Latos, drafted out of high school by the Padres in 2006, looks as good as Leake and maybe better. The jury is still out, but these two could be very good.

Bullpen: Closer Mark Littell (1973-82) had some good years for the Royals and the Cardinals, but he will always be known as the guy who gave up the walk-off home run to Chris Chambliss in the 1976 ALCS. He gave up very few hits but a lot of walks. Matt Lindstrom (2007- ) is in mid-career with the Rockies and has a very live arm. Marcelino Lopez (1963-72) was a big Cuban lefty who had his best season for the 1970 Orioles championship team. Mike LaCoss (1978-91), a righty swingman, won 98. Never a great pitcher, but generally useful into his mid-30s. (Odd fact: In 563 plate appearances, LaCoss hit two home runs – but he hit them in consecutive at-bats in 1986. Go figure. One of them was off an outfielder who was pitching at the end of a blowout, but the other was against a real pitcher.) Mark Leiter (1990-2001) was never as good as his brother Al, but he wasn’t bad either. A swingman like LaCoss, Leiter won 65 games and was close to the league average in ERA most seasons. Pitched for eight teams in 11 seasons. Maximino Leon (1973-78) was a decent pitcher on some bad Atlanta teams in the post-Aaron era. Lefty Mark Lee (1988-95) was a pretty good pitcher when he was healthy.

Bench: Infielder Mark Lemke (1988-98) was a .246 hitter with no power, but he was a great glove at second and was a fixture on the powerhouse Braves teams of the 1990s. Catcher Mike Lavalliere (1984-95) was called Spanky, because he sort of looked like the kid from the “Our Gang” shorts, and that’s no compliment. But he was a .268 hitter who had more walks than strikeouts, a solid defensive player and a hard worker who was very respected by his teammates. Mark Lewis (1991-2001) was a utility infielder who could hit 10 home runs in a good season. Outfielder Mark Little (1998-2004) had a long, relatively productive career in the minors (.285, 100-plus home runs) but never did much in his brief trials in the majors. (OK, he did hit .341 and slug .518 in 85 at-bats in 2001, but that was in Colorado.) The last spot on the bench goes to catcher Matt LeCroy (2000-07). We don’t usually keep a third catcher, but he was a pretty good hitter, a .260 batter who had a couple of seasons with 17 home runs. But he’s primarily here because when Mike and Joe saw him play in the International League, they agreed that the sight of Matt LeCroy running was one of the funniest things they had ever seen on a baseball diamond. He’s a big guy (6-2, 225), and years of catching haven’t been kind to his knees, but he’s a guy who never stops hustling, so when he gets some momentum going, it’s sort of the image of a guy in a frantic hurry to get somewhere, but whose various body parts are too large and have been attached a bit haphazardly. Hard to describe if you haven’t seen it, but suffice it to say that it’s no surprise he’s 0-for-4 in career stolen base attempts. We mean that in the most respectful way possible.

Manager: Marcel Lachemann managed the Angels for a couple of seasons, and he looks forward to when the MLs play the RLs so he can visit with his brother.