If you or someone you love is or has ever been a nerd, then you are undoubtedly familiar with Risk, the classic board game in which players send tiny plastic Roman numeral pieces into dice battles to achieve world domination. For decades, Risk has provided power-hungry children and socially inept adults with important geographical knowledge—Afghanistan is bigger than China, Mongolia has a coastline, and a clipper ship the size of Australia is permanently docked between South Africa and Brazil—and inspired countless assertions that all the other players are mispronouncing the territories that end in “-kutsk.”
Whoever colored this map must not know the difference between water and Europe.
While every game is different, the strategies don’t change much from one game to the next. Someone’s always trying to conquer Asia too early. Someone else is hiding in a corner and slowly amassing an imposing army. And everyone wants Australia.
Interestingly, as the rumors have swirled on baseball’s Hot Stove this winter, the attitudes many MLB general managers have taken towards improving their teams have borne strong resemblances to the approaches my friends take when we gather around the Risk board. This led me to wonder: What would happen if 12 baseball GMs sat down to challenge each other for world domination? Using the events of the last few months as my guide, I did my best to paint a picture of what each executive would do and how the game would play out.
Ruben Amaro, Jr. (Phillies): The Guy Who Won Australia. “Hmmm…let’s see here…Western Australia? Nice! Now I’ll just dump all of my troops there and take the continent on my first turn. That’ll give me a huge leg up for the rest of the game.”
Brian Cashman (Yankees): The Guy Who Lost Australia. “You have got to be kidding me! I put everything on Indonesia. EVERYTHING! What am I gonna do without Australia? Okay, let’s go with…Argentina. Yeah, that’ll work. From now on we’re going whole-hog for Argentina.”
Andrew Friedman (Rays): The Guy Who Gave Up on Australia Before Things Got Out of Control. “Time to fortify Eastern Australia…whoa, whoa, whoa, that’s a lot of troops you got there! Okay, scratch that…hey, no one’s doing anything in Africa. Or Europe. Wow, this is ridiculous. A few turns from now they’ll have all destroyed each other and my empire will be fresh and new.”
Theo Epstein (Red Sox): The Guy Who Conquered North America First Turn. “Five beats three, four beats one…I’ll take Alaska and my Risk card. Now I’ll fortify five troops to Central America and I’m all set. If this doesn’t make me the early frontrunner, nothing will.”
Jon Daniels (Rangers): The Guy Who Has Too Many Risk Cards. “I’m going to turn in four sets of Risk cards for 57 troops. Now, where to put them? I’ll throw 10 to the Congo and a dozen to Southern Europe. That leaves us with 35 troops to put on…Japan! Not sure why I need 35 troops in Japan, but why not?
Dan O’Dowd (Rockies): The Guy Who Can’t Stop Making Truces. “So Carlos, I’m a little worried that the hostilities in India might spill over into Afghanistan. What do you think about a truce for—oh, I don’t know, seven turns? Oh Troy, that reminds me, I know we’ve got four more turns left on our deal, but how would you feel about adding six more onto that?”
Brian Sabean (Giants): The Guy Who Won Last Time and Thus Does the Exact Same Things Over Again. “Last game I won that really big battle in Peru, and that worked out pretty well, right? Okay, that’s our first target. I’m a little worried about holding my positions in Egypt and Middle East, but hey, Peru helped me win last time.”
Mike Rizzo (Nationals): The Guy Who Grossly Overvalues Scandanavia. “Alright, first turn, here we go. Three troops on Great Britain, so that gives me nine total…okay, now, Great Britain to Scandanavia!…Six…four…three…six beats three! YES! I got this game in the (bleep) bag now!”
Tony Reagins (Angels): The Guy Who Loses Every Battle. “Okay, Northern Europe to Western Europe. It’s five versus two, I can do this. Here we go…four, two, one. Five, three? Crap. Okay, one more time…six, five! Yes!…HOW THE (bleep) DID YOU GET TWO SIXES?”
Billy Beane (Athletics): The Guy Who’s Stuck in Asia. “What do we have here? Siberia? Kamchatka? (bleep) Yakutsk? I can’t at least get (bleep) Brazil or (bleep) (bleep) Iceland or something? Alright, well if I can’t do anything anywhere else, I guess I have to fortify here. (bleep)”
Doug Melvin (Brewers): The Guy Who Really Wants Asia. “Irkutsk, Mongolia, Siam—yes! I’m gonna get Asia! I’m really gonna do it! Everyone says it can’t be done, but I’ll show them that I can do what no general has ever done in the history of the world!”
Chris Antonetti (Indians): The Guy Who Just Sits in Madagascar. “My turn. Okay, three troops on Madagascar. That’s all for me, now I’m gonna run to the bathroom. Don’t attack me while I’m gone! LOL!…Alright, I’m bored. Can we play Yahtzee now?”
