Ranking the major-league gents wearing the double deuce.

The Order Of The Shallows has convened once again — this time, to assess all 17 players wearing the uniform number 22 (as of this writing; congrats to Juan Soto, but he missed the cut-off). Why 22? Well, it’s my lucky number, and you have to start somewhere. And speaking of starting, we’ve got a squad of new Poobahs helping us out this time; in addition to Zach Wilcha, John Ramos and I are thrilled to welcome the Triple-A Club: Alice, Andy, and Aaron Cameron.

(Wondering about previous rankings? Click the OOTS tag here or at the bottom of the page. Got a suggestion for a future Shallows hotness ranking? Leave it in the comments! And that’s Bake McBride’s bat in the header photo.)

1 Chris Archer, Tampa Bay Rays

Sarah: Adorable, fun, smart as hell — he’s one of the few players whose postgame stand-ups don’t sound like a bag of sunflower seeds is reading off a cue card.

Zach: He could be the adorable little brother of Jo Wilfried Tsonga. That smile is on point, and he wore this for his rookie hazing.

John: Pros: Love the dreads and is cute when he smiles. Cons: Eyes are kind of beady, and seems to think he’s cuter when he doesn’t smile.

Alice: I LOVE HIM. Hands down: best smile and facial expressions in baseball AND he tweets about the troubles waiting for the next episode of The Handmaid’s Tale. I need someone to replace Robinson Cano as my daughter’s favourite player — I think we found a winner.

Aaron: While his face is a magnificent amalgam of indeterminate racial origin(s), his hair and beard are more “hostel” than “hotness.”

2 Jason Heyward, Chicago Cubs

Zach: This man can smile.

Of the fellows on this list, he looks like he’s the most fun.

John: Attractive in a weirdly avuncular way.

Alice: I die for a beard and a good smile — Jason Heyward delivers both. Based on pictures, because of the beard, I thought he was 10 years older than he is, but if he’s cool with it, so am I.

Aaron: Much like Harold Baines, I assume he had a full beard by eighth grade.

Andy: Stellar beard. Always smiling. I bet he’s a good cook.

3 (tie) Robinson Canó, Seattle Mariners (suspended)

Alice: Sigh. I saw him play a great game in Seattle last year, and as a fellow second base(wo)man, he thus became my 11-year-old daughter’s favourite. He made me waste $27 on a shirt she can no longer wear in public, so that knocks him down a spot or two (oh, and the cheating, drugs etc.), but that bright smile is redemptive enough to keep him high on my list.

Aaron: Back in MY day, the steroid guys used to be baseball sex symbols. You’re no Piazza or Canseco, Robbie Cano (“don’tcha know”).

Andy: Not a bad-looking guy. Maybe not Hall-of-Fame looks anymore, though.

Sarah: Canó has grown into what I used to consider a fatuously handsome but not particularly sexy face. And the Mariners uni colors really suit him…though we’ll see how the Mariners feel about that in a few months’ time.

Zach: Classic and climbable. I’m willing to overlook his Yankee past.

3 (tie) Nick Markakis, Atlanta Braves

Aaron: More surprising: Markakis’s pleasing features or the fact he has more than 2,000 MLB hits? WHAT OTHER SECRETS ARE YOU HIDING, HANDSOME?

Andy: Behold Swarthos, Greek god of body hair!

Sarah: The Brooklyn beard is not ordinarily a positive (or is hiding something), but his works for me. If only it provided some kind of wind resistance that prevented him from flattening Met fastballs quite so consistently.

Zach: When beards finally cycle back out of style (sooner rather than later, I hope) Nick will have the rare baseball face that benefits.

John: His neighbors will one day lament how nice and normal he seemed.

Alice: I didn’t know Jason Mantzoukas played baseball. I am here for it.

5 (tie) Jake Lamb, Arizona Diamondbacks

Zach: If you look at his face long enough, you’ll notice that his eyebrows are INSANE. His perfect jawline makes everything okay. This lamb is worthy.

John: Has some angles that work for him, but I’m seeing too many shots where he either looks like he’s cube-pooing or like someone just ran over his puppy.

Alice: I mean, at least he has a decent haircut and is clean-shaven, but it really doesn’t hide what appear to be some deep-seated hillbilly tendencies.

Aaron: No one on this list looks more like their full name than this guy.

Sarah: Totally that foxy barista who graciously flirts with you even though he’s too young to know what a landline is.

5 (tie) Victor Reyes, Detroit Tigers

John: Super cute and a great smile. Looks a bit Boy Scout-y in certain shots but in others looks knowingly mischievous, which will save instructional time.

Aaron: So…are we just gonna ignore the ears? I’m not making fun. I’m just asking. Serious question. I’m assuming no, unless someone corrects me, k?

Sarah: How can you not love a guy whose name is basically “Winner Kings”? You know this gal loves a majestic schnozz.

Zach: Slightly crooked in a Picasso way.

7 Chris Iannetta, Colorado Rockies

Aaron: After staring at him for a few minutes, I finally placed him as the default face for the “create-a-player” feature in all of my son’s video games.

Sarah: …Kind of a high percentage of this list has gotten scarily hit in the face, no? Anyway, it didn’t affect Iannetta’s mug adversely, though the fineness of his features bodes ill come the days of post-career bloat.

Zach: Without a doubt, this person is a baseball player.

John: Watched an interview with him following a fastball rearranging his bridgework, and I still would have then, so.

Alice: See: my hillbilly rant, below. Maybe sort of an elf-hillbilly crossover?

Andy: If Chris Iannetta were on Jeopardy!, he’d hold the buzzer with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

8 Andrew McCutchen, San Francisco Giants

Sarah: Long hair or short, traffic-cone yellow uni or traffic-cone orange, the man is a hotness MVP. And this array of “…FOH” faces suggest he’s not too nice to come sit next to me and talk some shit. He can leave the “hat” on.

Zach: Perfectly serviceable.

John: Too many Over-Surprised Guy photos.

Alice: I can’t think of anything to say about him other than that he seems like a really nice guy.

Aaron: Like Busta Rhymes and that guy from Living Colour, he was never the same face without the braids.

9 Jason Kipnis, Cleveland Spiders

Zach: Would kill at a gay bar for bears. Intrigued that Wikipedia cites his nickname as “Dirtbag.”

John: Goes to show a well-trimmed beard can make even those with a touch of the Cro-Magnon presentable.

Alice: …Oh wait, he definitely needs to be lower on my list than I first ranked him.

Aaron: Stocky second baseman who looks like one of those old WWF preliminary wrestlers who’d lose to Randy “Macho Man” Savage in 60 seconds.

Andy: Could play the love interest in a indie rom-com. Seems nice but no really good-looking guy is named “Kip.”

10 Rick Porcello, Boston Red Sox

John: Could he look more Boston?

Aaron: Why the long face?

Andy: I thought this guy died in a crockpot fire?

Zach: Did not make a deal with the devil by gaining pitching skills in exchange for having to look goofy forever, like MANY pitchers have done.

Sarah: Not my thing; not sure why. Could be how frequently he looks crestfallen to the point of tears.

11 Christian Villanueva, San Diego Padres

Zach: I thought this would be better.

Sarah: Has that A-Gon thing where the wrong light/grimace makes him look 20 years older.

Aaron: If we were still doing those old-timey, hackneyed nicknames that baseball is famous for, he’d be “El Guapo de Guadalajara.” Today, he’s probably just “Villy.”

12 Seunghwan Oh, Toronto Blue Jays

Sarah: [grits teeth with effort to avoid “Oh face” joke] …Well, so much for that. Anyway: would.

Aaron: Marking off for the fullness of his face and the burgeoning double chin. I didn’t make these superficial rules, sir.

Andy: Wears a Blue Jays cap, like, all the time. Unforgivable.

John: If he’s under 45, he hasn’t aged well.

Zach: A Google search shows that he is not as hot as Seunghwan Oh, the actor.

13 Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers

Aaron: To be clear, we’re not talking about clean-shaven corporate Clayton. His hairless head is actually angled like an almond.

Andy: He has pointy ears, like an elf. An eight-foot-tall elf.

John: If you can find a photo where he doesn’t look like he’s posing for the cover of Derp Magazine, he’s not so bad. It’ll take some searching, though.

Zach: I know he’s good, but he looks like a goofy lion.

Alice: Google tells me he is the highest paid player by salary. Too bad all that money doesn’t keep him from looking like a hillbilly. Not as bad as AJ Cole, but hillbilly all the same.

Sarah: If you just saw him, like, out in the world, buying pants or something, you’d be like, that’s a pretty derpy-looking dude. [“And here’s the obligatory reminder that the Poobahs do not consult on these rankings or comments before submitting.” – SDB] And he is, but that kooky delivery and Hall-Of-Fame mojo make him sexy to me, even when he’s making Hershiser faces.

14 Miguel Sano, Minnesota Twins

Zach: Ryan Howard did this look better.

Sarah: That rare major-leaguer who’s 800 percent Buntnippier with the hat off.

Aaron: What’s not to loathe? Indifference to physical fitness? The braids held together with grocery store twist-ties? The unseemly assault allegations?

15 Josh Reddick, Houston Astros

Sarah: Fratty baseball James Marsden can dirty up my uniform anytime.

Aaron: His bumpkin mug nestled under an unruly almost-mullet, his porcelain torso was immortalized in a champagne-soaked speedo during playoff conquests last year. America, man.

Zach: Has the look of a person who commits a hate crime in the first half of a ’90s Law & Order episode.

John: If I’m being honest, there are photos of him that make me interested in partying in the back.

Andy: Come on, this isn’t a baseball player. You planted these pictures somehow. Great job Photoshopping out the unwashed baja hoodie he obviously lives in, though.

Alice: Me: “Why do all white guys in baseball look like hillbillies?” Spouse: “All white guys in baseball are hillbillies.”

16 AJ Cole*, Washington Nationals

* Cole recently changed his uni number to 67, possibly to avoid this very list. Nice try, Slim.

Andy: That girl in your Grade 11 homeroom who dates the 23-year-old skid because high-school guys are “so immature”? Her boyfriend is AJ Cole. And his IROC-Z.

Alice: Evaluating alphabetically, AJ Cole came up early and formed my education that white guys in baseball look like hillbillies. And he definitely is the hillbilliest-looking of them all.

Sarah: A lot of players belong to subsets of dudes who look like they do/are other things: an overmatched fourth-period-bio teacher (Jerry Blevins); your childhood bestie’s retrograde husband who refers to watching his own kids as “babysitting” (Brian “The Right Way” McCann); waiter/DJs (the d’Arnauds). Alas, Cole has historically belonged to the “meth-adjacent owner of a sketchy fan-boat charter service” subset, and it’s almost entirely down to that scraggle-fest on his chin…which, now that he’s gotten dumped to the Yankees, he’ll have had to shave off. I’m cautiously optimistic, but boyfriend still needs to eat a sammich.

Aaron: The rare example in which the Yankees’ ridiculous restrictions on facial hair do the world a greater good.

Zach: Oh hey, it’s baseball’s Kevin Anderson.

John: Pretty sure his eyes could hypnotize me into doing pretty much anything — except liking that merkin dangling from his chin.

17 Christian Yelich, Milwaukee Brewers

Alice: I think I went to high school with 19 versions of this guy. None were good.

Sarah: Well, look. It’s not hopeless. He’s got a more-than-a-handful-is-wasted booty, which I’m into, especially since I got to see it leaving the NL East this year and inflicting that sneaky long-ball power on another division for a GD change. God knows the kid can hit; he just…looks like a kid. Actually, he kind of looks like he could be…Howie Rose’s kid?

Aaron: Literally looks like every kid my 14-year-old son plays against in those baseball tournaments where the opposing parents say “he CAN’T be 14” and make the same “he must’ve drove himself” joke. [“Like I said: no conferring beforehand. heh.” – SDB]

Zach: Would make a fine-looking nurse or majorette.

John: The nose and the grill are serious problems, but the shots in which his eyebrows look sewn on really take the cake.

Andy: My reaction was, “Welcome to the big leagues, Pete Davidson,” and THEN I FOUND THIS:

Tags:   Aaron Cameron   Adrian Gonzalez   AJ Cole   Andrew McCutchen   Arizona Diamondbacks   Bake McBride   Boston Red Sox   Brian McCann   Chase d'Arnaud   Chicago Cubs   Chris Archer   Chris Iannetta   Christian Villanueva   Christian Yelich   Clayton Kershaw   Cleveland Spiders   Colorado Rockies   Couch Baron   Detroit Tigers   famous boyfriends   friends   Harold Baines   Houston Astros   Howie Rose   Jake Lamb   James Marsden   Jason Heyward   Jason Kipnis   Jason Mantzoukas   Jerry Blevins   Jo-Wilfried Tsonga   John Sterling   Jose Canseco   Josh Reddick   Kevin Anderson   Los Angeles Dodgers   Miguel Sano   Mike Piazza   Milo Ventimiglia   Milwaukee Brewers   New York Yankees   Nick Markakis   Order of the Shallows   Orel Hershiser   Pete Davidson   Rick Porcello   Robinson Cano   Ryan Howard   San Diego Padres   San Francisco Giants   Seattle Mariners   Seunghwan Oh   Tampa Bay Rays   Toronto Blue Jays   Travis d'Arnaud   Victor Reyes   Washington Nationals   Zach Wilcha