Which Walking Dead character is your favorite MLB team?

On Sunday, February 10th, AMC's acclaimed show The Walking Dead returns for the second half of season three after taking the last two months off. The show averaged over ten million viewers during the first half of this season, and is unquestionably a smash hit, regardless of plotholes, inaccuracies compared to the comic book, and other flaws.

With the show coming back this weekend, we decided it might be fun to compare some of the characters on the show to MLB teams for the upcoming season. I could only come up with 20 characters, so apologies to fans of teams that aren't mentioned...it's nothing against your team, it's just that there's only been so many characters in a show that's 26 episodes deep.

Beware: there are spoilers from the first two and a half seasons of The Walking Dead from here on out, so don't say I didn't warn you. I'm going to try to keep the pictures of characters from the show as non-gory as possible, but some blood might slip in.

Merle Dixon is...the Arizona Diamondbacks
Merle was once a key member of the group of survivors, then he got surly and was handcuffed to a pipe on a roof...only to cut his arm off and escape for a season and a half. When Merle resurfaced as a member of Woodbury, his severed arm was replaced with a bayonet, and his attitude had dramatically changed for the worse. That reminds me a bit of the Diamondbacks, who were a solid looking team with a nice young core after the 2011 season. Then 2012 happened and the team struggled, leading to GM Kevin Towers chopping off his arm (in the form of trading both Justin Upton and Trevor Bauer) and replacing it with a bayonet (Cody Ross). While the bayonet might be cool looking and deadly at short range, wouldn't everyone just want to have both arms in working order?

Michonne is...the Atlanta Braves
Expectations were high for the Braves in 2012, and higher going into 2013, much like the expectations were high for Michonne during her debut in the season two finale. Thusfar, she's been a disappointment (like the 2012 Braves season ended in disappointing fashion), but expectations remain high for the second half of season three. Expectations for the Braves have also spiked as the team has added both BJ and Justin Upton this winter to bolster their outfield. Braves fans are expecting plenty of homers from their outfield this summer, and Michonne fans are expecting plenty of dead zombies at the hands of Michonne and her katana.

Glenn Rhee is...the Baltimore Orioles
Glenn has matured as a character from the first season, much like the Orioles have matured as a team. He's a lovable underdog with lots of strengths (just like the Orioles), and took on a bigger role in the first half of season three (much like the 2012 Orioles were a surprise contender). However, you just get the feeling that things could be over in an instant for him...just like the Orioles might not be contenders in 2013.

Shane Walsh is...the Boston Red Sox
Shane was essentially the number two guy in the group behind Rick, much like the Red Sox have always played second fiddle to the Yankees. Then, things went haywire, the Red Sox lost 93 games and finished in last place, and Shane tried to kill Rick and ended up getting killed himself. All of that effort towards getting to the peak of the mountain went to waste, and what's left is a decaying shell of their former self, for both Shane and the Red Sox.

Axel is...the Cincinnati Reds
Just like the Reds are new to the upper tier of teams in the National League, Axel is new to the group of survivors, running into them at the prison alongside Oscar and the rest of the inmates. Axel is a valued contributor to the group, and the Reds are similar in the fact that they kind of fly under the radar and don't call a lot of attention to themselves. Axel isn't loud and in your face like Shane or T-Dog, and the Reds don't talk a big game either.

Milton Mamet is...the Colorado Rockies
Milton is a scientist at Woodbury who studies walkers, and just doesn't seem to get it, nearly getting killed during one study before being saved by Andrea. He reminds me a lot of the Rockies, in that they just don't get how to build a proper pitching staff at Coors Field. In this case, the role of Andrea will be played by Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez, who will save the Rockies horrendous pitching staff with their tremendous offensive contributions.

Oscar is...the Detroit Tigers
Oscar was a big, powerful inmate that the survivors ran into at the prison. He ended up becoming a productive member of the group before being killed during the Woodbury invasion. The Tigers were a powerful, productive team in 2012, and after they lost the World Series to a dominant Giants team, we were left to wonder, "how in the hell did that happen?", much like we did when Oscar randomly took a bullet in the back trying to escape Woodbury.

The Governor is...the Los Angeles Dodgers
You can make the case for several teams being the Governor. Evil? Ingenious? Two-faced? The Governor possesses all of those traits, and quite frankly, I don't think any other team in the league matches them quite like the Dodgers. Since the Dodgers' new ownership has taken over, they've spent money on players by the truckload, signed a potential bubble bursting $7 billion TV deal, and taken baseball to a whole new level of excess. Hell, that sounds pretty similar to the Governor creating a fenced-in paradise in the middle of a zombie-ravaged country, and continually upping his level of greed and depravity by killing National Guardsmen, having tanks of disembodied zombie heads, and staging fights between people and chained up zombies. Sure, the Dodgers aren't doing anything that sick...but their spending is comparable on the same scale of being over the top.

Dale Horvath is...the Miami Marlins
No one liked Dale. He was holier than thou, boring, and took up screentime that could have gone towards better characters. He reminded me a lot of the 2012 Marlins, a franchise that has no fans and a terrible owner, and was overhyped for the 2012 season. Things went terribly, and everything got blown up for 2013...much like Dale got his guts ripped out by a zombie near the end of season two.

Lori Grimes is...the New York Yankees
Nobody liked Lori. She cheated on Rick with Shane when she thought Rick was dead, was generally an awful person towards Rick, got pregnant, then mercifully died during childbirth. Like with Lori, there's also a high level of disdain towards the Yankees (especially Alex Rodriguez), and people just want them to go away and fall out of the spotlight.

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