Othello (or O., as the kids are calling it these days), is ostensibly about revenge (or racism, as any collegiate Shakespeare survey course worth a damn will tell you),  revolving around Iago and his plan to unravel the titular character.  Said plan is devious and complex, involving multiple moving parts and perfect timing.  I haven’t read it in a long, long time – and I haven’t even thought about it since I was dozing off in the back of forementioned Shakespeare survey course worth a damn – but I do remember that things end up pretty badly for all involved.  And that there was something important about a handkerchief. 

Anyways, this prank is kind of like that.

With the likelihood increasing that Jimmy Rollins will return to the Phillies and Rafael Furcal won’t be signing with the Brewers, beat writer Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel believes it’s likely that Yuniesky Betancourt will once again be the Brewers starting shortstop in 2012.

Let’s gauge the public reaction on that, via this sharply embedded YouTube video…

The convention floor now displays before unshielded eyes the full complement of Bacchanalian excesses. Delegates have died from too many drinks, opiates and hastily administered “Happy Clancy’s” in the men’s room. Such is the political process.

The bloodshed, though, has yielded 10 names, all listed below and all approved by the codpieced Utmost Culminating Exchequer. So which ballplayer shall forevermore be known as “Hot Lettuce”? Please vote in the manner most likely to spare your life …

Thank you for exercising the franchise.

When Marlins beat writer Joe Capozzi tweeted that Albert Pujols’s decision was “Coming down to wire, possibly before sunrise,” we knew it would be a long day for those poor souls down there at the Winter Meetings in Dallas journalisming all over the place to stay energized so they could keep us all up to date with the latest journalism. (Click = Embiggen.)

Luckily, there is a Denny’s on site so those involved can stay energized, like Dodgers writer Dylan Hernandez, and continue to provide us with this great service.

Godspeed, sir.

Beloved, as you’ve undoubtedly already read, given that you are savvy denizens of the World Wide Web of Internets, the Baseball Writers Association of America (its induction ceremony pictured to the right) came to its senses yesterday and added FanGraphs to its list of BBWAA approved producers of baseball content.  Along with this designation, FanGraphs will undoubtedly receive a vote in upcoming award balloting for the AL and NL MVP, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year and Manager of the Year elections.  And in ten years, God-willing and the crik don’t run dry, a Hall of Fame vote (just in time to vote one last time for Tim Raines before he’s shuffled off the ballot…nice timing).

What has not been made clear is who will be doing the voting for FanGraphs.  Being that we value mob rule more than silly concepts like logic or fairness, it’s important that you make your voices heard above the din of the lot of us arguing that we deserve the vote more than Dave Cameron because we want it more (also known as the Charlie Bucket defense).

Anyway, please tell us who you would like to cast the important BBWAA votes for Fangraphs.  Make sure you read through all your options, and choose carefully.  In the interest of fairness, I’ve excluded myself as one of the choices, given how I’d win. For you have come to love me, but I don’t think I’ve been here long enough to deserve it.  Better to honor these men who built this city on rock and roll. It’s good that I’m humble enough to realize that.

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If you’ve been following baseball today, you’ve been following the buccaneering romps of the Miami Marlins. In recent days, of course, they’ve inked Jose Reyes and Heath Bell, and today they reportedly made a whopping offer to Albert Pujols. As you can imagine, everyone who’s anyone is talking about the bundled derivative that is the Miami Marlins. One Hanley Ramirez, however, seems not to appreciate that he is no longer What We Talk About When We Talk About the Marlins. In fact, he’ll have none of it:

So if you see Hanley Ramirez within the next news cycle or three, please be a dear and let him know you were just talking about him.

Questions about Albert Pujols’s age should hardly be off-limits. With the baseball’s most feared hitter primed to receive perhaps the largest free agent contract in the game’s history, it would behoove any team that is bidding for his services to consider his age. Questions like “How smart would it be to give this player a contract that could pay him $25+ million into his forties?” should weigh heavily on any competent GM’s mind.

A related concern, which has haunted Pujols for much of his career, is that he may be a few years older than he says he is. After all, it is not without precedent for young Latin American players to fudge their DOBs by a few years in order to make themselves more appealing on the US market. Just this September, it was revealed that Marlins reliever Juan Carlos Oviedo (Leo Nunez) had assumed a false identity and is a year older than he had previously claimed. As Edward Mujica explained, just a year can make a world of difference in how much a Latin American player is paid, creating an incentive to fudge:

“At 17 years old, you maybe lose $100,000 or $150,000 when you sign [compared to a 16-year-old with the same skills]. And if you’re like 18, you might sign for $5,000 and maybe they give you an opportunity.”

But as Dave Cameron writes over at Fangraphs, the case for believing that Pujols fudged his age has numerous holes.

Baseball scribe Jon Heyman is having none of it, however. You can count Heyman among the Pujols Birthers:

(It is not unfair to wonder whether Heyman would be calling for Pujols to produce his birth certificate if Pujols was a client of Scott Boras.)

Below I present Jon Heyman’s twitter timeline from the future.

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I wanted to wait — but I just couldn’t — until Fat Tuesday (aka Mardi Gras) and dub it the Feast Day of the lovable Ronald “Ronnie” Belliard, who was know for approaching most days as though they were the last before a prolonged period of fasting, and for sex scandals — two things at the core of the contemporary Pardi Gras.

French fries.

Some of you might recall a 2007 extortion case in which some bloke demanded $150k from poor pudgy Ronnie in exchange for keeping the fact that the infielder had impregnated his (i.e. the extortionist’s) daughter. You probably won’t remember (unless you are me or one of the ten kids I hung around with) the rumors I heard as an adolescent, when Ronnie played for my beloved Brewers: that the Ron-dog paid one of the Brewers’ bat boys to keep him well-stocked in porn vids. Read the rest of this entry »

His personalized, Millar-emblazoned, Baltimore Orioles bathrobe. Yeah. Also, please note the “COWBOY UP” bumper sticker on the back of Millar’s massive truck. It’s a lifestyle, yo.

And, if you’re still not convinced, yes, it really is him:

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Our ongoing quest, in the manner of a noble knight-errant, is to assign cool nicknames to players rather than indulge in the tired, lamewad paradigm of assigning cool players nicknames. Before we launch the latest installment, however, a trip through our Hall of Honouur, which is so stately, so regal, so much itself a celebration of the Norman Conquest, that an extra British-English unstressed “u” is required for proper spelling. …

“Bad Miracle” – Wily Mo Peña
“Captain Black Tobacco” – John Danks
“$45 Couch” – Yuniesky Betancourt
“Liván Hernández” – Liván Hernández
“Frog in the Pot” – Carlos Zambrano
“Aqua Velva Man” – Chase Utley
“Victorian Sex Rebel” – John Axford
“Good, Round Friend” – Prince Fielder
“I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass” – Kyle Farnsworth
“Interrobang” – Adrián Beltré
“Turbaconducken” – Ty Wigginton

And the nickname now available for purchase? It’s “Hot Lettuce”!

Denotations, Connotations, Implications, Intimations, and Incriminations:

It is a landmark day in the young annals of Nickname Seeks Player: a reader contribution. Faithful page viewer Bryz, who surely has better things to do, passes along this championship explanation:

I am in the middle of student teaching right now, and I had to bring the leftover remains of a chicken Caesar salad to school for lunch. Not desiring some cold chicken, I chose to nuke my salad via microwave prior to eating it. I took the first bite of chicken… not bad! Then I moved to a Caesar dressing-covered piece of lettuce. One chew, two chews, pause, spit it back into the bowl. It was terrible. Apparently lettuce above room temperature is like drinking cold (not iced) coffee; it’s just not right.

I was telling this story to a fellow student teacher and friend of mine at the end of the day, and I explained how the salad sucked overall because of the hot lettuce. That was when I thought instantly of the “Nickname Seeks Player” posts at NotGraphs, and I felt that something I had just said would fit perfectly: “Hot Lettuce.”

Lettuce by itself is rather blah. It’s nothing outstanding by itself, and I bet no one has ever said with gusto, “I want some lettuce today!” It’s something you add, but I don’t think you’ll really miss it if it’s gone. But hot lettuce is a whole different story. It is something that is just… filthy. Nasty. Has the power to make you do a spit-take. Thus, what I am imagining in a “Hot Lettuce” type of player is someone that overall was unspectacular, but when he got hot (performance-wise, not Adrian “Don’t touch my head!” Beltre hot or Carson Cistulli-attractiveness hot), watch out! This player being hot turns him into a dominating force.

We like it. The concept of “Hot Lettuce” as a nickname, that is, not actual, foul-tasting hot lettuce.

Prototypes from Baseball’s Gauzy Past:

More from Bryz:

Players that I feel fit this description might be John Mabry. 2.1 career WAR, and 1.6 of it was amassed in his 2002 season chronicled in Moneyball. Rich Harden is another player that I like, because he’s mixed in some “meh” seasons (regular lettuce) with some great seasons (hot lettuce). There’s certainly also other, non-green wearing, non-former Athletics players that could come to mind for this nickname.

I would add: Mike Damn Laga.

Guiding, Determinative Query:

What current major-league player should be nicknamed “Hot Lettuce”?

The convention floor, which is filled with hot lettuce and used, tortured rubbers, is open for nominations …