The madcap adventures; the uproarious hijinks; the wholesome schoolyard violence; the uncannily articulate young men continue! — in the second installment of “Baseball Joe.” Published in 1912, Baseball Joe on the School Nine, or, Pitching for the Blue Banner is summarized thusly by determined chronicler Tim Morris: “Suspenseful scenes include the smuggling of pies and soda pop into dorm rooms late at night, a snowball fight, a rescue from a burning building, and the unjust suspension of Joe, right before the big game, under suspicion of his complicity in toppling the school’s sacred Statue of the Founder.” Here I include an excerpt; it is, in fact, the first excerpt:

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Last Friday, in these electronic pages, I discussed the entirely fictional and computer-generated baseball league I’d recently joined — specifically, Aaron Gleeman’s Hardball Dynasty league at WhatIfSports — and considered both (a) the significant pull of that fake baseball world on my powers of concentration and also (b) the subsequent emotional reaction (guilt, mostly) to that pull.

Four days later, the lure of the game hasn’t particularly waned. Were I to estimate how many hours I’d spent thinking about my entirely fictional team (the Burlington Aristocrats, they’re called) since last Thursday, I’d say four or five hours. I’d also be lying when I said that — like, by kinda a lot — lest my wife read this and inflict harm upon my person.

So far as the league itself is concerned, commissioner and real-live hermit Aaron Gleeman has managed to replace all the owners who departed after season 24, and now season 25 has officially begun. Among an owner’s obligations at this point are (a) the setting of the budget and (b) the re-hiring of the coaches. The first of these tasks isn’t unpleasant at all; the second is mildly tedious.

The budget for the author’s fictional baseball team.

Simultaneous to both of these events is the commencement of trade discussions among the league’s owners — and it’s to this point that I’d like to speak briefly.

It goes without saying — although I’ll say it, anyway — that, to begin the process of discussing potential trades, one must first understand the value both of his players and those of his various opponents’. Anyone who’s made the questionable decision of navigating his or her (although, most likely his) browser to this site probably has a pretty good sense of what basically every major leaguer is worth — like, what sort of contract he’d receive on the open market and what he’d fetch in a trade. Approximately, at least.

That isn’t the case in Hardball Dynasty, though. Individual owners have maybe developed methodologies for assessing value, but there is nothing so comprehensive as WAR available publicly. More than that, however, it isn’t even particularly obvious how a player’s various ratings correlate to his subsequent production. Part of playing the game, of course, and deriving joy from it, is discerning in which the manner the sim engine utilizes and weights the player ratings in question. It is a weird and giant logic problem, essentially, dressed in the trappings of baseball.

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From The Miami Herald (via Baseball Think Factory):

In popularity poll, Miami Marlins’ Jeffrey Loria ekes out a win over Fidel Castro

Only 23 of the respondents (6 percent) had a “favorable’’ opinion of Loria, and a third of those were people who said they personally know him. The only public figure who might lose a popularity contest to Loria in South Florida right now is Fidel Castro (who has a favorability rating of rating of about 1 percent, says pollster Fernand Amandi).

A majority of the season-ticket holders surveyed said they would favor a boycott if it led to Loria selling the team.

Full rankings from the poll:

1. Ozzie Guillen
2. Heath Bell
3. Jill Kelley
4. Bernie Madoff
5. OJ Simpson
6. Casey Anthony
7. Jeffrey Loria
8. Fidel Castro

Good luck. This one’s tough.

[You have to connect the dots on one of the pictures. And don’t blame me, it’s not my fault. Well, blame me for the stupid post, but not the conditions that created it.]

Brad Lincoln is hunched in the waiting room of a doctor’s office, world-weary and rain-soaked. Outside, rain falls steadily. Lincoln is approached by two children who, to his surprise, know who he is. They begin to recite his high school and college statistics, his multiple awards won at those levels. Lincoln takes it in with an embarrassed smile, signs their baseball cards that bear his likeness, tells them how smart and generous they are.

After the children depart, summoned by their mother, an older gentleman, whom we know (thanks to convenient subtitles) to be Dr. James Andrews, approaches, his shadow in the shape of a crooked elbow preceding him.

“It’s time now, Mr. Lincoln,” Dr. Andrews says. Lincoln rises from his seat follows behind Andrews, putting one foot down fully before picking up the other. The gap between them grows until Dr. Andrews passes through a door and Lincoln is left alone in a hallway, a dim light directly above him. Lincoln hesitates for a moment and looks to his left, almost over his shoulder, at us.

***

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It’s November 26, and that means that the holiday season is upon us. Black Friday has passed, Cyber Monday is already in its twilight, and Sign a Former Rockies Starter Wednesday is just around the corner, which means that those of you who haven’t arranged your seasonal festivities had best put your lives in order. The helpful staff at NotGraphs, naturally, are here to help you with your baseball-oriented commercial/spiritual/socially-required Christmas shopping. Today, our focus lies in that outdated, impersonal, yet time-consuming art, the Christmas card.

Christmas cards contain the sole function of sharing unwanted information about yourself to people you would rather avoid communicating with directly. And despite the fact that said task is now completely fulfilled by Facebook, you may find yourself in need of an expensive piece of cardstock to convey the emotions you wish to appear to have. This can be a daunting task! Empathizing with other people is always a rigorous and demanding affair, even with people you know well and care something about. Fortunately, baseball is recognized for its ability to being people together and give them a common bond without providing any regrettably personal or intimate contact with your fellow man.

In this spirit, then, the marriage of personalized greeting card with the expressed written consent of Major League Baseball is long overdue. Simply click on these virtual samples below to read the heartfelt messages inside!

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An experiment.

Chapter One: Odd Man Out

It had been a long week for Alex Anthopoulos, the 35-year-old general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays and native Canadian, accustomed to cold winters and french fries topped with gravy and cheese curds. Not only had Alex pulled off a mega-trade with the Miami Marlins, turning offensive eye-black wearer Yunel Escobar, strikeout-shy Henderson Alvarez, decent relief pitcher Jeff Mathis, and four prospects into a potential superstar core of the next championship Blue Jays team, but he’d also begun to feel, well, “a little strange,” or at least that’s how he put it to his wife, Cristina, over a plate of her homemade caribou stew drowned in maple syrup.

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Our intrepid translator of all matters Japanese baseball, Gen Sueyoshi, passes along this bit of news: The Hanshin Tigers GM — Katsuhiro Nakamura — knows they need a few whites guys if they want to slap any RBIs this coming season:

GM Katsuhiro Nakamura is hoping [Brooks Conrad] will be able to drive in anywhere between ninety and a hundred runs. Source: Sanspo 11/26/2012

Said Nakamura, via Nikkan Sports, “I think [Conrad] understands as well as anyone that we are in need of power. I do not want to put too much pressure on him, but what we need are RBIs. I think foreign players are for RBIs. Ninety to one hundred RBIs. And to get there, home runs are also needed.”

(Emphasis NotGraphs’)

There are non-white foreign players, you say? Well here’s a look at the Tigers’ current outlay of foreign talent:
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The nominal ace of the Burlington Aristocrats, Pedro Garces.

It is typically the practice of the present author to perform, at some point ante meridiem, a sort of bastard version of what’s known as Lectio Divina — that is, to dedicate about an hour or two to some combination of reading and writing with a view to letting the mind enjoy itself. Contemplation in various forms has been shown by capital-S Science to have beneficial effects on the brain. In my experience, my own practice nurtures a certain flexibility of thought and also cultivates a healthy perspective on some cares and worries that might otherwise have taken a more prominent place in my life.

Over the last two days, I’ve sat down each morning with the intention of performing this morning ritual. In each case, I’ve taken a place at my in-laws’ dining-room table with a cup of coffee, the sort of green-papered and narrow-ruled notebook for which I particularly care, and a pair of improving texts (in this case, Daniil Kharms’ Today I Wrote Nothing and Nancy McPhee’s The Book of Insults) for further consideration. Instead of diving headlong into Pure Thought, however, what I’ve moreso done is to reach for my iPhone and to spend the time previously designated for Careful Introspection — to spend it acquainting myself with a team of fictional baseball players of which I’ve recently become, after the surrender of 25 decidedly non-fictional dollars, the general manager.

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Most teams have 6 to 8 starting pitchers listed on their official depth charts at this early point in the 2013 MLB offseason, but few teams list one player as a starter at three locations on the field. And that is because few teams — only one, as far as league records show — have Ben Zobrist on their roster:

Here is the team’s projected lineup:
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