Perhaps to the excruciation of NotGraphs readers, I’ve been slowly building a provisional cast for MLB: The Movie, a comprehensive movie about Major League Baseball that will cost at least $300billion to make and will never get made. Ten to twenty years after never, the film will be re-released with tacked-on yet comprehensive 3D effects (AKA Baseballscheiße und 3D, working title, Germany).

Since this will be infinitely in the future, we can assume that all manner of technologies will be available to us. Thus, the “3D experience” will really be much more than 3D — it will be a complete sensory immersion.

Here are some things that you can expect to appear/happen in the 3D MLB: The Movie experience:

*An infinitely spinning Joe West, who will be implanted in the corner of your mind for all time by nano-bots that enter your body via your dong or lady dong.

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Jason Bay and the New York Mets have agreed to part amicably. Bay issued a statement about still having something to give to the game (i.e. a walking example of “replacement level outfielder” (amirite?)). MLBTR has an excerpt from the statement here.

Shuffle, Kick, Hum a Tune…

We’ve one-upped them: Thanks to the NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team — which, powered by the MLB Patriot Act, is able to climb into homes through any available orifice (and should no orifice be readily available, it shall make one) and snatch shit off of desks, from under beds, out of cradles, &c., in the name of news — we have the original draft of Bay’s statement. (If you’re curious, it was printed on a dot-matrix printer and stained with what appears to be grape soda.) Here it is, then, in its entirety:

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Tim Dierkes at MLB Trade Rumors was the first major source to rank and make predictions about this off-season’s free agents, and many experts have since followed suit. (You have two days left to make your own predictions at MLBTR.)

At NotGraphs, it’s not our place to care about which teams these free agents end up with, or how much money they will make, or what the going rate for a open-market marginal win is, or how new leagues and ballparks will affect relocated players — that’s for a different kind of nerdlinger.

At this weblog, where we’re more concerned about player-celebrity dopplegangers, we’ll concern ourselves with prognostications of a different order: for whom the top free agents will vote on this fine Super Tuesday!**

Zack Greinke – Abstain (via Absentee Ballot)
Greinke sure as hell isn’t going to go to the polls and sit around in a dumb crowd for hours — he has a very sensitive sense of smell! Plus, he’s catching up on video game time. Also, he doesn’t want to vote for anyone — why would he do that? — but we heard that he did send a blank absentee ballot to Missouri, where he may or may not be registered.

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The following table documents the author’s present debt, broken down by category:

I would be willing to play Major League Baseball in 2013 at the minimum salary in order to pay off this debt, but let’s assume I am lazy and that I would “retire” as soon this debt was paid off. How long would I have to play in order to do this?

The minimum Major League salary was $480,000 in 2012. My total debt — let’s round it up to $90,000 for any interest that might accrue — is about 18.75% of that salary. If we translate that to Games, it’s only about 31 games, so I should be able to retire from baseball in early May 2013. That sounds pretty good. I could be the fifth starting pitcher for some team and I might not even have to play at all if the April off days align just right. If, by chance, a fifth starter was needed, I would have a knuckleball ready, or I would dance a rain dance, or I would just kill myself, in which case the team could collect insurance, maybe, and my debt would vanish so it’d be win-win!

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All Hallows Eve’ afforded the NotGraphs Séance & Conjuring Committee of Creeps & Twerps the opportunity to commune with baseball spirits past. The Committee summoned the Cubs’ famous double play combo of Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank Chance by chanting “Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance” while burning pipe tobacco as incense and circling around a raw chicken, blessing it with an Old Style-infused miter.

The spirits obliged; this is the resulting exchange:

NotGraphs Séance & Conjuring Committee of Creeps & Twerps: What is it like, being dead?

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For certain cultural nerds (many of whom troll/write for this very Internet), John Cusack nailed it on the head when, playing Rob Gordon in the 2000 film High Fidelity, he said, “It’s not what you’re like, it’s what you like.”

…

The 2012 AL MVP question might be a tough one (not if you use WAR, of course). Miguel Cabrera, or Mike Trout?

For those of you who grow tired of the statistical debate, or the boring sparring between those who heavily consider the success of an MVP-candidate’s team and those who discount team — or any of the other tired debates, NotGraphs, as ever, presents “stats” of a different variety. Let’s put these two superstars on the same level as the rest of us, and judge them superficially — i.e. as consumers of culture and free Doritos Locos Tacos™.

MIGUEL CABRERA
Favorite Musical Artist: Prince
Last Album Listened To: A Game of Thrones book on CD
Favorite Movie: Cool Hand Luke
Favorite Food: Doritos Locos Tacos™
Favorite TV Show: Cheers
Favorite Cartoon Character: tie between Jigglypuff and Strong Sad
Favorite Actor: Greta Gerwig
Where He Buys His Clothes: Christmas presents from Mom
Hero: George Romero & Mother Theresa
Favorite Author: Malcolm Gladwell

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The Seedlings to Stars blog at SI.com is keeping tabs on the winter leagues. Recently, they wrote up Evan Gattis, including this tidbit in the final paragraph:

Evan Gattis, with his barehanded hitting, size, and mug, congers up images of what one would imagine as the original, raw, old school power hitter.[Emphasis mine.]

Literally?

Scouts are taking notice of Evan Gattis’s advanced control of the Conger Caldron.

A participant in Dave Cameron’s World Series Game One chat requested that Hunter Pence be placed in what hitherto has been known as “Brad Pitt’s Awkward Chanel No. 5 Ad.” Henceforth, it shall be known as “Hunter Pence’s Awesome Chanel No. 5 Ad.” Lo:

With hat.

Sans hat; w/ face lift.

Yes, the 108th World Series is commencing tonight, but what people really care about is, Where Is Ryan Braun?

Turns out, Brauny has been popping up all over the place this off-season (known to fans of winning teams as the “post-season”), and thanks to the work of the NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team, we’re able to keep you abreast of his whereabouts.

First we found him at the the presidential debates:

Hi.

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This is a post that I should have made over a week ago, but I didn’t really think of it until Marco Scutaro emerged as the Gipper of the San Francisco Giants.

Scooter-Gipper

And Scutaro is certainly worthy of the Gipper role, just as much as he’s worthy of the NLCS MVP. He’s 36, has logged nearly 5000 regular season plate appearances for six different teams, and has never made it to the World Series. He’s been a part of just one other post-season as part of the 2006 Oakland Athletics team that was swept in the ALCS by the Detroit Tigers. This postseason, he’s batting .500, and has come up with several big hits. We don’t need to chronicle the illegal slide by Matt Holliday that Scutaro bore the brunt of in Game 2 of this past NLCS.

The thing is, the Cardinals had an equally (if not more) worthy Gipper in Carlos Beltran. Beltran is 35 years old, has logged 8349 regular season plate appearances with five different teams, and has never appeared in a World Series. (Fun fact: he’s been in the NLCS twice, in 2004 with the Astros and in 2006 with the Mets, both of whom were defeated by the Cardinals.)

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