Currently, Matthew Williams is a right-hander for Sydney of the Australian Baseball League. Before that, he was a pitching prospect in the Twins organization for six years. Before that, he lived his entire childhood naked and alone in the woods before emerging — with the same crudely designed spectacles as shown here — from the forests of his own accord.
Dayn Perry and I are recording his stupid weekly podcast appearance at 11am ET tomorrow (Wednesday).
Feel free to submit questions or comments or a brief description of your nightmares in which Perry has appeared in the comment section below — or don’t, as, after all, we’re all going to die someday.
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.
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.
With the advent of the offseason, FanGraphs writers Dave Cameron and Bill Petti have resumed their roles as guests on MLB Network’s Clubhouse Confidential, hosted by the vigorously coiffed Brian Kenny.
Dave Cameron’s lack of blinking has been covered with considerable enthusiasm in these electronic pages — most recently last week, in a Nerd Showdown between Cameron and noted Giant of the Internet Rob Neyer.
Monday saw Petti’s return to the sexy Clubhouse. Below is the data concerning his blinking patterns.
RotoGraphs editor Eno Sarris has demonstrated — during any number of appearances on FanGraphs Audio and/or VIP-type meetings among the site’s VIP-type managers — has demonstrated a singular ability to mispronounce every name there is, mostly.
With the existence of said ability having been established, NotGraphs presents here an excerpt from Sarris’s Entirely Unhelpful Guide to the Pronunciation of Certain Baseballers’ Names — with audio clips of Sarris himself abusing the spoken language much like one might a disobedient horse.
While we make no effort here to say what the right pronunciations are of the following prospects’ names, we will say that all of Sarris’s attempts are very likely wrong.
Brazil beat Colombia in World Baseball Classic qualifying on Saturday (box) — giving the Brazilians (a) two total wins in the Qualifier 3 bracket and (b) two more wins than a reasonable person would have expected them to get in the Qualifier 3 bracket.
Notable from their Saturday victory was the relief performance of 24-year-old right-hander Gabriel Asakura, who struck out five of the 10 Colombian batters he faced — including longtime major-leaguer Edgar Renteria. Asakura himself is less of a longtime major leaguer and more of a recent senior at Division II school Cal State L.A.
Here’s Asakura getting a swinging strike on what appears to be his changeup (or maybe a splitter) against Cleveland prospect Giovanny Urshela:
First, Colombia was inhabited by indigenous peoples like the Muisca, Quimbaya, and Tairona. Then, in the 16th century, it was conquered by the Spanish. Then, in 1986, Steve Brown was born in Barranquilla.
Mitch, some notes on your recent paper for WR 122:
• Your enthusiasm for your subject is apparent throughout. Successful writing requires, first and foremost, the engagement of the author. If he or she isn’t engaged, then the reader definitely won’t be.
• Be careful about rhetorical fallacies. For example, you imply early in your piece that supporters of Mike Trout’s MVP candidacy — and particularly those supporters who offer quantitative analysis as evidence — never watch games. The danger with absolutes (never, all, always, etc.) is that even a single exception to your characterization can dismantle the rest of your argument.
• Your essay includes a number of ad hominem attacks. Abusing a person or group is, at best, irrelevant; at worst, it undermines the nature of your argument by suggesting that you, as an author, are forced to resort to name-calling owing to a lack of actual, substantive material.
• Not entirely separate from the above, but also worthy of note here, is the question of tone. An effective argument relies upon the author establishing a trustworthy tone or voice, the voice of one who would give credit to the “opposition” (itself even perhaps an extreme characterization) when it’s due. The tone of your piece (see: “I mean, did you do the math? I didn’t. I like to actually see the sun once in a while.”) skews shrill with some frequency, which hurts your credibility.
• Regarding your conclusion: your instinct to “mirror” or “echo” your introduction is a good one. It certainly signals to the reader that the piece is nearing its end, and also gives the impression of a meaningful structure. However, it’s also important to avoid the trite. Merely returning to the paper’s opening line (“The eyes have it”) is facile and perhaps even insulting to the reader.
Grade: C+
Note: if you’re interested, I’d be more than willing to discuss your paper at greater length during my office hours. How are Tuesdays for you?
And former major-leaguer Ramiro Mendoza is pitching for Panama. Against Brazil. In a World Baseball Classic qualifier.
Here’s the video link: video. And the box score: box.
