1. Will the Royals Repeat?
2. Ned Yost and the 15-Year Extension
3. Who’s Laughing at Dayton Moore Now?
4. An Undefeated April for the Royals
5. How Kansas City Became Baseball’s #1 Town
6. Rany Jazayerli Literally Explodes
7. Looking at Wade Davis’s Perfect Season
8. Yordano Ventura: Cy Young Contender
9. Danny Duffy: Cy Young Contender
10. Bruce Chen is a Royal Again
11. Bruce Chen: Cy Young Contender
12. Ned Yost and the 25-Year Extension
13. Has a Team Ever Been Undefeated at the All-Star Break?
14. Why Are the Other Teams Even Bothering To Play?
15. Alex Gordon for Mike Trout?

A bunch of the new fall series are about baseball!

Bad Judge, starring Kevin James as a big league umpire who’s legally blind.

Forever, starring Julio Franco as a baseball player who never dies.

The McCarthys, a reality show following Brandon McCarthy and his family (hey, I’d watch that!).

Red Band Society, about a marching band that follows the Reds on all of their road trips (wow, I’m really stretching here).

and

The Mysteries of Laura, about why the closest thing I can find to a baseball player with a name sort of like Laura is some guy named Lauro Ramirez who is pitching in the Mexican League.

“Any new shows that you’re looking forward to, readers?” is my blatant attempt to salvage a very short post by inviting lots of comments! (Hopeless Joe will have his take on the new fall season next week, after he finishes the sixteen episodes of Chopped taking up all of the space on his DVR.)

In response to Monday’s post, Chris Davis’s amphetamines said “screw you, NotGraphs,” and helped Chris Davis lift a truck off a man all by himself.*

According to one guy also on the scene: “[Davis] was even better looking in person!”

See, amphetamines don’t only make you strong, they also make you handsome!

*Not all by himself, according to the article, but who cares about facts?

The Mariners have fired a scout who sent Jesus Montero a helmet of ice cream during a minor league game, when he thought Montero wasn’t hustling enough.

Heck, I’ll walk really slowly from my office to the bathroom if someone wants to send me free ice cream. I’ll type this post at a snail’s pace if someone’s looking to give me free food, absolutely. I don’t know why Montero had to interpret the incident as an insult instead of just taking the free ice cream and enjoying it. Stadium ice cream isn’t cheap! I usually don’t even treat myself to stadium ice cream because I can’t justify the expense. Especially since the tax deduction goes away once I’m not being paid to write NotGraphs posts anymore.

Gosh, it’s not enough that they get to play baseball professionally, or earn their huge salaries. They also get free ice cream. Some people have all the luck. No one offers writers free food while we’re working. I had to pay for this bowl of grapes I’m eating, and the macaroni and cheese I’m about to reheat for lunch. I bought that pasta (on sale), I bought that cheese (not on sale), and I put them together, taking time I could have spent looking for a better picture of ice cream in a helmet for the top of this post. If someone would just send me a jar of artisanal pickles, or some strawberry rhubarb jam, or even a fancy chocolate bar that’s too expensive to comfortably buy for myself without feeling wasteful, it would make it all worth it. Or at least it would make a tiny bit of it worth it. A couple of sentences. Maybe even a whole post, if it’s a short one.

But, no, instead Jesus Montero gets free ice cream and I get to hope that the beeping of the microwave with the leftover macaroni and cheese doesn’t wake my 11-month-old son from his nap.

Writing this post has just made me too hungry to continue working without taking a lunch break. I need to hit post now.

The amphetamines Chris Davis has been taking were suspended on Friday by the National Amphetamine Association. The drugs issued the following statement:

Well, shoot, we don’t really know what happened. Clearly .196 with 173 strikeouts was not the plan. We could point the finger at Chris for his workout regimen or being unable to lay off the high fastball but, at the end of the day, we have to absorb much of the blame. I don’t know if this was a bad batch, we’d expired, he wasn’t storing us properly… or maybe we just can’t do as much as like to think we can. Mostly we just want to apologize, because we know we’ve let so many people down. The fans, who want to see home runs. The Orioles, who want to win games. And of course Chris himself, who trusted us to improve his performance… and look at what we did. To Chris, we deeply apologize and hope you can forgive and give us one more chance. We will be waiting in your locker, hopeful, when you return.

Perhaps you’ve heard about the new discrimination lawsuit against the Mets by an employee who claims she was harassed and fired because she was unmarried and pregnant. (Craig Calcaterra’s take on it — click the link — is a must-read, btw.) Ah, the Mets. The suit makes it only natural to admit here, for the first time, that NotGraphs is leaving the FanGraphs family because it, too, is pregnant and unmarried.

See, when a website loves another website, sometimes formalities aren’t important. Who needs the security of an https when you trust each other? Who needs a broadband around your finger? Frankly, who should even care who the GoDaddy is at a time like this? It’s 2014, people. Families come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes two websites join together and make a third, sometimes one website splits apart into pieces, sometimes websites just stop updating and go to that Internet Wayback Machine in the sky.

The point, even though there definitely isn’t one, is that NotGraphs just wanted to have a child, but the price you pay is that sometimes you’re told that you’ve run your course and you have to be replaced by someone newer, someone fresher, maybe someone more tech-savvy — or maybe that’s just the temp coming in while you cut your hours in preparation for the birth.

It’s not as if no one’s ever loved NotGraphs, it’s just that no one ever wanted to take the next step. Maybe it was the mustaches. There are creams and stuff we could have used, I guess. I don’t know. But why should the lack of a wedding, with everyone dressed in purple, throwing banknotes in the air, stand in our way of reproducing? It’s discrimination, I tell you. As much as this post makes any sense at all, it’s discrimination.

The lesson here, even though there certainly isn’t one, is that it’s all Jeff Wilpon’s fault. He’s the reason for the end of summer, the end of David Wright’s season, and the end of NotGraphs. So, thanks, Jeff. Thanks a lot.

All you need to know is that since Mike Fiers joined the rotation on August 9th, the team is 10-19. That’s really all you need to know. Before he joined the rotation, the team was 64-52 and in first place. Now they are 74-71 and have a 20% chance of making the playoffs. Clearly, that is all you need to know. Nothing else could possibly be to blame, and despite his performance, the statistics speak for themselves. Only the team win-loss statistics. No other statistic is even worth taking a look at. Because it all comes down to wins and losses. Not the wins and losses in the games he pitches, so please don’t look at those numbers, those numbers are irrelevant. Team wins and losses since he was called up. That’s how we should judge him. And those numbers are terrible. So it is all his fault.

They should trade him to a team I like better.

Hey, folks, it’s me, Jonny Venters, about to have Tommy John surgery for the third time. Just wanted to share a few tips on how to take care of your elbow.

1. Elbows love to get up close and personal with doors and walls. You may hear a cracking sound, but that’s just the way an elbow laughs. Even if it hurts, it’s good exercise for your elbow to bash into hard objects. You know how they say that everything that’s worth it hurts a little bit? That definitely goes double for elbows. So keep hitting it into stuff, even if you’re in serious pain and need to seek medical attention.

2. Elbows love being hyperextended. You know how some joints only let you move parts of your body one way, like knees, and, uh, knees? It may seem like elbows are the same way, but that’s just what they want you to think. In truth, elbows can flex in every direction. You may have to force it if it’s been a while since you bent your entire arm backwards, but, trust me, if you pull hard enough it will bend. If you’re not strong enough to do it on your own, tie your arm to a horse and let him run free. You’ll see just how much your elbow can turn then!

3. Ice is for wimps. The best thing to put on your elbow is a cinder block. That will teach it to complain. Ugh, I hate when people are trying to put ice on my body. Ice is cold. I don’t like cold things on my body. You know what’s nice and warm? The blankets they give you right before elbow surgery. They’re my favorite.

4. Elbows are like cats. They have nine lives. So the first 8 times you bust your elbow don’t really count. Wait until number nine to seek help. That’s the trick with elbows. They’re always acting like they don’t work anymore, but they’re just jokesters that way. Don’t listen. Keep doing what you were doing until the arm completely breaks off. That’s your elbow’s signal that he’s had enough playing for now.

5. Health insurance? Naw, what do you need that for? It’s not like it covers elbows anyway. At least my policy doesn’t. Not anymore.

Edited to add: No offense meant, really. Sorry if this came off as insensitive. I feel bad for Venters and it sucks he needs elbow surgery yet again. I wasn’t trying to make light of real person’s real injury, just trying to write content that some fraction of you will think is marginally funny. It is very easy to forget these are real people when you sit down to try to come up with a topic for a blog post. I’m really not trying to imply that it’s Venters’s fault that his elbow keeps falling apart or that this is a book someone should write.

• New Derek Jeter-themed iPhone app looks at statistics and tells players when it is time to retire.
• Everth Cabrera arrested for driving driverless car.
• Rangers announce robot will replace Ron Washington for remainder of season.
• Cards, Brewers exchange texts after controversial hit-by-pitch.
• Jonathan Lucroy has broken his smart phone.
• Justin Verlander tweets naked pictures of himself while on mound during start.
• The calculator on Chris Davis’s phone does not display enough digits to show his batting average as anything greater than zero.
• New technology able to bring Bud Selig back to life.
• Watch a robotic arm count the Astros television viewers on his robotic fingers.
• Did a computer generate these headlines? Click here to find out.
• The 123,456,789 things you need to know about Justin Verlander’s e-mail password.

I was basking in the glory of my almost fully-funded campaign to keep on writing after NotGraphs is gone when I was reminded that I never wrote the second part of my Pennant Race preview. It’s so easy to forget about the National League. They’re like the Hopeless Joe of leagues. Really, any league without Mike Trout is pretty hopeless these days. I mean, sure, there’s Kershaw, and there’s, um, Jonathan Lucroy, and Jacob DeGrom, but everyone else? Meh, they couldn’t even crack the Royals’ starting lineup.

NL EAST
Quite a race going on! Oh, wait, I was reading the standings backwards, kind of like my doctor when he was reading my x-rays (oops– who needs their good kidney anyway??). Quite a race for last place, with the Mets, Marlins, and the truly wretched Philadelphia Phillies all battling it out. Meanwhile, the Nationals seem well in control, with the best record in the league. Of course, you never know what can happen even when you think you’re in control of something. Like your bowels, for instance. One minute, you’re totally in control, and the next… well, I’d rather not talk about my brother’s wedding, if that’s okay. I’ll just say that if you invite me to your wedding, you shouldn’t surprised if you end up having to throw away the cake. That’s all I’m going to say about that. And probably all I need to say about the NL East.

NL CENTRAL
The race everyone thought it would be. Pirates. Brewers. Cardinals. One of these things is not like the other. And, indeed, with an 8-game losing streak (or “a typical eight day stretch for me”) by the Brewers, the Cardinals are now back on top, with deadline acquisition Justin Masterson leading the charge. Oh, no, that’s his ERA, not his K/9? Ooh, pulling a Joe there, aren’t you? Justin, Justin, Justin, that’s the worst start in a new organization since I joined the Peace Corps in February and was sent to Ukraine. I’m not saying the entire conflict over there is my fault… but I’m also not saying it isn’t. Luckily, I’ve been transferred to Iran. Also, the Reds, wow. Positive run differential, terrible record, don’t you think it’s about time to fire Dusty Baker?

NL WEST
The Dodgers and Giants look to have playoff spots pretty much wrapped up, while my preseason pick, the Rockies, languish with the worst record in the league. Has anyone else ever asked themselves why the Rockies seemed like a smart name for a team when a mountain doesn’t even have a face? I wrote an essay about it, but my dog ate it. I probably shouldn’t write essays on raw meat anymore. I would use paper but I hate getting paper cuts. Much better to get salmonella. Good weight loss plan, that salmonella. A few days of diarrhea and I’m back to my fighting weight. Too bad it always coincides with another one of my brother’s weddings. Hey, my internal editor is telling me I’m writing too much about poop this week. Sorry about that. Next week, my column will be completely poop-free — and, by then, my computer should be too.

The National League — it’s one of the leagues! And I’m almost a person! Until next time…